That Frothy Mixture of Statism and the GOP
Matt Welch | August 4, 2005, 2:23pm
Today's reminder that Republican conservatives and libertarians are no longer peas in a pod comes from deservedly reviled Congressman Rick Santorum:
One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a libertarianish right. The left has gone so far left and the right in some respects has gone so far right that they come around in the circle. [...]
This whole idea of personal autonomy -- I don't think that most conservatives hold that point of view. Some do. And they have this idea that people should be left alone to do what they want to do, that government should keep taxes down, keep regulation down, that we shouldn't get involved in the bedroom, that we shouldn't be involved in cultural issues, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world. And I think that most conservatives understand that we can't go it alone, that there is no such society that I'm aware of where we've had radical individualism and it has succeeded as a culture.
John | August 4, 2005, 3:44pm | #
Santorum is just stating the obvious. Most people in this country are not libertarians. They may have libertarian tendencies about some things, but they are not libertarians. More importantly, most people are not libertines, which is what most libertarians have become and what has come to pass for what used to be libertarianism. A libertarian believes that government should not interfere with the individual or society. That does necessarily mean that there should not be societal mores and that society itself is not free to make its own rules outside of government complete with sanctions such as ostracism. The issue for a true libertarian is the individual's relationship to the government, not the individual's relationship to society or other individuals.
A libertine, which is what most self-professed libertarians really are, is someone who doesn't even think society has claim on his autonomy; essentially, if it feels good do it.
A libertarian will object to the government regulating people's sex lives but admit that there are large social consiquences of promiscuity and that sexual mores are something that society as a whole should deal should try to encourage. The rub is when the coercive power of government is used. Its perfectly libertarian to say that drugs ought to be legal but also in your personal capacity object to the morons who believe that drugs are not harmful. The libertine, in contrast, views rampant promiscuity or drug use as perfectly acceptable regardless of the cost and objects to society coercing the individual in any way.
In that sense the Democratic Party is much more libertine than the Republican Party. The Democratic Party is the party of the 1960s, the sexual revolution and the like. I think this is partially what Santorum is getting at. Democrats of course are not libertarian, despite their libertine tendancies, which makes them a threat to liberty. They would not ban homosexuality the way some Republicans would, instead they would if given the opportunity, make it a crime to object homosexuality by branding views they see as objectionable as "hate speech".
America as a whole, in contrast, has never been particularly libertine. It may have been libertarian in some ways, but it has never up until the 1960s been libertine. American has been and continues to be predominantly Protestant and generally pretty moralistic. Yes, there is a leave me along mentality, but that mentality has always been balanced by a pretty puritan populace. Most people in this country have a traditional view of morality and object to things like drug use, homosexuality, rampant promiscuity, and the like, for better or worse. That is why the majority of the people do not get too upset about things like the drug war, regardless of its failures, or attempts to ban homosexual marriage. The populace may have a libertarian streak about some things, but they are not libertines.
Libertarians would advance their cause a lot further if they would distinguish themselves from libertines and make the distinction between public and private action. Just because the government is not the solution to a problem doesn't mean that there isn't a problem. It seems that this distinction often gets lost and what gets put out as libertarianism is just a non-philosophy of saying anything someone wants to do, if it doesn't involve use of government power is wonderful. That is never going to fly and I think hurts the cause of trying to limit government power.
Jason Ligon | August 4, 2005, 4:25pm | #
The LP is not, and cannot, be an effective use of a vote in a winner takes all system unless it is perceived to have taken away victory from one of the two major parties. At that point, it will have a portion of its platform adopted.
Here is the problem, though. The LP, and many libertarians outside of the LP, insists on being the Party of Principle. If you don't swallow the LP line whole, you are a traitor to principle and no better than a Democrat or a Republican or whoever the bad guy du jour happens to be. Since in a winner takes all election all significant voting blocs must be adopted by one of the two major parties, if it is known that neither party will get a Libertarian constituency unless it can swallow the essentially the whole LP platform, neither party will ever court libertarians. Congratulations, you are the party of principle that has principled yourself into total politcal isolation.
