Where Do Libertarians Belong?

Reason Magazine in hosting this debate. They lead off with a piece by Brink Lindsey calling for a complete split with the Right.

There is no question that the last decade has been a bad one for Libertarians. George W. Bush was a big-government Republican. Prior to 9/11, his two significant accomplishments were No Child Left Behind and the Medicare drug benefit - both significant expansions of government. Bush's two wars, especially the war in Iraq, also alienated many Libertarians. The Bush administration was a poor champion of individual rights, especially broadcast speech. This lead Libertarians like Lindsey to propose an alignment with the Left back in 2006. The theory was that the Left was the true protector of individual rights and as good a fit for Libertarians as the Right.

The problem with that theory is that Lindsey was looking back at the Liberals of his youth instead of the Progressives who have taken over the party. While it is true that some Progressive goals mirror Libertarian ones - things like gay rights, drug legalization, and anti-war - these are not major goals of the Democrats and the Democrats who endorse these tend to be Progressive on most other issues. On most issues, Progressives are the polar opposites of Libertarians. Progressives hate free markets and want to insinuate the government into as many aspects of life as possible.

You might think that Lindsey would propose an alliance with the Tea Party movement. After all, they share more values with Libertarians than Progressives do. Lindsey will have none of it. He finds them "authoritarian and unpopular" plus he despises Tea Party darlings like Sarah Palin and Glen Beck. After several hundred words savaging the Right, he does manage to throw in one sentence acknowledging that aligning with the Left is equally unappealing. Instead he suggests heading for the center. He wants to lower the importance of free markets and raise the importance of individual freedoms.

All of this reminds me of why I stopped subscribing to Reason Magazine. They changed their focus. The new editorial staff moved to DC and the new editorial focus seemed to concentrate more on being cool than anything else.

The Tea Party agrees with Lindsey on many more issues than the Left did in 2006 when he proposed allying with them, so, why won't he associate with the likes of Palin or Beck? Because they are not cool enough. He wants to be able to hang out with Liberals without the shame of consorting with Conservatives. If the Conservatives suddenly rediscover free markets and small government then the Libertarians need to deemphasize it and start talking about individual liberties.

If Lindsey wasn't trying to cozy up to the Left he would notice that they have their own problems with individual liberty. Yes, they are pro-abortion and pro-pot but they invented speech codes and hate speech laws. They think that the FDA and the EPA have not gone far enough.

For the first time since the Reagan years, the Right is taking Libertarian ideas seriously. Lindsey needs to try to embrace this shift and guide it rather than recoil from it because it isn't as cerebral as he is.