I Heart Libertarians

I know Randy Barnett is too busy to respond to this now, but I thought in light of recent provocations by Prof. Bainbridge I would invite libertarians to join...the dark side of the force. I mean, the Democratic party. It is...your destiny (spooky wiggling fingers). Look at me, reliable Democratic voter! I support 2nd amendment rights, think drugs should be legalized, support means testing of social security, and think running permanent trillion-dollar deficits is a bad idea. What's more, I favor the elimination of all agricultural and industrial subsidies! And free trade! And abortion rights! I think people should be allowed to form unions, and also not form unions. I don't think it's good that the teacher's unions should forever stymie potential reforms in the US educational system, but I also think NCLB is an invasive federal program wedded to testing for its own sake, which imposes costs on the states and doesn't supply federal money to pay for them. I think market-based solutions to environmental problems, such as pollution credits, can be great, in the context of stern enforcement of existing environmental protections. I don't think the feds should subsidize grazing, logging, or mining on government-owned lands. I favor innovative traffic-mitigation schemes involving variable road pricing! Ooh, ooh, and I think prostitution and gambling should be legal! And I love gay marriage! Come here, gay marriage, I'm going to give you a big wet kiss. And the firm separation of church and state! But I don't support hate crime laws. Nor do I think the government should force private businesses to hire homosexuals if they don't want to, because they are gay-hating nuts or something! Go on, be gay-hating nuts, I say! Just leave actual gay people alone, and let them have fancy weddings with Vera Wang gowns and little packets of pastel-colored Jordan almonds, if they want. No one's making you read the NYT weddings section, after all. It's like that because it fills a market niche! And so is CBS; it's a triumph of the marketplace! If people don't want to watch sneering liberal condescension towards their heartland, gay-hating values, they can watch Fox! See, everyone's happy now. So what do you say, Libertarians? Feel the love. Feeeel the love. I'm not the only Democrat who's like this. No, there's, like, 100 of us! OK, 5. Still, don't you want to feel the love? OK, this is my last concession: I kinda like Rush. I mean, in an ironic way, but still. "Invisible airways crackle with light/bright antennae bristle with the energy!" Let's come together, people. You have nothing to lose but your insulting, theocratic, soi-disant Republican allies.

PS Did I mention I don't think porn should be censored? C'mon, who do you relate to more, Catallarchy guys: me or John Derbyshire? Give it some thought. You got 4 years to get back to me.

UPDATE: Katherine's comment below has me wondering if it's really true I don't think it should be illegal to discriminate in hiring on the basis of sexual orientation.

It's true that I would regard a job listing including the words "only straight people need apply" very dimly. And I do think a similar listing calling only for white applicants is (and should be) illegal. I guess I was just thinking along the lines of "it's not illegal to be an asshole". By this I mean that a certain amount of community-wide censure and boycotting seems to me like a better solution to homophobic employers than the Feds breathing down their necks. But I don't know. What I really meant to highlight was that staunch support of gay rights does not entail sweeping assertions about "hate speech", such that fire-and-brimstone anti-homosexual preachers would be dragged into court (as one hears about in Canada, perhaps apocryphally). I think people should be free to say awful things about one another, up to the limiting case of direct incitement to violence. Small business owners who hate gay people, um. This is difficult. Employers have the right to, say, hate red-headed people, and never give jobs to red-headed applicants. This is crazy, but should it be illegal? It seems like a curious artefact of current law that it's legal to be an asshole tout court, but illegal to be a sexist, harassing bastard. There is a case to be made for this, no doubt, but it's also kind of odd, viewed sub specie aeternitatis. I remember reading about a case in which a boss mounted a sucessful defense against a (very well-founded) sexual harassment claim on the grounds that he had been equally odious to male employees, but in a different way. This seems...weird, but I don't think sexual harassment should be legal. Should the Boy Scouts have to allow out gay men to be Scoutmasters in order to interact with government institutions such as public schools? Well, they ought to in that it's the right thing to do, but should they be legally required to? I incline to say, no. But I wouldn't accept such a justification in the case of some hypothetical Aryan Nation youth organisation. So maybe I'm a hypocrite? Discuss.

Comments

[Micha Ghertner]

I can definitely relate to you more, Belle. And Democrats in general.

That still isn't enough to get me to actually vote! But I did root for Kerry in my own non-voting sort of way.

