Self-described “Liberal” Millennials are Actually Libertarian

Townhall.com ^ | July 14, 2014 | Cathy Reisenwitz

[Kaslin]

This week another Reason/Rupe poll came out, this one on the political leanings of my generation, the Millennials. One interesting thing to note for people concerned with how we vote is that a plurality of Millennials surveyed who described themselves as “liberal” express support for downright libertarian positions.

Liberal, to many Millennials (33 percent), just means belief in “social tolerance, openness, and personal freedom.” And far from preferring a leviathan state, many Millennials said they were liberal because people should have freedom to do what they want in their personal lives without government interference.

So how does that impact our voting? More liberal millennials than conservative ones indicated support for a classically “libertarian-leaning candidate,” by a margin of 60 to 27 percent. But nearly half of conservative millennials oppose a “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” candidate.

Here’s the deal. Conservative Millennials won’t vote for a Democrat. They especially won’t vote for any of the Democrats being floated. But what this poll is showing is that liberal Millennials are fed up with a Democratic party which has been anything but liberal. Consider that 60 percent of Hillary Clinton voters and 56 percent of those who approve of President Obama say they would support a fiscally conservative, socially liberal candidate. They’re open to free markets, as long as they get their personal freedoms.

In total, a majority—53 percent—of millennials say they would support a candidate who described him or herself as socially liberal and economically conservative.

So what does that mean?

Young people were key to Obama’s election and re-election. Ignoring their wishes not only harms the GOP now, but also going forward.

Traditionally, the GOP has had an all-too-testy relationship with its libertarian wing. Mediaite’s Andrew Kirell:

To wit: There’s the GOP’s historically poor convention treatment of Paul supporters; the incessant scapegoating of Libertarian candidates for GOP losses, even despite mathematical impossibility; the perpetual misunderstanding of what libertarians believe in; the conservative belittling of libertarian causes; the penchant for selecting terrible candidates and then getting pissy when libertarians hesitate to get behind the false choice; and plenty of embarrassing moves that make libertarians want to crawl under a rock.

The personal freedoms we Millennials want in no way violate small-government principles. In fact, they are full expressions of that idea that that government which governs least, governs best. Ending the War on Drugs, fixing our broken immigration system, no longer allowing the state to discriminate against gays in marriage, reining in domestic spying, and protecting whistleblowers are all, fundamentally, small-government positions which would all result in a net decrease in the state.

Nominating truly small-government politicians, who want the government out of the bedroom and the boardroom, isn’t just the only principled path forward for the GOP. It’s also the best way to attract my generation to the party. It’s the GOP, not the Democrats, who Millennials should associate with “social tolerance, openness, and personal freedom.”

[ConservativeDude]

yes of course

[Alas Babylon!]

Ignoring their wishes not only harms the GOP now, but also going forward.

If winning is more important than standing for your principles, then yes, by all means, cater to the Millennials.

However, if you believe that the principles that you stand for are not important and can be thrown out just to get a shot at power, then you never had those principles to begin with.

I will never agree to the murder of unborn babies, sorry.

If people want to be homosexual in private, I don't care.

If people want to drink, drug up, and get wasted in their own homes, without involving kids or driving or causing any harm to the rest of us, then, like the homosexuals, I don't care.

So if those two issues make me a libertarian, then so be it. But I'll never simply tolerate the killing of those who are least able to defend themselves.

[ConservingFreedom]

the ones who think legalizing drugs (pretty much all of them) +_____________________ = UTOPIA

I'll keep my eyes peeled for such - never seen one yet.

[ConservingFreedom]

Indeed all true and valid points, but you also have to keep all the moral busybodies in check that will most assuredly crawl out of the woodwork in Joe’s defense. They will bash us over the head with all of the “we have to take care of the downtrodden”, “we need to give him a helping hand”, “we can’t just let him die”, “we must keep him from starving”, it was his upbringing, etc, etc, ad-nauseum.

Agreed - we must keep those moral busybodies in check along with the moral busybodies who say “we must keep him from clouding his mind.”

[jurroppi1]

All right, I’ll bite then. We keep people from forbidding others to cloud their minds (a moral absolute), and we keep people from committing crimes when they do so by punishing them after the fact, thus hopefully creating a deterrent effect (an assumption based on a moral supposition).

No matter what way you slice it the system will be designed by humans and will inevitably be imperfect.

We ultimately would allow more liberty for some than others regardless. I guess I would prefer to protect liberty for those who produce over those who ultimately cause productive liberty seekers harm.

[ConservingFreedom]

I would prefer to protect liberty for those who produce over those who ultimately cause productive liberty seekers harm.

If you propose to protect liberty for those who produce by continuing our current drug bans, I'd note the following:

• Our current drug bans do much to motivate harms to productive liberty seekers, namely theft, by increasing the cost of drugs to users - and to increase harms generally by increasing the resources available (from drug-selling) to criminals.
• If we're going to ban for ALL adults those things that may increase SOME adults' propensity to do harm, that's a long slippery slope whose destination I suspect you may not care for.

[jurroppi1]

It was more of a general comment about how leaning the other direction will have consequences as well, in some cases (I suspect a fair number of them) direct consequences that stifle the liberties of functional productive individuals who also crave liberty.

I’m not only commenting on the laws WRT the WOD, but laws in general all over the place. You keep alluding to the WOD and its’ concomitant laws and singling that out, but the application goes to other circumstances as well.

I am merely stating that preserving the right to be listless and exist in a stupor (depending on how heavily stupefied or intoxicated one deigns to make themselves) generally leads to other less than desirable behaviors. People destined to be addicted or listless tend to find ways to continue the lifestyle, which usually means polite society suffers somehow.

I suppose if we go back to public shunning and stocks and all that, we could just be a free society that metes out justice as we see fit too. You constrain someones’ liberties, yours get constrained equally or worse. There will always be a judge somewhere; that judge may not agree with your perceptions or indications (unless we just go full-on barbarian).