Libertarians make peace with liberals all the time.

Specifically, when they realize that Rush is puerile and Rand is insane.

It's called "growing up".

Libertarianism is a reaction to the modern state and would not be credible were it not for modern state institutions and infrastructure. Libertarianism argues that the private sector could do a better job than the state without acknowledging that much of the infrastructure we currently have is a result of the state or state programs. Libertarianism lacks an understanding of the functions and necessity of a modern state. As an alternative direction to increasing state power, libertarianism is a valid political position, but as a governing principle is no more desireable than "Lord of the Flies".

Someone should tell Mr. Lindsey that Social Security and Medicare are not insurance against reaching retirement age and having medical expenses. They are insurance against being destitute in retirement and/or dying from lack of money to pay for treatment. These are insurable risks, whether one saves for retirement privately or not.

Someone should also tell him that since our social values will tend to force us to support our elderly population in some way, he is better off if this is done by extracting funds from each individual. Shift retirement savings to private funds and we'll still be supporting those whose investments fail. We're better off requiring insurance.

The only common ground I can see for liberals and libertarians is the need to make sure that religious conservatives don't achieve their goal of constructing legal regimes around biblical law.

No.

The Libertarians sold their souls to Theocratic Tyranny.

No "do-overs".

You either stand up for Liberty (even if it means terrorists can kill you), or you bend over and hand Ted Haggard the jar of vaseline.

I always wonder if a tax on consumption is supposed to apply to services as well as goods. Like - what exactly? - we haven't been actively and purposefully driving American manufacturers into bakruptcy since the Nixon administration?

Why not a lawyer tax of say 500%? Then maybe people would stop suing each other all the time.

I sometimes wonder if there's any level of income inequality that conservatives and libertarians would consider high enough to merit an arched eyebrow.

No, there isn't.

On a libertarian site, referring to Billion-dollar annual incomes for certain hedge-fund managers, I suggested that any society in which single individuals can "earn" a half-million dollars per hour is not structured sensibly, and doesn't consider the benefit of the society as a whole to be a worthy objective.

I said that you didn't have to be a socialist to think that such obscene incomes are a bad thing.

The immediate reply: Yes, you do.

If you're trying to find the intersection of libertarianism and liberalism, why in the world even talk about the economic sphere? It's the precise spot they are least likely to agree on. Church-state separation and the first amendment are what you should look at.

The problem with these latter-day pseudolibertarians is they are really just economic conservatives with a meaningless dollop of nonpuritanical sex attitudes laid on top. They don't want to give up their Girls Gone Wild tape collection, but what they really care about is pretending taxes can be cut forever.

I said that you didn't have to be a socialist to think that such obscene incomes are a bad thing.
The immediate reply: Yes, you do.
Posted by: R.Porrofatto on December 4, 2006 at 10:53 PM | PERMALINK

See. That's just name-calling. This is the level of debate the Right has brought us to, since the McCarthy era.

I always wonder if a tax on consumption is supposed to apply to services as well as goods.

Not if the principal purpose is to create a better balance of trade - in which case you would want to make producing tradeable goods more lucrative, and consuming tradeable goods less lucrative.

Libertarianism is pretty much a belief in the freedoms originally put into our Constitution. Big government is pretty much the opposite of freedom, as defined by the Founders.

Today many people believe in big government and also in civil liberties. Some even believe in socialism and in civil liberties. These people evade the contradictory nature of their beliefs by defining civil liberties narrowly, so as to exclude all economic liberty. In fact, today, many have further narrowed their definition of civil liberties by eliminating items concerned with race, gender, etc. That is, they don't perceive that the requirement to speak and act politcally correctly has taken away much of their freedom in these areas.

Anyhow, I think Kevin is exactly right in his point.

True libertarians worship the Free Market like a deity (Mammon?) and millionaires are their saints. I've had libertarians argue to my face that society should tolerate racism because the forces of the free market will eventually lead to behaviors the majority of people will accept.

Libertarianism is pretty much a belief in the freedoms originally put into our Constitution. Big government is pretty much the opposite of freedom, as defined by the Founders.

Hogwash. If you think Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton were essentially libertarians then you need to go read some more history. A true libertarian would have found the Articles of Confederation preferable to the Constitution.

K: A true libertarian would have found the Articles of Confederation preferable to the Constitution.

OK, but by today's standards anyone who believed in the original Constitution would be pretty far out on the libertarian scale. We're talking no Social Security. No federal regulation of lor aid to education. No earmarks. No federal involvement in welfare. No HHS. Etc.

Libertarians:
Liberals who want to be racist, and conservatives who want to smoke pot.

Liberalism, in the pure sense of the word, is defined by the tension between the public good and the private interest. Libertarians refuse recognise this tension, considering the private interest and the public good indentical ends. As a practical matter Libertarianism is basicly selfishness on stilts.

But.... where we can work with these people it is in our interest to do so. Simply give them little or nothing in return. What are they going to do? Return to the republicans? We know they'll screw us the second they get the chance. We should forge temporary alliances and watch our backs.

bakho nails it and k also makes an important point. Libertarianism, perversely like radical Islam, is a reaction against the modern world. It's the willful denial of the need of a state to adjudicate between unequally matched interests.

The conservatives who've made such a fetish of Constitution-worship are barking up the wrong Founding Father. Jefferson was closer to a radical, as was the entire anti-Federalist tradition. True conservatives are defined by authoritarianism and a crabbed view of human nature, so Alexander Hamilton is their boy. But that also makes them, umm, statists.

And that's the crux of the fundamental incompatibility of the libertarian strain of modern conservatism (classical liberalism) with the authoritarian right.

The Libs truly feel at sea in a Texified, social-authoritarian GOP and are just casting about for any port in a storm. Civil liberties, yes. But liberals are as concerned with "freedom from" as they are with "freedom to," so again here, liberals welcome state intervention to level the playing field.

The key distinction there is between the private sphere and the public sphere. A true civil libertarian recognizes (unlike, say, ex-liberal) that most economic liberty cannot exist in the purely private sphere.

And that's why we civ-libbers can regulate the hell out of corporations and restrict campaign contributions, while arguing strenuously for the government to get the hell out of our bedrooms.

