Why be a Libertarian?

To my mind it's hardly a question.  Once I learned the difference between Right and Left, and Democrat and Republican, the realization that I was neither, but was libertarian, was instant.  However to most, the decision remains a choice between one side or the other, attempting to fit themselves into one mold or the other.  In this fantastic video, David Boaz of the Cato Institute explains Liberals, explains Conservatives, and further explains how libertarianism is the root of our country's history.  Enjoy the video, and then ask yourself a question.  Don't ask yourself "why be a libertarian?"  Rather, ask yourself, "why be anything but?"

Ayn Rand and American Libertarianism

Jennifer Burns sits down with Reason.tv and discusses her book Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, and Ayn Rand in general. Very good interview outlining how, though Rand despised Libertarianism, her work has continued to inspire Libertarian thought.

The Long, Slow Death of Party Politics

There is a phenomenal article posted today at Mises.org about the state of politics in the United States. The commentary on the state of party politics, and the reactionary tendencies of both the Right and the Left is spot on. The state of both sides simply trending toward differing forms of authoritarianism is also right on the money, and the state of our Corporatist (not Capitalist) economy of huge entrepreneurial businesses in bed with their favorite government officials is scary accurate. The article is titled "The Death of Politics." The following is a good excerpt, but please read the whole thing. Oh by the way, Karl Hess wrote the article 40 years ago.

Political parties and politicians today — all parties and all politicians —question only the forms through which they will express their common belief in controlling the lives of others. Power, particularly majoritarian or collective power (i.e., the power of an elite exercised in the name of the masses), is the god of the modern liberal. Its only recent innovative change is to suggest that the elite be leavened by the compulsory membership of authentic representatives of the masses. The current phrase is "participatory democracy."

Just as power is the god of the modern liberal, God remains the authority of the modern conservative. Liberalism practices regimentation by, simply, regimentation. Conservatism practices regimentation by, not quite so simply, revelation. But regimented or revealed, the name of the game is still politics.

The great flaw in conservatism is a deep fissure down which talk of freedom falls, to be dashed to death on the rocks of authoritarianism. Conservatives worry that the state has too much power over people. But it was conservatives who gave the state that power. It was conservatives, very similar to today's conservatives, who ceded to the state the power to produce not simply order in the community but a certain kind of order.

It was European conservatives who, apparently fearful of the openness of the Industrial Revolution (why, anyone could get rich!), struck the first blows at capitalism by encouraging and accepting laws that made the disruptions of innovation and competition less frequent and eased the way for the comforts and collusions of cartelization.

Big business in America today and for some years has been openly at war with competition and, thus, at war with laissez-faire capitalism. Big business supports a form of state capitalism in which government and big business act as partners. Criticism of this statist bent of big business comes more often from the Left than from the Right these days, and this is another factor making it difficult to tell the players apart. John Kenneth Galbraith, for instance, has most recently taken big business to task for its anticompetitive mentality. The Right, meantime, blissfully defends big business as though it had not, in fact, become just the sort of bureaucratic, authoritarian force that rightists
reflexively attack when it is governmental.

The Left's attack on corporate capitalism is, when examined, an attack on economic forms possible only in collusion between authoritarian government and bureaucratized, nonentrepreneurial business. It is unfortunate that many New Leftists are so uncritical as to accept this premise as indicating that all forms of capitalism are bad, so that full state ownership is the only alternative. This thinking has its mirror image on the Right.

It was American conservatives, for instance, who very early in the game gave up the fight against state franchising and regulation and, instead, embraced state regulation for their own special advantage. Conservatives today continue to revere the state as an instrument of chastisement even as they reject it as an instrument of beneficence. The conservative who wants a federally authorized prayer in the classroom is the same conservative who objects to federally authorized textbooks in the same room.

Infiltrating the Duopoly: Why It's Not Compromise

Over the past several days I've taken on the exercise of examining our two-party system of electing our representatives. I first responded to a discussion point at the Humble Libertarian with a brief thought on challenging the two party system, after which I was rebutted by Damon Eris at the blog, Poli-Tea who warned that we not get fooled again. From there, I've gone on to begin something of a debate with Damon. I began the other day by analyzing the option of libertarians infiltrating the Republican Party as a method for more quickly affecting a corrective change to our political system.

When men and women with sound, attractive political philosophies begin coming to the forefront, and infiltrating the major parties, once again giving people something to vote for, rather than against, we will find the parties moving again more toward respectability. Pragmatism for infiltration seems paramount for moving the country forward in a realistic manner. While fragmentation appears attractive, infiltration practiced by men and women of principle will get the job done much more quickly.

In his follow up, Damon responded that if you compromise from the outset, you'll be compromised in the end.

The aim and goal of third party and independent activism is not fragmentation as such, but more effective representation. Arguably, the
two-party system is structurally incapable of representing the diversity of interests to be found among the people of the United States. If "fragmentation" is what results from the smashing of the two-party state, then everyone should have a sledge hammer.

On the way to arriving at his summation, Damon examines my arguments that we are seeing somewhat successful campaigns from the likes of Peter Schiff and Rand Paul, who are opting to run very libertarian-minded campaigns by going for their respective Republican nominations. His argument against them running for Republican nominations is where he arrives at his idea that the two-party system is structurally incapable of representing the diversity of our interests.

Finally, the infiltration strategy usually entails running an insurgent primary campaign, likely against the candidate favored by the party establishment, who will seek to marginalize such upstarts in any way possible.

...

Though he's working "within the system," his effort is still marginalized as if it were a third party or independent campaign. Further, Rand Paul has demonstrated that he is capable of raising tons of money independently of the Republican Party fundraising apparatus. What were the advantages of working within the GOP again?

...

In his argument in favor of infiltration, Paul at OE remarks that: "The majority view of third parties in general remains that they are full of cranks who bring nothing of substance to the table." The same could be said of the majority view regarding the Democratic and Republican Parties, and that would be a particularly nice way of putting it.