[Brian W. Doss]

I think you're right about the 5 other Democrats that are in line with your thinking. However, after the latest catastrophe in electoral land for the Democrats, perhaps the rediscovery of the wonders of Federalism will make more of them come around to your way of thinking?

I'm an LP voter and have shed most of my childhood tribal affiliation with the Republicans (only once have I voted for a Republican presidential nominee, Papa Bush in '92, holding my nose). If the Democrats make a serious attempt to embrace the market and welfare liberalism (as opposed to warmed over Social Democracy/Socialism) then I'll admit that I'd be open to casting a vote for the 'other side' (lord knows the LP keeps embarassing me... as Radley says, I'm coming to think that the national LP, at least, may be a net negative for the broader libertarian project.) A Democratic party wedded to federalism, the bill of rights (all of them) & simple welfare liberalism would get my vote.

[Patri Friedman]

Its true that Dems agree with Libs about lots of things, but they also heartily disagree. Personally I'd be a lot less anti-liberal if liberals used efficient methods to accomplish their aims. But I would still disagree with them profoundly about how much government should help people.

That's why cooperation is all about promoting federalism, so we can all have what we want.

[Your Mom]

You know, there are, actually, 6 of us. Count me in.

[belle]

dude, now that my mom's on board, we're poised to be a major political force! the owl of liberalism combined with moderate welfare programs flies at dusk!

[Jim Henley]

Belle, it all sounds wonderful. My frustration with the Democratic Party is that while it has voters and probably office-holders who believe many fine things I believe, as an institution it does nothing to advance those things. If the Dems spent half so much energy trying to remove what you and I consider Existing Bad Government as they do adding New Government (most of which I consider bad and you would consider good), it would be a very attractive compromise home. But it's not there. Democratic politicians go out of their way to establish "credibility" on drugs and speculative war. They ignore or even exacerbate corporate welfare. (Come to DC. I've got a baseball stadium to sell you.) They leave the barnacles and sharp protrusions in place to concentrate on adding to the superstructure. The difference between me now and me a year ago is that I wish harder that this were not so.

[ash]

Pardon the cutting and pasting:

>Look at me, reliable Democratic voter! I support 2nd amendment rights,

Forget supporting them, just quit attacking them. (There are exactly two thing the Bush administration has done in the last four years that I even thought of liking: dumping the insta-check gun database info, and reversing the fed position on Miller v. US, which was a stupid decision. A stupid NON-decision of the most abysmal sort. Even more non-sensical than Bush v. Gore or whatever it was called.)

>think drugs should be legalized,

How about we just defederalize the criminal status and let the states figure it out? Quit sending poor blacks to fed prison camps.

>support means testing of social security,

I'm not sure about this means-testing bidness. Too complex. Raising the retirement age probably makes sense. People are going to be working longer anyways.

>and think running permanent trilion-dollar deficits is a bad idea.

Amen.

>What's more, I favor the elimination of all agricultural and industrial subsidies!

Ag subsidies suck (and contribute the main red/blue state reciept-of-fed-money difference) because they go to giant ag business, which chase out poor farmers. Also,
they artifically lower the price, which again hurts poor/small farmers. Dick Armey, years ago, offered to exchange small farm support for killing the other subsidies and I still think that was a fine plan.

>And free trade!

I'm fine with free trade with non-communist countries that have 'free trade' with us. Countries attempting to, in effect, drive us out of market segments, particularly via blocking subsidy of their own industries and manipulation of their currency exchange are engaged in trade war, which I regard as no different than other forms of hostility. Fuck 'em.

>And abortion rights! I think people should be allowed to form unions, and also not form unions.

Ayup.

>I don't think it's good that the teacher's unions should forever stymie potential reforms in the US educational system, but I also think NCLB is an invasive federal program wedded to testing for its own sake, which imposes costs on the states and doesn't supply federal money to pay for them.

I know! Let's get rid of the DoE and return the equivalent in fed taxes (preferably by tax cuts, or in this case deficit cuts) to the states. And drop all the *&(*& fed regs. Then people can agitate for the state houses to get on the stick and fix things, which god knows, might even work.

>I think market-based solutions to environmental problems, such as pollution credits, can be great, in the context of stern enforcement of existing environmental protections.

I dunno what the hell the market-based solutions are. As long as the existing regs are sane (some are, some ain't), I have other problems more important to deal with.

>I don't think the feds should subsidize grazing, logging, or mining on government-owned lands.

