Seems to me there are two kinds of libertarians: people who believe in radically reducing the role of government in American society, and people who don’t know what libertarianism means but prefer the label to Democrat, Republican, liberal, and conservative.
With the amazing success of the Ron Paul 2008 presidential candidacy, combined with – and certainly not quite separate from – the greatly increased activity of the federal government during the Bush Administration, libertarianism is attracting much more attention this election season than it normally does. With that opportunity to expand its influence comes the burden of deciding what libertarianism will represent in American politics: a conscience or a catch-all for the disaffected.
The competition for the Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination currently underway highlights the principled choice that needs to be made. (I understand that libertarianism and the Libertarian Party aren’t necessarily the same thing, but it’s the best barometer of the movement that we have.) To wit…
At this point in the still nascent campaign for the Libertarian nod there are two prominent candidates in the running. The first candidate, and perhaps the likeliest nominee, is the as-yet-undeclared former Georgia Republican Congressman Bob Barr. You may remember Barr as the crusty, combative leading House spokesman for impeachment of President Clinton, who subsequently lost his Congressional seat to a fellow Republican, John Linder, when the two were forced to face off as a result of post-2000 Census redistricting.
But if you knew him before, you may barely know him now. Why’s that? Because Bob Barr’s political ‘evolutions’ are severe enough to make even Mitt Romney look sincere. As the Philadelphia Inquirer recently put it,
[Barr] led the charge to impeach Bill Clinton, wrote the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (which said states did not have to recognize gay marriages performed in other states), and was a self-appointed four-star general in the “war on drugs.” All impeccable conservative credentials.
Today, General Barr is AWOL in the war on drugs, disowning the entire enterprise. And as for calling in the federal government to prevent gay people from marrying? Well, that surely wouldn’t be very libertarian of him. Scratch that idea. Bob Barr may have once been one of America’s leading crusaders for using the government to enforce moral values, but today he’s a changed man. Why, he’s a full-fledged Libertarian! How quickly the world changes.
A less likely nominee, but a candidate in the mix that you may know, is former Democratic Senator from Alaska Mike Gravel. If Mike Gravel is a libertarian, then so’s my dog Fido. Gravel was nearly indistinguishable from the other Democrats on a number of big government issues that came up during his run for this year’s Democratic Party nomination. Gravel regularly scapegoated business and called for heavy taxation of, and other reprisals against, it; he supported government-mandated healthcare (although, in fairness, his plan allowed patients to choose among private and government providers); roundly denounced free trade agreements including NAFTA and CAFTA.
The only thing that distinguishes Mike Gravel from your typical far left Green Party activist is that he supports a fair tax. (In fact, shortly before joining the Libertarian Party, Gravel endorsed a candidate for the Green Party nomination.) His switch to the Libertarian Party was remarkably transparent, coming after several decades as a member of the Democratic Party and a miserably poor showing in the early Democratic primaries and caucuses. Clearly, Gravel had run out of options as a Democrat and was looking for a new home. He flirted with the Green Party and then made the incredible leap from that hyperactive government movement to the severely restricted government movement of the Libertarian Party. Judging by his last-place showing among Libertarian Party candidates in on-line fundraising, libertarians aren’t buying his candidacy. When it comes to Gravel’s candidacy, though, libertarians ought to be insulted, not just uninterested.
When one of the most partisan and socially conservative Republicans of the past decade and an ardent opponent of free markets who nearly joined the Green Party just this year are running for the same party nomination, you can only expect people observing this race to be confused and ready to dismiss the Libertarian Party as a joke.
The ideal alternative, and the only way to properly seize this rare moment in the libertarian movement, is to lure away from the GOP none other than Ron Paul. Far from identifying with libertarians out of opportunism or confusion, Congressman Paul’s views are in most respects a perfect match for the libertarian ideology and his recent success came as a result of his courageous choice to seek the Republican Party nomination without a hint of apology for his views. Far from being able to marginalize the man and his views, the Republican candidates found themselves trailing Paul in fundraising and enthusiasm. While the vaunted ‘Ron Paul Revolution’ has not happened, and surely will not happen, his success as a candidate uncompromising in his expression of libertarian ideas is nothing short of remarkable.
