Posted on 05/12/2003 1:22:04 PM PDT by JURB
Conservatives and libertarians are often allied against common enemies: the growth of the redistributive state, the assault on private property, the denigration of the free market and various socialist plots large and small. Ron Paul, Walter Williams, Jacob Sullum, Stephen Chapman and Charles Murray have seen both labels applied to them and have had their written work appear in the flagship publications of both movements. The Cato Institute is variously described as a conservative and libertarian think tank.
A reminder of this overlap could be found in the reaction to a brief item on the Drudge Report suggesting that libertarian talk show host Larry Elder might run for office as a Republican ?there were libertarians, including some at Reason magazine's in-house blog, who wondered why Elder would desert the Libertarian Party and conservatives surprised he wasn't already a Republican.
But occasionally the underlying ideological distinctions between libertarians and conservatives surface. Some tried to highlight these differences with regard to the U.S. military campaign in Iraq, but professed libertarians like Brink Lindsey and Glenn Harlan Reynolds of Instapundit fame emerged as staunch interventionists in contrast with a resolute antiwar right typified by such publications as The American Conservative and Chronicles. Despite the diversity of opinion both among those who describe themselves as conservatives and those who describe themselves as libertarians, a number of post-9/11 policy disputes ? the USA PATRIOT Act, the use of the military to spread democracy, various military campaigns in the war on terror, the Bill of Rights and privacy in an age of terrorism ? have increasingly separated many mainstream libertarians from large numbers of conventional conservatives.
Nevertheless, libertarian writers are still published in conservative newspapers, magazines and websites. Libertarian policy institutes are still mined for pro-market talking points by conservative commentators. Jonah Goldberg still refers to libertarians as operationally being members of the political right. What has kept many, perhaps most, libertarians operating within the broader right is the fusionism championed by the venerable conservative magazine that employs Goldberg, National Review.
Conceived by the late political theorist Frank Meyer, fusionism posited that in the American Republic, libertarian means could be used to achieve traditionalist ends. Want the traditional family to thrive? Stop subsidizing illegitimacy through federal welfare payments. Want children to grow up to be faithful and law-abiding? Stop funding the left-wing propaganda being dispensed by public education programs. The synthesis was imperfect ? some Kirkian traditionalists and Strausian conservatives continued to be outspoken about their differences with libertarians, Rothbardian libertarians in particular were never co-opted by fusionism ? but it allowed for libertarians and conservatives to work together and share such common heroes as F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman and Peter Bauer.
Meyer's fusionism was always fine as far as it went, but it began to break down when confronted by two different factors: Some conservatives were perfectly comfortable using the state to promote their values; some libertarians cared nothing for traditional morality and in fact regarded any concept of shared values as collectivist nonsense.
This split was evident during the recent Bill Bennett gambling flap. Libertarian criticism of Bennett in light of the Newsweek and Washington Monthly revelations equaled and perhaps exceeded left-liberal criticism in intensity. The former education secretary and drug czar was an unrepentant drug warrior and leading force for using the federal government to promote traditionalist conservative objectives. But libertarian criticism was not limited to Bennett's designs for the state: many were clearly put off by his propensity to judge lifestyles, criticize individual choices and espouse limits on personal appetites. It was these attributes of his moralizing persona as much as his stance on drugs and other public policy issues that made libertarians rejoice in the knowledge that he ? at least arguably hypocritically ? indulged in some vices of his own.
Even before the Bennett story broke, there was an article by Stanley Kurtz on gay marriage attempting to address some of the libertarian arguments, which was followed by a cacophonous ? and largely unfavorable ? response by some of the leading libertarian voices of the blogosphere. What was truly remarkable about the ensuing debate is that traditionalist conservatives felt Kurtz's arguments had convincingly carried the day while his libertarian critics found them self-evidently absurd. Both sides simply talked past each other. But it is important to note that the libertarian objection to Kurtz's piece was not always confined to his partial defense of Sen. Rick Santorum's thoughts on sodomy laws or even his insistence on state involvement in the institution of marriage. Some libertarians explicitly rejected his call to shared values and social conventions.
The tensions that have frayed the National Review fusionist consensus do in part reflect ideological differences that can never completely be bridged. But some of the arguments at the root of the conservative-libertarian schism are counterproductive even from the perspective of the side of the debate advancing them.
Government at all levels, and the federal government in particular, can never function primarily as a morals police and will never be an adequate guarantor of traditional values. The state is not inherently conservative. The state can only grow and support itself by extracting wealth from the private economy; excessive growth, even when self-styled conservatives are running it, can only come at the expense of civil society (including what in today's parlance we refer to as "faith-based institutions"), the family and the community. The state can uphold individual rights and prevent people from aggressing against others; it cannot make people internalize virtues in the same was as other life-changing institutions that need room to grow unfettered by government.
Just as conservatives must remember the limits of government, libertarians must understand the importance of virtue. A free society rests in part on shared values, including a common understanding of the intrinsic value of each individual and the obligation to respect others' rights. It is not inconsistent with a regime of minimal government to judge, shun and exclude certain conduct while to affirming, upholding and exhorting certain other conduct. In fact, under this regime the power of real community becomes even more important. A belief in individualism does not mean ignoring the reality that human beings are relational creatures, who live together and form their understandings of the world around them together rather than in total isolation from one another. It is thus important how they live together. The ability to live peacefully together is vital to a free society and may be supported by the moral and cultural framework of that society.
This of course does not solve every policy debate that may divide conservatives and libertarians. Just because something is immoral does not mean that it should be legal; just because something is legal does not mean it is moral; just because some people reject the moral code that has been historically shared by a particular society does not mean that everything that violates this code should be legal.