Da.

>I favor innovative traffic-mitigation schemes involving variable road pricing!

Well, now you're kinda in a hurry.

>Ooh, ooh, and I think prostitution and gambling should be legal! And I love gay marriage! But I don't support hate crime laws. Nor do I think the government should force private businesses to hire homosexuals if they don't want to, because they are gay-hating nuts or something! Just leave actual gay people alone, and let them have fancy weddings with Vera Wang gowns and little packets of pastel-colored Jordan almonds, if they want.

Leave it to the states. Then the problem will eventually disappear.

>See, everyone's happy now. So what do you say, Libertarians? Feel the love.

See if you can get the red-diaper babies not to spit on me so much. I'm just askin' - I voted for Kerry anyways.

>Feeeel the love. I'm not the only Democrat who's like this. No, there's, like, 100 of us! OK, 5.

Well, the idea seems to actually be gaining traction. Of course the idea of radicalizing the proletariat towards smashing the advanced capitalist state seems to be gaining some traction too. To wit:

'While the Left has often turned to Gramsci for guidance, most commentators have ignored one of his most important insights: that however negative a role religion played in Italian society, it constituted the most important social force in the struggle against capitalism and fascism, without which the Left could never hope to achieve social hegemony against the bourgeoisie.'

And so on, from Juan Cole. That sort of thing really leaves me with the feeling I'm trapped between two groups of lunatics and idiots, and I expect some people feel the same.

---
Maybe you should make sure to insist that the voting rights acts be extended and revised to ALL states and not just the Southern ones and to make damn sure all states have one decent standard so blacks don't get screwed. Just so nobody thinks you're arguing for a 'states rights' platform of the 'nigger-hatin'' variety.

This is perfectly acceptable ya know, they put that power in the Constitution in 1789.

ash
['In case they want to kvetch about strict construction.']

[digamma]

This libertarian has always felt more sympathy with the Democrats than with the Republicans. But that's more to do with being a cultural "blue stater" than anything else.

[Nicholas Weininger]

I actually held my nose and voted for Kerry-- NJ looked close enough to swinging that it was worth it. In retrospect I probably should've known better and added a vote to Badnarik's total instead. If I had to vote at all. Blech. Voting. Slimy.

But a party I'd actually work for would look much less like the current Dems and more like Timothy Burke's proposed soft-libertarian splintered/remade-Dem party.

If you want to start moving in that direction, federalism might be a good first issue. Juan Cole and a bunch of the cool kids are already getting on the "hey, maybe if we had some devolution we in the blue states could keep at least some of our rights no matter what the Bushies do!" bandwagon. And after Ashcroft, federalism folks sure don't have anywhere else to go.

[Noah Yetter]

News flash: you and those other 5 Democrats? You are libertarians, if moderate and only pragmatic rather than principled.

WE should be inviting YOU to join US ;)

[Brian W. Doss]

Hey, good point Noah...

[Jacob T. Levy]

We heart you too, Belle-- and if you run for any US office on that platform (or, hell, a Singaporean office either!) you can count on our support, valuable as that is! Once, 'way back on my original blogged, I asked whether there was anyone running for House or Senate in 2002 who was combined being pro-free trade, anti-ag subsidies, pro-choice, and at least not actively anti-gay. I may have thown in one or two others (maybe being an immigration moderate rather than a restrictionist), but each criterion, taken one at a time, was met by lots of mainstream politicians. I wasn't asking for drug legalizers.

Crickets chirped in the background.

Sometimes I think it's my destiny to end up the most rabid free-marketeer on the DLC's membership list. And then sometimes the DLC seems to think that its mission is to appeal to those who are only moderately homophobic, rather than those who are moderately pro-market. May well be electorally rational; probably is. But it makes it a lot less appealing to sign on the dotted line. I fear the Waring platform is even less popular among Democratic campaign planners now than it was a week ago.

Re: John "buggery, buggery, buggery!" Derbyshire... [shudder]

[prometheus]

Although I still have a number of libertarian leanings, I consider myself considerably reformed since my date with libertarianism years ago, and I certainly had no trouble opting for Kerry over Bush.

Perhaps, Belle, the solution you seek is a means of sparking similar reformation in other libertarians. The impetus behind my own reformation was a Buddhist I met who characterized politics as "the mediation of desire."