Damon argues that, in this case, these libertarian candidates running as Republicans are marginalized by the likes of the RNC as the cranks they would be marginalized as anyway. The article he cites regarding Rand Paul's campaign goes on at length about how Rand Paul needs to better "get with the program" if he wants to be accepted by the GOP. He argues that he is therefore being marginalized even in competing for the position he seeks, that this does no good since while he may win the position, he will not really be accepted by the party. He also argues in going against my position that the likes of Paul and Schiff find their funding outside of any party affiliation anyway, so that my point about more readily accessible assets in joining ranks with the GOP is moot.

First, pertaining to access to financial assets, let us remember that the examples of Peter Schiff and Rand Paul are outside of the ordinary. Peter Schiff has become a star of the economy on television and Youtube. Rand Paul is Ron Paul's son, and therefore has instant notoriety. Not to say that he is not his own man, but needless to say, there are thousands of doctors or lawyers (ugh) or businessmen, I'm sure, with political aspirations, who have not had the inside track to political notoriety that he has had. These are the candidates, without an inside track, that would find better access to financial resources by infiltrating an existing major party.

Moving on to the argument surrounding potential, let's call it crank-ism, I believe Damon has essentially argued the point to a standstill. His argument in this aspect is resource-based, resources being people. He argues that in order to strengthen a third party, all available resources should be thrown into that third party's efforts. He argues that since these people are going to be marginalized as cranks anyway, they may as well be marginalized as cranks while moving a third party forward, by allocating all resources to the third party. The obvious question to follow with, then, is if they are cranks in both cases, and their objective is to best represent their constituents, why not chase the opportunity that allows them to achieve some progress once elected?

Now, given Damon's previous arugments, he will respond with something like "they will just become subjects to the parties' pay masters at some point anyway; big labor on the left, or big military business on the right." He will relegate their campaigns to being mere rhetoric to mask their subjectivity to said pay masters, as he has regarding even the likes of such movement figureheads as Reagan, Goldwater and McGovern.

I don't think this argument holds water. I think people of principle will act on their principles no matter their party. Similarly, men and women lacking in character to such an extent that they would abandon their principles and fall into corporatist corruption would do so no matter their party. While more parties would theoretically make it harder for corporations to influence politicians via influence over parties themselves, the politicians are ultimately responsible for their own actions. Sell outs are going to sell out no matter what. Likewise, men and women of principle will hold fast to their principles no matter what. I don't envision someone like Peter Schiff, if he's elected, becoming subject to anyone, for example. While he is already famous the world 'round with regular people, we should remember that nobody in Washington cares. His access to the Republican machine would immediately give him easier access to committee functions in the Senate than he would have from a third party standpoint, where he would no doubt be ostracized. He would then be able to work and act on his principles, without compromise.

Now, my initial theory was that it would be possible to infiltrate both parties, while creating a third that would ultimately become a fallback for a fragmentation of a major party. I am working on elaborating this argument, and should have a follow up in a few days. Until then, feel free to comment. And check out Poli-Tea. Damon has some fantastic thoughts. And the debate is back in his court.

Discussing Duopoly: An Argument For Infiltration

I wrote the other day about challenging the two-party system of electing our governmental representatives. My interest in the subject was piqued by W.E. Messamore's post at the Humble Libertarian asking whether libertarians should work within the two-party system, or whether we should work harder at strengthening a true third party. My response was that I felt we could do both. Specifically, I mentioned that "I see no reason that we cannot infiltrate BOTH parties, WHILE growing a third party that stands ready to inherit the crumbling pieces of a failing major party."

I was rebutted both in the comments, and in a subsequent post by Damon Eris of the blog, Poli-Tea. Damon focuses very hard on arguing against our current duopoly. He feels, very rightly in my opinion (which I will elaborate on at another time), that our current system detracts from our values of freedom and liberty. To my statement that I see no reason why we cannot do both, Damon responded unfavorably:

One reason might be limited resources. However, as I've noted before, the argument in favor of infiltrating the duopoly parties refutes itself: infiltration shares many of the drawbacks of a third party or independent effort and has none of the advantages; one moment, the would-be infiltrator plainly states that the Republican and Democratic Parties are hostile to the very idea of liberty itself, and then urges that we join up with them in the next; if it is better to work within an existing party than to build a new one from scratch, there are any number of already-existing third parties that would be a better vehicle for political reform than either of the duopoly parties etc.

I would like to respond to Damon's first point first. He claims that infiltration shares many of the drawbacks of a third party independent effort, but has none of the advantages. I disagree. First and foremost, for a libertarian to win the hearts and minds of a republican district by working within the Republican Party, he/she is immediately capable of accessing the resources (read: money) of the Republican Party. To be sure, there is more money available if said libertarian-Republican candidate is going to be competitive in the race, but such will be the case for any Republican Party candidate. If it's a 100% of the time Democratic constituency, it likely makes little difference, since the GOP rarely funds any candidate heavily that it deems cannot at least compete. However, in either the competitive case, or the losing case, the access to re$ource$ being higher presents the opportunity to the would-be candidate to educate the people of the district on libertarian values, moreso than does running from an outside party. Furthermore, the opportunity presents itself to have a larger campaign staff than one might otherwise assemble, thereby bringing more libertarian-minded people into the fold of the major party.

Damon's statement that infiltration shares many of the drawbacks of a third-party effort is also slightly off in my opinion. The majority view of third parties in general remains that they are full of cranks who bring nothing of substance to the table. When discussing liberty and freedom, however, this is truly not the case. Federal level libertarian candidates in the upcoming elections, for example, include the likes of Peter Schiff and Rand Paul, who offer some of the most intriguing ideas to the political spectrum. Both are running for the Republican nominations, rather than for third-party nominations, wherein they would most assuredly be horrendously marginalized. Winning the Republican nominations would find these two high profile libertarian minds running strong races, with GOP funding to back their messages of sound money, liberty, freedom and integrity. Running on a third party ticket, meanwhile, would find them "fighting the good fight," expending enormous time and energy merely to be heard at all.

