The Free View-- weblog of a presidential candidate

The Essential Hurdle for Libertarians

I come from Massachusetts, the heart of the Democratic Party in many ways. Home of the Kennedys -- and hardly a day goes by there when some reminder of that fact doesn't come up. My mother is a Democrat -- a Massachusetts Kennedy Democrat. That's a special breed of Democrat -- one who holds onto the romantic vision of JFK and RFK, and the whole Kennedy feeling, and wraps that around their view of the Democratic Party, then tops it off with pride in being from the veritable bastion of Kennedy Democraticism, Massachusetts.

That's what I was raised under. I supported Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election, when practically no one supported Jimmy Carter. I didn't really know why -- I was just a kid -- but I supported him by default. I remember getting laughed at in school when I expressed hope that he would win.

But there was more to it than being raised to identify with the party -- in fact, that was the smaller half of it. What's more important is that I was raised to identify with the party's values, as perceived by my mother. They were: helping people, especially the poor; representing the 'working man' and the 'little guy', and women's rights; fighting the Republicans, who served the rich; and taking care of those who couldn't take care of themselves. That's what my mom thought was important, and still does, and that's why she supported the Democratic Party, and still does.

I absorbed a lot of that. I grew up living within most of those interest groups -- we were generally poor, my mom was a working single mother of three, and I lived with three women (two sisters and my mom). And with as little money as we had, my mother "adopted" a really poor family in Mississippi, sending them a little money and care packages each month. She worked anywhere from 1 to 3 jobs at a time throughout my upbringing, and we knew well that every week was a struggle to make ends meet. In many ways, we were deep in the heart of the target market of the Democratic Party.

All that I absorbed then is still with me -- all of it except the Democratic Party. I still believe that the poor and the disadvantaged and the helpless and women and minorities and workers and anyone else holding onto the short end of whatever stick they've got should be represented, defended, helped, respected, and supported. I know what it's like to be poor (I know it all too well), and I know what it's like to work for too little money at a lame job, and to be unemployed, and to live below an acceptable level. And I know the struggle is hard -- I know all about it. I've spent most of my life in one or another of the many groups that Democrats and "progressives" continually insist we all must help.

All this adds up to make me an unusual Libertarian, because I don't scorn liberals. I identify with them. I care about almost everything they care about. I could be (and have been) called a "bleeding heart". Right now, I'm advertising to greens via Google AdWords, because I believe that my vision of the future is very similar to theirs.

Libertarians who are reading this might be pretty worried by now, but I can explain. First, let me distinguish between liberals and statist/socialists, in my usage. To me, liberals are people who care about the things and people I've been talking about. I left out the environment (because my mom wasn't huge on that issue), but that should be added too. They want those things and people protected, supported, etc. Statists are folks who believe that government should be the main means of accomplishing most anything, and socialists are people who envision a commune-like setup (enforced benevolently by government), where everyone gets an essentially equal ration of what everyone (altogether) has.

Statists and socialists are problematic -- the former moreso than the latter. But I'm fine with liberals. People on "the left" can be one, two, or all three of those things, but they aren't all necessarily intertwined.

For most people, it's about the end, not the means. To most people the means is, well, just a means to an end. They just want the end -- as quickly and cheaply as possible, please.

And there's the rub. There lies the meeting place between me (and other Libertarians) and liberals -- not to mention moderates, and many others in this country (because I think most people care about the people and things I've been talking about here).

Libertarianism -- the view of an America full of free individuals -- is the means that will deliver the end that most people envision. My vision includes help for the poor and disadvantaged. My vision is a world where people are not discriminated based on race, or sex, or anything else but their humanity and their character. My vision is one where the environment, and wildlife, are nurtured and protected. It's a vision where workers get paid a living wage, and where opportunity is ripe for the picking, and jobs are prevalent. On top of that, it's a vision of a world that's virtually crime and terrorism-free, and where the "peace for all time" that John F. Kennedy spoke of can begin to take root.

Libertarianism is the cheapest and quickest means to achieve that end, and that fact doesn't get discussed nearly enough. This is at least in part due to the fact that the Libertarian Party and the libertarian movement grew out of the conservative movement, and the majority of libertarians are probably reformed conservatives. So they've grown up despising liberals, and you can read many a libertarian screed attacking that group.

I don't attack liberals, though. I'll go after Democrats, or statists, or socialists, and those in the Greens who align with those three groups, but I consider liberals to be my political kin in many ways. I want most of the same ultimate results that they want. I just know that we're never going to get there as long as we continue to rely on government to bring us there.

It astonishes me that my liberal friends fail to see that, since almost all the liberals I know are wildly disgusted with our political system and our government, but that remains as the major difference between me and so many Greens and Democrats I talk to. They and I both see a similar goal, a similar desired result. They want to mandate it, or make it "free", or achieve the goal through regulation. In other words, they want government to do the job.

To me, it's so glaringly obvious that government is the wrong means to almost every end we desire -- there are 1000 news stories a day with evidence of that fact -- that I wouldn't think of entrusting any job I consider important to its care. Most of my friends seem to recognize that as well, in large part -- but they just can't believe in or envision a world where this or that problem would be solved without government's help.

Painting that picture -- clearly, vividly, and credibly -- is absolutely essential for Libertarians, if we want to achieve victory in America. It is far and away our biggest hurdle, and our most pressing challenge. Our proposed means are correct, I'm convinced of that -- and if you ask around, the most positive thing people say about libertarians is "I respect their principled stands", or something like that. Most of our infrastructure is in place, and we have roots and foundations across the country. Our ideas are good, our public awareness efforts are good, and more and more we are included in the political family of America. But our efforts at expressing a clear, thorough, positive, convincing vision of America -- our efforts at painting a picture of the peaceful near-paradise that most of us actually do envision -- have not been sufficient to the task.

I plan to do my part to change that, and I hope that others will follow my example, and the example of other people in the movement who see the same problem I do and are working to solve it. I think the transformation is underway, and it should be encouraged and fostered. We don't need to sacrifice our principles in order to create a persuasive vision. (If we do, then we have a much bigger problem on our hands).

The good news is that projecting that vision is the only essential problem left for us to solve. The bad news is that it is essential that we solve it. I don't expect that I, or any other Libertarian, will be elected president until we do.