Public vs private spheres resolves this seeming contradiction.

Bob

Sure, ex-liberal. And slaves worth 3/5 of a person and limited sufferage and indirect election of senators.

Seriously, do you believe child labor ought to be legal? How about getting rid of the FDA? USDA? EPA?

Technological change has resulted in more complicated, interdependent societies which are mirrored in more complicated governing structures. If you don't like it, find yourself a failed state somewhere and enjoy your state of nature.

I think libertarians used to be Republicans who liked to smoke dope. Now most libertarians are Republicans who don't like the religious right.

Adam:

Good points.

Modern liberals tend to be more Hobbesian than Rousseauvian. We believe that the state of nature is a profoundly bad thing, whereas it's the Libertarians who cherish these impossibly utopian delusions about how nice people are if they were Just Left Alone ...

Bob

There are, *at most* three camps of libertarians:

1. The anti-tax, anti-government spending libertarians. These guys will
find no common home with the liberals whatsoever. They believe, as I'm
sure you know, that government is evil. Not just wasteful, but evil.

These guys are among some of the most intellectual of the libertarians,
but they're not going to be swayed by any argument on government
spending. The liberals will split the sheets with this crowd very quickly.

2. The dope-smoking libertarians. Yes, there is a wing of the
libertarian movement that is all about ending the drug war. While I have
sympathy for their position, given the track record and ineffectiveness
of the drug war, the people making this argument themselves too often
come across as brain-addled dope smokers who just want to smoke their
ganja in peace. No intellectual heft, and you really want to be careful
in making a public appearance with these types. The liberals have people
who will walk cheek-by-jowl with these folks, but the party "elders" in
DC will not let this merry bunch get onto the evening news, so while
there is common ground, it is to be hidden ground.

3. The pro-gun wing of the libertarians. There are pro-gun liberals, but
they're few and far between, and the "party elders" in DC (such as
Schumer, Feinstein, et al) are having none of these pro-gun guys in
their tent.

I would point out that what you have so quickly dismissed (cutting investment taxes and increasing consumption taxes) is precisely the compromise that supports the Scandinavian welfare states... perhaps the idea has some merit because it is a compromise. Liberals don't get all that they want, nor do the libertarians, but I would be willing to wager that ALL of society would benefit, even with a regressive tax scheme since regressive tax schemes do not imply that the poor are paying their actual costs.

yes there are unbridgeable gaps on economic policy, but it's cool that in the world of coalition politics the lefties are looking powerful enough to make unlikely allies sniff our butts. I've actually self-identified as a lefty-libertarian hybrid myself more than once. yes they believe in alien abductions but there are select areas where libertarians are pushing in just the right ways. the war on drugs, civil liverties, privacy rights, anti-military expansionism, corporate welfare, etc. Good to point out the differences, and be willing to work with folks who are better on some of the issues than "we" are.

Civil and political liberty along with protection from the power of accumulated capital is the type of government I consider the most pragmatic.

Trex,

You missed a huge segment of Libertarians, the free-associastionists. Everyone else would call them racists, but the Libertarian camp is the only party where white supremecy is for the cool kids.

I don't get it. Why isn't it for cool kids everywhere?

trex:

I'd quibble with you just a tad about how averse to an anti-gun position is the national Democratic Party. I think, with the prodding of Howard Dean, that there's been a consensus shift to let that issue devolve to the states, and I'd doubt very strongly you're going to see anymore national gun regulation legislation like the Brady bill and the assault rifle ban coming from Congress.

After all, many of the new class of freshman were quite open about their love affair with firearms (Schuler, Tester, Webb, Ellsworth ... )

This is an issue that's finally gone away for the Democrats nationally, and although I'm extremely pro gun control myself (heh, check out any of my many close-combat debates with Sebastian), I can't help thinking it's a good thing.

Bob

That is NOT the real trex, by the way.

Pale Rider:

Well, the formatting's a bit dodgy -- at least on my screen -- but either way, the post raised a cogent issue and I wanted to address it.

I'm not so much concerned with playing Identity Games if there's an actual discussion going on. And it's early enough in this thread that one is proceeding.

Bob

Pale Rider typifies the insanity of liberalism. I spit out that word like I spit out a curse word at someone who works in the food service industry--liberals. These liberals--liberalism is a mental condition, highlighted by a desire to do nothing all day except smoke pot and eat Doritos--don't realize that George W Bush has handed them a blanket.

That blanket? It is security. It is the safety of knowing that a man with a turban on his head and a bandolier full of hand grenades is not going to run through CostCo with an AK-47, shooting people through the ear and the eye and through the chest cavity. It is the security of knowing that a plane full of screaming people is not going to do a belly roll and tear into the side of the Sears tower on a placid morning in Seattle. It is the security of knowing that a grandmother with a vest full of C4 or plastique is not going to try to hug you in the elevator and scream "jihadi! jihadi!" and pull the detonator. It is the comfort that allows you to pull that blanket over your eyes and hide from the rough business of torturing people to find out whether or not they remember something about a terror plot they weren't privvy to in the first place. The blanket can be used as a distress flag and it can keep a kennel full of puppies safe in the event of a civil emergency--why you would do so, I do not know, but the blanket is there, sir, and it can be used for nearly everything. Do not wax your boat with it--that would be disrespectful. The blanket is soft, it is warm and it makes the American people feel good about themselves.

Liberalism is the unravelling of that blanket. And when a blanket unravels, it is merely thread. Thread which will warm no one. Yes, it can be processed BACK into a blanket and be good as new, but who has the time in this hurly-burly world of ours?

And you wonder why they should outlaw liberal blogs.

Hoo hoo?

Let your uncle Norman post what he writes, is that copaceptic with all of you?

I'm not pleased to see myself posted on threads where I have not had the pleasure of deciding which liberal to tear apart, thank you.

And you wonder why Kevin should get a gun that shoots IP addresses and sort the men from the boys on this blog.

I'm a libertarian - monthly pledge to the LP and the ACLU. Last election I voted for 12 Democrats and no Republicans. Here's the thanks I get for supporting you, in reverse chronological order:

-----------

trex denies I exist by creating three categories and denying anyone could have other opinions.

rmck1 compares me to radical Islam.

pj says I worship Mammon.