Responding to Poli-Tea's post "Infiltration or Independence," commenter Samuel Wilson offers the following observation about the argument I've just made:

The infiltrationists act on a belief that the major parties can be converted into exclusive ideological parties that can ignore the imperative to practice "big tent" politics in order to win national elections. They're encouraged in their belief by histories that teach them that it's been done before: by conservatives within the Republican party in 1964, 1980 and arguably in 1994, and by progressives within the Democratic party in 1972. The fallacy is the identification of parties with men: Republicans with Goldwater, Reagan or Gingrich; Democrats with McGovern. Infiltrationists will declare victory if they nominate the right person without acknowledging the structural imperatives that will compromise any victory

Wilson's commentary seems to me to be backwards. He claims that infiltrationists act on a belief that the major parties can be converted into exclusive ideological parties. It seems to me that this is exactly what the people attempting to create prominent third parties are out to do. Where would conservatism have gone had Goldwater and Reagan broken off into new, more ideologically pure parties? Likely nowhere. Where would progressivism have gone under the banner of a McGovern-led third party? Likely alongside Teddy Roosevelt's Progressive "Bull Moose" Party compartment in the dustbin of history.

Wilson incorrectly posits that "infiltrationists will declare victory if they nominate the right person without acknowledging the structural imperatives that will compromise any victory." He claims that we make the mistake of identifying parties with men. The problem with this statement is again, that the premise is backwards. Voters identify with political philosophy. Men have political philosophies. Parties do not. Parties assume the political philosophies of the men that comprise them. When the men with the most attractive political philosophies are chosen to lead the parties, we find great swings in the historical attitude of their corresponding political movements. This is why we remember McGovern, Goldwater and Reagan. They all stood for their political philosophies, and brought their respective parites with them. This is why we do not remember Republicans from 1994. They did not stand for a political philosophy. They argued specifically against what was going poorly. We have been entrenched in a vicious cycle of the political "anti" ever since, culminating in the election of Barack Obama, who was so anti, that people actually thought they were finally voting for something again.

When men and women with sound, attractive political philosophies begin coming to the forefront, and infiltrating the major parties, once again giving people something to vote for, rather than against, we will find the parties moving again more toward respectability. Pragmatism for infiltration seems paramount for moving the country forward in a realistic manner. While fragmentation appears attractive, infiltration practiced by men and women of principle will get the job done much more quickly.

On Challenging the Two-Party System

Last week's talking point at The Humble Libertarian was a question of how we of a libertarian mindset should approach politics. Should we work to reform the Republican Party from the inside-out, should we focus on a third party, or should we eschew parties altogether and focus on education? A very thought-provoking discussion ensues in the comments, including my own response, which turned out much longer than I thought it would, and so I am re-posting it here.

I might suggest we look to history and the demise of the Whig Party, which was replaced by the Republican Party. The Whigs were torn apart from within over slavery when the anti-slavery faction actually stopped the renomination of its own party's incumbent President. The party fractured and most of the base went to the Republican party.

I think we are very much seeing candidates begin to come to the forefront who have more libertarian ideals than we have seen in some time. Peter Schiff and Rand Paul obviously immediately come to mind at the forefront.

Even at the state and local levels, the energy in politics is altogether different than I can recall in my (albeit short) lifetime.

Overall we seem to have an issue at hand that is nearly every bit as divisive as was slavery. And that is the Economy.

If we recognize that neither the Republican Party or the Democrat Party have been stewards of honest money and a sound economy, but have rather taken turns expanding their preferred areas of big government (military on the right, social welfare on the left), then we find the wedge to drive into the fissure in the Republican Party.

GOP faithful are still incredibly belligerent to the idea that one might ever suggest decreasing military operations. It's a debate worth having, without even concerning the middle east at all. We still have tens of thousands of troops each in Germany, Korea and Japan, and who knows where else. Many of them could easily have been reallocated to the middle east, thereby reducing demand for new troops and new expenses. It could still be done as a way of reducing military expenses.

At some point, we have to be able to acknowledge that, while unfunded liabilities in Social Security and Medicare are without question the biggest strains on our federal government's purse strings, War is the next biggest item. Every dime of all things beyond normal operations is funded by borrowing and monetizing the debt through the Federal Reserve.

There is the fissure. There will be Republicans who continue on ignoring the issue of a sound economy, and there will be libertarians in the Republican Party who do not. Ultimately, the survival of the Republican Party is going to depend on how many libertarian-minded people end up in it. Otherwise, I feel they will by default fall by the wayside as did the Whigs, and the voter base will go to the Libertarian Party.

Understanding that, I think it is important that we take a lesson from the progressives' "long, slow march" through the educational system. We all complain that nobody understands or has been taught libertarian ideas, much less things like Austrian Economics. Well it's because nobody teaches it. We need a long, slow march of our own, not only through the educational systems, but through the political systems. Libertarian thought resonates with a lot of people, because it is all about common sense freedom.

I see no reason that we cannot infiltrate BOTH parties, WHILE growing a third party that stands ready to inherit the crumbling pieces of a failing major party.

New Conservative Intellectuals

Drake Bennett's article from this past Sunday made some waves yesterday. In it he outlines a few of the voices he sees as being able to pull conservatism out of the muck. Specifically he notes Luigi Zingales, W. Bradford Wilcox, Megan McArdle and Reihan Salam. Rick Moran has already provided a brilliant summarization of the article with his own commentary about each (save for Wilcox), and I am not going to bother you with a rehashed version of what's already been done. What I would like to do, however, is respond to Moran's commentary, specifically regarding Zingales and Salam.

Before I get into my looks at those two, however, I should mention that Megan McArdle is one of the best voices on the web, and that anybody not already reading everything she writes, whether you might agree with it or not, is sorely missing out on one of the most important minds available.

LUIGI ZINGALES

First, from the original article:

Luigi Zingales says it’s time for conservatives to fall out of love with businesses, and fall back in love with the free market. In an argument that’s begun to catch the ear of a few conservative thinkers, Zingales suggests that it’s often business itself, rather than the government, that the market needs protection from.

