Posted on 11/11/2013 10:35:15 AM PST by Kaslin
Yesterday, Derek Hunter declared that libertarianism has entirely lost its meaning, that the party has devolved into a catch-all for people who want to criticize the government without doing anything about it. He also assumed that any Republican candidate would be better than a Democrat for classical liberals.
Hunter could not be more wrong. The Libertarian Party is still the face of “individual responsibility, small government, and free markets,” but how the LP arranges those priorities is changing. The Party needs to represent its constituency, appeal to young voters who largely have experience with Ron Paul, and has to emphasize its social liberalism to appeal to the broader American public. In doing so, the Libertarian Party is sharpening its policy prescriptions while becoming more inclusive, but that doesn’t mean the philosophy is meaningless or is standing at the sidelines.
Let’s have a look at some numbers of the people who call themselves “libertarian.” A few weeks ago, a think tank called the Public Religion Research Institute released a big data report on those who describe themselves as “libertarian.” There are some big consistencies; for example, 96 percent oppose Obamacare. But what is most striking is that a majority (39 percent) consider themselves “moderates”—not conservatives or liberals.
To be sure, this report notes that most libertarians are registered Republicans (45 percent). However, more libertarians are independent (35 percent), third party (15 percent), or Democrats (five percent) when combined. It is a misinterpretation of libertarian values to assume that all would vastly prefer Republican candidates. If we were just looking at party affiliation, Republican libertarians do not represent even half of the libertarian demographic.
So when Hunter exclaims that McCain would have been better than Obama, or Cuccinelli better than Sarvis or McAuliffe, he is speaking for himself, not for all libertarians. To ask libertarians to vote Republican reinforces only one purity test: Hunters’ own. Hunter seems to think that free markets is all libertarianism is about, and he’s happy to snuggle into bed with conservatism. Libertarians are the wrong audience for his kind of policy prescriptions.
The Libertarian Party needs to build its base with young people as well. These folks are the people who have the time and energy to canvass. Above anything else, they are at the core of what will guarantee a future for the Libertarian Party of tomorrow.
Know what libertarian young people like? The young guns of the Tea Party, and even Ron Paul. No one can expect them to get behind the elders who insult their heroes as “wacko birds.” The Libertarian Party is smart to try to include Millennials as much as possible, even if celebrities popular with Millennials ignorantly give themselves the “libertarian” title, like Bill Maher (who really considers him a libertarian anyway?). In fact, I think one of the most important people teaching Millennials to question government is a self-identified liberal: Jon Stewart. We can’t give and take away the libertarian title, so we should take the positive publicity and use it to our advantage.
Millennials are, as a whole, especially socially liberal, but the rest of America is following. A majority of Americans favor legalizing marijuana. More than half of the country supports gay marriage. An additional bulk want there to be a way for illegal immigrants to stay in this country. Like it or not, social issues are the best way to attract new people to the Libertarian Party, especially if they’re young. Sure, prostitution and raw milk might not be the top of everyone’s agenda, but these ideas reach far more people than free-market fundamentalism. What is best for the Libertarian Party is to advertise how mainstream it could be. If the Libertarian Party seems more blue, that’s because it’s a reaction to what Americans prioritize.
So what’s happening here? Libertarianism is rebranding itself to be more inclusive. Now more than ever, it is accepting of LGBT people, encourages women to have a voice, and has different social media groups targeted to different minorities. Inclusivity is the best way for libertarianism to grow. Hunter’s exclusivity will only be the death of libertarianism in America.
But what of all of our think tanks and libertarian blogs and magazines? Changing hearts and minds does not happen overnight, but there are still successes everywhere. The Competitive Enterprise Institute was fundamental in blocking food labeling measures in Washington. Nick Gillespie seems to have a new editorial in a major newspaper every day. The Institute for Justice and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education fight for fiscal and civil liberties and have regular wins. Libertarians are far from doing nothing.
If anyone should be compromising on their ideals, it should be people like Hunter. He does not have the authority to determine what is and isn’t best for liberty. Libertarians are happy to leave that to individuals to decide for themselves.
How did you get
promoting abortion, open borders, drugs, porn, the homosexualizing of the military and the gay agenda
out of people voting for tea party heros? IIRC the whackobirds thing came from Rand Paul speaking out against using UAV's in the USA. Lots of Libertarians like Ted Cruz for the same reason you do.
I do not look to you as an authority on LP thoughts and beliefs. You cannot read and comprehend a simple paragraph. Go bother someone else.
Screw...the LP platform. So to speak.
It is what it is.
Which church do you want to decide marriage for America? Which religion?
Any and all churches? Any and all religions?
Way to play games.
For one thing, that was John McCain that made the remark, and it had nothing to do with social liberalism.
The article, and your posts, are about moving left on social issues, to become more rinolike/libertarian on social issues, to appeal to young voters and libertarians.
