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.
I was very active in the Libertarian Party about 10 years ago. I finally quit. The Libertarian Party would be **far** more effective if it were an organization like the National Rife Association.
I am now active in a local Tea Party.
“Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”
I am a proud Curmudgeon!
Interesting, you fight so hard to keep from learning any new facts, so that you can keep spreading your same old lies.
Your call to let the Catholic church make marriage law doesn’t appeal to most Americans, or did you mean to put it into the hands of the Mosque?
As it is, right now, and a 100 years ago, 500 years ago, you could call anything that you wanted to “marriage”, it just wasn’t legal.
Why do you care? Why not just make your own rules for your own relationships, and call it what you want, why push your leftism on everyone?
Except as a requirement of the military, MrT5 and I paid little attention to the “marriage” license, which we considered a civil contract-our vows said before God and our priest in the religious ceremony was our marriage, and that is the only one I care about.
Of all the voters the GOP could have reached with an agressive ad campaign, the libertarians were at the top of the list. They declined. Defeating the Tea Party was more important to them than defeating mcAuliffe.
Sorry. Where were they when we invaded Iraq for conjured up mushroom clouds, Afghanistan to make them s democracy, Egypt for whatever, now beating the war drums for Iran. Bush larded his whole defense department with neo-cons. 'Everything is on the table' means everything but exiting.
"The [Libertarian] Party ... has to emphasize its social liberalism to appeal to the broader American public."
This is a huge fallacy which equates "libertarians" with "moderates" or "independents", or even worse, equates a "libertarian" with "fiscally conservative and socially liberal."
Libertarians, and the Libertarian Party, should not be socially liberal. They should be socially libertarian.
Social Liberals favor Affirmative Action, libertarians favor a meritocracy.
Social Liberals favor the government mandating socially liberal policies on the population, libertarians want the government to butt out of their social lives.
Social Liberals favor gun control.
Social Liberals oppose school choice.
Social Liberals want to ban trans fats and Big Gulps.
I could go on, but my point is proven. A self-described "libertarian" who supports socially liberal policies opposes personal liberty, instead of favoring it.
>> who largely have experience with Ron Paul, and has to emphasize its social liberalism
Ron Paul is Pro-Life.
Screw the LP platform.
>> Libertarianism is rebranding itself to be more inclusive. Now more than ever, it is accepting of LGBT ...
Rachel is describing liberalism which is hardly libertarianism given the legal controls it requires to ensure homos can force businesses to service their needs.
The Libertarian Party of fools must feel embowered. But the idiots aren’t libertarians. Most are prolly eager for their free Obamacare.
What an idiot. Libertarianism is devoid of skin color. For the love of God she needs to put down the keyboard and pick up Atlas Shrugged.
Let Muslims get married in their mosques, Catholics get married in churches, Baptists get married in theirs...
Or...
You can keep letting State legislatures and the SCOTUS ram gay marriage through and force us all to accept it.
Your call.
As for “Leftism” and lies... You’ve got the corner covered on that. I defer to your expertise in duplicity.
>> A self-described “libertarian” who supports socially liberal policies opposes personal liberty, instead of favoring it.
Yes.
Bump.
I’m a man. I married a woman. We married in the church she was confirmed in and by the Pastor she grew up with.
Didn’t need government.
This article came across as gibberish. Sort of “anything and everything”, kinda like Libertarianism. I didn’t see anything that related to the title.
Exactly. And Gary Johnson is pro-choice. The conclusion being abortion politics has no place in the Libertarian Party, or in federal law.
Now compare to a social liberal, who believes abortion should be legal from conception to birth (or in the case of Obama, post-birth), and that it should be funded by the taxpayer.
The simple fact is Robert Sarvis, who could not espouse one libertarian thought other than drug legalization, should never have been accepted by the Libertarian Party, and the Libertarians Party damaged itself by running him as their candidate.
Marriage has always been the successful foundation of every great society and nation. Our marriage laws worked and served us well for over two hundred years. Now that your kind have come to power, you have the nerve to blame conservatives for gay marriages. You disgust me.
So in effect, marriage wouldn’t exist at all in your lefty world.
In your new America, everyone, every group, just decides what they want to call “marriage”, well, they can already do that, so what is your complaint?
Barry Goldwater's "The Conscience of a Conservative" (ghostwritten by L. Brent Bozell Jr.), today would be considered a libertarian manifesto, not a conservative manifesto.
That isn’t true.
Sarvis was pure libertarian on drugs, abortion and the homosexual issues, and we have to assume, many other libertarian issues, that is why he was so successful with his fellow libertarians.
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