Hasta La Vista, Southpaw?
The Whither Libertarians and the Republican Party? moves to Matthew Yglesias’ blog. I’m particularly interested in the reactions of the liberals in Matthew’s comments section.
1) Look. Guys. It’s not my place to tell you your business. But what a lot of us are saying is that libertarians are “in play” for the first time in who knows how many election cycles. That is, libertarians will consider voting for a Democratic candidate for libertarian reasons. Maybe, just maybe, more of the old “you’re all a bunch of selfish bastards who care only about tax cuts!” routine is not the way into our hearts just now.
2) In the course of attacking the libertarian view of property rights (property is a creature of the State doncha know, or society, and therefore the State can abridge property rights as it likes), several liberals allow that, yes, applied to other rights that are as surely creatures of the State as the right to property this principle justifies anything up to and including chattel slavery, but just because the State can do something legally doesn’t mean the action is moral, and just because we hold an expansive view of the “general welfare” clause and believe that ensuring domestic tranquility is a license for the government to do practically anything it wants, that doesn’t mean we support every regulation in existence or believe that every transfer payment or entitlement scheme is justified or ideally configured.
To which I say, Fine. Then how about one of you, somewhere sometime, lifting so much as a finger to get rid of some of these imprudent programs, wasteful subsidies, perverse incentives and counterproductive bureaucracies whose theoretical existence you grant. And by “one of you,” I mean a politician, though sustained effort by some activists would at least be nice. From the libertarian perspective, the problem with Democrats is that all their energy goes into adding more “good government,” and none into getting rid of what they themselves allow is bad government. Give me a Democrat who vows to slash corporate welfare to the bone, shut down the drug war and crank up the personal withholding exemption at the expense of targetted tax breaks. Then I’ll get excited. As it is, the most one gets from Democrats, pundit and politician alike, is, Yeah. Sure would be nice if insane agricultural subsidies went away. And I wish our laws didn’t call for locking up every seventh black guy for the crime of selling things people want to buy. Maybe those laws will disappear or something. Hope so. In the meantime I’ve got to agitate for a dozen new subsidies! I can’t begin to imagine how the country has survived this long without them!
3) Have I mentioned that in a narrowly divided electorate, the couple of percent of voters with strong libertarian leanings is big enough to tip the balance?
