Libertarianism in Politics

Thursday 12 August 2010 - Filed under Dumbassery + Libertarian Party

David Boaz via Cato@liberty:

You can see in both the Paul op-ed and the Johnson interview that major-party politicians are nervous about being tagged with a label that seems to imply a rigorous and radical platform covering a wide range of issues. But if you can call yourself a conservative without necessarily endorsing everything that William F. Buckley Jr. and the Heritage Foundation — or Jerry Falwell and Mike Huckabee — believe, then a politician should be able to be a moderate libertarian or a libertarian-leaning candidate.

It’s a shame that being pegged a libertarian by the media is such a curse. My theory is that it is the one political ideology which actively threatens both Team Red and Team Blue is that it encompasses, in the broadest of senses, what most voters actually believe in: social tolerance and being fiscally conservative. It is the one movement which, if not slandered by both teams, has the power to draw away from both, therefore, for political survival (I.e., the continuance of republicratism), it must be denigrated.

We’re both the party of those who want school children to have access to heroin to conservatards, and racist bigots who hate poor people to demotards, but never The Party of Principle, nor of individual freedom. We’re a party of rigid belief structures from which no one can deviate and all of us support radical libertarianism.

2010-08-12  »  madlibertarianguy