I spent a lot of time fighting that notion, but ultimately, I felt compelled to concede the point. Libertarians can argue their hands, but, in my humble opinion, Hume holds the trump card.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Yeah, that's what we need -- to recruit the support of a fringe group that never could gain even a consistent percentage point of the vote nationally. That'll put us over the top! Meanwhile we'll have to explain to all the people who voted for Bush because they liked his family values just why we're turning our attention to legalized prostitution and dope.

There are a lot of libertarians on the net -- it's the kind of simplistic, reasoning-from-strict-first-principles philosophy that attracts computer science people -- but asking them to join the Democrats is electoral suicide. Unless we're asking them to ride in the back of the bus and support us but never make waves and be invisible. Doesn't that sound attractive? Both for us and for them.

[Brian W. Doss]

Rich-

Over at Catallarchy you can see a number of libertarians that do not argue from strict-first-principles. Given that we're agreeing with Belle's proposed platform, why erect the straw man of "prostitution and drugs" when all of us care more about free trade and free markets than niche issues?

[Rich Puchalsky]

Brian,

Niche issues? Here is a direct quote from Jim Henley, the libertarian who I most respect, about what he would have Democrats do:

"let the Dems put as much real energy into getting rid of big government they supposedly don't like as adding big government they do. Campaign on ending the drug war and mean it. Dismantle corporate welfare instead of engaging in it. Restore the personal income tax exemption to its level in 1948 dollars while eliminating all or most itemized deductions. Promise to repeal all or most of the USA-PATRIOT Act, the RAVE Act and the DMCA. Stand as firmly for free trade as Clinton did."

Drugs are #2 on his list, and the whole thrust of "big government that [Dems] don't like" has to do with the personal freedoms -- I can't understand the sentence in any other way -- that are anathema to the Bush voters who we lost in the last election.

But even ignoring the sex, drugs, and rock and roll parts of the list, the rest is a bunch of loser issues. Dimantle corporate welfare? Sure, that's a great way to win over those farming states. And yeah, let's get rid of the tax deduction for home ownership, that'll win over the middle class. (I'm ignoring the bit of Republican agitprop that made its way into the end; Kerry certainly was as supportive of free trade as Clinton was during his campaign.)

Sorry, you libertarians may be great people personally, and more reality based than the Republicans, but you are electoral poison. I fail to see any reason why Democrats should make any effort to win you over, especially since there are serious differences between us in matters like environmental protection and in regulating the excesses of capitalism that we'd have to evade, thus making us stand for even less than we do now.

[Xavier]

I didn't see any mention of health care on your list. That could be a deal breaker for me. If you add in means testing of Medicare along with Social Security and no new health care spending for the under-65 crowd, then you'll have my vote.

[Jacob T. Levy]

Rich, I don't know that anyone-- including Belle-- was suggesting that it was electorally sound for Democrats to make themselves over to attract us.

Indeed, I suspect something like the following is true: both libertarians and their opposites (roughly, protectionist cultural moderates and cultural conservatives, people who like their farm bills *and* their bans on gay marriage) are in principle swingable. And many/ most libertarians seem a lot more like "our kind of people" to the Democrats who woke up Wednesday morning to realize, with horror, that they live in a country where banning gay marriage could elect a president. Indeed, we *are* more "your kind of people." We view John Derbyshire and James Dobson with the same distaste you do. If it's to be a culture war, we're clearly on your side. If it's to be a dinner party, we won't say the embarrassingly rude things that the populists would say if you invited them instead.

Unfortunately, there are a lot more of them than there are of us. And the things you may have to do to attract them-- i.e. nominating presidential candidates from the Hollings-Gephardt-Byrd caucus-- are incompatible with attracting us.

Of course, we're right and they're wrong. But that doesn't make us electoral winners.

[Micha Ghertner]

Rich,

You seem to be under the impression that the only libertarians out there are the ones who vote for the Libertarian Party. That is simply not the case. There are some like me, who don't vote at all and thus are largely irrelevant to this conversation. But there are probably many, many more within the ranks of the Republican Party as a holdover from the Goldwater/Reagan movement. If Dems softened their anti-market rhetoric and did some of the things Belle suggested, they could attract huge swaths of these sorts of libertarians from the Republicans. Especially after this election, when there was nothing libertarian about the Bush administration.

[Mike]

Why can't more democrats be like you, Belle?

