Liberaltarianism?

if the basis of the alliance was holding freedom as a value, you'd just need to convince libertarians that tax policy (and etc) doesnt affect freedom nearly as much as some other things (various anti-civil liberties legislation, war on drugs, etc), and should therefore not be the priority. There is more common ground than disagreement i think, or at least there should be.

Are you against gun control because you're actually pro-gun, Matt, or do you simply feel like it should be abandoned because it's proven to be an unfortunate political loser?

This question should not be considered as if there's a single answer applicable nationwide. In regions where liberals can dominate without allying with libertarians, there's no reason for an alliance. In those places an alliance between libertarians and conservatives seems more likely. But in "red" and "purple" states an alliance with libertarians could be genuinely valuable.

The hard part would be translating such regional alliances into national policy priorities. But that's a good problem to have.

The whole liberal/libertarian alliance presumes that cultural conservatives, neocons, and K Street types will always run the Republican party, meaning that fiscal libertarianism is simply off the table and liberals become the lesser of two evils.

I'm not sure that presumption looks as sensible after the 2006 elections--the unholy trinity of Iraq, DeLay, and Schiavo doesn't look so invincible now.

He said he's against gun control "on the merits," so it would have to be the first of your options, Steve.

Matthew writes: I can't imagine any libertarians worrying about growing inequality.

But isn't that exactly what the Cato paper puts on the table? It says, "Go ahead, tax the rich," and suggests compromises dedicated to trimming entitlement programs by retargeting them more exclusively towards the poor, or at least the non-ultra-wealthy (see the stance on agriculture subsidies (I know, politically infeasible), and funding Earned Income Tax Credit). One Libertarian, at least -- Lindsey -- seems to be willing to take up inequality as a problem, as long as dealing with inequality is done in the context of overall growth. Obviously, those are to a certain extent uneasy mutual goals, but surely not flatly contradictory ones.

Are you against gun control because you're actually pro-gun, Matt, or do you simply feel like it should be abandoned because it's proven to be an unfortunate political loser?

I think, on the merits, that law-abiding adults should have pretty broad latitude to own and possess firearms of their choosing. I don't believe that allowing them to do so would (or does) seriously increase the incidence of violent crime and it's obviously very important to a largish number of people who should I think, be allowed to do as they please.

Libertarianism and cultural conservatism can be good tactics in places and areas where they make sense. No liberal advocates unnecessary government regulation, and no liberal family wants their job of raising children made harder than it needs to be. So, if there are ways of achieving liberal goals using other means, that should be fine, assuming it makes achieving goals easier. The classic example (though unrelated to libertarianism and cultural conservatism) is fighting poverty with the EITC.

In either direction, though, a grand compromise wouldn't work.

I've tried to wrap my brain around the question and the best I can come up with is libertarians agree to support a single payer national health care system and liberals protect it with guns. Seriously, if they just start voting Democratic I'll stop making fun of Ayn Rand books.

I think that a not-insignificant number of people with libertarinan instincts would be pretty willing to buy into some liberal projects about the "common good" if liberals were willing to admit that individual freedom is often closely aligned with said "common good" and that even in cases where that's not true, less regulation (though not necessarily weaker), will often produce better common good results than more regulation.

I know that my biggest beef with true-blue liberals is that they seem to be immune to the idea of unintended concequences in social and economic policy (though spectacularly cogniscent of it wrt random wars).

I welcome anyone flying under libertarian colors who will agree to the proposition that maximizing human freedom in a wealthy postindustrial society such as ours involves a commitment to securing the cybernetic bases for the self-actualization of each individual member of our commonwealth. From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs, in other words--and: to whatever extent the least of us is not free, to that extent no one is truly free. We are all implicated in one another's lives. We are social animals. No more children stunted by want, ignorance, malign neglect, and insufficient solidarity.

Good luck securing that agreement among the legions of political theorists manque who are purposefully devoid of any conception of social theory or even of society itself. To all the rest, I bid urgent welcome. We have a lot of liberaltarian liberatin' to do!

Eh back to you. What about:

Separation of church and state?

Patriot Act, et. al.?

A woman's right to chose?

Lack of censorship of popular culture as to sex and violent content?

You're right that "libertarians" get a little jittery about the "common good" thingie. It all depends on what you mean by "common good." If it means something like excessive use of eminent domain, forced sale of a home because some government entity decided a nice mall and apartment buildings along a city riverfront was a good idea, well, they tend to think of "common good" as not being subject to that kind of stuff.

On single payer health insurance, the libertarian is capable of seeing where the current situation has gotten you where you have less freedom with idiot at the big HMO's approving procedures based on god knows what than you would have with a government functionary following public rules, that you have in effect a second government in insurance companies setting themselves up unaccountable to the people. No problem, really, as long as you don't disallow those with the funds to do so being able to purchase more services outside the system.

