by Smitty (h/t Insty)
It’s something of a tangent from Welch’s main point over at Reason, but his characterization of conservatives as unsophisticated is exactly that:
Speaking only for myself, I don’t see libertarianism moving rightward, I see rightward moving libertarian. Which is to be expected, what with the whole not-having-power thing (as Kilgore points out, the Democrats’ wilderness years included such incongruities as Markos Moulitsas penning “libertarian Democrat” manifestos).
I submit that there’s a longer-term trend afoot which is overlooked here. The chief metric is the debt, but there is an increasing realization that the Constitution needn’t mean a government homogeneous from top to bottom; one can argue a libertarian Federal government and free up room for 50 vibrantly different States covering the Red/Blue spectrum.
Common sense hints that the wrong-headedness of Socialism in the Blue states is going to kill those States over time, but shouldn’t them godless Blue State Commies welcome their Darwinian recompense? No. No, they don’t: they just reach for more wallets.
Many libertarians already treat the Tea Party movement (and more than that, Sarah Palin) with 10-foot tongs, and it won’t take many more Joe Farah/Tom Tancredo Tea Party-branded speeches to expose many of the conservative/libertarian cracks that were so evident during the Bushitler years.
So, any tinfoil hat fringe whacko racist goober must be conservative, because libertarians cannot, by definition, be nutcases? To those libertarians I’d say “Thank you sir, may I have another?”
As for welfare and all that, again this is just me talking, but I have never for one second in my life used or thought the phrase “welfare queen” to mean anything besides one of those Evil Corporations my liberal pals are so afraid of. I don’t give one shit about ACORN, wouldn’t vote for Sarah Palin at gunpoint, and don’t look down the rostrum at that nice Center for American Progress colleague fretting about their private thoughts.
And if Governor Palin’s actual platform, when published, veers libertarian, what then? The endorsement of Rand Paul–what does that mean? Nice to know that you’ll vote for Hillary in 2012, just to save yourself from Governor Palin’s atrocious accent. Accents matter, you know.
What I do care about, regardless of who’s president, is human freedom and prosperity. And I strongly and consistently suspect that when the government accumulates more power, I and everyone else (except those wielding it) have less of which I seek. Republicans diss libertarians when they’re in power, and Democrats diss libertarians when they’re in power. Their changing attitudes toward our little (albeit growing) tribe is mildly interesting, but it’s about as newsworthy (and painful) as a dog biting a chew toy.
The truth behind this statement is that Republicans and Democrats are both conferences of the Progressive Political Football League. Kudos to Ron Paul for fighting the good fight, but the simple matter is that Americans of any stripe have been totally asleep at the switch for a century.
Possibly we can focus on a united, Constitutional, strongly libertarian front to set about fixing matters. Some of your allies may be given to outbursts of religious, super-rational altruism as they set about rejecting the Divine Federal Government. This does not make them Untouchables. It’ll be OK, Matt.
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