I GUESS I’M NOT A LIBERTARIAN
Cato just released a long white paper [pdf] on the “invisible” libertarian voter. It’s pretty interesting stuff, but I found their thinking a little too black or white:
The American National Election Studies data also allow us to identify libertarians in the electorate. ANES has asked the same questions for 15 years. We used these questions:
• Next, I am going to ask you to choose which of two statements I read comes closer to your own opinion. You might agree to some extent with both, but we want to know which one is closer to your own views: ONE, The less government, the better; or TWO, There are
more things that government should be doing?• ONE, We need a strong government to handle today’s complex economic problems; or, TWO, The free market can handle these problems without government being involved.
• We should be more tolerant of people who choose to live according to their own moral standards, even if they are very different from our own. (Do you agree strongly, agree somewhat, neither agree nor disagree, disagree somewhat, or disagree strongly with this statement?)
Only those respondents who said “the less government the better,†“the free market can handle these problems,†and strongly agreed or agreed that “we should be more tolerant†were classified as libertarian.
I generally agree with “the smaller the better,” but I see the two biggest issues over the next decade as health care and climate change. Neither one will be “solved” by the free market. Universal health care is going to come. It has to. We are bankrupting our manufacturing base because of the crazy way we fund health care. Universal health care would have to be more efficient than the 25% waste found today. As for global warming– It’s the tragedy of the commons. Just like we needed the EPA in the ’70s to force businesses away from the race to the bottom (line), we’ll almost surely need a governmental response to global warming.
So, per Cato I’m no longer even libertarian-leaning. But I don’t think so.
3 Responses to “I GUESS I’M NOT A LIBERTARIAN”
 Comment by speedwell October 13th, 2006 at 4:28 pm |
I am the most anarcho-libertarian person I know except for one, and he’s crazy. 🙂 Still, I would “fail” the last question. I ‘neither agree or disagree’ that I (not “we”) should tolerate people whose moral standards are different from MY (not “our”) own. I didn’t just pick my worldview up from a street corner pushcart. I don’t share it with some collectivist “we” boogeyman. I don’t presume to tell other people what to do, but that doesn’t mean I have to “understand” and “tolerate” their lousy attitudes and behaviors. Should pot be legal? Yeah, sure. Should I be OK with somebody slipping me a pot brownie? No way. Should people be allowed to believe that their best chance for survival lies in taking advantage of other people in moments of weakness? Yeah, I feel sorry for the wretches. Will I let some con artist take advantage of my daughter when she has her own apartment in college? I’d die first. You get the picture. Cato apparently doesn’t. |
 Comment by Ulrike October 13th, 2006 at 6:43 pm |
If you ever get a chance, check out the Crunchy Cons book. I was quite impressed. Overall, I think I’m too liberal for the Republicans, too libertarian for the Democrats, and too conservative for the Libertarians. |
 Comment by JJ Ross October 13th, 2006 at 7:21 pm |
AMEN!
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