Further, the LP is nothing but kooks. I've been to the meetings. All forms of reason get shouted down in a shower of platitudes, Harry Browe style. I met him. He's a jackass. I've got news for you. Starting from our current state of governance, it is harmful to the cause of individual liberty to scream from the rooftops that you want to destroy the IRS. The faithful cheer while the vastly more numerous nonbelievers laugh. The LP is more harmful to the advance of liberty as an acceptable political concept than most people seem to appreciate. Its greatest accomplishment is to make the idea that humans should be free to live their lives as they see fit sound like complete lunacy to the average voter.
To be politically effective, you must prioritize some portion of your libertarian vision, condense the abstract into a policy of some sort, and seek a strong coalition to advance your policy.
In my case, the right of self defense is a deal breaker. I will NEVER advance the interests of a coaltion who has adopted a position that threatens me on self defence. The Democrats have shut up on that issue, so my decisions can now be more complex. For me, the next issue of critical importance is - Who is going to save me from the Baby Boomers? With their numbers on the rise and their departure from the work force into the dependent class, they will have the clout to vote themselves my whole paycheck every week. They will have the clout to ensure a nationalized healthcare system that emphasizes distribution of free drugs to them while tossing aside the development I think is much more critical.
Again, I find myself thinking that the Dems will be of no help. I'm all ears, though.
Skeptikos | August 4, 2005, 4:36pm | #
libertine...blah...libertine...blah....(republican agent)...blah...blah....libertine (republican agent)
FREEDOM...libertine is the word republicans use to degrade freedom lovers.
you know, as an aside, I've managed to line up about 200 Chicago musicians on a "liberty" platform. I believe that if we wanted, we could get a libertarian elected in the next cycle. But we won't help them. We will probably put our weight behind some independents. Why? Because of the fact that Libertarians in America EVER believed that fools like conservatives wanted anything but power.
I have always felt betrayed by CATO and many organizations of it's type. Why?
Here is one great example, African Americans are essentially conservative, but they vote democratic because they want citizen rights which conservatives have denied them (I'm not talking about affirmative action, I'm talking about police actions)...CATO's response...like Murphy in Sea Lab...TOO BAD
The LP right now could be elected in Illinois if they only realize that opposing statism, and supporting basic constitutional rights is all Illinois minorities want right now (for instance African Americans are resoundingly in favor of school choice, limited government, gun rights)...but libertarians can't see them, 'cause they are afraid of statism, when they don't even see that it is statism that relegates them to second class status.
Look the LP is not interested in Liberty, no matter what is said. They have betrayed every freedom loving individual every day of the last ten years. The Libertarian party has been used, very, very successfully to drain off support of freedom loving Americans.
Last Saturday night, at a music show at the mutiny (mostly white crowd that night), I recruited another 10 or so...they all start out the same way...telling me that they know that the democrats don't represent them...but....I snapped them up...no LP party member could have done that...because no LP party member would have said "Damn right...fuck the pigs....we're free men and women aren't we!!" I don't talk about the gold standard (an obsession with IL LP members) I talk about freedom. Freedom from the government.
Something Libertarians forgot about.
fluffy | August 4, 2005, 6:43pm | #
Well, I don't think the federal courts would have been involved in these particular cases, so it would cut down the expense somewhat.
And despite your disingenuous tone, it is not disputed at this point that Standard Oil, on more than one occasion, violently interfered with the attempts of other companies to build pipelines. "Violently" meaning "organizing bands of men to attack pipeline construction crews".
Since I have never come across any record of any of the Rockefellers being charged in these instances, I conclude that the state courts in the areas where this took place, for one reason or another, chose to fail to enforce the law.