In my own politics, I am a conservative-libertarian hybrid. I happen to believe both in the traditional understanding of marriage and that sodomy, prostitution and private adult consensual sex generally should be legal. I believe society can and should, through law as well as custom, affirm the two-parent, marriage-based family as the ideal without criminalizing other arrangements and throwing people who live differently in jail. There is plenty in that grab bag of positions to invite disagreement from all kinds of conservatives and libertarians; specific policy positions can be debated.
What is important is a common understanding presupposed by Meyer's fusionism. Edward Feser, a teacher of philosophy at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, once offered the following description of this understanding in an outstanding essay published on libertarian Lew Rockwell's website: "If I had to sum up the common moral vision of libertarians and conservatives, I would say it is a commitment to the idea of the dignity of man." As Feser went on to note, libertarians tend to emphasize the fact that this means the individual cannot be used as a means to another's end while conservatives tend to emphasize conformity to a moral law that reflects this special dignity. But each emphasis in its own way reflects a belief in the uniqueness of humanity and the inherent value of the individual.
It is because of this belief that in the United States and (to a lesser extent) Canada conservatives and libertarians, for all their differences on many issues, have so often collaborated in a crucial task: Conserving a society with a tradition of valuing individual liberty.
Many libertarians are amazed to find out what is in the LP platform. It is all there.
I thought this was an excellent point. Really goes to the heart of the debate.
It certainly is. It's never moral to take someone's money under threat of force and spend it in ways which violate their moral code; that's immoral on two counts...
Never did make that claim. You have misquoted me. Deceitful, you are.
Again you misquote me. I never said the CI was not libertarian. I said it was not a Libertarian site.
No. Reading your post, I know one survived.
But to further jump down the well, in response to your comment, I'm a states' rights old school libertarian. That's what my profile says. I don't stand up for interpretivist crap like the expansion of federal powers and protections into the states' governments. That erodes the powers of the states to differentiate themselves, which is essentially the object of the original expansionist federalizers like Marshall who started the Supreme Court's 'interpretational powers' and set the statist ball rolling in the first place.
However, though I'm not for imposing any federally-mandated rights, and because unlike you, I'm for returning to the limitations of Constitutional government, I DO generally support the Libertarian platform, even though I rarely vote Libertarian, because they keep running blue people and potheads, and because Republicans still stand a chance of changing things, even if they never seem to actually do so. I'm pragmatic enough to know that voting for them rarely does much but send a message.
But to respond to your questions about what I think about the LP platform. First, I love the idea of open borders. The U.S. had them for years, still has them (whether the laws say we do or don't), and if we had the rest of the LP platform in place, it wouldn't be a concern that we do have them. Since we don't have the rest of the LP platform in place, we ought to slam the doors shut and put a wall up. But you knew that would be my response, because you've asked the question before of me and many others and been answered many times. You just keep posing the question because you don't get what you consider the correct response, which to you would be 'I'm with you, Grand Kleagle, keep those bastards on their side of the border!'
And yes, I'm for 'no drug laws, even for minors.' I am sure that good parents will keep their kids away from drugs, and that legalizing them will keep most bad kids from thinking they are 'cool' and 'dangerous.' And where it doesn't, at least they'll be able to get them cheaply instead of becoming criminals and robbing people for money for an expensive fix. I'm sure you'll characterize that as 'hooking kids on crack,' but just what do you call your approval of current policies, which allow the same thing, and have solved nothing? I'm sure you're all for the continued problem, as long as it's just in low-income or minority neighborhoods.
And yes, I'm for the right of a minor to be able to declare adulthood. Because they already can. There are hundreds of teens who've run away and have no protection legally other than to go to the government, which will often return them to abusive homes before it considers the reason they ran away in the first place. You prefer that situation continue to the idea that minors might emancipate themselves from a poor parent, either because you'd prefer to assert dominion over your child as a poor parent, or because you simply prefer the market for streetbound child prostitutes to stay the way it is. Either way, I think you're pretty sorry for keeping these kids in bad situations for your benefit.
I think that the emerging political battle in the U.S. is between people like you, who would so prefer people to do things in keeping with their judgment of virtuous government, that they'd expand the federal government and continue an activist court to enforce it, and the rest of the people in the U.S., who don't care what other people do, as long as they're left alone. The idea of people like you with the powers of government on your side, whether you say it's 'for the children' or not, scares me, if not for your potential for harm, at least for your continued incompetence at the reins. It's obvious you haven't been able to do jack with them so far, besides increase the number of cameras in public places and push DARE.
You hit on the crux of the debate -- which is namely, what damaging actions are truly limited in scope to the individual, and no further. Some actions are obviously damaging not only to the individual, but to others as well; for other actions, it is not so easily determined.
You should never confuse Libertarians with the Libertarian Party....that's why we're Libertarians. Ask a Republican or Democrat whether they support EVERY official position their party takes, and they'll probably say no. Does that make them any less a philisophical member of their party?
Most Libertarians I know, (myself included) aren't registered members, and often we do not vote for Libertarians candidates, except if the only other choice is a known lefty.
As a side note: My father in-law is a registered democrat, has been all his life. To this day, he has never voted for a democrat except during a primary election, yet he still calls himself a democrat.
Lesson: Labels are not always accurate.
Then you should be aware that "Libertarian" is the LP while "libertarian" is not. It is not me that is confused.
Actually many of us consider the little "l" libertarians, democrats. I also know some green party types that register as libertarians with the LP.
The LP is just that...a political party, it's not the pillar to all things Libertarian. Sounds like you've been seriously mislead.
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