“I’m very strongly pro-market and very strongly against business,” says the Italian-born economist, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Separating the support of free markets from the long Republican alliance with business isn’t easy, says Zingales, but it’s important. As he and colleague Raghuram Rajan laid out in their 2003 book, “Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists,” powerful companies, given the chance, work hand-in-glove with government officials to craft laws and regulations that protect them while limiting competition and transparency.

Given the arguments Zingales makes, it would perhaps be far more appropriate for him to have called his book "Saving Capitalism from the Corporatists," but hey, he's got books to sell, and his title attracts far more attention. The argument is simple, and often made, as Moran points out. And that argument, as I would hope more and more on the liberal left might begin to comprehend, is that we have indeed NOT been operating as a Capitalist society for some time. Respectively, the failure of our economy at the moment has not signified a failure of Capitalism, but rather a failure of the Corporatist culture that has susbsumed the title of Capitalism as of late. Moran outlines it simply:

Four years ago I would have wondered what Zingales was smoking in order to call himself a conservative and not support business. But the Democratic takeover of congress should have convinced anyone on the right that big business cared little about markets and more about being able to control government for their individual aggrandizement. The latest example: Wal-Mart hopping aboard the Obamacare train before it left the station. By supporting the public option and the insurance mandate for companies to supply health insurance to their workers, Wal-Mart gets to influence the final package so that it is tailored more to their needs.

We also see the dangerous big-business influence of Corporatism in the recent developments being recognized surrounding Goldman-Sachs, who after being bailed out is experiencing record profits after helping to craft legislation, and to place its former employees high within the ranks of the Federal government. Such is the nature of Corporatism that a business like Goldman, big enough to affect the nature of the market itself, finds itself able to profit from bubbles they have the ability to lend a hand in creating (upcoming Carbon Credits) and those that they have the necessary talent on hand to foresee ending (housing bubble).

Zingales' message is one that many Libertarians have been touting for years, not to mention one they have continually been ridiculed as crackpots for, as our false economy's "super bubble" had been booming for the past three decades. After all, what could be wrong when everything was moving along so well? His message is one that ought to attract the anti-big-business crowd from the Left, and one that Republican conservatives need to begin heeding. There is a difference between the true morality of Capitalism, and the awful cronyism of corporatism, and now is the time, more than ever, for us to be represented by people who understand this.

REIHAN SALAM

I will preface what is going to ultimately turn into a major disagreement with Salam and Moran by first saying that I enjoy Salam's writing. He is cognizant of, and more willing than most to publicly acknowedge, the Libertarian spirit of the Right. This was evident in what I referred to previously as his eulogy of Mark Sanford. That said, let the games begin. Again, first from the orignal article:

If big government is necessary, Salam asks, and can even help create a society more agreeable to conservatives, then what should it be doing? Drawing in part on the work of scholars such as Wilcox, Salam and Douthat craft a vision of a government that is activist in a different way, putting priority on stability and responsibility, along with opportunity. They push for child-care subsidies, market-friendly healthcare reform, more affordable housing, and for wage subsidies to boost the incomes of poor young men and make them more eligible for marriage and stable fatherhood.

“The idea is, let’s actually reduce the scope of government in some areas, where it’s kind of pernicious, but let’s increase its role in some areas, insofar as increasing the role can actually increase freedom,” Salam says.

Under the Obama administration, Salam has continued to press the case for big-government conservativism in articles and as a blogger for both the National Review and the online Daily Beast.

Moran, ever the proponent of moderate big-government conservatism, obviously agrees:

Salam was an early Sarah Palin supporter which should give anyone pause about accusing him of being anything other than a pragmatic conservative. His argument is the same I have been making for many months on this site; the road back for conservatism is not through the ideological terrorists who have set themselves up as arbiters of conservative dogma, condemning those they determine to have strayed from their extraordinarily narrow minded and confining definition of conservatism.

Rather, it is through advocating the reasoned and pragmatic application of conservative principles to government as it exists today that will bring the right out of the darkness.

The basic thing wrong with Salam's look at the government comes in the first few words of the first quote: "If big government is necessary." Salam, like Moran, presupposes that there is literally no way for the United States to exist without Big Government. Both of them simply shrug their shoulders and move on to say, well, if we must be saddled with this elephant, let's see how many little sticks we can poke it with to nudge it in a little bit better direction, never realizing that such small sidesteps cannot possibly deter the beast's course as it heads for the autocracy cliff.

Moran goes so far as to refer to voices calling for wide-scale reduction in government as ideological terrorists. Moran has identified these voices for us in the past. He singles out Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter in the punditry. One assumes there is no question in his mind about the likes of Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell.

It is my opinion that the voices that are going to affect the greatest change in the conservative intellectual spectrum are those voices that can best define their core values and proceed to spread their message. In that respect, Salam is a good writer that makes good points, but has he established a strong core message? It seems like he is trying to straddle a line that the likes of Christopher Buckley, David Brooks and Peggy Noonan have found themselves roundly criticized for straddling, that of the intellectual elite.

Utlimately the intellectual leaders of the conservative movement must be able to stand tall and proud of their intellectual arguments. I see it in McArdle. I see it in Zingales. Because he is a fantastic writer, I hope for it from Salam. I just don't know if he recognizes what I think I see coming: a tideswell of support by the grass-roots for a smaller federal government. Those of us in that tideswell do not agree that Big Government is a constant. We believe that it is a blockade to our freedoms and a hindrance to our liberty. We find the current state of affairs unacceptable. We recognize we cannot prod the elephant with sticks. It must be attacked with spears to force a change in course, and if necessary, shot down in its path.

RIP Mark Sanford

I have written briefly about Mark Sanford twice before, once in Feburary and once in May. Slowly but surely he was growing on me. His challenge of the federal government in attempting to flat out refuse acceptance of any stimulus funds for his state made me smile from ear to ear. Then when forced to accept the funds, his challenge to utilize the funds to pay down state debt rather than spend, spend, spend was the political highlight of the aftermath of the nuclear financial explosion that was the passing of that bill.

