Posted on 12/25/2006 7:07:01 PM PST by Sunsong
”The libertarian vote is up for grabs in a way it may have never been before. A compelling case is being made for the economically conservative yet socially liberal libertarians to switch their political allegiances from Republican to Democrat, a trend that has already begun.
”Brink Lindsey, a scholar with the libertarian nonprofit Cato Institute, lays out the reasoning in "Liberaltarians," a provocative essay in The New Republic. He explains that the defining ideology of the American right for the last 50 years has been conservative fusionism, which recognized the common interest in both social and economic conservatives to protect traditional values from the intrusion of big government.
”But when social conservatives came to power and started to use big government to impose their cultural vision on others, the libertarian disaffection began.
”Libertarian voters were repulsed by the religious right's impulses to deny gays the right to marry and to interfere with Michael Schiavo's decisions about his wife Terri's end of life. Then, when an entirely Republican federal government abandoned any pretense of small government by spending uncontrollably, nation-building in Iraq and replacing science with theology, the trickle became a stream.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
And it will be very important, I think, to see what happens with the idea of tax increases.
Do you think President Bush will agree to a tax hike?
The Republican Party's problem is not so much libertarians as it is republicans. From a federal perspective, States' Rights is a libertarian idea.
Quite frankly, I am pretty tired of control freaks calling me a "liberaltarian", "loserdopian", "losertarian", etc., because I believe that freedom is the paramount ideal of our constitutional republic.
FWIW, I am a scientist for DoD, an Army veteran, and a member of our local Selective Service Board - in other words, I have been taking random drug tests since I graduated HS.
Yet, when I argue that poeple should be free, freepers complain, "you just want your dope, man."
Small minded idiots.
Yet if in 2000 one used FR as a guide, one would have thought the Libertarian candidate would have gotten 20 percent of the vote.
Libertarians are always making the case that Conservatives and Republicans need to bow down to the libertarian views or face rejection by libertarians.
No Republican or Democratic politician with a brain would consider doing that.
Some 30 percent of the voters are moderates... sometimes called swing voters. To get one libertarian vote costs about 5 moderate votes. Only a idiot would trade 5 votes for one.
They can threaten Republicans as they have for decades and the response is always the same... No one cares for whom libertarians vote. As they did in 2000 and 2004 they mostly stay home on election day and complain.
This has been a two party nation for at least 150 years. There is just one thing that the two major parties agree upon... There should only be two major parties. The system is designed so that a third party will pull away votes form the party most like them.
It is impossible for the Democrats to win the support of the Green Party. In 2000 Gore was not nearly Green enough for the Greens. By the same token Bush was not nearly libertarian enough for the Libertarians.
The biggest mistake of the Gore campaign in 2000, was his final days attempts to win the support of the Greens in Florida. Trying to appeal to the Greens cost Gore the Election. It cost him enough moderate votes to elect George W. Bush. W never made any attempt to appeal to the libertarians and as a result picked up enough moderate support to win.
A major party when out of power always decides it must become more like the party that is in power. Which is the exact opposite of what the Greens and libertarians are trying to accomplish.
The voting laws and the two parties have done all they can to make third parties counter productive. Thus the libertarians and unhappy conservatives who supported Ross Perot in 1992, managed to elect the very leftist Bill and Hillary Clinton.
There is only one way to enact an agenda in the USA. That is to get active in one of the two major parties and then work to change that parties position on issues so they reflect the movement's position on those issues.
When Libertarians, as they always do, try to punish the Republicans for not being what they want, they only convince the Republicans to become more liberal.
Ronald Reagan turned the Republican party into the mirror image of the Democratic party of Truman and Kennedy. That left the Democratic party with the option to adopt the polices of the Republican party of the 1930s.
The Democrats of the 1930s were for cutting taxes and increasing government spending to spur the economy. The Democrats of the 1930's were in favor of being very active in the world's foreign policy. The Republicans of the 1930s were for balanced budgets and isolationist in foreign policy.
Today's Democrats stand for the same things the Republicans did in the 1930s while the Libertarians are out there saying do as we say or we are going to eat worms.