The tea party is not made up of social liberals, in fact it is the opposite.
So you believe it’s a liberal job to grow government and your job to KEEP IT FROM SHRINKING??? That’s what you said. I WANT GOVERNMENT AT ALL LEVELS TO SHRINK at least to its Constitutional limits. I don’t care WHO runs big government, I DON’T WANT IT. EVER.
Except for the military, and immigration, the constitution does not say the fed has anything to do those other items.
Every state has its own laws regarding divorce, adoption, etc, and that is as it should be-some states are community property states, some are not, etc.
The constitution says the fed can maintain a military, and makes the rules for immigration from other countries. I don’t see anything about private issue regulation there, none at all.
States make their divorce and adoption laws, and the people of that state decide. Where it goes is up to them, and should be-we are not all the same.
I do not believe personal issues are the business of the government, period-I said just that, several times-it is a slippery slope at best. I’m not going to go snipe hunting.
Well, they aren’t just personal issues if the feds and state governments are right to make law regarding them, as you agree they constitutionally do.
Frankly your posts seem confusing and confused.
“With libertarian candidates we lose 2 to 4% of the vote against the socialist “
That’s actually wrong. The notion that Republican candidates are losing votes to Libertarian ones is patently false. The majority of the Libertarians are younger and most like to vote Dem. So, in fact, the Dems are losing voters to Libertarian candidates.
I know people think Republicans and Libertarians are closely related so any vote for a Libertarians must have come from a Republican voter, but that isn’t true at all. Most of the Libertarian voters I have talked to have been from the Democrat side.
I’ll consider that “fever” when I see the list of cabinet level departments he promises to zero out.
How about I follow the rules of my Christian Lord and you follow whatever suits YOU. Don’t impose yours on me and I will likewise refrain. Ok?
Agreed. Once the Federal government has usurped the power to regulate anything you willingly ingest, it has usurped the power to regulate everything you willingly ingest.
The guy hasn’t noticed that the gay agenda is to accumulate governmental power for itself. The ENDA law, for instance, aims not at ending discrimination but at suppressing all public opposition to their behavior.
My chose is the Catholic Church, because the Catholic definition has too components: 1) the religious :Marriage is matrimony, and sacrament in which the small church of husband and wife are ministers of grace; 2) the non-religious” Marriage is a natural institution fconsisting of of a man and woman and their anticipated offspring. This definition arise as the experience of two thousand years or more of western history. If anyone wants to learn about the historical development of the family in western society from the Middles ages until recently, the form of family which modernists have sought since the 18th Century to disestablish,read “Marriage and the Family” in the Middle Ages” by Frances and Joseph Gies,Harper and Row, 1987.
Dead Corpse: “Don’t leave them any other choice.”
How do you propose to accomplish that? By electing libertarian candidates? Not likely.
Very VERY well said Grace.
THAT is how you explain Libertarianism to people, we should NOT embrace big government when the pendulum swings back to our side.
Power Corrupts and being on the right doesn't make you immune.
Why do you insist there can be only one Church for America?
Didn’t both England and Russia try that with really bad results?
You are delusional...
Agreed.
But the TEA Party now... Smaller, more Constitutional governance. I’d happily hitch my horse to help pull that cart...
No more RINO’s though. The McCain’s, Romney’s, and Christie’s of the GOP need to go dance with the Democrats they are so chummy with.
This “gay marriage” farce certainly has created havoc. I say shame on anyone calling himself a “libertarian” who wanted to force any government into that. That person is simply a sham, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. This is coercion and it’s one of the anathemas of even atheistic/agnostic libertarian theory. Not even “gays” wanted this sort of thing until a very few activists began to use them to exploit a society-busting idea. And few use it now. Canada is case in point. They’ve supported it for 8 years or so and have less than 100 such “couples” to show for it and many will divorce at the drop of a hat anyhow.
The rebuilding job does indeed begin with “morals” but the only hook we have for that now is called the gospel. Without gospel, you’re casting around vainly in thin air for your “morals.”
Why do you make up lies and evade posts?
I keep asking you to clarify your childish fantasy of making marriage and divorce in America, purely religious, something that has never existed in our nation, nor could come to pass, yet which you always bring up as some bizarre libertarian fantasy of marriage only for church goers, which seems truly bizarre as a libertarian position.
I ask you things like I did in that post that you just pretended to misunderstand.
To: Dead Corpse
If you would stop always avoiding other’s posts, you might open your eyes.
Which church do you want to decide marriage for America? Which religion?
Any and all churches? Any and all religions?
147 posted on 11/11/2013 2:10:15 PM by ansel12
I take it now, that you do mean any and all religions and any and all churches, is that correct?
OK, so your libertarian war against America and conservatism is to impose a Catholic theocracy over the United States.
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