Here was a man, I felt, that was going to be able to be a figurehead of Libertarian values moving forward over the next four years. Given his personality, I wasn't sure how, if at all, he would be able to handle the national stage, and so I had been biding my time in really getting behind him, though have often received emails from members of DraftSanford2012 dutifully keeping me apprised of his actions.

What attracted me to Sanford was his level of commitment to his personal and political values and his staunch refusal to act politically in any manner that was not in the long term best interests of the people of his state. I fought to remain quiet over the last week amid stories of his disappearance, and was ultimately left saddened and discouraged yesterday upon the announcement of his affair, effectively his political death.

As we conservatives and libertarians hold ourselves to a higher level of personal responsibility than do liberals (see Kennedy, Edward and Clinton, William), it is only fitting that we now cast this man out as a possible representative of our values. There will be no apology made, no eloquently spun explanation of how he is only human, on behalf of Mark Sanford's repugnant weakness, merely only the hope that he finds a way to come to terms with his struggles and to live out a decent personal life from this point on.

Politically speaking, we are left to carry on the mantle of conservatism and libertarianism for the time being without a potential star. Reihan Salam eulogizes:

Back in 2002, when he was first elected governor, Sanford was the darling of D.C. libertarians. As one of Newt Gingrich's foot soldiers in the House of Representatives, he acquired a reputation as a budget-cutting cheapskate who, with his friend and ally Ron Paul, constantly railed against pork-barrel spending and the overweening power of the federal Leviathan. Despite his small fortune, Sanford slept in his congressional office. And his tightfistedness extended to the running of his first gubernatorial campaign, when he reportedly hunted for loose change and haggled over office supplies. His enthusiasm for school choice and firearm ownership also won him kudos from the right wing. But Sanford's total inability to play nice with the legislature stymied his most ambitious efforts, including a long-term plan to roll back South Carolina's state income tax.

All the same, Sanford's libertarian bona fides were real. In March, Michael Brendan Dougherty wrote a fascinating profile of Sanford that, on close examination, could have killed his presidential ambitions then and there. Sanford railed against the Federal Reserve; when asked about Michael Phelps’ arrest on drug charges, the governor rolled his eyes. And he seemed to be launching a critique of the Bush Doctrine when he told Dougherty, "I don't believe in preemptive war," a categorical statement he later inched away from in a rare bout of political cowardice. For me, though, the most telling part of the profile came at the end, when Dougherty noted Sanford's total lack of interest in University of South Carolina basketball and his inability to use basic sports metaphors. Given the macho cast of American conservatism, this might have proved a fatal flaw. His recent public weeping won't help matters.

As Sanford slinks away from the public eye, antiwar libertarians have lost their best hope of building a national movement. The 2008 uprising of Birchers, hippies, and raw-milk enthusiasts that fueled Ron Paul's quixotic bid for the White House was looking for a leader, and Sanford seemed to fit the bill. Now he'll instead spend his days doing who knows what—he'll write a book or play golf or maybe smoke a bowl while cradled in the arms of some dark-eyed South American siren. Which, when you think about it, doesn't sound that bad.

The Cancer of Intellectual Elitism

In the past few days, conservative "intellectual elites" Christopher Buckley and David Brooks, who entirely abandoned the Republican Party during the last election in favor of fellow "intellectual elite" Barack Obama, have begun expressing buyer's remorse over the decision. Peggy Noonan has yet to recant, but we can bet that it's only a matter of time until she begins to grace us all with some self-flagellating prose as well.

The overriding reason for the abandonment of these conservative "intellectual elites" turning on their party in support of the far-far left Barack Obama, was that they could not stand the populist reaction to Sarah Palin. Such was the case as well with many Libertarians who, almost by default, also view themselves as intellectual elites. I know this because I consider myself a Libertarian, and in doing so, consider myself as understanding things better than either Republicans or Democrats do. It takes a hell of an ego to take that stance and I will admit that I certainly have that, or I wouldn't venture into these writings with the belief that I have the chance to provide some direction. However, unlike many Libertarians, and unlike the conservative "intellectual elite" I was not foolish enough to believe that just because Sarah Palin was a populist candidate, she was inherently stupid or unqualified.

Quite to the contrary, and perhaps this is where my self-imposed grounding in Objectivism kicks in, I viewed Sarah Palin as perhaps the most qualified of any of the four candidates, recognizing her as a self-made woman, who had achieved her success by adopting a moral code, and living it out as strictly as possible. I saw her gaffes in interviews as being those of a general unpreparedness that was unlikely to have been her fault given the whirlwind environment in which she was brought into the game, coupled with a press that was unfairly eager to demolish her reputation as completely as possible. It seemed all the while to me that she was actually far more intelligent than the McCain campaign allowed her to be.

This is what Christopher Buckley, David Brooks and Peggy Noonan could not bring themselves to see. In their respective desires to believe that the President of the United States must inherently be one of the "intellectual elite," they jumped onto the Barack Obama tidal wave in what, ironically, reduced them to supporting the populist candidate in order to feel better about themselves.

But what exactly is the "intellectual elite?" Apparently, as we have just seen, one must have an Ivy League degree and write books and philosophize broadly without ever digging in and actually accomplishing anything.

But what of the rest of us?

I, for instance, shunned that path in life. I could have attended Harvard or Princeton or Georgetown for Law. I passed a practice bar exam in eighth grade that I took just to see if I could. I'm sure it upset my aunt who went on to fail it for the third time. But I could not see myself doing something as disingenuous as practicing law or going into politics. Instead I went into engineering, civil/architectural engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology to be exact. I'll receive a masters in construction management later this year. I've read quite a few books on a myriad of subjects, and, while they may not be leatherbound, my apartment does at times smell of rich mahogany. I could easily consider myself one of the "intellectual elite."

But I do not.

As the conservative "intellectual elite" in Brooks, Buckley and Noonan have shown, they are all-too willing to believe that other "intellectual elite" are too smart to do what conservatives consider the wrong things. Such was their rationalization in supporting Obama. He was too smart to actually act on his socialistic leanings. Now they are finding out what the rest of us saw plainly.

