The Free View-- weblog of a presidential candidate

The Libertarian Factor, or "problem" if you will

John Miller writes in a New York Times op-ed about "the libertarian problem" that is plaguing the Republicans ("A Third Party On The Right"). I have to tell you, this is the kind of stuff I love, love, LOVE to see. Not because I think it could give Republicans a much-needed wake-up call, as Randy Barnett at National Review Online hopes. I love it because it concedes the obvious but little-stated reality that the Libertarian Party is having a profound effect on the Two Parties.

I don't particularly care about the off-chance that Republicans might wake up and get religion, so to speak, as regards libertarianism. Randy Barnett thinks they can win back that key margin if they try hard enough, and he lays out a list of proposals on how Republicans could become "more libertarian" and "keep libertarians inside the tent".

The reasons I don't care much about the "wake-up call" factor are both centered around the fact that it's not going to work. Reason one is that most Libertarians aren't ever going to go back to whichever Two Party they came from. They will never trust the Democrat or Republican parties to properly respect freedom. Both parties are so far off the path, and have been for so long, and so willingly, that it's absurd to think that either of them will change enough to bear any legitimate claim to the title of "libertarian".

It used to be that Democrats favored violating certain (largely economic) freedoms, and Republicans favored violating certain (largely personal) freedoms. Now they work in concert, "in the spirit of bipartisanship", to violate freedoms on both sides of the aisle. The majority of the party leaders and representatives don't even bother to hide the fact that they're basically partners with the other party. They can barely speak a sentence without the word "bipartisan" in it.

Most people who are pulling the voting lever for Libertarian candidates see this farce for what it is, and it would take a titanic (as in massive) shift-- not the Titanic (as in the ship) shift the Bipartisans are embarking on -- to convince them otherwise. Both parties will continue to lose increasing numbers of voters to Libertarians...the tide is not going to start shifting the other way any time in the foreseeable future.

Which brings me to reason two that the "wake-up call" is a relative non-issue: they aren't waking up. Not even close. A quick look at Randy's proposals bares the lie. It reads like "Republican Talking Points From Oppositeland". Half of his proposals are things the GOP is rabidly opposed to, particularly at this juncture-- stuff like respecting privacy and the Bill of Rights, not to mention backing off prohibition, of all things. Really, the whole list is dreamland stuff. The Bush Administration is the biggest thing to hit U.S. government since F.D.R., and if King George has his way, it'll be the biggest thing since Lincoln. Republicans are headed firmly away from all the supposed "republican" qualities that people admired about them-- free markets, leave-me-alone-ism, states' rights, you name it. The only "Republican" quality they seem to be firmly holding onto is serving Big Business. And that's not even a rightfully republican stance. Oh, and war-mongering. Of all the Rebublican stuff they decide to stick with, it's those two.

And, back to the point, they're not sticking to the old-school "republican" things Randy Barnett suggests. The only one of his points that has any possibility of coming to light is the appointments of libertarian-ish judges, but given the Administration's overt desire to steamroll civil liberties, gut the balance of power, employ a police state of indefinite duration, and generally eliminate privacy, my hunch is that the judge-nomination-sifter will probably catch most of the libertarians and toss them out. Way too inconvenient in times such as these.

Republicans who want to bring Libertarians "back into the fold" (and for the record, I didn't come from that fold) are wishing in the wrong direction. It's not that the Republican Party needs a revitalizing dose of pure-bred Libertarians -- it's that the Libertarian Party needs an infusion of libertarian GOP defectees. The Republican Party is hopelessly damaged, and the Libertarian Party is inspiringly pure. It's clear which way the tide should be heading, and it should be clear that it will continue to head that way.