Posted on 04/08/2010 9:27:19 AM PDT by rabscuttle385
During a question-and-answer session at the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., one man opined, "One thing I've learned here at CPAC is that the 'C' actually doesn't stand for 'libertarianism.' It's not 'L'PAC." When Congressman Ron Paul won the annual straw poll at CPAC, talk radio host Rush Limbaugh made a point to tell his listeners that CPAC wasn't conservative this year because a libertarian had won.
Both men are worse than just wrong. They're out of their minds.
Arguably the most popular history of American conservatism, George H. Nash's book The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America begins with libertarianism. In the first chapter titled "The Revolt of the Libertarians," Nash states: "For those who believed in the creed of old-fashioned, classical, 19th-century liberal individualism, 1945 was especially lonely, unpromising, and bleak. Free markets, private property, limited government, self reliance, laissez-faire — it had been a long time since principles like these guided government and persuaded peoples."
Chronicling the intellectuals who tried to rectify this bleakness, Nash begins his history with two men: economists F.A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. Then he explains how these libertarian heroes kick-started the American conservative movement. Few actually used the word "conservatism" in 1945, a term that began to gain popularity when Russell Kirk's book The Conservative Mind was published in 1953 and with the founding of William F. Buckley's National Review in 1955. Nash notes that even Kirk was inspired by both Hayek and Mises, writing to a friend that these men represented a "great school of economists of a much sounder and different mind."
After Hayek and Mises, Nash then cites Albert Jay Nock, publisher of the unabashedly libertarian magazine The Freeman in the 1920s. Writes Nash: "Nock came to exert a significant amount of influence on the postwar Right," yet was so libertarian that "Nock verged on anarchism in his denunciations of the inherently aggrandizing State." Noting the impression Nock made on a young Buckley, Nash explained that "it was Nockian libertarianism, in fact, which exercised the first conservative influence on the future editor of National Review."
Edwin J. Feulner, Jr., president of the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, says, "Nash's work is one of the very few books that must be read for a full understanding of the conservative movement in America." However, Feulner's Heritage Foundation advertises on Limbaugh's show, where the host is seemingly oblivious to the fact that the American conservative movement could not have existed without libertarianism. Furthermore, pundits like Rush often claim to be "Reagan conservatives." However, they seem to forget that in 1976 said Reagan, "I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism." As you can see, advocating for "limited government" without employing some degree of libertarianism would be logistically impossible.
Which is exactly why so many of today's so-called conservatives are so quick to dismiss it. If there is an interloping ideology on the Right today, it is not libertarianism but neoconservatism, an ideology born not of limited government philosophy but of ex-socialists who migrated Right in reaction to the counterculture of the 1960s. Today, neoncons are devoted to promoting the maintenance and expansion of America's global empire.
Whereas traditional conservatives considered war — and the massive bureaucracy necessary to wage it — an occasional, necessary evil, neoconservatives consider perpetual war a good precisely because they believe it is America's mission to export democracy to the rest of the world.
Questioning the cost or wisdom of waging perpetual war is considered unconscionable or even "unpatriotic" to neoconservatives, which is why they are so dismissive of libertarians and others who question foreign policy. Most neoconservatives instinctively realize that their ideology is incompatible with the libertarian's pesky obsession with limited government, giving neocons reason to marginalize, or expel, any libertarian influence that threatens to expose the statist nature of today's mainstream conservative movement.
Considering their new, radical definition, it's easy to see why Rush and other mainstream conservatives don't consider libertarians part of their movement —because they're not. And while it remains to be seen how the irreconcilable differences will play out between limited government libertarians (whose numbers are growing) and big government neoconservatives (whose ideology still dominates), let there be no more ignorance about which philosophy is truly more alien to the historical American conservative movement. And let there be no further delusions about which philosophy was most responsible for creating it.
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Interestingly enough, the figure who Ron Paul most resembles is the late Nebraska congressman Howard Buffet, who was the father of a certain billionaire we all know.
Society has deemed alcohol and cigarettes legal.
I favor the maximization of liberty to the extent that it does not infringe on the liberty or privacy of others. As an example, if someone wants to accept money for sex within the confines of their own home, that should be legal (and happens all the time). When they ply their trade in public, attracting deviants and traffic to residential areas, then the law should step in.
Dope is against the law for good reason?
Okay, nobody has answered yet... where in the Constitution is Congress authorized to regulate the use of drugs?
