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.
Well, now you've met one who doesn't. I've never touched drugs; however, it is my belief that I own my body and I should be able to do with it what I want.
Every self described Libertarian I've ever met only cared about one thing which is their right to be a dopehead.
You may need to get out more. Ever hear of Penn Gillette? I'm a very libertarian Republican. I don't do prescription drugs, let alone illegal drugs.
But, on that subject, if an adult wants to fry brain cells, why should there be a government sanction (and a tax BTW)on the intoxicant?
I found a good way for voters to find which party they agree with most, a great site, www.3pc.net. If you take the matchmaker quiz, it will ask for your opinions about 25 issues and tell how often you agree with seven parties. For example, some of my results are Constitution and Libertarian, 88%; Republican, 84%; and Green, 12%.
I think that more voters should vote for the candidates they agree with most, unless they think that, by voting for minor-party candidates, they would help the candidate they dislike.
"Lord knows the Republican Party stopped doing that in 2000."
Amen to that.
Instead we got CFR, Sarbanes-Oxley, No-Child-Left-Behind, amnesty for illegals, massive amounts of pork, etc. etc. If the GOP is going to act like Democrats, let's at least get the real thing.
"But the relationship today seems more deeply strained than any time in the last 30 years, and a divorce may be forthcoming."
Good. Don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.
Can I pitch in a couple of suitcases?
What part of the platform restricts world trade?
"The mocking, denigrating, ad-hominem attacks against Libertarians.
Then you wonder why Libertarians don't support Republicans on election day, particularily RINOs, and denigrate them even more when the RINO lose"
It's like watching children on a field playing. One group gets it's panties in a wad when things don't go their way, start name calling, bashing the other chilluns and basically throwing a tantrum.
What they fail to understand is, that kind of childish "I'm going to take my ball and go home" attitude, doesn't work well at getting people back on your team. So instead of saying "Ok we got our butts kicked, now let's figure out what WE did wrong and fix it." They point at everyone else and say "YOU didn't do what you were supposed to, we LOST because of YOU!"
Screw 'em
I know there are things in the Republican platform I don't fully agree with. I also know that to change anything for the better takes a long time and must be done within the party.
Its easy to make things much worse instantly, just let a party that you agree with about nothing gain power.
I would rather work within the party I agree with on 70-80% and work on getting the other 20-30 % over time.
It may take a generation to get an extra 10% that I can agree on, then again it may never happen.
Hello? were you alive in the 1980's?
"Its morning in America" or "the shining city" are all Ronald Reagan soundbites.
I think you meant Christian Liberal Republicans. Christian Conservatives know that the Bible places the mandate for caring for the poor squarely on the shoulders of individual Christians and the Church. That has never been the government's responsibility biblically.
When people in this country were more familiar with God's word, they helped those who needed a hand, not by throwing money at the problem but by giving them what they needed to make it on their own. Today too many liberals think the government should do all the work.
The Bible says, them that won't work, should not eat and that we as individuals, and as a church, should help those we find who need help. The government has no personal dealings with individual people. The system is not set up to work that way. It only hands out money with very little personal follow up. Whereas responsible and vigilant church members can actually see how well the help they provide is working.
That is the way things worked before FDR. Now so many people have been on the government dole for so long that even some in the church forget who was actually given the command to help the sick, the poor, the widows, and the fatherless. We should not allow the government to take from those who aren't necessarily Christians to do the work we Christians have been commanded to do.
Less government pretty much sums up 90% of the platform. What is left? So is your question pretty much "Other than 90% of the platform, how do Libertarians differ from liberals?"
You just dismiss out of hand planks on the platform like elimination of welfare, elimination of antitrust laws, free trade markets, deregulation of markets, privatization of government industry, etc. Yeah, other than 90% of their beliefs, they are just like liberals.
Why won't the small-r here argue the performance of the Big-Rs over the last 12 years vis-a-vis the Big-R platform, classical conservatism, and Reagan libertarianism? No, they'd rather resort to calling members of their own party LoserDopians, 18-year-olds, ...
The concept of FR was to be an open discussion of the principles, policies, and strategies of conservatism (what Reagan believed was libertarianism). Name calling does nothing to add to the cognitive discourse. Instead it demonstrates to all that there is no conservative defense of the GOP performance and that all the party wants are a bunch of sheep who will continue to vote for anyone with an R after his name.
Whether you agree with the Republican Party platform or not is not the question. The question is whether you would take that platform as a reference to determine what a republic , and the political philosophy of republicanism that advocates it is.
Didn't say RR didn't have soundbites. My point, which evidently you're intent on ignoring, is that he campaigned on a small gov't platform and didn't feel the need to "embrace the center" like the subsequent GOP candidates. ....and he governed as he campaigned.
You forgot to mention becoming a permanent minority party based in the South.
BS we need you more. I would like to see one study that says Republicans cant win without libertarianistas.
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