Posted on 12/12/2006 7:37:39 AM PST by Small-L
For many years, those who consider themselves to be libertarians have been fairly reliable members of the Republican coalition. Although no libertarian would consider himself or herself to be entirely in agreement with either major party, they have historically sided with the GOP. But the relationship today seems more deeply strained than any time in the last 30 years, and a divorce may be forthcoming.
Basically, libertarians are allied with the right on economic issues and the left on everything else. They believe in the free market and freedom of choice in areas such as drugs, and favor a noninterventionist foreign policy. Consequently, someone who is a libertarian could prefer to ally with the right or the left, depending on what set of issues is most important to him or her.
I first became aware of the libertarian philosophy in 1969, when there was a big split in a college-based group called Young Americans for Freedom, which was supposed to be the right-wing alternative to the left's Students for a Democratic Society. The libertarians broke with those who considered themselves traditionalists -- conservatives in the mold of Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk.
The problem for the libertarians was that they didn't want to conserve anything. Whereas the conservatives prized order and continuity, the libertarians were radicals favoring change. The traditionalists in YAF viewed the libertarians with horror, like the Jacobins of the French Revolution, who destroyed the existing order without putting anything in its place, leading to a reign of terror.
The libertarians countered by associating themselves with the American revolutionary tradition of Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and others. The true conservative, they argued, must defend both the bad and the good in the existing order. But what if there are deep problems in government and society that require change? The conservative traditionalist has little to offer.
In 1969, the key issue was obviously the Vietnam War. The traditionalists supported it, the libertarians opposed it. But drugs were also an important issue dividing the groups. Libertarians believe people have the right to do what they want with their own bodies, even if they end up hurting themselves in the process. Traditionalists take a more Puritanical approach, believing that people must be protected against their own folly.
Consequently, when I first became acquainted with libertarianism, most libertarians tended to associate with those on the left, where they had more in common. But with the end of the Vietnam War and the huge rise of inflation and other economic problems in the 1970s, libertarians mostly tended to drift rightward.
In the 1970s, the left was clueless about how to fix the economy. They had no idea what was causing inflation and insisted on dealing instead with its symptoms through wage and price controls. The left at that time was also highly sympathetic to socialism and often favor nationalization of businesses like the Penn Central Railroad when bankruptcy threatened.
The right at least understood that excessive money growth by the Federal Reserve caused inflation, and that socialism and nationalization were crazy. So most libertarians moved into the Republican Party, which then had leaders like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, who spoke their language and had libertarian sympathies.
With the passing of the older generation of Republican leaders who were at least sympathetic to the libertarian message, a new generation of Puritans have taken over the party. They seem to want nothing more than to impose Draconian new laws against drugs, gambling, pornography and other alleged vices. The new Republican Puritans don't trust people or believe that they have the right to do as they please as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. They want the government to impose itself on peoples' lives and deny them freedom of choice.
At the same time, the Iraq War has aroused the isolationist impulse among libertarians. Only a tiny number of them supported the war in the first place, and they have all now recanted. Moreover, Republicans have lost whatever credibility they once had on economics by indulging in an orgy spending and corruption, and by becoming very unreliable allies on issues such as free trade and government regulation of the economy.
Consequently, many libertarians are drifting back once again to the left, where they find more compatible allies on some of the key issues of the day. And a few on the left are reaching out to libertarians, or at least trying to open a dialogue where there really hasn't been one for a long time.
Libertarians probably don't represent more than 10 percent of the electorate at most and are easy for political consultants to ignore. But they are represented in much larger percentages among opinion leaders and thus have influence disproportionate to their numbers. Republicans will miss them if they leave the party en masse.
The L party is nothing but a straw man useful when conservatives want to bash libertarian principles.
Read a book some time why doncha?
Libertarians support states banning it
abortion
Libertarians support states banning it & no taxpayer funding of it
and ruining the economy by restricting world-market trade
Are you kidding? Libertarians support free trade without the globalist organizations running it
The Gipper didn't campaign as a "compassionate conservative" or to make America a "kinder, gentler nation" or spout nonsense like "a thousand points of light." And when he said "no new taxes," he meant it (as opposed to his "read my lips" successor). .....even while he was fighting with a Democrat majority in both Houses, vetoing every piece of big gov't legislation they threw his way.
The GOP has been yellow-bellied for way too long now.
As long as the Republicans or Conservatives or whatever they/we are calling ourselves these days keep blaming Libertarians for their losses. . .guess what?
Very good point. I suspect this is because libertarianism by definition is completely meaningless unless it is implemented in its entirety. Anything short of a 100% libertarian system is dysfunctional by definition.
I use the example of the "selective libertarian" to make this point. He's the guy who insists -- based on his libertarian principles -- that the government has no business outlawing drugs, but then turns around and calls on the government to expand drug treatment programs for people who "need them."
It is the party of about 10 people that has fraudulently appropriated the name. Libertarian principles are embraced by millions.
consider it a modern interpritation analogous to what the Democrat Party has become. The Democrat Party was not always a refuse and a haven for the communist, hedonist, or socialist. This a a very recent development.
Likewise the classical libertarian is long dead from the modern political scene.
Ah, I see. We're a bunch of riff-raffs trying to crash your $5,000-a-plate sponsored by some internationalist.
Their continual whining about the glass only being 30% full merely gives the Democrats political attacks "bi partisan" credibility.
In other words, you're afraid of good-old fashioned debate and the introduction of new ideas. No wonder why the GOP lost in November. Same old country-club status-quo. How many times did Bush mention the WOT & "extending" the tax cuts when campaigning for other Republicans? What happened to that Ownership Society? What happened to "local control" of schools during his 2000 acceptance speech?
We would be FAR better off if the losers simply LEFT. THEY cannot be politically relevant outside the GOP.
Yep, we're not fit to join your club but we damn sure better haul our ass to the voting booth and vote Republican, or else...we'll get called "Loserdopians" again! Now I know how a battered wife feels like.
Their are not enough of them to even win a single elected office ANYWHERE.
There are dozens of Libertarians elected to political offices nationwide. Most of these Libertarians ran on shoestring budgets, using their own money & their own time and basically relying on a website to get their message out. We don't have taxpayer-funded donations from the RNC or the DNC & the MSM to help us.
I agree that that description fits a "liberal," but not a libertarian. Or shouldn't.
I will say that there is some common ground between "liberals" and libertarians - both allege respect and support for individual freedom and personal liberty. "Liberals" undercut themselves on those principles by also supporting leftwing ideals and big government powers, which are inherently totalitarian. Libertarians undercut themselves by overemphasizing all sorts of superficial screwball causes, like drug legalization, while underemphasizing the important core aspects of their ideals, individual freedom and limited government.
Nevertheless, the libertarian ideal, that goverment's primary purpose is to protect liberty, comes closest to the ideals of our founding fathers of all modern political philosphies, and is thus in reality, the most "conservative" of them.
Would you advise someone to read the Republican Party platform to learn what a republic is?
We would be FAR better off if the losers simply LEFT.
yeah.............
I think you got your wish last month.
"Would you advise someone to read the Republican Party platform to learn what a republic is?"
Yes I would! Everyone should read the platform of any party they are going to hitch their wagon to, or vote for.
If you agree with most but not all, its up to you to work within that party to change/correct it.
I didn't ask about whether you would do it to see if you wanted to join the party. Buy you knew that.
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