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.
Sorry, Dead actually has history on his side. Remember George Washington and “our blessed religion”?
Christianity in an overwhelming consensus view (spanning Protestant and Catholic, and doubtless Orthodox if they were present) defined it.
It’s Christianity which made it possible, until recent decades, for the law to be rather lean. They didn’t have to ban things like putting your cat out too late at night.
OK, so you want to eliminate marriage by simply making it whatever anyone wants to call it, no definition whatsoever.
People can already do that of course, and always could, it just wasn’t legal, so what is your complaint, you want it to be the law?
Also how do humans suddenly live with no such thing as legal marriage? (Legal) marriage has always been defined by a legal authority, whether government law, the state church, or tribal law or whatever.
Also when will you cut out your (ahem) ‘childish’ ad hominems. That is a sign of losing any argument. It just clutters these pages with rot. As soon as you belittle, without reference to an actual God that can declare that heaven is larger than hell, there’s no argument, there’s only personal posturing.
The second part of the Catholic view is what is embedded in the common law tradition, and is as much Anglican as Roman Catholic. Both views have it that marriage is a sacred institution, deeply rooted the nature of mankind. Mankind as created in the image of God, not only as an ape with a big head. That head size, of course, plays its part. Given that it forces the mother to give birth somewhat prematurely. Hence a Chimp is born more mature and until the age of about two can actually outperform mentally many human infants, and is much less dependent on adults at, say, age six.
LOL, No he doesn’t have history on his side, George Washington actually paid for the marriage license for his favorite nephew.
Besides, Dead’s view is that all religions make their own rules, so you want the military law to cover multiple gay husbands of a GI?
Yeah, sorry, but your libertarian fantasy of imposing a Catholic theocracy on the American people, isn’t going to happen.
When are you going to quit stalking me with personal attacks and wild religious mutterings on thread after thread?
What does George Washington’s having to “pay for a marriage license” have to do with squat.
They were copacetic with the churches back then. America was built on a consensus-Christianity morally guided model. Nobody would have brought up the idea of a “homo marriage.”
If churches have allowed things to get to the sad current state, that is their fault. They shouldn’t complain; they are like the child who murdered his parents (they have distanced their heavenly Father) then begged mercy as an orphan.
When are you going to stop your paranoid delusional whining?
And I got news for you. There is a “wild” God right next to you wherever you go and if you despise Him... you have NO good moral anchor. NONE.
Then we agree. I believe in much smaller government than we have today, but it will be very difficult to win elections against the wealth redistributionist crowd. They buy their votes with other people’s money. That leads to economic ruin in the end, but it buys voter loyalty in the short term. We, on the other hand, offer liberty and the real promise of a better future.
It will take every vote we can muster to get truly conservative leaders into office. I’m talking 80% or better conservative—not GOPe RINOs. We cannot afford to waste votes in protest or on third parties that have zero chance of winning. Any libertarian who voted against Cuccinelli in Virginia, for example, basically cut their own throat. Cuccinelli had a real shot at it, and libertarians should have found him far more acceptable than the Democrat on most issues.
LOL, always the same nasty anti-Christian, personal stuff from you.
There was never a time in America when there wasn’t law regarding marriage, even at the federal level, so your “history” nonsense, is just more of this silly fantasy of pretending the American voters are going to just let any and all religions define what their version of legal marriage is, which basically ends marriage.
Right now, you can do whatever you want in your Mosque or church, including marriage, so do it, you just may have a problem making it legal.
You are only calling it “bizzare” because you like having government in charge of marriage.
This is because you are a troll whose only purpose here is to disrupt.
And so yeah you baited me into a “personal attack” and so what, so that’s wrong, I must take it back, still you were wrong to use “childish” in a godless vacuum.
Yeah I am wild. Wild about a wild God. That makes the eagle soar. But He apparently only makes you sore.
I got into a harsh email fight with a friend of mine….who really does agree with Hunter intellectually, but for some stupid reason took all this personally.
These people have a childish streak, even the more intelligent ones.
ANTI Christian?
I am only ANTI “churchianity.”
Which is all you can see, and then you get all mixed up about oh what church?
Your fault here for failing to see God.
The consensus Christianity of George Washington’s time set the tone. Governments did not self-idolize and snatch the moral authority from the churches — they only promulgated laws that were in general agreement with consensus Christian understandings — until later in American history.
So your position is that you think the political question for we conservatives to be concerned about today, is to start running on a new platform of ending all common definitions of marriage, and simply let every religion, every individual, every church, Mosque, gay temple, or satanic worship group, define marriage?
How would that work in the military and in divorce law?
You have put your finger on the problem. The “blessed religion” which was why there never had to be a “ban on gay marriage” in Washington’s time, went to sleep on its watch. The fault of its keepers!
YES, to do something analogous to that nowadays would need every weird temple to get its way.
And yet that might not be the worst answer. Because it would open the door to a new gospel resurgence from an evangelization that treated the USA as a virgin mission field.
... basically the weird temples need to be squeezed out by Christian practice. Rotsa ruck with your laws. You think you got problem with “gay marriage”? Wait till polygamy and bestiality get “sanctified” like that. And yes it will be forced on the state if the state insists on being the main custodian! There is NO bottom... and the state will be forced down that sewer... until the gospel gets hold again.
Better to leave it to religion. At least you actually have to have a church then. You can’t have a handful of homo activists whipping up the “gay” masses into a political push.
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