The Libertarian Party has not had much success over the years. But now, after the post-9/11 crackdowns, reckless Republican spending programs, the ascension of social conservatism, and the most prominent libertarian (lower-case ‘l’) candidacy in modern American history, libertarians have an extraordinary – albeit, still limited – opportunity to influence the course of American politics. In essence, they have the opportunity to finally clarify for millions of confused Americans what it is that libertarianism actually stands for. Nominating a transparent opportunist such as Bob Barr or Mike Gravel will only add to the existing confusion over libertarian principles. It will reinforce the notion that libertarianism is no more than a refuge for the disaffected of all political stripes – rather than a coherent, compelling set of convictions.
I am not a libertarian. I’ve never voted libertarian and I never will vote libertarian. In fact, I think their perception of reality is, in many ways, unrealistic and dangerous. Nonetheless, I know many sincere libertarians for whom I have great respect, and I always feel for those people when their convictions are misrepresented by people who think the libertarian label is a cool escape from ordinary labels like ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ that, in fact, suit those folks far, far better than ‘libertarian.’
If libertarians don’t take this extraordinary opportunity to set the record straight about what they stand for, when eyes are fixed upon them like no time in recent memory, they will only have themselves to blame for the continued bastardization of their ideology in years to come. But if they reject the frauds who cynically think the libertarian label can be co-opted for the purposes of political expediency, and instead choose as their standardbearer an individual with the beliefs and record to faithfully represent the libertarian ideology, then the merit of libertarian ideas will be free to determine the movement’s fate.
Great post, I echo your sentiments about libertarianism. I’ve never voted for them and I seriously doubt I ever will. That said t could be a great thing if that party or movement really took off the ground.
I also agree that so many people who call themselves libertarian have absolutely no idea what the tenets of that ideology really entail. I think that explains the Ron Paul phenomenon to a large extent. Yeah, disgruntled liberals/conservatives/people wanting a cool sounding party could say they endorse his anti-war, pro-freedom agenda, but do they really want to dismantle the FBI, the entire social safety net and leave every international organization of which we are a member? It always annoyed me to hear liberals like Bill Maher ridicule the GOP debates and say Ron Paul was the only one who made any sense. Yes, the guy who said the Civil War was a mistake is really the voice of reason in the Republican Party. I suspect they only said they liked Paul as a means to whack the other GOP candidates.
Also I don’t think Paul wants to run as on the Libertarian line in 2008.
I absolutely agree with your points. The fact that so many liberal could in one breath praise Ron Paul for making the most sense of any GOP candidate, and in the next breath lambaste President Bush for promoting tax cuts or opposing the child health insurance bill belies their intellectual shallowness.
Indeed, it seems Paul doesn’t want to run on the Libertarian Party ticket in 2008 but, for the life of me, I cannot understand why. He’s a septuagenarian Congressman serving in a party that is diametrically opposed to his convictions on a wide range of policies. Why not go down in history as one of the most successful 3rd party candidates ever to run for President? As the dissenting voice in – as Paul and libertarians see it – a time of illegitimate war, rampant government intrusion, and creeping socialism? As the most powerful advocate alive for the political principles in which he so deeply believes?
Makes you wonder what are Ron Paul’s motives. If he believes so deeply in libertarian principles and the wrongheadedness of recent governmental policies, why doesn’t he accept the platform libertarians are dying to give him? Does he really think he has more influence as one single congressman out of 435 that believes in libertarian principles, than he would as a presidential candidate? Seems to me if he doesn’t run, the guy must be more interested in job security than his political beliefs. Bizarre choice for someone of his age, and his potential.
There is a gut reaction among conservatives to flinch when the are called Republicans — a kind of “I’m not with that guy [Bush]” reaction.
It will be interesting to see if people are willing to return to the label in the next few years. If they are, I think libertarianism might fade back into obscurity.
Also, it seems to me that far more conservatives call themselves libertarians than do liberals. I think liberals should invent a new party in the same vein called “Freedomarians.” At a quick glance it looks like “Freemasons,” but that will pass when the party becomes famous.
Yeah I think a lot of liberals have supported Ron Paul simply because of 1) their disenchantment with the Democratic party in failing to end the war and thus 2) his anti-war stance, not realizing that he has vehemently expressed the desire to dismantle much of the Federal Government – cabinet-level department. These are things that should be offensive to anyone calling themselves a progressive or liberal. Some of these liberals that as you say, praise Paul in the same breadth is chastising Bush, tend to be “low-information” liberals.
But there is something to be said about how even Bush’s tax cuts and the increase in corporate welfare under his administration have violated free-market conservative principles and liberal principles, which does make it – in a sense -logically consistent to criticize Bush and praise Paul in the same breadth.