The Revival Of Libertarianism

[PJABBER]

For every action there is a reaction.

Big government has come to dominate America. It came in the guise of knowing more of what's good for you than you could possibly know yourself. It came in the form of a smothering blanket of entitlements. It came in the form of cries for equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. It came in the guise of evening the score between those who have and those who have not.

It was a rise that came as a result of words, not results. At least not the results that were promised.

The pretty turned phrases by the educated elites who stood to gain the most privilege, they reached out. To the earnestly trite, the searchers for a cause, the hopers for salvation, the avoiders of effort, the swooning masses of idol worshipers who heard those words and were relieved that they did not require them to do more than accept that someone else would take responsibility for their lives.

The ascendancy of a ruling class, supported by sycophant followers, that believes in the supremacy of government, in the absolute goodness of the state is not yet complete.

There comes a shift in the wind, against the adulatory roar of the media. It is not heard in the Congress or in the boardroom or in the union hall. But it gathers in the heartland, in the family discussion, in the neighbors wondering where we as a nation are heading.

There is a reaction gathering. Everyone knows this.

Some feel helpless, the tide is so strong and so many tell them to just go with the flow. It is a siren call to be sure, but it is one that many recognize draws the nation to founder on well known shoals.

But this is also a land of people who have suffered greatly to be here. The immigrant, the small business owner, the guy holding down two or three jobs to get ahead, the corporate executive that was the first in his family to get a college education, the soldier that volunteered to fight and maybe die so that others do not bow, the family that makes do until he returns.

The polls show a shift, an unexpected shift. More and more people ever increasingly speaking in opposition.

Not for the sake of contrariness, but because they recognize the exceptionalism of America rests not with having the biggest government but with the simple opportunity to live in freedom and self determination.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ar...ervative_libertarianisms_comeback__99823.html

Conservative Libertarianism's Comeback

By David Paul Kuhn
RealClearPolitics.com
January 8, 2010

The philosophical casualty of the Great Recession was supposed to be libertarianism. But signs to the contrary are thriving.

Americans are increasingly opposed to activist government programs. The most significant social movement of 2009, the Tea Party protests, grew out of that opposition. Libertarian heroine Ayn Rand is as popular today as ever. Rand's brilliant and radical laissez faire novel "Atlas Shrugged," sold roughly 300,000 copies last year, according to BookScan, twice its sales in 2008 and roughly triple annual sales in recent decades.

We are witnessing a conservative libertarian comeback. It's an oppositional advance, a response to all manners of active-state liberalism since the financial crisis. It's a pervasive feeling of invasiveness. The factional bastions of traditional libertarianism, like Washington think tank Cato, now have an intangible and awkward alliance with a broad swath of the American electorate.

Half the public believes there is "too much" government regulation of "business and industry," an 11-point rise in one year, according to a December CNN poll. Nearly a third of the public, in contrast, said there was "too little" regulation.

As David Boaz, Cato's executive vice president, put it, "because Obama is advancing a big government agenda, it's the small government constituency in America that is energized."

There is no wide-ranging call for government to withdraw from social issues however. A rebirth of traditional libertarianism this is not. It's a more limited libertarianism that it is on the march.

Every year, since the early 1990s, the Gallup poll has sought to measure the degree of libertarianism in the American mind. First question: does the public believe the government is "trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses?" Fifty-seven percent said yes last August, the highest level since 1998.

Gallup's second question asks whether Americans believe "government should promote traditional values in our society" or "not favor any particular set of values." A traditional libertarian would side with the latter point. But 53 percent favored the state promoting "traditional values" in 2009, a five-point rise since 2008.

Those who believe government is doing "too many things" and should also not favor any moral value system sum to slightly more than a fifth of U.S. adults in recent years. This is the loose libertarian bloc of American politics. Today, roughly another third of the electorate allies with this bloc on issues regarding government's reach into private industry.

Significantly, Gallup finds, 63 percent of independents believe the government is "trying to do too many things" while only 33 percent said government should "do more to solve our country's problems."

This limited libertarian resurgence has haunted Obama's domestic agenda. The fundamental mistake of the Obama administration in 2009 was underestimating the American public's ongoing tension with active-state liberalism, a fact visible from the outset and one only belatedly confronted by Obama.

The irony is that the stock market collapse began this revival of active-state liberalism. The drumbeat of rising anti-government sentiment grew from the financial bailouts that followed. And yet this libertarian resurgence fractures on one issue, and that's Wall Street. Support for regulating the financial sector has grown, even amid the growth of conservative libertarianism.

Six in 10 Americans believe "big financial institutions" have "too much influence over decisions made by the Obama administration," CNN found. Asked if there is "too much, too little, or about the right amount of government regulation of the stock market and financial institutions," 45 percent of Americans said "too little," while 29 percent said "too much" and 23 percent said "about right."

Sweeping financial reform remains elusive. Meanwhile, health care reform has proven unable to escape the rising anti-government sentiment. Nearly half of the public generally opposes Congressional proposals to overhaul the health care system, while little more than a third support it, according to the Pew Research Center. The chief reason cited by the legislation's opponents: "too much government involvement in health care."