Adam says I'm selfish on stilts.

mkierwin says I'm either a racist or a pot smoker (nothing wrong with the second one, but still untrue).

Extradite Rumsfeld (good idea by the way) says I sold my soul to Theocratic Tyranny. Can't figure that one out.

---------

I guess putting up with the insults is worth it since you're (at this time) better than the Republicans.

Get lost, Norman. This thread is for real debate.

Well, the crystal-meth snorting wing of the Libertarian Party has been heard from. Thanks Norman. Try some Ketamine while you're at it.

True libertarians worship the Free Market like a deity (Mammon?) and millionaires are their saints.
Posted by: pj in jesusland on December 4, 2006 at 11:14 PM | PERMALINK

Yes. The starry-eyed members of the Cult of the Invisible Hand.

Even Norman is being spoofed?

What the hell is happening here?

Calm down, " "

Someone is merely cutting and pasting that which I write into the wrong thread.

Enjoy the fireworks and do attempt to make a cognitive argument in favor of the topic at hand, won't you?

Hey - somebody just spoofed me!!!

libruls are stupid

Why should consumption taxes be regressive?

They're only regressive if the rich don't spend money, but if they never spend it then it's useless to them. Eventually money gets spent and if you tax it then the worst you've done is delay the taxation.

If you exempt some basic items (ie. food and clothes) a consumption tax can be extremely non-regressive.

In fact, if you want to make our taxation system less regressive, how about eliminating gas taxes? Those are extremely regressive.

eeyn524:

Well, don't get all whiny about it. I mean ... isn't the Cult of the Victim what all you Rugged Individualists despise about us traditional PC liberals? :)

I mean, you can't very well expect us to have a cogent, fair-minded critique of *your* brand of Libertarianism if you don't spell it out. Some flavors of moderate Libertarianism are quite sane: for instance, the civil liberties stuff, the anti Executive branch run amok, a strong critique of a messianic foreign policy, anti-corporate welfare and monopoly -- all of these are things that traditional liberals can, and do get behind.

But there are also some serious meth-smokers and Randroids who call themselves Libertarian and want to dismantle the modern state and think we should all go live on the Idaho Panhandle or in Galt's Gulch (from Rand's Atlas Shrugged) or something. As "trex" (apologies if it's really you) pointed out, there's a philosophical hardcore anti-government strain that's just never gonna dance less than awkwardly with even ardent, ACLU civil libertarians ...

So which flavor of Libertarian are you, exactly?

Bob

Everyone should just pay the same amount in taxes. If the budget is a trillion and we have 300 million people, simple math: 3.3 grand each. Done.

you said "galt's gulch" dumbass

Fuck it. You guys are all boring. Especially Bob. I want to hear more from Norman. That's the only thing that's going to rescue this thread.

farm subsidies and other corporate welfare.

yeah, right.

Kevin,

The universe of consumption taxes includes more than sales taxes. In fact, some consumption taxes can be progressive (e.g., David Bradford's X tax).

But one of the key problems is transition. How do we fairly switch the tax base?

Thus, one of the famous public-finance dictums: "an old tax is a good tax"

So which flavor of Libertarian are you, exactly?
Bob
Posted by: rmck1 on December 5, 2006 at 12:20 AM | PERMALINK

The REAL question is - which flavor of Libertarian is Kevin talking about?

You wanna see progressive payment of taxes?

Lets tax ALL inheritance at 100%.
Eliminate all sales and income tax.
And make EVERYBODY pay for their use of any public infrastructure (if this were technically feasible - and IT may make it so some day.) - this means that if you own stock in UPS, you pay for your proportion of their use of the public highways to deliver packages, and your proportion of their use of publicly educated manpower. (etc.)

If you own stock in ExxonMobil, you pay for the oil company's proportionate use of the US Army to prop up puppet dictators in oil-rich 3rd world shitholes.

Oh, and all this wonderful IT makes it possible for all stockholders to take a fully proportionate role in corporate government via electronic voting. Bye bye CEO-BoD circle-jerks.

I wonder how long it would take the stock market to collapse and all corporations to go bankrupt. . .
Oh, and one more Libertarian Wet Dream?
Corporate Bankruptcy should be banned.
Hell - why not get rid of Corporate Charters as well? Why should they get a Special Government Privilege? And roll Patents back to the 7 years as described in the Constitution. And those patents can not apply to business processes, or software. Those are protected by Copyright.

Those are great ideas, Extradite. By great I mean really dumb.

I admit being attracted to the libertarian point of view. I was one for a while, when I was young and did not understand the power of capital. Most libertarians are greedy and don't really believe in the ideology. They want pot decriminalized, but not heroin and every other drug. None say open the borders and let people come and go without arbitrary lines being drawn on a map restricting their movement and enforced by police, which would be the decent way to treat all human beings. I endorse both ideas.

Many libertarians want less regulation. Those people should have toxic waste dumped in their yards and children's playgrounds. They do not understand the meaning of what they say. The demonization of Marx and the complete rejection of socialism make it difficult to talk about social goods and the best way to protect ourselves from industrialization's ability to allow individual's to dominate markets and capital. Liberals play along and have even let their own description become taboo.

Prohibiting regulation of capital and its collectives, corporations, is also a big plank of libertarianism. These things are not people, so providing for their liberty and rights equal to the needs of people denies humanity in favor of materialism. This I think is where Cato and I really disagree. These collectives and the markets they affect require regulation and oversight. They should not be protected in the same way that individual liberty is.

rmck1:

It wasn't a serious whine. Anyway, you're right: there's no copyright on the word libertarian and any a**hole can call himself one, and many do, including immigrant bashing warmongers it's embarrassing to be associated with.

As to flavor, I rarely disagree with anything Jim Henley writes.