Since there have certainly been other instances in American history where local police and courts failed to prosecute powerful figures due to corruption, it isn't unreasonable to conclude that corruption may have been involved here, too.
The Standard monopoly was never an extraction monopoly. They didn't own all the oil fields. Standard was a refining monopoly partially supported by a transportation advantage. They obtained their transportation advantage by using the volume of their shipping to negotiate preferential shipping terms from railroads [which should have been perfectly OK, as far as I am concerned] and by controlling all of the regional pipelines. This meant that their advantage [and their monopoly] would collapse if someone else was able to successfully operate a pipeline from the main Pennsylvania extraction area to a refining center. They prevented this from happening, where they could, with good old competition and with payments to holders of rights-of-way - but when that didn't work, they didn't shrink from using violence.
If Standard had been punished for this behavior and the companies that had attempted to launch competing pipelines had been made whole, the monopoly would have fallen of its own accord and there would not have been a need for federal antitrust legislation.
Dave W. | August 4, 2005, 7:37pm | #
antitrust lessons:
1. Markets stop happening when there stop being a multitude of suppliers that act independently of each other. We routinely call things like the cola market "markets," but they are not even close and do not evince much of the invisible hand that make markets so magic.
2. Redistributing autonomy, part I: I meant redistributing supplier autonomy to the demand side of the market. Antitrust law does this when it decreases supplier's autonomy to co-ordinate, grow or aggeragte, but simultaneously increases the amount of consumer choice.
3. Redistributing autonomy, part II: No, this is not a discussion for geeks only. Example. Recently I had a H'n'R discussion arguing that fm radio was not a market because there were way too few suppliers. Some Reasoner responded that there was no competition problem because of XM and cds and ipods. Whatta crock! My car has like 50 fm slots. I want some choice. I deserved some choice. I am sure that there were advertisers who would have loved to get to me, too. Instead I got 5 (give or take) stations of crap from 1987 to 2005 and my fm radio has remained off most of the time. That is what happens when markets are consolidated. Yeah, I did eventually get a cd player in the ol' jeepster, but no triumph of demand side autonomy here. So Clear Channel got additional autonomy, basically at the expense of my (and everyone else's) autonomy. What I am saying is that this is not a zero sum game. Clear Channel's additional autonomy to consolidate is a pittance compared to the aggregate autonomy of the disgusted-with-fm-radio crowd taken as a whole.
4. Perspective: You guys think that Standard Oil and M$ are great examples of typical antitrust. You don't understand the half of it, at least from a policy perspective. When suppliers start co-ordinating, you don't have the invisible hand anymore. You quickly lose anything that can be fairly called a market. I am saying that antitrust should be brought in any time suppliers stop setting their prices substantially independently of each other. This isn't just Standard Oil and M$. Its healthcare, gas, canned beans, you name it. Antitrust doesn't destroy capitalism, rather it is a theoretically neccessary rule to even have capitalism, which capitalism we have lost and are too stupid to realize it. Even A. Smith understood that multiple, redundant *truly independent* decisionmaking is needed on the supply side, even though: (1) supply side consolidation was not such as big issue an issue in Smith's day (no phones, no faxes); and (2) he didn't call it antitrust.
5. Antitrust -- a dirty word: some of the posters point at that big business has killed antitrust, and some even insinuate that people could get into some kind of trouble for suggesting it be brought back. So, Standard Oil has re-merged, bigger than ever. Yup, and their lobbyists have convinced Congress to obscure blame for 9-11 on the country that funded the bastards and then proceeded to get us into a "mysterious" Iraq. $500 million for alternative energy researh, but $100 billion for the Middle East war chest. All this is why we need antitrust more than ever. Y'alls drawin the wrong lesson.
thoreau | August 4, 2005, 10:14pm | #
So, here are my thoughts on prospects for a libertarian third party movement:
Tactics: In our system of plurality voting/winner-take-all, there's not much room for a third party to win many elections. Oh, it will happen here and there (e.g. Jesse Ventura) but these things are rare. The best that a third party can do is:
1) Elect people to local non-partisan offices, where the major parties can't capitalize on their name brand recognition.