For the first time this decade, more Americans, 50 percent, said providing health care for everyone was not the government's responsibility according to Gallup. Three years earlier, 69 percent said it was the government's responsibility to provide universal health care.

Nick Gillespie, editor of the libertarian publication Reason, sees a straight line between the unpopular financial bailouts, started under the Bush administration, and Democrats' unpopular health care bill today.

"It's the rule of the few at the expense of the many," Gillespie said.

Indeed. Today's limited libertarian revival is a response to a sense of overreaching elite technocrats as well as fear of an intrusive bureaucracy. Responsiveness is the core impulse. Rand's radical libertarianism, where man is an ends in himself and the welfare state is fundamentally immoral, was a response to the radically invasive Soviet state that weaned her as a girl. On a drastically less extreme scale, one side of this American debate could not exist without the other. The Obama administration brought with it ambitions of a resurgence of FDR and LBJ's active-state liberalism. And with it, Obama has revived the enduring American challenge to the state.

 

[cubeless]

whoa... the wind blows and the chaff now think they are libertarians... who'd have thunk???

 

[destrekor]

I'm a State-ist. Not the current imagined version of what that means, but the classical version, the Ben Franklin version. The opposition of the Federalists. The State-ists were who championed the Tenth Amendment. The most trampled-upon Amendment we have, so much so that I'm surprised it hasn't been stricken from the history books.

Libertarians are basically the people I identify with the most, but I'm mostly a true middle-of-the-road Moderate, pointing closer to Libertarian than the other two, but closer to the middle more than anything.
And the reason I identify with them more than others is because they most of all champion the same Small Federal Government idea as the State-ists. I don't know how Libertarians feel about the size of State government, but I could care less. I say let the states border on pure socialism if they want to, so long as they do not cross the Constitution.

Maybe we'll eventually have a 3-party system, or Libertarians will at least receive so much support that they replace one of the current groups.

Libertarian actions certain would help us get out of the budget deficit over time, something the current administration seems to have no plan to do. Tax increase? Sure, but only to fund some bullshit public healthcare package.

Healthcare is better left in the State's hands. Let them handle it like auto insurance. Keeps prices in check based on local economy, and the forced focus on competition helps even more.

 

[Rockinacoustic]

I love the skewed Libertarian label Rand gets when she detested Libertarianism as much as Communism/Fascism.

 

[nobodyknows]

whoa... the wind blows and the chaff now think they are libertarians... who'd have thunk???

LOL, anything to get somebody to not vote for a Democrat.

 

[Robor]

LOL, anything to get somebody to not vote for a Democrat.

Exactly. PJBLABBER is a transparent hack.

 

[woolfe9999]

There was no true ideological shift toward big state liberalism in late 2008, and there is no true ideological shift toward libertarianism now. Real ideological re-alignments occur over longer periods of time. Polls measure ephemeral public mood more than ingrained ideology. And mood is determined mainly by material concerns. We hated Bush and criticized the government for not being more activist in foreseeing and preventing the meltdown. Now we hate Obama because his activitist approach has not cured our ills and put money in our pockets. We are not libertarian but anti-government. We want to smack down whoever or whatever we perceive to be responsible for our troubles. We do not hold ourselves responsible for any of these ills. We hold the government responsible for the loss of our jobs. Yet we also hold Wall Street responsible, so we want the government to regulate Wall Street. If this was real libertarian ideology rather than generic public unrest in a recession, then it would be logically consistent, but it isn't.

- wolf

 

[Craig234]

I love the skewed Libertarian label Rand gets when she detested Libertarianism as much as Communism/Fascism.

Just goes to show different factions of Libertarians, then, because many Libertarians worship Rand.

I thinkher views, wrong as they were, overlapped with many Libertarians.

I'm not going to say she didn't make some anti-Libertarian comments I don't recall but do you have any such quotes handy? As much as I hate to discuss her at all when sie is best ignored.

 

[Xonoahbin]

I predicted this would happen.. I suggested a bit over a year ago that many conservatives would begin to identify themselves as Libertarians soon down the line. I don't find it to be a bad thing, but it's interesting.

 

[Craig234]

I predicted this would happen.. I suggested a bit over a year ago that many conservatives would begin to identify themselves as Libertarians soon down the line. I don't find it to be a bad thing, but it's interesting.

I expected the same thing. When a corrupt ideology is out of power, it can attack the party in power, evenm if things are going well, with all kinds of fantasies about how much better things would be.

If given limited power, they can still blame the other side for quite a bit. Even if given dominant power for an extended period and pursuing and doing terribl,e they can win if they can make people hate the other side.

'Maybe things suck, but Democrats are communists who will destroy the constitution and hand the country to the terrorirsts' lasts for a while.

Eventually, though, the brand finally wears out, and people look for another flavor. Hey, look - libertarianism, it's not that dirty Republican word. It's new and shiny and will work great.

It has a nice simpleness and 'purity' many find appeling if they don't understand the implications, just as communism was a century ago.