On the list of stuff KD had in his post, one would have to agree that economic issues are probably the last area to look for agreement. But the statement that "social issues don't matter that much anyway" is surprising, especially if social issues includes things like starting wars, shaving away at the Bill of Rights, nativism, etc. The idea that some self-identified liberals think these aren't important is surprising. Does they really mean not important, or just not important with respect to winning elections?

warmongers

Thanks, eeyn524. In the libertarian ideology war is only fought and paid for by volunteers. Everyone is free to pay and fight in wars, but not to impose any of the costs on the nation. It is a denial of the national bond we share as citizens, but Bush's War exposed the organized libertarians as corporate welfare whores who use the ideology to line their pockets and fool the young and economic ignorant.

Hostile: None say open the borders and let people come and go

Here, I'll say it: Open the borders and let people come and go.

A lot of libertarians favor a policy of admitting anyone that shows up at the border with reasonable ID and no particular reason to believe they're dangerous.

eeyn524:

I'm not familiar at all with Jim Henley -- what are some of his hobbyhorses? Are you a Glenn Reynolds fan?

Personally, I'm a strong civil libertarian, though I'm more on the liberal side than the libertarian side on certain issues. I support Affirmative Action and gun control, and do believe there are structural forces in society that make the level playing field envisioned by so many Libertarian thinkers problematical. I do think there's such a thing as white skin privilege, deep-rooted sexism and a dominant religious culture that tends to oppress minorities, and these things need to be addressed by government.

Economically, I'm pretty much a straight-no-chaser liberal. I look askance at large corporations and believe strongly in a social safety net -- though I'm reluctantly glad that Clinton did away with lifetime welfare for the able-bodied. I think the entitlement system should be strengthened and preserved as a government guarantee, and I'd also like us (along with Kevin Drum) to move in the direction of single-payer healthcare.

On choice I'm an ardent reproductive rights-ist -- and I have no personal problem with gay marriage although I think civil unions is currently the way to go politically. On guns, I'd like to see them remain controlled in our larger, more heterogenous cities. I'd like to decriminalize soft drugs (pot and organic psychedelics), while keeping tight control on pharmaceuticals, narcotics, coke and "designer drugs."

On war and foreign policy, I'm pretty much a soft liberal internationalist. I *do* believe that unintended consequences are important to consider even in humanitarian missions to places like Somalia and Liberia, but generally support the Clinton/Bush I line on those sorts of interventions. I completely reject the idea of wars of choice without broad international support. We were right to take out the camps in Afghanistan and we should've focused our efforts there. Iraq, OTOH, was perhaps the worst foreign policy decision the US has ever made -- certainly in my lifetimee. I believe we deal with radical Islam by the sort of soft power that Tom Friedman advocates in his saner moments; ultimately it's a problem that Islam needs to solve for itself -- and we wasted a golden opportunity to underscore to the Islamic world just how dangerous Osama's brand of Sunni takfir Islam is to all of Islam generally.

Bob

I was a libertarian a long time ago. There's no theory against letting the first $50,000/person of income be tax free. There's nothing against paying for the full bill as you go; as a matter of fact, borrowing and letting others pay for it in the future is particularly evil to honest libertarians. Therefore, a very progressive tax rate could be achieved by making up a huge first tier of tax free income.

rmck1 or Bob

Glenn Reynolds?! Come the revolution, things will go hard for him. Actually don't know what he stands for these days since I stopped reading in disgust two years ago.

Jim Henley is at www.highclearing.com. The war and things associated seem to be his main issue right now, with some comics and sports blogging in between.

On affirmative action, two things: (a) of course a libertarian purist believes a company can hire for any reason they want, therefore, private corporate AA is just fine; (b) one could make an additional case that race is a special case in that the country operated on a spectacularly un-libertarian basis with respect to race for three hundred plus years, therefore, some temporary exceptions to the libertarian line might be in order.

Healthcare: don't like national health care but it looks inevitable. I could go with upgrading Medicaid, flat out pay for it with tax money for the really poor, and then allow anyone else who wants to, including employers, to buy in as a baseline policy at reasonable cost. However, those who want to stay out of the system should have a right to do so - still pay for the poor through their taxes, of course, but for themselves they can go private or without.

Gay marriage, choice, drugs - you'd fit in well at an LP convention except for your position on guns.

I completely reject the idea of wars of choice without broad international support.

The international support is irrelevant except as a tactical matter after the war is started. The lack of int'l support is an ominous sign, but the presence of it doesn't prove anything.

Here, I'll say it: Open the borders and let people come and go.
A lot of libertarians favor a policy of admitting anyone that shows up at the border with reasonable ID and no particular reason to believe they're dangerous.
Posted by: eeyn524 on December 5, 2006 at 12:56 AM | PERMALINK

Anyone and everyone is potentially dangerous.

I'd favor opening up the borders if you get rid of the reason for borders in the first place: make the laws and jurisdiction the same on both sides.

Otherwise, if you let people cross willy-nilly (and we do) then they will game the system for the differences in the laws.

Reading the comments here reminds me of how Karl Rove managed to get his 'big tent' fallacy going. Talking with a bunch of hard-core liberals, anyone who is different on one viewpoint gets attacked.

Thought experiment for you: You're sitting at a party talking with folks who pretty much agree with you on everything. You're pro-choice, pro-taxation, support the teacher's unions, and everything else is falling in line... but you have one place where you are adamantly opposed. Say you support Israel. Or the rest was straight-line liberal, but you are adamantly opposed to abortion. Or as is the case with many people who identify as libertarians, you think that government rarely solves a problem well.

In this thought experiment, do you get welcomed as a fellow liberal who is generally in agreement but happens to disagree in one area? I doubt it. My experience in person and what I'm seeing in this blog is that you get attacked as a terrible person and a conservative.

By contrast, the GOP will happily welcome you as a conservative, lie to you, screw you over, and go on with life. I sincerely hope we can get those corrupt bastards out of office and in the cases that deserve it, behind bars.

But how many people will happily go back to a party or a social group that attacked them harshly for having one difference of opinion? Why do people who tend to have 80% of their opinions aligned with the Democratic party vote for the Republican party? Think about this before you assault libertarians and whoever else might be dissenting on some point or another. The strength of liberalism is its ability to accept views that contradict long-held beliefs. Its a pity that doesn't seem to extend to much of the "liberal" party.

Anyone and everyone is potentially dangerous.