Neither are Libertarians exempt, being, as I previously mentioned, some of the most "intellectually elite." We see it now in the idea discussed at in several different articles at Positive Liberty and by Will Wilkinson and others of what they are calling "Liberaltarianism." I've read as much about it as I could find, in that it seems to be Libertarian intellectuals and Liberal intellectuals reaching out to each other to find some kind of common ground. Forgive me if this sounds like an attempt, a-la Brooks & Co., just to find a bigger group of intellectual friends to be comfortable with. Or, as RollingDoughnut puts it:

Okay, count me out anyway, because "liberaltarianism" is little more than progressives attempting to sell economic errors to libertarians because we allegedly agree on social issues.

The idea of either Conservatives or Libertarians reaching out to the Left on an intellectual level is not a bad idea. We need to do this at some level. We cannot expect them to just see the light one day. We need to educate them as to why we believe the things we do, particularly about free markets, liberty and mutual respect.

But we must also realize of ourselves that this idea of intellectual elitism is a cancer among us all. Our "intellectual elite" cannot continue to shun populist candidates simply because they are populist candidates, without first understanding whether or not that candidate might also be an intellectual in their own right. As Ace puts it in the case of Sarah Palin:

Actually, now that I think of it, is it possible that the so-called elites were partly turned off to Sarah Palin not merely because she was NQOCD (Not quite our class, dear), but because she vigorously attacked a man the so-called elites were warm to precisely because he was of part of the Harvard-Princeton axis about which the world turns?

It undermines Conservatism and it undermines Libertarianism for our more recognized intellectuals to jump ship simply to cozy up to other intellectuals. When you abandon your principles just to be part of the group, you've abandoned any semblance of intellectualism you may ever have had.

Debating Ayn Rand

I received quite a lot of flack, particularly at FreeRepublic, for my post last week where I proffered my opinion on what I perceive to be the possible death of the GOP. One of the most intriguing responses I received was attacking Libertarianism, and doing so by throwing an assembly of interview questions with Ayn Rand discussing with her, her disdain for the Libertarian Party.

I found this to be quite interesting, in that Rand has defined the philosophy by which I have come to attempt to live my life. In that the Libertarian movement has not died, as I am sure she wished it would have, I decided to respond to her thoughts on the movement. While obviously she cannot possibly respond, I hope you will be kind enough to respond to some of my thoughts on the matter with your own. If anyone else reading is a blogger as well, I would also be interested in doing some cross-posting on the matter.

Q: What do you think of the Libertarian movement? [FHF: “The Moratorium on Brains,” 1971]

AR: All kinds of people today call themselves “libertarians,” especially something calling itself the New Right, which consists of hippies, except that they’re anarchists instead of collectivists. But of course, anarchists are collectivists. Capitalism is the one system that requires absolute objective law, yet they want to combine capitalism and anarchism. That is worse than anything the New Left has proposed. It’s a mockery of philosophy and ideology. They sling slogans and try to ride on two bandwagons. They want to be hippies, but don’t want to preach collectivism, because those jobs are already taken. But anarchism is a logical outgrowth of the anti-intellectual side of collectivism. I could deal with a Marxist with a greater chance of reaching some kind of understanding, and with much greater respect. The anarchist is the scum of the intellectual world of the left, which has given them up. So the right picks up another leftist discard. That’s the Libertarian movement.

My immediate response to this particular line of thought is that Rand provided this answer in 1971. Thirty-seven years later, I don't believe that there exists in the Libertarian movement, any semblance of a grouping of anarchists that have any kind of voice in any matter. I agree with her thoughts on anarchists in general, that they are simply another style of collectivist, and that they are the scum of the intellectual world. I can't say of the intellectual world of the left, since I think that nearly four decades later, there is no home left anywhere politically for an anarchist. Perhaps some anarchists would feel like calling themselves Libertarians, but I do not believe that at this point in time, Libertarians would accept being associated with anarchists, much less believe that Libertarianism's makeup is heavily laden with anarchists.

Q: What do you think of the Libertarian Party? [FHF: “A Nation’s Unity,” 1972]

AR: I’d rather vote for Bob Hope, the Marx Brothers, or Jerry Lewis. I don’t think they’re as funny as Professor Hospers and the Libertarian Party. If, at a time like this, John Hospers takes ten votes away from Nixon (which I doubt he’ll do), it would be a moral crime. I don’t care about Nixon, and I care even less about Hospers. But this is no time to engage in publicity seeking, which all these crank political parties are doing. If you want to spread your ideas, do it through education. But don’t run for President—or even dogcatcher—if you’re going to help McGovern.

This statement on her part, I think, had so much more to do with her pure absolutism more than anything. I think to Rand it was much more relevant to teach people something through honest discourse, and she therefore loathed the idea that anybody would stain her ideas by grandstanding with them politically. There is such an element of propagandizing and dishonesty that pervades political discourse, that I don't believe she felt it possible for people to learn anything via a political campaign. So she ultimately seems to have taken the approach that I see many disheartened conservatives take, in that they vote grudgingly for the Republican candidate, despite not thinking he is the right choice.

This is an argument that I hear a lot of. That being that a vote for a third party candidate is a wasted vote. It is not an argument that, for me, falls on deaf ears. It makes all the sense in the world. Every election is a battle, and particularly this last election. I voted for John McCain, despite hating myself for it, because I felt a deeper need to see Barack Obama not step foot into the White House. I couldn't stand John McCain. If he was conservative enough, and principled enough, to lead the party, he would have beaten Bush in the first place eight years ago, and also wouldn't have needed to make back-room deals with Huckabee to sabotage Romney in the South during the primaries this time around. So in that respect, I fully understand her position that it would be a "moral crime" to vote otherwise. However, it should be known that it was a personal crime against my own morality to have supported someone like John McCain, who, to be perfectly honest, would have simply wound up being a watered-down version of Obama anyway.

