In the couple of days, I’ve seen two different articles focusing on that “L” word. Not “liberal.” Libertarian. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that prior to my current life as a right wing wacko with serious lassez-faire tendencies, I was formerly an actual card carrying member of the Libertarian Party. This was before I realized that the world was as much about power as it was about liberty, that the Libertarians didn’t have any power, and weren’t likely to wield political power much more extensive than the occasional dog catcher, back-bench state legislator, or end-of-the-bench alderman.
Plus, Ronald Reagan really was a pretty darn good President.
Anyway, back to the strange confluence of articles about libertarians. First, the Wall Street Journal’s Opinionjournal.com site ran a Julia Gorin piece titled Party On![*1] Her money paragraph:
Politically, the Libertarian world isn’t a bad place to be. Libertarians have more credibility with the left than Republicans do, even though their conservative side is callous compared with the charitable Christian right. And they have more credibility with the right than Democrats do, despite being more godless than the left. If Republicans and Democrats are the thesis and antithesis, Libertarians are a synthesis.
It’s perhaps noteworthy that the column runs on their “On The Fringe” section. See above comment re: dogcatchers.
Then, I stumble across a Pejman Yousefzadeh article on Tech Central Station: Saving the Marriage: Conservatism and Libertarianism[*2] . This much more serious article tries to salvage what Yousefzadeh sees as the fraying coalition of libertarians and conservatives.
(Law professor Randy) Barnett also best makes the argument in favor of a continued collaboration between libertarians and conservatives for the purposes of augmenting each faction’s political power. As Barnett aptly notes, via the creation of a Libertarian Party, libertarians have prevented themselves from gaining influence in either the Democratic or Republican parties. As noted above, libertarians and conservatives can and should find common cause on a number of key policy issues and fundamental political principles, so if libertarians wish to enhance their political strength, they should find a natural home in the Republican Party. Their entry should be welcomed by conservatives who sense the creation — at long last — of a governing political majority that will displace and eclipse the remnants of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal majority, and who should look for any and all opportunities to expand that coalition. Each side, therefore, has an interest in courting the other and furthering the historic political partnership with one another.
I would think that the prospect of securing the GOP’s status as a majority party for at least a generation would hold some appeal for even the most unreconstructed paleoconservative, not to mention the shady and dangerous neocons.