Which is the reason for the phrase "particular reason", meaning something specific to that person. And no, race or religion would not be enough.

make the laws and jurisdiction the same on both sides.

This implies some sort of universal/world gov't, which would be unfree no matter who ran it, because it inherently lacks a fundamental human right: the right to leave if you don't like it.

KMB;
Karl Rove pulled the coalition together because they all had one thing in common: Intense burning irrational hatred of Liberals. For one reason or another - largely justified by or arising from some concocted BS spewed on Hate Radio, or on the WSJ editorial page via astroturfed letters from various "think tanks" like Cato, Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Focus on the Family, etc. ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

This implies some sort of universal/world gov't, which would be unfree no matter who ran it, because . .
Posted by: eeyn524 on December 5, 2006 at 2:24 AM | PERMALINK

Or - maybe it implies some sort of universal/world anarchy?

it inherently lacks a fundamental human right: the right to leave if you don't like it.

Bah - what good is such a right if there's nowhere to go. As it stands right now, I have no right to leave the US for a sensible free country where I can be served drinks by naked women. What a world we live in.

As it stands right now, I have no right to leave the US for a sensible free country where I can be served drinks by naked women.

Somehow when women are free they don't seem that interested in undressing and fetching me drinks. Can't figure it out.

Think about this before you assault libertarians and whoever else might be dissenting on some point or another.

The problem with libertarians, from a liberal perspective, is that they disagree with us on an absolutely critical foundational principle of public morality, namely, that governments are necessary and obligated to promote the common good. Often enough, it's not clear that libertarians think there is such a thing as the common good.

That's not one little minor matter of disagreement on a policy issue. That's a basic disagreement about the nature of human beings and human society. I'm not saying no collaboration is possible - in fact, the only international reproductive health NGO that was willing to go toe to toe with the Bush Administration over promoting condoms was a libertarian one, and most liberals get along with them just fine. But in the long run, this has got to be a coalition for certain issues, not a matter of accepting libertarians as liberals or something. I'm willing to cooperate with conservative evangelical Christians on the issue of global poverty reduction, too. That doesn't mean I think my party should make concessions in its agenda to attract them, though.

Incidentally, eeyn524, I'm curious: where you stand on traffic signals?

I would point out that what you have so quickly dismissed (cutting investment taxes and increasing consumption taxes) is precisely the compromise that supports the Scandinavian welfare states

You left out the 1% (I think it is) wealth tax, a delightful though profoundly unAmerican idea. If the U.S. could collect 1% of Sam Walton's wealth (not income) each year, it could get by with a lot less of yours.

brooksfoe:

I have no problem with traffic lights. And to anticipate one line of argument - I don't believe in some universal rigorous libertarian theory of human existence, which implodes from inconsistency if traffic lights are allowed. (Although one has to admit there are some guys like that.)

It's just a simple belief that liberty has a good deal of inherent value that doesn't need to be justified in terms of any other benefit, and that it's valuable enough to make small to moderate sacrifices in things like safety, convenience, order, and yes, fairness.

It can certainly be outweighed in the right circumstances but I'd say it takes 5 lbs of fairness to outweigh 1 lb of freedom. A relative value judgement and maybe an insurmountable one, but not really a "a basic disagreement about the nature of human beings and human society"

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There really are a lot of pointless insults on this thread because people get stuck in their positions. Here's one area where liberals and libertarians could find common ground if they'd get beyond their ideological blinders - new, actually progressive solutions to problems.

Look at one issue - education. The system is broken and it needs to be fixed. We are tryi9ng training people in the essential skills for the reality of today's world or tomorrow - skills like creativity, design, applied science and s on. We're still teaching kids cursive and piling on more and more rote homework so the kids will pass the tests that are mandated. Look at the TED Talks for a lot of views of the problem.

The problem is that nobody seems to have an actual solution for the 21st century - they just reguritate what they've been saying for 30 years. Teacher's unions are not the solution and in fact they have an entrenched position that doesn't really help - the liberals don't have an answer. Shutting down public schools isn't an answer - sorry, libertarians. And school prayer certainly isn't the answer. These cliches are no longer relevant, if they ever were.

Progressive should mean something - like you want progress. Smarter government programs that take advanatage of existing technologies and work with the rapid change our free market can produce. But that means throwing away old slogans - but I'll end with a nice old hippy slogan, anyway. Ain't no time to hate, barely time to wait.

This is, like, the best comment thread I have seen here in aeons. Is it past the bedtime of the usual trolls? Anyhow, good work, most of you!

You're right in a lot of ways Kevin, but there is still room for compromise. There are different paths we can go, and I'll expand on those after I digest the Cato article. For instance, universal healthcare is not a no-go for the libertarian crowd, even though they think it is. If they're hardcore, well, it is, but otherwise it's not. There's no good reason at the moment why businesses are required to offer health insurance, as opposed to citizens voting for their taxes to provide it through a "social insurance" function, just as there's no good reason to devolve the "insurance" function of our military to private militias funded by private interests. One could find a compromise where basic rights to health care are "insured", but at the same time there are plenty of "elective" procedures where a private market could still thrive (as if our insurance rackets as they currently exists accurately reflect a free market to begin with).

The whole point is that the libertarians need to face a hard dose of reality and realize that they are not defending a free market, because there is no free market that exists as Adam Smith envisioned it. Instead, you have a trend towards oligarchy and plutocracy, market interference through political manipulation, power over choice, and what our society really needs to do is embrace a truly free market vision that pivots on individuals and entrepreneurial businesses, not the current cartel system.

What do the labels mean today? You got single issue Papists and radical Christians, as well as borrow-and-spend liberals, calling themselves "conservatives." You got Reagan Democrats who found a new way of feeding at the public trough--not paying taxes instead of collecting benefits. You got liberals who are really criminals and traitors who are aiding and abetting the invasion of Hispano-fascists. Ain't a one worth the powder and shot to blow 'em up.

Indeed, hispano-fascism should be our primary focus as a nation, in terms of our security efforts.

A tax on consumption should actually be the libertarian antichrist. For a philosophy that embraces free exchange, the idea that the state has the power to tax every single individual exchange is appalling. The obvious direction for libertarians is that pointed to by Henry George, even though they struggle to deny that because of aristocratic infection.

