Monday, June 18, 2012
Libertarians and the security state
Conor Friedersdorf and I couldn't find that much to disagree about in my first ever Bloggingheads diavlog. But we did manage to get some debate going when it came to libertarians and politics.
Basically, my argument was that, by vastly overemphasizing taxes and regulation as threats to liberty, the american libertarian movement allied itself politically with the conservative movement; the conservatives then created the Security State, which is now by far the greatest threat to liberty in America. Thus, libertarians ended up working against liberty.
Conor's points are that A) Obama has mostly maintained the Security State (true), and B) the actual Libertarian Party is not allied with conservatives (a bit beside the point).
Anyway, we mostly agreed on everything, including higher education.
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No one has deconstructed the libertarian movement as you have. However, I still think the biggest problem with it is what you've mentioned here: in *theory* it is for a lot of non-conservative things, but in *practice* it is only for the conservative agenda. When I used to go to libertarian meetings, I was shocked that most of the people were big Rush Limbaugh fans. Go liberty!
ReplyDeleteBingo...
DeleteNoah, where do you come up with the nonsense that "the Security State," is not the biggest threat to liberty in the United States.
ReplyDeleteNot that I would rank the issue first, but the threat that government will outlaw abortion is many times more likely a threat to individual liberty than the "security state.
"Tort reform," which would eliminate the constitutional protections against wrong conduct by private individuals also is far more a threat to individual liberty than the security state.
In fact, I probably could list 100 libertarian/conservative positions that are a great threat to liberty than the security state
I disagree.
DeleteYour view of libertarianism seems to assume 80% of them are beltway low-taxes CATOists or Tyler Cowens who supported Bush and will support Romney, and 20% of them are more concerned about civil liberties, NDAA, etc and are supporting Gary Johnson/Ron Paul.
ReplyDeleteIt's really the other way round. The CATOists are hopelessly outnumbered.
Sounds like somebody is playing a game of 'No True Libertarian...'
DeleteNo, I just think it's sickeningly dishonest to claim to be a libertarian or even libertarian-leaning and then support the Iraq war, the PATRIOT Act, indefinite detention and extrajudicial drone strikes on citizens, policies that I think go absolutely against the core of modern and historical libertarianism.
DeleteThe beltway-corporate libertarians aren't ideological, they're just using libertarian rhetoric when it suits them.
On the other hand, because of this stuff the term "libertarian" is now a dirty label altogether. I won't use it to describe myself. Carries way too much baggage. I think maybe we should be more specific than adopting whole ideological banners, which I think is Conor's position too.
No, I just think it's sickeningly dishonest to claim to be a libertarian or even libertarian-leaning and then support the Iraq war, the PATRIOT Act, indefinite detention and extrajudicial drone strikes on citizens, policies that I think go absolutely against the core of modern and historical libertarianism.
DeleteOh, of course it is. Do you think the modern "Christian right" is anything that Jesus or the early Christians would have endorsed?
Movements are defined by who is in them. If "true" libertarians are pissed at the garden-variety conservatives who have co-opted their movement, there is a clear course of action: Purge them.
The problem with True Libertarian Ron Paul's opposition to the Iraq war -- is the alternative.
ReplyDeleteAs the world drifts day by day closer to Iran getting a nuke, and then presumably using it on Tel Aviv, do Libertarians think world liberty is better left by non-intervention? Some, maybe most, do.
Others might not.
Certainly to the 1.5 mil Killing Fields murdered Cambodians, their liberty was sharply curtailed by the Paris Peace Treaty, the US leaving and accepting N. Viet violations and takeover of the South, and commie takeover in Cambodia.
Or does Liberty count only for Americans?
(But, if so, where's the problem in the US military domination?)
The current level of Security State in the US is primarily due to the stupid War on Drugs, and also Islamofascism, the wife-beating Muslims who believe it's good to kill Americans.
But we might disagree on this.
In general, successful politics is choosing allies with whom one can win on an issue, then join forces and win. Like Obama did on Obamacare, an almost pure Dem increase in the Security/Nanny state.
Big gov't, including big military, is an enemy of freedom. The peaceful, private sector is not the gov't, force based sector (and it shouldn't be called "public").