bobbyw24
06-22-2010, 11:29 AM
Suddenly Libertarianism has become the newest fashion among the paranoid in American politics. But be not deceived; they are just as reactionary and extreme as their more deranged and schizophrenic political brethren on the far, far right who want to "take back" the government they hate in order to cripple it.
But libertarians are getting a measure of respect in much of the main stream press, and approval by 38 percent of Americans, largely as a result of its two most prominent figures, Rep. Ron Paul, a likeable Texas Republican, and his son Randall (Rand), who has captured the Republican nomination for the Kentucky Senate seat being vacated by a true oddball, Jim Bunning, a former star major league pitcher.
Perhaps Rand Paul, a practicing opthamologist who ran as a Tea bagger, seemed sane compared to Bunning and the Kentucky Republican establishment that ran Bunning out of office, then endorsed a front man for the GOP regulars. I'm not sure why the Pauls ally themselves with Republicans, most of whom stand for policies, deficit spending, and the kind of central government they hate. They could follow the lead of liberal socialists like Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, who votes with the Democrats (not all the time) but lists himself as an independent. Rather, as we shall see, these libertarians are not independent from the right-wing Republican Party.
But the Pauls and Libertarianism are getting a relatively friendly press because they are not firebrands and Libertarianism seems a rather benign, principled ideology, which calls for the smallest central government possible. Ron Paul has been a loyal Republican in the House, but when he ran for President in 2008 he seemed more eccentric than threatening. And he has differed from most of the Congress in opposing George Bush's war in Iraq and his violations of civil liberties.
The positions of the Libertarian Party ,founded in 1971, seem benign and consisting of mere slogans. It is holding its convention this spring with the theme "Gateway to Liberty," and some of its positions on civil liberties (not civil rights) and the war in Iraq, which Ron Paul opposed, are admirable. But where principled libertarianism goes off the rails is its insistence on a small government as envisioned by agrarian President Thomas Jefferson. It's not only hypocritical, but useless and dangerous.
I recall ongoing conversation I had some years ago with one of the officials of the Cato Institute, Washington's leading, and richest libertarian think tank. He held that Jefferson made a mistake, in setting a precedent for expanding presidential power when he undertook to make the Louisiana Purchase, 828,000 square miles west of the Mississippi. from New Orleans to the Canadian border for about $15 million.
My Cato friend argued, as Jefferson's conservative critics argued then, that the Constitution did not specifically permit such presidential power. Jefferson, who feared that the Spanish, French and English could establish colonies along the Mississippi and cut off the nation's western expansion, argued that the Constitution did not prohibit the president from taking such action.
Since then, libertarians have regularly argued that presidents and the Congress have trampled on the Constitution's limitations and expanded government for purposes that limited te freedom of the individual to make his/her own decisions and take responsibility for his/her actions. That is essentially the Cato view, which favors "the traditional American principles of limited government, individual liberty, free markets and peace."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/saul-friedman/libertarians-the-paranoid_b_620966.html
But libertarians are getting a measure of respect in much of the main stream press, and approval by 38 percent of Americans, largely as a result of its two most prominent figures, Rep. Ron Paul, a likeable Texas Republican, and his son Randall (Rand), who has captured the Republican nomination for the Kentucky Senate seat being vacated by a true oddball, Jim Bunning, a former star major league pitcher.
Perhaps Rand Paul, a practicing opthamologist who ran as a Tea bagger, seemed sane compared to Bunning and the Kentucky Republican establishment that ran Bunning out of office, then endorsed a front man for the GOP regulars. I'm not sure why the Pauls ally themselves with Republicans, most of whom stand for policies, deficit spending, and the kind of central government they hate. They could follow the lead of liberal socialists like Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, who votes with the Democrats (not all the time) but lists himself as an independent. Rather, as we shall see, these libertarians are not independent from the right-wing Republican Party.
But the Pauls and Libertarianism are getting a relatively friendly press because they are not firebrands and Libertarianism seems a rather benign, principled ideology, which calls for the smallest central government possible. Ron Paul has been a loyal Republican in the House, but when he ran for President in 2008 he seemed more eccentric than threatening. And he has differed from most of the Congress in opposing George Bush's war in Iraq and his violations of civil liberties.
The positions of the Libertarian Party ,founded in 1971, seem benign and consisting of mere slogans. It is holding its convention this spring with the theme "Gateway to Liberty," and some of its positions on civil liberties (not civil rights) and the war in Iraq, which Ron Paul opposed, are admirable. But where principled libertarianism goes off the rails is its insistence on a small government as envisioned by agrarian President Thomas Jefferson. It's not only hypocritical, but useless and dangerous.
I recall ongoing conversation I had some years ago with one of the officials of the Cato Institute, Washington's leading, and richest libertarian think tank. He held that Jefferson made a mistake, in setting a precedent for expanding presidential power when he undertook to make the Louisiana Purchase, 828,000 square miles west of the Mississippi. from New Orleans to the Canadian border for about $15 million.
My Cato friend argued, as Jefferson's conservative critics argued then, that the Constitution did not specifically permit such presidential power. Jefferson, who feared that the Spanish, French and English could establish colonies along the Mississippi and cut off the nation's western expansion, argued that the Constitution did not prohibit the president from taking such action.
Since then, libertarians have regularly argued that presidents and the Congress have trampled on the Constitution's limitations and expanded government for purposes that limited te freedom of the individual to make his/her own decisions and take responsibility for his/her actions. That is essentially the Cato view, which favors "the traditional American principles of limited government, individual liberty, free markets and peace."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/saul-friedman/libertarians-the-paranoid_b_620966.html