If you're trying to find the intersection of libertarianism and liberalism, why in the world even talk about the economic sphere? It's the precise spot they are least likely to agree on. Church-state separation and the first amendment are what you should look at.

This is dead-on. Our intersection is at the political crossroads, not the economic. The root of both camps is in political liberty, which is at stake today.

Thanks for the info...

True libertarians worship the Free Market like a deity (Mammon?)

True liberals worship the govt like a deity. The 'social contract' is just a religious creation myth. The 'govt has a monopoly on force' claim is just a religious "the normal moral standards don't apply to God" argument. Once we got rid of the Divine Right of Kings, we just started making the govt the divine entity; it's still religion.

Reducing taxes on investment income won't make the tax systems regressive. And eliminating (or reducing to near elimination of) payroll taxes will likely make it more progressive because it insentivises higher pay. Plus, tax breaks for savings and dis-insetives for consumption would lead to more income at the lower ends of income distribution.

The tax rate on investment income could be made progressive also.

I found this article (or rather the goal of the writer, not necessarily the result) interesting because I know may people who say "I'm an economic conservative but a social liberal." In most cases that's not really a good label, but there are a lot of people looking for a new label to describe a "live and let live" type of political philosophy.

Previous commenters have a made a lot of interesting points about the difficulties of marrying the two strains and the difficulties of compromise between the two.

My particular, admittedly very muddled, philosophy:

I believe in free markets and low taxes. In particular, I have confidence I can succeed on a level playing field; I just want the playing field level.

I believe that the government should provide a modest safety net for the poor, focusing on their health and education, and a large safety net for children, the elderly, and the disabled.

I believe the government should encourage immigration, particularly among the highly educated, entreprenurial, and fertile.

I believe we should decouple health care and old age support from employment, allowing complete job mobility.

I believe government should live within its means within the current generation. (All debts should be paid within 15 years, so most of the current beneficiaries pay for them.)

I believe owning guns is fine, but that densely populated communities ought to be able to restrict how they are kept and the types of guns permitted.

Individuals should have the right to use birth control and access to early, safe abortions. As a society, we should work realisticly to decrease the number of abortions here and abroad without undermining sexual freedom.

I believe it would be better if Congress had to explicitly authorize all military conflicts and renew that authorization every 3 or 6 months on the record. The president should command the troops, but our elected representatives should think long and hard every day about whether to continue that authorization.

I believe government should recognize civil unions between heterosexuals, homosexuals, and polygamists. Any social grouping is fine, except those that exploit children or women (or men). I believe churches, mosques, and temples should confer the sacrement of marriage, with any restrictions they prefer.

I don't particularly care about who uses drugs or their legality, but I don't want my children using them or seeing them used and I don't want to live next door to a disruptive member of the community. If the medical community thinks some currently illegal drugs would on balance be helpful to the sick, that's fine.

So, what does this make me? I vote reliably Democratic as the lesser of two evils, but I suspect there are equal numbers of those who vote reliably Republican as the lesser of two evils.

By traditional labels, this is a fairly "muddled middle", yet I suspect there are large numbers of middle class voters who vote consistently and would like one party or the other to embrace these values. Is there a coherent "fusion philosphy" that largely encompasses the "muddled middle"?

Lyman

True liberals worship the govt like a deity. The 'social contract' is just a religious creation myth. The 'govt has a monopoly on force' claim is just a religious "the normal moral standards don't apply to God" argument.

So Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau were prophets, not philosophers? Who knew?

(Point to Bob, above -- you may have noticed how often I cite Hobbes, especially in critiquing the mess Bush made in Iraq.)

I'd also like to throw out one concept -- I believe in checks and balances, which means I beleive in government as a check against the power of corporations. (And, therefore, that the alliance of corporations and government is seriously troubling from a standpoint of individual liberty.) Essentially, I believe the government gives -- or ought to give -- citens the power to petition for a redress of grievances when a corporation does us harm -- say, by dumping toxic waste in our water.

Reducing taxes on investment income won't make the tax systems regressive.

I would like to quote a personal philosopher of mine:

"Greed is Good"
-Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

Because I am a true libertarian in the sense that I really wish the government would let me keep what I have worked for and stay away from my conseriderably large property, I have not seen the argument framed properly here.

Liberalism and Libertarianism will never find common cause. I am a Libertarian and to me, modern liberalism is a canker sore brimming with pus that I cannot heal except with liquid hydrogen and a blowtorch. If we can just get the tax and spend liberals back up onto the ash heap of history where they belong--and this might allow people like myself to continue to create wealth and make this a better country--then one of you amateurs can come lecture me about economics.

Mr. aaron also said:

The tax rate on investment income could be made progressive also.

Who are you attempting to bankrupt with your crazy ideas?

Joe six pack--you can pay 7 percent of your income in taxes. Me? I'll pay five percent of my income in taxes--no more, no less and that's your uncle Norman being generous.

If we adopt that system, look out mama, there's a white boat coming up the river, as Neil Young would say, and the government would function just fine and dandy. Liberals would squeal like stuck pigs, but the reality is, after the government is slashed in sized and we get rid of all the freeloaders and the bums, the system would correct itself. A massive die-off of needy and confused old people would infuse the system with a refreshed perspective because the main drain on funds, resources and the creator of a massive bureaucracy would pass into the afterlife painlessly and without too much fuss. It would be horrible for a few years to have so many old farts kicking the bucket because of a lack of drugs or health care, but as a Libertarian, I assure you--this is the state of nature, writ large. It's natural for a man to die because his medicines don't appear magically at the end of the government handout that went away. What do you think the 1770s was like? Me, personally, I'm nostalgic for those days.

Our deficits would plunge and this country would race ahead of all others and take economic prominence in the world once again.

What say you, liberals? I'll pay five percent of my income in taxes and we'll call it even-stevens.

Gee, I'd love to participate but since I'm currently the target of a particularly stupid troll

(Who doesn't, just for one example, know I'm a Mac user or that my participation here only began in the immediate wake of Katrina, for another.)

anything I post will immediately draw out this pusillanimous cretin who will attempt to attribute to me positions I do not profess in language which I do not employ...

sigh

You may find shelter under my considerable wings, CFShep--please, explain to me the liberal position on taking your uncle Norman's wealth away from him to give to Moms Mabley so she may drive about the town in an Cadillac Escalade.

