There was a time when I called myself a libertarian. And there was a time when I was a libertarian. I just wanted the government to leave me alone, leave the people alone, go crazy and limit themselves to doing only what is clearly written in the Constitution. This is what the libertarian was like. But it’s not the same anymore.
The word no longer has any meaning, no definition or parameters, and certainly no coherent philosophy to speak of. And no one can be blamed for this except the libertarians themselves.
So what happened?
Without even loosely defining the parameters of a set of beliefs, libertarians have allowed their brand – as it stands – to be hijacked by anyone who wants to wear it. They have gone from a movement for individual responsibility, diminutive government and free markets to a group of misfits who want legalized marijuana and prostitution and a total non-interventionist foreign policy.
That pretty much sums it up.
Honestly, what does being a libertarian mean beyond legalizing drugs, fucking whores, and sitting around while the rest of the world blows itself up?
Great Reason magazine is a great publication filled with great articles, solid journalism you won’t find elsewhere… and a voice that does little more than complain.
Reason is great at highlighting abuses at every level of government and stories that other media outlets ignore. But you won’t find much in philosophy and solutions. (There are some of them, but they don’t seem focused.) They preach to the choir and that’s it.
I love the Cato Institute and I have many good friends who work there and really offer good solutions. They just don’t want to do anything with them. Cato has a well-deserved reputation for not wanting to play nice with anyone else. When did Cato initiate or implement the last legislative “victory”?
What libertarians do exceptionally well is sit on the sidelines and complain. No idea has ever been implemented by complaining that it isn’t, and yet that seems to be the libertarian modus operandi.
On election night 2008, I was in approx Reason/America’s Future Foundation (another libertarian group) election night party at a Chinatown bar in DC. The election result was a foregone conclusion, so what better way to celebrate the evening than with a few drinks with friends. Hell, the band was playing when the Titanic sank, so why not have some drinks when the nation hit the iceberg?
It’s not like anyone was thrilled to vote for John McCain that day. But as much as McCain was (and still is), he was better than Barack Obama. At least that was the conclusion one would expect from anyone who supported freedom.
But that evening, as Obama’s endorsement was announced in each state, cheers erupted from the crowd. When Obama won Ohio, you’d think you were in a bar in Green Bay and the Packers had just won the Super Bowl. High fives and laughter filled the room.
It wasn’t that these self-proclaimed libertarians wanted Obama to win. Actually, many of them did. But most of them wanted McCain to lose. They wanted the Republicans to lose. Their victory was that they let the country lose and gained the complacency they felt.
This attitude has only grown since then. And the meaning of being a libertarian has become even more blurred than before. So much so that a “libertarian” candidate for Virginia governor – many of whose views would disgust “true” libertarians – won 7 percent in a race that was decided by much less, essentially based solely on his party ID.
Libertarians have gone from being the pro-freedom wing of the right to an annoying kid who, when he doesn’t get 100 percent of what he wants, takes the ball and goes home. The team he agrees with more than half the time loses to the team he barely agrees with, and he cheers while marinating in his complacency.
Perhaps the most famed of the libertarian’s distorted self-definitions is Bill Maher. Maher is a libertarian, just as David Ortiz is a world-class sprinter. But with a definition as challenging as a bowl of jelly, no one can say it isn’t.
On his largely ignored HBO show, Maher describes himself as a libertarian. On the Internet, a lethargic, compliant media perpetuates this label and soon it becomes an accepted fact. In fact, Maher has no idea about the virtues of individual liberty and has no love for libertarian philosophy beyond his desire to smoke weed and fuck whores.
But who said he wasn’t a libertarian? Who disputes his claims in any public and lasting way? Nobody.
So the progressive pulp that slips past his whitened teeth and onto the Internet is associated with libertarian orthodoxy and becomes so with a recent generation of confused people.
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, famously tells the story of how Maher once came to his Wednesday meeting and presented his libertarian claims, then began ranting about how the government should do this, that, and the other. And to pay for all this, they have to raise taxes. Grover, in a room of 150 people, asked Maher, “So you’re from the high-tax wing of the libertarian movement?” Everyone in the room laughed hysterically, except Maher. He didn’t understand. At least it didn’t look like he was getting it, but maybe he did. Maybe it was everyone else in the room who didn’t understand it.
Thanks to Maher and his ilk, the term libertarian is now closer to his imagination than it once was. If prominent libertarians and libertarian organizations continue to silently accept this bastardism, it will continue to grow. If they continue with their “my way or the highway” approach to electoral politics, their 100 percent or nothing cleanliness tests, I’m not sure there will be anyone left who cares.
There is a lesson in this for the GOP establishment, too. The disintegration of libertarians is similar to what we are seeing in the counterproductive battle between conservatives/Tea Party and the Republican establishment. If the GOP establishment can’t win against its candidate, it prefers to lose. This isn’t cutting off your nose to spite your face; it’s more like cutting off your head to spite yourself.
Ken Cuccinelli did not lose the Virginia gubernatorial race. It was lost by the GOP establishment. The National Party took the ball in its own hands and went home early, leaving the Republican candidate astronomically exhausted. Despite this disadvantage, he barely lost. Say what you want about Michael Steele’s term as GOP chairman, at least he will win. That’s more than can be said for the election under Reince Priebus.
Like libertarians, the GOP establishment took the ball into its own hands and returned home to Virginia. How did it work out for them? They “succeeded” – the guy they didn’t want to win didn’t win. But Terry McAuliffe, perhaps the seediest person in the entire Clinton universe, is now the governor of Virginia. Quite a perverted way of expressing your opinion.