2) Win the occasional partisan office. Rare, but it happens now and then. Several years ago the Greens elected somebody to the CA State Assembly. I think they elected somebody in Maine a few years ago. The LP has elected people to state legislatures here and there.
3) Make intelligent use of the spoiler effect: Identify particularly egregious major party candidates in close races and try to make them lose by a margin that is smaller than the third party candidate's total. And if it works, after the election contact the winner and remind him or her that the third party captured a bloc of votes large enough to decide the race.
Or maybe announce this strategy
before the election: Say that any incumbent who votes against a tax cut, or for a tax hike, or some other pressing issue, will face a spoiler in the next election. I believe that an LP affiliate in the Pacific Northwest did this with some success a few years ago.
In any case, focus on races where small numbers are significant.
A useful complement to this strategy is to add a carrot to the stick: When a decent maverick from a major party comes along, refrain from running a challenger against him. Or, if it's necessary to have somebody on the ballot to secure ballot access for the future, run a low-key candidate who will quietly collect his 0.1% and not raise a fuss.
Once the power of the stick has been demonstrated (by spoiling a few races), a successful and organized third party can even offer incumbents the chance to become "certified" mavericks: Identify key priorities, reasonable measures (where "reasonable" means more than token but less than purity) and promise to endorse incumbents who vote in favor of priorities, and who vote against the most egregious proposals.
Strategy: All of the things outlined above are easier if the third party vehicle has a
moderate platform. When I say moderate,
I don't mean sell-out! I mean a platform that is a significant improvement over the status quo but reasonable enough to be considered in the current political environment, and devoid of the most manifestly kooky ideas. And yes, I know, even a modest libertarian platform would still turn off a lot of voters. That's why above I deliberately identified ideas that don't require huge numbers.
How to construct such a platform? Well, here's a suggestion: Start by asking yourself which GOP ideas you actually like. Put them on the list. Next, take the best ideas that the ACLU has to offer (notice that I said their BEST ideas, not ALL of their ideas). Oh, and the best ideas that IJ has to offer.
What else? Well, a genuine committment to spending restraint might be nice. A willingness to support the free market over the interests of big business (when the two conflict) would be nice, and it would win the respect of some liberals. (No, not all liberals, but I began this post by identifying tactics that can work for small numbers.) A socially tolerant demeanor goes a long way electorally.
Most important, a successful libertarian-style party needs a platform that focuses on "What is the first step toward reform?", rather than "What will libertopia look like when we get there?"
Shawn Smith | August 5, 2005, 4:40pm | #
Floppy drive not working? WTF? Was it in a laptop? IDE drives (floppy, hard, and later, CD/DVD) have been pretty solid since the 1.2.* kernel days ('98 timeframe). WinModems were well-known to be a huge problem, and I wouldn't put too much faith in any hardware that was advertised as "certified for Windows" working with other OSs (including OS/2, btw.)
I'm sorry you had such a tough time installing GNU/Linux, but I'm not convinced that it was because Microsoft told the hw manufacturers to make sure no other OS would work with those devices. I believe you overestimate the value that most consumers would put as to which operating system a computer is running. Most just want to play games, read e-mail, browse the internet, download music, write letters, watch movies, or make lists. Of course, I could be wrong about that, in which case you point is quite valid.
My one month estimate for writing a device driver was to cover the time to code for various versions of the Linux kernel and producing all the extraneous paperwork that most professional software development usually requires. It could be high or low, depending on the device. I have read Allesandro Rubini's book, so I am vaguely familiar with what's required to write a device driver, even though I haven't done it myself.
P.S. What's with the "LINUX" instead of Linux, or GNU/Linux, or Red Hat, or Mandrake, or SuSE, or Debian, etc.? Just curious.
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