The only question to which government should be the answer is "who protects the individual?" This was the vision the founders had and sought to construct with the Constitution. Unfortunately, certain among them demanded and were awarded a "bill of rights" leaving us with the hair-splitting idiocy that came with it. Does this right exist? Does that right exist? We have entire generations of people out there who believe the Constitution gives them rights.
I would repeal the 16th amendment, myself, but would add put an amendment to put the commerce clause back to it pre FDR status.
I would do the same, but scrap the commerce clause altogether. I would also remove the Bill of Rights and add a clause to the preamble that defines the document as "that which is not expressly permitted is forbidden". If there is no defined power allowing the federal government to create laws around speech or religion, then they cannot. If there is no defined power to tax an individual, then they cannot.
I would further extend liberty by amendment to protect rights from infringement by US states. I believe this was an intent of the 14th amendment, but the SCOTUS interpreted that out fairly quickly.
I would leave that to the states, personally. If a state has insufficient protection of the individual, the productive among them will quickly migrate to the state where they're better protected leaving the offender to perish under their own dead weight. This was the original design. What we have now is that so many things are "regulated" at the federal level leaving those of us who wish to be left alone very few places to run and hide.
Regards,
Col Sanders
I love to take shots at the Liberals in the "media." THEY are always telling us, AND HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR 40 YEARS, that we shouldn't label and pigeonhole people. Now that those same hippie liberals are running "the media," they are making a career out of doing just that.
I am indeed afraid that he will.
Seems more BS to lay the groundwork for a suicide third party run in order to divide and conquer to allow Hitlery a better shot.
I bet there are enough mercenaries who can be paid to be spoilers ala ross perot.
This article is weak.. Although I will agree Bush has opened the door to all these crackpot articles, IMO.
"I would do the same, but scrap the commerce clause altogether."
Oh yes, Hallelujah! The Commerce Clause is the Socialist Landfill.
Yes.
Do you think there are no dems who want to restrain spending for the next two years in order to look good in 2008?
Does a leopard change it's spots?
Look, the rats have traditionally been the party of welfare-style vote buying of society's losers and parasites (ie. the Democrat "base") and they are not about to waste their time trying to impress normal, honest, hard-working, family-oriented Americans (ie. the Republican "base") at this point..
"I happen to agree that the Terry Schiavo controversy did enormous damage to the Republican Party."
I don't. I think it was a minor blip on the radar screen.
Not only are Libertarians a marginal factor, but the article's is wrong. What a coup!
I hope you are right.
I disagree with the axioms. Republicans have a mild split between true conservatives, who are pretty much content with the status quo and hesitate to support any strong or rapid political change; and religious republicans, who do want change to both undo past governmental wrongs and move the country in a positive direction, and with due speed.
But this is not a hostile split, there is considerable issue agreement, and the disagreement is as much over style as substance.
In the last elections, republicans didn't vote for democrats, they just neglected to enthusiastically support republicans who both went hog wild with government spending and largesse; and blatantly and cynically ignored the wishes of their supporters on major issues, especially immigration.
So what is the future of libertarians? If they wish to attract republicans, they must advocate issues that both appeal to libertarians, yet attract some republicans:
1) Liberalize gun laws.
2) Quit enforcing the more insane drug prohibition laws.
3) Return our internal national security to a sensible level. Racially profiling Arabs is far more reasonable than is searching 75 year old white grandmothers in wheelchairs.
4) Eliminate many federal laws that are redundant with State laws, and should only be enforced by individual States.
5) Stop spending money like it is just paper.
6) Build a fence between the US and Mexico. (Granted, this one is difficult for libertarians; but they need to accept that libertarian principles need to be applied to Americans first.)
Conversely, if libertarians wish to attract liberal democrats, they need to advocate issues that appeal both to them, and to liberal democrats:
Unfortunately, liberal democrats have been short of ideas for a long time. Ironically, they would be most successful in restoring their power if they became much more like libertarians. That is, such things would appeal more to the public right now. But what it might be could include:
1) Returning to a post-Watergate distrust of intelligence agencies, and legally restricting their actions in the US.
2) Again, reform of the drug laws.
3) Anti-globalization and isolationism.
4) Establishment of a public privacy regime that restricts both government and business development and use of private information about individuals.
5) Reform of monetary policy along with constitutional amendments for a balanced budget, line-item veto, and other amendments to be named later.
I doubt any of it will happen.
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