Q: Libertarians advocate the politics you advocate. So why are you opposed to the Libertarian Party? [FHF: “Egalitarianism and Inflation,” 1974]

AR: They are not defenders of capitalism. They’re a group of publicity seekers who rush into politics prematurely, because they allegedly want to educate people through a political campaign, which can’t be done. Further, their leadership consists of men of every of persuasion, from religious conservatives to anarchists. Moreover, most of them are my enemies: they spend their time denouncing me, while plagiarizing my ideas. Now, I think it’s a bad beginning for an allegedly pro-capitalist party to start by stealing ideas.

This exchange follows the previous one nicely I think, in that it is an extension of Rand's thoughts on the men pursuing politics through the Libertarian Party. If you're educated in Objectivism, you'll understand immediately that it's really the "collection of misfits" here that she's disgusted with. The "men of every persuasion" she discusses, I think, made her hate the party. She very much wanted people to view Objectivism as a new way live their lives and I don't think she could stand that so many people she felt belonged in a different classification would gather into a group simply to be "anti" whatever elese there was. She believed people should live for things, not against them, and that people needed to be taught to live for themselves as their own highest purpose. With such an assemblage of different people grouping together to be against other principles, she felt that they were not making choices for their own benefit, but rather against the benefits of others.

It's interesting to me that someone who wrote for a living felt that the people considered the leaders of the Libertarian Party at the time were nothing more than publicity hounds. I personally find myself in a position to want to write and put forth ideas that I feel can help. I find it hard to believe that other writers or speakers discussing Liberty and Freedom and Capitalism at the time felt like they would just talk about such concepts out of self-promotion. Rand seemed particularly upset that they would steal her ideas and not credit her, as she should have been. I'm admittedly ignorant of who took what ideas from her, but it seems to me she wouldn't have been so upset had these same people been able to convey her ideas and teach people with such ruthless competence as herself and Peikoff were capable.

As to her point that it is impossible to educate through a political campaign, it is difficult to disagree. One learns nothing by listening to different people spouting different canned talking points. But I have to disagree that the political campaign is useless in spreading education. We see it now more than ever. Freedom and Liberty are, I think, more on the table now than ever before in my entire lifetime due primarily to Ron Paul's recent political campaign. Without that political campaign, it is impossible for me to believe that we would now have people again discussing F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman and yes, Ayn Rand as heroes of economy and philosophy as vehemently as we are. We also would not see movements like the Campaign for Liberty or Young Americans for Liberty. It's doubtful that educational reading by authors like Tom Woods would be so popular as it is now. Making important ideas highly visible to inspire people to educate themselves cannot be considered a bad thing.

Q: Have you ever heard of [Libertarian presidential candidate] Roger MacBride? [FHF: “?” 1976]

AR: My answer should be, “I haven’t.” There’s nothing to hear. I have been maintaining in everything I have said and written, that the trouble in the world today is philosophical; that only the right philosophy can save us. Now here is a party that plagiarizes some of my ideas, mixes it with the exact opposite—with religionists, anarchists, and just about every intellectual misfit and scum they can find—and they call themselves Libertarians, and run for office. I dislike Reagan and Carter; I’m not too enthusiastic about the other candidates. But the worst of them are giants compared to anybody who would attempt something as un-philosophical, low, and pragmatic as the Libertarian Party. It is the last insult to ideas and philosophical consistency.

This quote, I think best sums up Rand's issues with the Libertarian Party. Her belief that "the trouble in the world today is philosophical" is never moreso evident than it is today. Every person needs a philosophy to guide them, and Rand could not see a consistent philosophy that drove the Libertarian Party, and was angered that she became so associated with it.

I cannot speak to the beginnings of the Libertarian Party and whether or not it had a true guiding philosophy. But I can speak to where it is now. Libertarians believe in small government, true free-market capitalism, liberty and freedom as inherent for all, not given or granted, and respect of that freedom by all and for all.

Liberty, Freedom and Respect are ideas that sure seem like good philosophy to me.

On the Death of the GOP

For all the talk of the recent "conversion" back to their roots of being fiscally conservative, and the inherent hypocrisy as pertains to the huge overreaches and spending of the last eight years, there is a much bigger reason for the Republican Party losing its voters.

Don't get me wrong, prioritizing the expansion of the overseas empire and the egregious spending related to it are major, major issues in why Republicans have been unable to garner votes.

But this does not explain the Grand Old Party's loss of overall popularity in general. What does explain it, however, and I hate to say this because all through the election and up until yesterday he has been absolutely fantastic on the radio, is Rush Limbaugh. Not necessarily the man himself, but the words he spoke and the overriding sentinment that has been driving the Republican Party's populist movement that began with Reagan in the 80's.

People who don't believe in God believe in Obama. Agnostics, atheists, because believe me, a planeload of atheists on a jet on the way to Hawaii and three of the four engines go out, the atheists start praying to who? God. Not the ocean, to save 'em. Everybody believes in God at some point, but not until they face their mortality. Everybody does. They have some God. Very few people think they're it. Obama is one. I think when Obama prays, it's to himself.

Now, putting aside the fact that I personally don't believe in God and also don't believe in Obama, this statement in and of itself really encapsulates what has been wrong with the Republican Party since Reagan, and why even though their method of improving the economy via lower taxes and smaller government is a successful mix, they have yet to have been popular as a party in general.

This statement really represents the authoritarian nature of the populist "Religious Right," and its views on the way our country ought to live from a social standpoint.

This is the portion of the Right that started the War on Drugs. This is the portion of the Right that would deny even a woman raped by a thug in the street to choose to have an abortion. This is the portion of the Right that, with California staring bankruptcy in the face, would still fight the legalization of marijuana despite the fact that it would immediately become the state's highest grossing legal cash crop by a gigantic margin, simply because it would mean that more people might drive while high, while turning a blind eye to the question of alcohol's legality.

What the Republican Party has failed to realize ever since Reagan, is that they have won their elections almost solely on what has up until recently been viewed as a spectacularly successful economic policy. The American people have, in the meantime, very grudgingly accepted the GOP's authoritarian views on social issues. What the Republicans have been unable to understand over the past thirty years is that any American who believes in Liberty and Freedom for the individual not only dislikes the Republican stance on social issues, he absolutely hates it.