What should not happen is dirtbags like you putting a government gun in their face because you think they are "losers".
Nature will put an end to those who refuse to take care of themselves. No need for police state thug tactics to keep them from it.
Yes. The great Bastait. Libertarianism used to mean something noble, just as Liberalism did back in the 18th century. Milton Friedman and Frederich Hayek called themselves Liberals.
But Liberalism and Libertarianism are no longer like that today. Today's liberalism is neo Communism and today's Libertarianism is just bizarre. We might leave the words Liberal and Libertarianism to their new owners and feel a tinge of sadness for what those words used to stand for.
I find it amusing that someone who espouses a belief in "limited government" is also advocating for one of the biggest extra-Constitutional expansions of Federal power ever. Namely, the war on "some" drugs.
Looks like you could use this link as well.
Answer this to resolve the question. Was it the neo-cons or the libertarians that drove the GOP to election destruction? Who drove the GOP car over the cliff Wolfowitz or Paul?
“Society” is in the process of doing the same thing for marijuana (for a 2nd time, in fact).
It was the Progressive Movement back in the early 20th Century that we can thank for the Prohibitionist mindset of making such things illegal.
“So conservatives now believe that the majority can just tell the rest of the folks how to live their lives?”
You live in a Constitutional Republic. The people are represented by the people they elect.
Through this not so novel concept, we have illegal drugs.
We don’t get to choose which laws we will obey and which we will not. Well, just don’t get caught.
So, you liberaltarians now want to pick and choose which laws you obey, kind of like illegal immigrants and common criminals.
And those representatives take an oath to live by certain limitations laid out in the Constitution.
None of those limitations allow for drug prohibition.
Epic Constitution fail on your part.
Good post.
Here’s a name for you:
David Horowitz
http://frontpagemag.com/
Was a liberal, became a conservative. Believes in a strong US military and the will to use it to advance US interests.
Most of his articles are about spread of Islamic fascism.
Liberaltarians in no shape or disguise resemble Reagan conservatism.
Modern conservatism will be shaped by Reagan conservatism until a new winning coalition is formed. Note that Reagan accepted libertarians as part of that coalition but didn’t not accept Libertarianism on its own.
The three pillars of R Conservatism are:
1. Limited govt...low tax, lower spending
2. Peace through Strength, strong defense and foreign policy
3. Social Conservatism: Pro Life, Pro Family, basic agreed upon morality. Strong on crime etc.
Modern libertarians have three courses of #1 and skip 2 and 3.
Too bastardize the libertarian beliefs into “real conservatism” or “real” limited govt or “real” Constitutional government is a lie. It will not work btw.
Since Reagan, the coalition of the above pillars included libertarians. The new breed of libertarians have absolutely radicalized themselves and alienated themselves away from the conservative Reagan coalition.
Dang, I took the test and it came out like this:
The Quiz
The following are your scores. They are based on a gradual range of 0 to 12. For instance, a Conservative/Progressive score of 3 and 0 will both yield a result of social conservative, yet 0 would be an extreme conservative and 3 a moderate conservative
Conservative/Progressive score: 3
You are a social conservative. You believe in traditional values, and care first and foremost about your country, your family, and your religion. You dislike the agenda of the left because you see them as trying to destroy these things.
Capitalist Purist/Social Capitalist score: 1
You’re a Capitalist Purist. You believe that the market should be completely free, and that the invisible hand of the market will make sure that the people get what they want and will do it in the most efficient way possible. You believe in small government, less taxes, and more privatization.
Libertarian/Authoritarian score: 0
You are libertarian. You think that the government is making way too many unnecessary laws that are taking away our innate rights. You believe that the government’s job is primarily to protect people from harming other people, but after that they should mind their own business, and if we give the government too much power in controlling our lives, it can lead to fascism.
Pacifist/Militarist score: 9
You’re a Militarist. You believe that since the United States has so much power in the world, it has a responsibility to keep the world safe. You think that if the US does not exert its power in the world, it may eventually lose its power, and that we can not look weak in the face of terrorists, and must take them out where they live.
Overall, you would most likely fit into the category of Hardcore Libertarian
“None of those limitations allow for drug prohibition. Epic Constitution fail on your part.”
You live in a fantasy world. I don’t see Con..Lawyers winning these cases since back in the heyday of drugs in the 60s.
There is the theoretical Constitution that you think exists in reality but does not.
Have a cup of coffee and wake up to reality.
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