Discussion for article #226355
Better headline:
“Bullshitter whines when more well informed people call bullshit.”
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So…his rebuttal to Chait’s piece (which I read originally since I read everything he writes) is that it isn’t surprising Chait wrote it since he doesn’t like libertarians and must not have read the piece that he obviously did read.
Wow…it’s like he’s not even trying. Ignore the substance entirely and make it personally about Chait. Because yeah, as long as you ignore the polling that shows that younger people openly support bigger government, I suppose it could look like they might turn libertarian. But…that means you have to ignore the very thing that refutes the point entirely.
And no, lack of partisan ID doesn’t mean people are turning libertarian whatsoever. That’s just stupid and a complete misreading of reality. Lots of people like to say they’re independents even when they reliably vote for one party, and even the few who truly are undecided aren’t necessarily libertarian at all. Anyone who doesn’t understand that needs to go back to the drawing board.
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I’ve never been a member of either political party. Well, I aligned with the Dems for the purpose of voting in one primary election. (I think it was for Al Gore.) Right out of high school I didn’t want to be affiliated with any party, like I don’t want to be affiliated with any religion. Its a personal choice that I feel is tied privately to my own personal feelings. But. I’ve always been Liberally minded. I will never, ever vote for a Republican for national office, because they’ve screwed up government. Their aim is to screw up government. They don’t know how to govern. They want to spend large amounts of money on things that cost us the most money, cut those things that aid and protect our citizenry, and eliminate boogeymen like the IRS, taxes, “jack booted ATF”, EPA, FDA, etc. In essence, Republicans, as a national party, don’t make any sense. I do have a few beefs with Dems, but, generally, they tend to listen better. Josh’s post about Republicans inventing news stories on fake news sites and then telling the press that Dems were jealous, like so many outrageous actions Republicans have taken in the past, says loads.
I haven’t read Draper’s piece, but does it mention that those youngest of voters tend to value government services much more than, obviously, Liberatarians do?
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The biggest stretch in this whole debacle is not that there might be a libertarian moment among us, or that Draper misinterpreted some polling data to write a fluff piece about libertarianism. No, the biggest blunder in the whole thing is to label and equate Rand Paul as a libertarian. He isn’t. He is a Republican.
Me might have libertarian tendencies, but lots of people do. To label him libertarian is to let the GOP off the hook for all the stupid crap he says and does.
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A political party that has as their default stance “Every man for themselves” cannot possibly ever be nationally elected in this country. Unless you’d like to revisit the French Revolution.
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I read the article, and if MTV’s Kennedy gyrating onstage to “Flashdance” is the Libertarian idea of how to attract “younger voters,” then I don’t think we have much to worry about.
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Uhm…libertarian isn’t a party. It’s an ideology. So someone can be a libertarian Republican, or a social conservative Republican, or a fiscal conservative Republican, or even a liberal Republican (assuming you hopped into your time machine and go back to the 70’s). So I fail to see how Paul being a Republican has any bearing on whether or not he’s a libertarian.
And frankly, I think he’s a libertarian who pays lip service to non-libertarian issues when libertarianism would hurt him with Republican voters. But deep down, I think he truly does believe the crap that he used to talk about before he became a Senator. Not that it makes much of a difference, since I actually see libertarian Republicans as being just as bad as the standard kind, if not worse. At least social conservatives have tradition on their side and admit they’re outsourcing their ideas to a higher power. Libertarians are so convinced that their half-backed theories make them the smartest people in the room that they’re totally willing to toss everything aside and implement their crazy agenda.
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Yea it was for “librarians” ya morons!
Most young people I run into wouldn’t know a libertarian from a librarian.
They’re too young and too dumb to be philosophically attached to any political orientation.
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Indeed there is a Libertarian Party, but I think you know that. If Randy were a libertarian, as he sometimes claims and as he constantly gets labeled by the media, then he would belong to the Libertarian Party and run on their ticket like his daddy did in 1988. But Rand Paul has done no such thing and has chosen to be a Republican.
Yes, you are correct that small L libertarianism is an ideology and not a Party. But I find Randy Paul and his views as anything but small L libertarianism. Paul Waldman at The Plum Line makes my point perfectly in his “Why aren’t libertarians talking about Ferguson?” post.
Why aren’t the very serious, very smart and self-labeled libertarians talking about huge abuses in a Big Government police state??? It’s because they aren’t libertarians, because like Waldman states, if they were they would be very concerned with a militarized police force. Maybe if Mike Brown had been white then Randy Paul and the other very smart libertarians would care, which again proves his non-libertarianismness. (yes I made that word up)
Randy Paul is simply a right wing Republican that gets to dance around his full fledged membership with the GOP. It’s really that simple.
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And then it’s Sauve qui peut!
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Being libertarian doesn’t mean you’re color-blind, it just means you never have to say you’re sorry.
And Ayn Rand, via John Galt, supported a strong police force and a strong military as the only legitimate functions of government. They who have want to keep their stuff safe from the undeserving.
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Let’s not forget either that Ayn Rand cashed her Social Security check every month too.
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Unfortunately, I completely agree. And I teach political philosophy to these same young people at a fairly renowned university…
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As much as I abhor the a-social and anti-social idiocy disguising itself as “philosophy” associated with Ayn Rand, and as much as I despise here as being possibly the worst writer of English prose ever - at least one has to admit that she was consistent in her views.
She hated organized religion, let alone the role of religion in politics. She hated the “moral majority” BS. If you favor a huge role for religion in politics, if you want to legislate sexuality, if you want to outlaw drugs - well, then you’re not a libertarian. Rand Paul is no libertarian; he toys around with libertarian ideas somewhere on the edges, but he is no libertarian in any reasonable (or “objectivist”, if I may) sense of the word.
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The brand “libertarianism” always has been more popular than its policy prescriptions. After all, who could be against “freedom,” “liberty,” and all those heroic Silicon Valley entrepreneurs (who don’t even realize they got rich because the government “built that” Internet)?
Some young people consider themselves to be libertarian while at the same time they support liberal economic and environmental policies, because it’s considered hip and maverick-y to be libertarian. It’s cognitive dissonance in the same way that people generally support Democratic policies but swallow all the negative crap that the GOP foists on them about specific Democratic politicians (except kind of the reverse). Or in the way that people oppose “Obamacare,” but overwhelming support every single part of it.
I wonder if this nuance is getting lost in the debate between Chait and Draper.
Totally agree @HugoPreuss
Sure he has libertarian tendencies, but many people do. Many liberals, in fact, have many libertarian tendencies. Few would enjoy being labeled a libertarian, however.
Classifying Randy Paul (or even Ron Paul) as a libertarian is a just a way to let the GOP off the hook for their crazies.
Don’t forget either, that despite his idiotic talking filibuster concerning the use of drones by the Obama administration, that he and Obama have exactly the same position on using drones.
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His claim that he is not pushing the libertarian agenda is undone by his first sentence in his last paragraph, to wit: “Our libertarian moment, in other words, might very well pass unexploited.” Note our libertarian. Kind of possessive, isn’t it?