I will not tolerate anyone engaging in "spoofing" of handles/names/identities. This is outrageous behavior.

Isn't theorizing wonderful?
How about this: we let 40% of the households in this country pay no income tax at all; in fact, let most of them pay a negative tax by having the gov't send them a check (like the $29 billion sent out in 2/06);
then, we continue to tax payrolls because it's really a tax on employers and the employees never see the money anyway (nor would they if the payroll tax were eliminated);
then we can tax corporations, inheritances, investment income (including the non-cash income of mutual fund gains) as well as gifts, collect excise taxes (gasoline etc.).

What would you have? The current system which includes all of the elements above.

In this whole thread, no real discussion of how to control gov't spending e.g. on Medicare which is the one element capable of bankrupting this country.

In this whole thread, no real discussion of how to control gov't spending e.g. on Medicare which is the one element capable of bankrupting this country.

Were you able to read clearly, I believe I outlined the solution above at 805am--I favor starving the beast completely.

And your idea? About allowing Joe Six Pack to have a free ride and pay no taxes? Do you take your commentary on the road and do comedy in front of strangers?

Are there any woman libertarians?

Seems to me it's almost entirely a guy thing.

(I think there's a woman blogger who calls herself a libertarian, but I'm not talking about a few outliers. Generally speaking - to you folks who know - what's the male/female ratio at libertarian conferences and get togethers? I suspect it's similar to the male/female ratio at a Marlyn Manson concert.)

I am not sure the liberal, conseravative, libertarian debate isn't over. Everybody lost.

It is clear that liberals, thought of by many Americans as big nannie government loving slackards, are never again going to be given control of the government.

It is equally clear that conservatives, defined by their actions during the last 12 years as a bunch of monarchists, theives, incompetents and hypocrites, are never again going to achieve the kind of popular support they enjoyed before George Bush.

Libertarians, who have defined themselves as a bunch of utopians worshiping a free market god, are never going to win the support of rational people who recognize there is a role for government and don't want to surrender the benefits of that government for the insecurity that comes from competing with corporate giants.

What political movements will replace the traditional libertarians, conservatives and libertatians? I don't know. The intellectual landscape seems bereft of new ideas.

In the meantime the democrats seem to be about running politicians who promise to shrink government (pay as you go) while expanding services (universal health care), without raising taxes (except the rich). Promises that seem impossible for anybody to keep.

The next few years are going to be interesting as intellectuals thrash about trying to define new visions of the political landscape. What is really exciting is that the casting about is not going to be done by a handful of cloistered professors safe in their well funded chairs, but by millions of people who read and write blogs like this one. Technology will mean that the time for the intellectual debate will be compressed as never before.

Ron Byers:

It is clear that liberals, thought of by many Americans as big nannie government loving slackards, are never again going to be given control of the government.

An insane but well-dressed grandmother and an avowed San Francisco Liberal named Nancy Pelosi is now in charge of the US House of Representatives. Who writes the Tax Code in this country? The House. Who controls appropriations? The House. Who controls government spending? The House. Do you have any idea what that does to the idea of a free market investment capitalist like myself investing in a brighter tomorrow? It shatters it into a million pieces. You are completely incorrect in your assumption: control of this business end of this government is in the hands of a woman who wants to drive a stake through my heart. And she is the vampire, sir! She is the undead, stalking the Earth, ready to take my money and suck blood from young victims.

It is equally clear that conservatives, defined by their actions during the last 12 years as a bunch of monarchists, theives, incompetents and hypocrites, are never again going to achieve the kind of popular support they enjoyed before George Bush.

You wound me, sir. The only thing keeping America safe is George W Bush and the only thing keeping this country from falling into the abyss is Ben Bernacke. And you certainly should apologize to the insult given to your betters.

And you liberals wonder why I bother to try to tell you how the world really works.

Norman

You haven't been paying attention. The American people rejected you and your ideas last month. They rejected them big time.

As to knowing how the world really works, you don't have a clue.

You haven't been paying attention. The American people rejected you and your ideas last month. They rejected them big time.

No, they asked me to put them in a blind trust, and in 2008--after Nancy Pelosi has spent 126 billion dollars just to put every man, woman and child in touch with their feelings and made the world safe for taxing and spending--my way of thinking will emerge triumphant.

Think of 2008 as a replay of 1980--and a great man shall emerge to lead the country and it shall be morning in America once again.

That, sir, is how the world really works.

Since libertarians come mostly from the unprivileged end of society and, as such, I would venture to say that "entitlement reform" is not high on most liberatarian's list of wants or needs. The word "entitlement" is customarily a rich conservative's worry. George Will doesn't like it but I'm sure Mr. Will is a wealthy man, he doesn't need his SS or free health care.

Your liberal tax dollars at work:

WASHINGTON — NASA may be going to the same old moon with a ship that looks a lot like a 1960s Apollo capsule, but the space agency said Monday that it's going to do something dramatically different this time: Stay there.

Unveiling the agency's bold plan for a return to the moon, NASA said it will establish an international base camp on one of the moon's poles, permanently staffing it by 2024, four years after astronauts land there.

It is a sweeping departure from the Apollo moon missions of the 1960s and represents a new phase of space exploration after space shuttles are retired in 2010.

As a libertarian, I object to the use of my tax dollars to put a lesbian-friendly, eco-friendly, good-feelings-for-all type base on the moon.

Please do not lecture me about science--science is best left where it belongs, in dusty books no one reads and in places where foreigners can use it to make little trinkets that only they know how to use.

Mark my words, put this base on the moon and an astronaut will have to recycle their own waste and write feel-good letters to shut-ins and read Al Gore's book over the airwaves. This is an invasion of the moon and I thought liberals were against invading anyone who was defenseless. What if the moonmen don't want to be invaded? And if we anger the moonmen, what then, liberals? What if this provocative move angers an undiscovered race of people who are more technologically advanced than we are? What if they have weapons and machines that are far more powerful than our own? Do you know what that would do the bond market in this country?

