I would hasten to point out that I was referring to civil libertarians, and not the Libertarian party. Most of the libertarian folks hereon are of that sort - strong defenders of limited government, the Constitution and the federalist system. Most are not associated with the Libertarian party.
As to these civil libertarians ("libertarians" from here on), I find myself aligned with them more often than not (in the 95% range), especially on domestic issues. Even on foreign policy, while we are not aligned, we can see each other, at the least. That is far more than I can say for the Baker Moderates in the Republican party (Bush I, Bush II, McCain, etc.), whom I abhor for their globalist desires.
And it is no wonder that I can agree with the libertarians. They are of Goldwater, I am of Reagan. Reagan, and modern Conservatism came from the Goldwater wing of the Republicans. They represent the conscience of Conservatism just as much as the social conservatives do -
In fact, as I have said many times, BOTH must be present to form a proper Conservative conscience. And neither can exist without the other. That, in a nutshell, is the magic of the Reagan coalition... Standing foremost upon the principles of civil libertarianism AND the Judeo-Christian ethic... And therefore, Reaganism cannot BE without the libertarians at the table. Those who rail against them do so at our peril.
As to Ron Paul, I agree with alot of what he says. I am greatly aligned with him on limited government, am sensibly protectionist (what used to be "Free Trade" before the globalists took the term), and while I disagree with him wrt the wars, I cannot disagree with the reason for his stance (foreign entanglements).
But, as a Reaganite, I could not support him, for the very same basic reason that I will not support Palin: The Reagan Coalition requires the basic unmovable principles of ALL the conservative factions to be respected. Ron Paul cannot harness all three of the pillars of Conservatism.
Regards.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you and I saw this pretty much the same. I’m not as well able to discuss the Libertarian party vs the civil Libertarians, so I won’t try.
Where we (libertarians and I) share common ground, I don’t mind. My emphasis is on a return to limited federal government, and Constitutional governance. I’m not going to object to anyone who wishes to travel that road with me.
I can’t join the Libertarian party, so my emphasis is getting the Republican party or another to sign on to the values I support. Thus my support for the Tea Party folks.
A lot of folks don’t know what you mean by the Baker comments. I do, and I agree. The Free Trade issue that you touched on is important to me. This global downturn had one interesting effect didn’t it. It’s the one thing that could be a dent in China’s plans to become the global hegemon. And I still believe it only slowed the process.
The Baker boys didn’t seem to have a problem with that at all. That angered me something fierce. One day, we will face China straight up. Our kids will die due to the treachery I have seen. That’s been my premise since around 1993.
Whoever our next president is, they need to go to Washington with a meat cleaver. When about 90% of the infrastructure back there is rotting on the cutting room floor, we’ll be back on sound footing, and not a day before.
BTW, the foreign entanglements issue is one that is important. I didn’t mean to gloss over it.
We live in a very small world today. We’re not traveling to some distant foreign land that doesn’t mean anything these days. People from those lands wind up in the U.S. on a daily basis at our airports.
So what do we do when attacked by terrorists? Well, we make those terrorists pay a very heavy price for having done so. I believe we have made them pay a very heavy price.
Folks said that Iraq wasn’t involved in 09/11, and was not an anti-American threat. Strangely enough, tens of thousands of terrorists disagreed enough to die on the soil of Iraq fighting our troops.
Look, Thomas Jefferson himself supported the War against the Barbary Pirates. There were foreign entanglements even in his day. And he joined in those efforts.
We either fight on foreign soil and project American values there, or we crawl back into our shell and allow another nation to become the world’s hegemon.
That’s just the sad, or not so sad, reality of it IMO.