It's not entirely unlike the way some on the left looked for new flavors when 'Democrat' was unfashionable.

 

[StageLeft]

I predicted this would happen.. I suggested a bit over a year ago that many conservatives would begin to identify themselves as Libertarians soon down the line. I don't find it to be a bad thing, but it's interesting.

I've been on P&N for years. Many republicans call themselves libertarians but when push comes to shove they bend over and take it raw from the republicans and they vote republican. I believe they are dishonest with themselves.

 

[Craig234]

I've been on P&N for years. Many republicans call themselves libertarians but when push comes to shove they bend over and take it raw from the republicans and they vote republican. I believe they are dishonest with themselves.

Seems to me they rationalize the flaws with Republicans by using the word Libertarian (as I described above), but when it comes to voting, they (wrongly) hate Democrats and vote Republican to block them.

 

[Jaskalas]

Good. Now for your first act you must destroy the GOP. Only from their ashes can we bolster the strength of a third party.

 

[Rockinacoustic]

Just goes to show different factions of Libertarians, then, because many Libertarians worship Rand.

I thinkher views, wrong as they were, overlapped with many Libertarians.

I'm not going to say she didn't make some anti-Libertarian comments I don't recall but do you have any such quotes handy? As much as I hate to discuss her at all when sie is best ignored.

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=education_campus_libertarians

I enjoy Rand's philosophy as well as the ideas of the Libertarian movement, but both are Utopian at best.

 

[StageLeft]

I haven't read really anything of Rand but what little I have been exposed to it seems that the more somebody likes Rand the more I don't like them; they kind of just seem like assholes. I'm not directing that to anybody, but that's how they come across, as basically soulless, selfish wankers. Again my caveat being I've not read any of her work, just a casual impression.

 

[Rockinacoustic]

I haven't read really anything of Rand but what little I have been exposed to it seems that the more somebody likes Rand the more I don't like them; they kind of just seem like assholes. I'm not directing that to anybody, but that's how they come across, as basically soulless, selfish wankers. Again my caveat being I've not read any of her work, just a casual impression.

I really liked Atlas. Rand is not an excellent writer, and her character's to me at least were boring as hell, but on the greater scheme of objectivism she has some interesting ideas. It's either your cup o' tea, or not.

There are always those people who take certain works of literature to heart- who didn't hate those pretentious kids in high school who thought they were the sh!t after reading 'Catcher in the Rye' or 'Animal Farm'.

 

[MotF Bane]

The current form of the Republicans have nothing to do with libertarians whatsoever, nor for that matter, do you, PJabber.

 

[Craig234]

I haven't read really anything of Rand but what little I have been exposed to it seems that the more somebody likes Rand the more I don't like them; they kind of just seem like assholes. I'm not directing that to anybody, but that's how they come across, as basically soulless, selfish wankers. Again my caveat being I've not read any of her work, just a casual impression.

You're perceptive, Skoorb. Ayn is sort of the whore for morality. If you have this nagging conscience being an ass, she'll sell you reassurance that it's the MORALISTS who are evil, not you.

It's like any such whores, whether they tell you 'don't worry about the poor while rich, aid HURTS them', or 'don't worry about the violence, in the long run it SAVES lives', and so on. It's enabling evil.

In the genocides I've looked at, the rhetoric hasn't really been aimed at killing the victims, it's been aimed at 'removing a disease' from the society, at 'removing cockroaches'. It's all for the good of people.

If you protest, you aren't 'for' the victims, you're against your own race, a traitor to its well-being, a threat to it. How would an Early American have been viewed if he had told his village 'wait, don't klll Indians'?

 

[Steeplerot]

Really a damn shame fair-weather republicans have hijacked the name libertarianism.

 

[lupi]

The most tragic result of the civil war is the lose of states right to the growing blob of federal powers.

 

[PJABBER]

The current form of the Republicans have nothing to do with libertarians whatsoever, nor for that matter, do you, PJabber.

Very true, as I am neither a Republican nor a Libertarian.

However, I fit quite well into that group which the poll measures as being against the rule of the few at the expense of the many.

 

[n yusef]

The most tragic result of the civil war is the lose of states right to the growing blob of federal powers.

600k deaths were more tragic than the loss of "states' rights" (to enslave blacks). And since this is a libertarian thread, realize that the idea of "states' rights" are antithetical to libertarianism. The state is a collective, and therefore does not have rights; individuals do.

In the future, you would be wise to substitute "federalism" with "states' rights."

 

[Moonbeam]

whoa... the wind blows and the chaff now think they are libertarians... who'd have thunk???

That has a refreshing touch of the poetic

 

[Patranus]

The most tragic result of the civil war is the lose of states right to the growing blob of federal powers.

You can attribute the loss of states rights and the bloated federal government to the "new deal" and FDR more than anything else.

 

[woolfe9999]

I'm not directing that to anybody, but that's how they come across, as basically soulless, selfish wankers.

Your instincts are pretty good, since she wrote a book called "The Virtue of Selfishness."

- wolf