That last little bit was a funny I thought of, ha ha ha, liberals. Your uncle Norman knows you sometimes laugh at his ideas.

Well, too bad. My ideas are the gold standard around here.

Lyman,
Interesting philosophy; while we part ways on a bunch of that, you seem like me to have a muddled (there's got to be a better word that makes it not sound like a bad thing) or mixed bag approach that increasingly a lot of us share. You represent the all important swing voter to a T, perhaps?

Whenever this conversation comes up, you see a bunch of folks on the conservative side scrambling to say "yeah I'm really a libertarian at heart too cause I support your right to (insert social cause here)". Conversely, you'll see a bunch of liberals drawing similar lines in the sand, saying "well I don't agree on the economic stuff but I also support (insert social cause of the day here) so give me some of those libertarian props."

We liberals love deriding libertarians as hopeless idealists who don't realize how important the USDA, the FDA, the EPA, etc are...but secretly we all fancy ourselves that free loving hip personal-freedom warrior just a bit, don't we?

Where I get off is folks who do so with such intellectual inconsistentcy--the "well you have the right to sleep with your gay partner, own a gun, smoke a joint...but I draw the line at doing coke or peyote." Or, as Bob alluded to our infamous gun control dispute, it's not so much his policy positions I take umbrage at but the idea that he above expresses an affinity for many planks of the libertarian screed...but his position amounts to "yeah, libertarians are right that you can have a gay marriage, an abortion, a marijuana plant in your basement, but no you can't have a gun to protect yourself."

To me that's horribly dissonant--you either support personal freedom and choice, or you don't. Picking and choosing is arbitrary. And you see it happen in spades whenever this subject comes up.

The bottom line, and at least on social positions the thing that libertarians have right (for the record, I think they're weenies too and their economic positions are vile): FREEDOM means allowing people to make choices you wouldn't make for yourself. Don't like abortion? GREAT! Don't have one. Don't like drugs? GREAT! Don't do them.

Sebastian (Mallaby?)

"yeah, libertarians are right that you can have a gay marriage, an abortion, a marijuana plant in your basement, but no you can't have a gun to protect yourself."

No, my position is, if you let someone have a gay marriage, they will be no different than any other married person.

What is a married person? A miserable wretch, that's what.

So if, by extension, someone is allowed to inflict great misery upon themselves by getting married, they will be forced to ingest large amounts of marijuana and other drugs to dull the pain and to deaden the senses to inevitable drudgery and grind. Have you ever felt like life was gnawing at you with big, flat teeth and just grinding you into a fine paste? Well, that's what marriage is and that's why liberals use drugs.

What then happens is, a policeman takes the drugs away from the liberal and then the liberal gets a gun and shoots people. This happens every single day in this country. So my position is, we all need guns to defend us from depressed and disturbed married liberals with guns.

Mark my words, this is a huge issue and I wish I had a better stock answer for it than this one.

I have never met a libertarian who wasn't a rethug.

My $.02 as one of those anti-gay marriage, pro-life (but not pro-earmarks or pro-Iraq war) Christian conservatives driving eeyn524 into your (not quite) open arms.

I see a lot of naive arguments against libertarianism. I would encourage you to educate yourselves a bit more about libertarianism. 'The Machinery of Freedom' by David Freidman is a good choice. But here are some teasers:

1. Libertarians do not believe that markets are perfect. They believe that as a general rule, *government failure* is worse than *market failure*. E.g. there would be no JetBlue or Southwest if the airlines were still regulated.

2. Libertarians do not support racism. They do believe that markets punish racism more effectively than government. Case in point: racist white farmers tried to pay Japanese workers below market wages in the early 20th century, but bidding wars resulted until the Japanese were actually paid slightly more than white workers (because they work harder).

Another great example that the libertarian Walter Williams relates: a freed slave started a coal business. But whites tried to stop him by "dumping" their coal at below-market rates. But he hired mullatos that could "pass" and bought from those whites and sold their coal instead. But if the government were bigger back then, the coal venders would set up a coal licensing board, and simply denied licenses to blacks.

And recall: it took the work and enforcement of the government to sustain slavery and segregation.

3. Libertarians do not have a consistent policy on the morality of criminalizing self-destructive acts. But then, very few ethical philosophies ever have.

4. On traffic lights, there are different takes. Some libertarians would like to see privatized roads. In which case, it would no longer be the government setting the rules. (If privatized roads sounds unrealistic, realize that gas companies lay their pipes by buying options on land until they can assemble a straight path. Then they make good on those options. )

Other libertarians have a more "decentralized" bent. They favor small units of local government in competition with each other. This weakens the monopoly powers of local government. Anyone that has ever tried to buy a house in a blue state recognizes the powers of the local town council when setting land use and zoning policies!

I'm a die-hard liberal but I think we should do the following:

1. Eliminate Corporate Taxes: Corp. taxes account for ~10% of federal tax revenues and that percentage has been dropping for years. The Dems could really outflank the GOP on this issue and it makes a TON of sense from a simplicity and efficiency standpoint - less taxes for corporations mean more money for wages and investment, less incentive to pile on debt, more incentive to pay dividends, and better economic decisions by management - managers should not make investment decisions based on tax considerations.

2. Equalize taxes on all forms of income - wages, interest, dividends, cap gains all get taxed at the same progressive rates. I'm tired of the GOP crap that you should have lower taxes on income from cap gains than wages. If I'm making $75K on the job I should not be taxed higher than a trust fund baby who earns the same amount in capital gains from her portfolio.

I don't know if equalizing the tax rates on all income types would recover all the lost revenue from eliminating corporate taxes but I bet it would come close.

I see government as a necessary force to prevent corporate greed from hurting the populace. I may lean toward some Libertarian issues, but Libertarian-ism itself is too radical and is frankly not practical.

I would like to form a new political party: the Practicalists. A party that works with the reality of the situation rather than the theory. For example, I believe that most americans want the social net of medicare and social security. I do not disagree with that. But I think we set limits as to who these services will be provided to.

For example: In medicine, 90% of the costs are spent on the last 30 days of life. Physicians, by and large, know which patients are not going to survive