But Rich, your such a party pooper. Its not about capturing the Libertarian Party vote. Because the LP is just ineffective, stupid, and self-devisive. It is about as functional as Monty Python's People's Judaen Front. The point is to capture the vote of the people who are feel that the government is too big, too harmful, and whatnot. All you guys have to do is put forth the idea that you are less big government then the republicans. With the USA PATRIOT Act and the war in Iraq and all, that shouldn't be hard to do! I actually think that if someone could visably attack republicans for the fact that they talk small government but don't walk small government, well, that would be a good step forward.

I think Democrats should put fighting corporate welfare front and center. The issue is obviously good for the base. Furthermore, it would grab libertarians, especially libertarian-esque Republicans who see the gop as being against subsidies. Another idea that I would like to see someone seriously put forward is shifting taxes away from sales and income and toward land value.

Perhaps the most interesting question I have been grappeling with is the idea of a "citizen's dividend" or a "gauranteed income". I see this as a great compromise issue between people who are alarmed at the size and power of government and those who are alarmed at the "dismanteling of the welfare state". I mean, we are not going to get rid of redistribution. So why not just make it smarter. Cut out the buerocracy, paper work, and the power of government middle men.

That is enough for now.

[DJW]

I suspect Xavier is right that health care is an issue that the libertarians and the Waring Democrats will part ways. Still, it's a good list.

Furthermore, libertarians, we're a hell of a lot more fun at parties the Republicans.

[Katherine]

1. Belle, on letting private employers discriminate against gays if they want to, isn't that essentially the Barry Goldwater position on the 1964 civil rights act? Do you think private employers should be allowed to discriminate on the basis of race? If not, why is it ok to discriminate based on sexual orientation but not race?

2. All youse libertarians out there:
It seems to be a common position that--

a) private organizations and corporations and citizens should not be subject to many of the constraints that we put on the government to preserve liberty. They shouldn't have to allow free speech, they should be allowed to discriminate on racial and religious and sexual and political grounds. They are certainly not elected. Nothing resembling a right of association--they are free to break up labor unions. (Everyone agrees that the Constitution does not require these things, but most liberals want at least some of them enforced against private companies.)

b) the government should be as small, employ as few people, provide as few services, spend as little money, and do as little as possible.

Combine these two things, and I would argue: you have LESS liberty, not more, than the status quo. If there are no public streets, sidewalks, or parks--no "public forums"--and private owners do not have to respect anyone's right to stand on their property, let alone say whatever the hell they want there, what is left of the First Amendment? As a practical matter, in their daily lives, are black people more or less free than they were before the 1964 Civil Rights act? Are these gains really offset by the lack of freedom to discriminate on racial grounds? I mean hell, it's easy enough to get away with racial discrimination if you're smart about it. If no business will hire or serve Muslims, and there are no government jobs or social safety net, how free are they to practice their religion? If neighborhood associations ban bumper stickers, window signs, and American flags, in a standard form contract not subject to negotiation, are allowed to prevent minorities from coming in because they drive down property values, and neighborhood associations build an increasing % of the homes in the country and every home in the place you want to live--will people be more or less free to live where they want and express themselves? I know, I know--the armed might of the state. But on the other hand, we get a vote on what the state does, and it's not so hard for a private company to buy some armed might, and money and the lack of it have their own coercive power--as you surely recognize, given your views on taxes.

[Bruce Baugh]

Good post, Belle. As for me, the (not exhaustive) list I compiled for my LiveJournal explains why I feel quite comfortable identifying myself as a Democrat at this point. Practical progress on a whole bunch of things that matter to me have happened there, and there's institutional interest in more progress on 'em when and if possible. Since moving the margin the way I want it to go is my priority, that works for me.

[Mike]

Katherine-

I don't think that the reality of libertarian thought is so simple or monolithic as you assume. Most do not want to go back to the days of legal segregation. Few want to end all public spaces. However, on this issue let me propose an alternative way of thinking about this: neighborhood localism. Neighborhood associations don't have to be so restrictive or even anti-government. It is just making the decision making body as local and as small as possible, so that neigborhood members have maximized influence on decision making and minimized the control of outsiders

[David Rossie]

Belle,

If this is a proposed alliance, where does this libertarian sign up? You have done more in one blogpost to woo me than any of the Republicans did during the election with their veiled threats and doom-and-gloom scenarios.

There's been a lot of chatter about this in the blogosphere; could it be a real trend?