The authoritarian Religious Right is Pro Life. This is certainly a beautiful attitude to have. But this does not mean that they should have been pushing Pro Life as an agenda for law at the federal level. A Pro Lifer of the Religious Right would have us believe that the fabric of society itself is crumbling around us because people are having abortions. To be sure, our regulations on abortion are completely ridiculous at this point, when a teen girl can have the procedure without notification of the parent, but that same parent could see jail time for send that teen girl to school with some aspirin. However, this does not mean that it is right to eliminate the individual's freedom of choice over the matter.

I use freedom of choice over abortion simply as one of the most visible issues as to why people in general dislike the Republican Party. Similarly, the right for two people of the same gender to go before God in their own Church and their own community and be married is under attack. I can't possibly think of anything more ridiculous than stopping two people who love each other from marrying. There is no force so powerful as love and for the authoritarian Religious Right to shout from the rafters that a union of love between two people who are of age to consent to each other is somehow wrong is simply another example of how they would further limit individual freedom and liberty.

The Grand Old Party has lost its way. It is in the wilderness with no leader and no true goal, and it is there because its authoritarian nature on social issues has led it there. This bodes poorly for America as Obama and the Socialist Left in Congress now leads us down the path of an economic authoritarianism the likes of which we have never seen, and from which we will be lucky ever to recover our personal liberties.

There is a way out, however. There is a worn, hardscrabble path that we can yet barely make out. But in order to get there, those of us that believe in the true American Way, have to leave the Republican Party and its authoritarians to the vultures. Libertarians know the way forward. Take our hands and we will guide you to that path.

That path is Liberty.

That path is Freedom.

Top Obot's Eyes Beginning to Open

A week ago Andrew Sullivan apparently clicked the wrong link or something and wound up reading some Tom Woods. Like a moth to the flame of common sense, Sullivan began to realize that our country's monetary policy is the underlying issue of the financial mess.

Now today, Sullivan's eyes seem to be fluttering open and adjusting to just how bright the flame of common sense burns.

But like many, I remain nervous about heavy government intervention in the economy in anything but a short-term sense. The Republicans have zero, yes zero, credibility on fiscal matters and their inability to formulate a pragmatic critique of the stimulus, rather than have an ideological hissy-fit, is a symptom of their profound intellectual decline. But there is something lingering around this immediate crisis, and Obama's straddling of the leftward-moving center, that worries me for the long-term.

I fear the depression that we are in will lead to more and more decisions that, while pragmatic and defensible by themselves, can add up to a huge shift in government's role in ways that will not help and we may not recognize till it is too late; I worry that throwing a lifeline to some in a tail-spin might unwittingly lead to a deeper sense that deadbeats and gamblers will always be rewarded by government while hrifty and ethical people get the shaft; I worry that Keynesianism is not a panacea and may prevent a necessary long-term reckoning with debt and deadwood; I worry that the consequence-free, debt-fueled capitalism we let grow this past decade requires a nastier payback than we think we deserve.

Of course, even as he makes one of the most poignant observations I think I've ever seen him make, as usual with Sullivan, he misses the point. Well, he doesn't miss it, but he steamrolls his way right over it.

If you can look at the situation this country is in right now, at this very moment in time, and recognize that there could be ways in which the government will act with its newly usurped financial power over its people, then you have to understand that the government is, 100% of the time, going to act in those ways.

Sullivan no doubt fancies himself a pragmatic person by saying he worries about it, but overall figures it will be ok. The problem with this line of thinking, however, is that this is the line of thinking that has put big-government, authoritarian-minded progressives in charge of a people that never wanted it that way.

It is time that Sullivan, and other left-of-center liberals like him, begin to let their eyes focus in the light of common sense in which those of us who consider ourselves Libertarian bask every day.

If Sullivan and others that consider themselves to be on the left for the major reason of their social politics are worried that their Democrat Socialist President and Congress are juuuust a little bit too far left, let us remind them that nothing ever required them to be on the Left in the first place.

We believe in common sense. Small government that does not intrude in peoples lives in any manner, including in social values and most importantly, in the way that our taxes are used, meaning not to take our money to give it to people who don't and won't work for it, are what we stand for.

Libertarianism has the common sense you crave.

We are here for you, Andrew.

Grass Roots Liberty

The major, major focus of Obama's run to the Presidency was his ability to create a grass-roots movement heavily leaning on the young, as well as the internet. Indeed, many have credited his ability to be somewhat ahead of the curve (at least in politics) in terms of his use of technology to further his agendas.

In that vein, an organization is out there on campuses across the country, orgranized via the internet, that is promoting a return to our constitution and our highest ideal: Liberty.

That organization is Young Americans for Liberty. They're a continuation of the group Students for Ron Paul that sprang up during his primary candidacy.

Today they have been reporting on a nationwide campaign they established and executed during the coronation yesterday called "Real Change Requires R3volution."

The blog is young (as if I'm one to talk), as are many of its members, but they have national coverage and are active, taking the message of Liberty to the streets, in an effort to expand the message of Libertarianism beyond the limited circles which it currently occupies. I'm personally hoping the general vent of the expansion of Libertarianism over the next four years begins to encompass some element of common sense in the realm of foreign policy in order to better lend the movement legitimacy among the general populace. That said, the grass-roots movement and recruitment thus far, and YAL's ability to have carried off a nationwide recruitment drive in the face of The Rapture was impressive on the whole.

Their blog entries today, so far from Indiana, Wisconsin, Washington, Texas-San Antonio, Southeastern Louisiana, Idaho State and Texas-Austin have been cataloguing their demonstrations throughout the day, with some generally fascinating stories, and a promising receptiveness amongst even the O-bots.

Today the grass roots campaign for a return to Liberty has mobilized. I would encourage anyone and everyone to keep an eye movements happening with YAL, and also at Campaign for Liberty, and to join in if it smacks of what you're made of.