I agree with Brink Lindsey's essay on this point:

progressives remain stubbornly resistant to embracing capitalism, their great natural ally

All you need to do to see that exemplified is visit the comments on that Kos thread you cited just a few posts back. Or search Katrina van der Heuvel's public statements and writings and count how many times the word "small business" occurs--it's like such a thing doesn't exist, all business is big greedy corporate overlords always doing some bad thing or another--no interest in such thing as micro-loans to solve the world poverty problem, but the belief that somehow socialist theories will do it, redistribution is all. If the emocratic party is a party that doesn't want Robert Rubin in it, it's not a party for me.

How exactly do you think Bill Clinton kept a 2/3 job approval rating all through an impeachment? Do you think libertarian types like the abusive use of sexual harassment law to persecute an enemy? Do you think libertarian types were against his riding herd on Congress to balance the budget in his second term and his initial campaign theme that the era of big inefficient government was over?

Yes, libertarian types are never going to be a card-carrying member of either major party, they're individualists and not joiners. They're instead going to swing back and forth depending on what you do. In 2006, you saw them say "we've had enough." If Democrats get so carried away with their supposed mandate for "the common good" that they do things like butt into family decisions on the deathbed, they'll get the same reaction.

I myself registered Independent following leaving behind a leftist youth once I saw the enforcede "moral values" side of politically-correct liberalism in the 70's and 80's, very much thinking they knew best what the common good would be. I don't believe that culture change can be forced by law without a lot of upheaval and grief and terrible blowback happening, blowback contrary to your cause that you might not be prepared for. If you try it, better be damned sure that it's something of supreme importance, like integration of the schools in the south in the 50's, and not something like censorship of pornography because it's degrading the feminist movement. I am interested in a public health department that deals with epidemics, but I am not interested in a public health department which outlaws what kind of fats I eat at restaurants or sends ill-educated social workers into the homes of poor women and tells them how to discipline their children upon threat of prosecution.

Given the choice in a vote between a righteous liberal wanting to make all kinds of laws allowing the government to interfere in my private life and everyone else's and a libertarian who goes overboard on pulling down regulations on business on capitalist enterprises, I would be pushed to chose the latter as a lesser evil. I think that not having lived through the 70's and early 80's as an adult, you have no idea of how overbearing aggressive liberalism can be. (One blowback we are still experiencing from that: white males still feel picked on! It's a ridiculous blowback but it's a real result of the constant writing of minority preference laws together with a jihad against them in the liberal-pundit-media at the time.) Too bad Frank Zappa's not around, he could tell you a story about Tipper Gore and the rating of music.

Based on a quick survey of AynRand.org, I agree with libertarians about drugs, sex, religion, gambling and other grown-up entertainments. However, for all their supposed "objectivism," libertarian economists just about completely ignore the history of the 20'th century. So do their foreign policy analysts, for that matter.

Twice daily, when the Libertarian stopped-clock is right, it's on the politically-losing side of the culture-war issues. Libertarians are entertaining, but they aren't exactly Ally material.

"Seriously, if they just start voting Democratic I'll stop making fun of Ayn Rand books."

If you read the article they note that, without Democrats having made any effort to "co-opt" them, libertarians already underwent seismic shifts in this direction in '04. If you check the owl droppings CATO sifted through attempting to figure this out, the 18-29 libertarian demographic went 71% for Kerry. Less fun-making and more deal-making wouldn't be a terrible idea.

to whatever extent the least of us is not free, to that extent no one is truly free. We are all implicated in one another's lives. We are social animals. No more children stunted by want, ignorance, malign neglect, and insufficient solidarity

I'm willing (to an extent) to buy into that sentiment. I just don't believe that government policy will ever get us where you want to go. My libertarianism is mostly pragmatic--that is, I believe that in most cases good results for society are not best produced by active government policy. In cases where this assumption doesn't hold, I favor under- rather than over- regulation because I think it's always easier to increase regulation to the optimal level than reduce it.

The sentiment that we want "No more children stunted by want", is admirable, but asserting it doesn't make it so, and the mechanisms by which that goal is achieved are important. I think that historical evidence has shown that those which are market-based have better success rates than others.

So given a general agreement about ends, what is the room for compromise on means?

Read this, Matt, it might change your mind a bit:

a closet (private) heterosexual
by J. David Velleman

The title is misleading. It's not just about gays, it's about the intersection of liberalism and libertarianism in America. By a philosopher, yet.

P.S. I'd like to take the opportunity of a second box of text to add a few more agitprop examples to my rant in my first comment on this thread: Some on the side of a "women's right to choose" believe that that should also mean the right of a pregnant woman to have a beer in a restaurant if she wants to without suffering government persecution, how about "progressives"? Libertarians get to kill rats in their back yard with poison purchased at the local store, excessive liberals have to call the city health department and wait for the expensive "humane to all living things" extermination team paid for by your local taxpayer.

And I can come back halfway to you, Andrews. We all know what oppressive bureaucracy and bad government look like--now more than ever! And markets are indispensable central mechanisms of any rational economy--but we can't wish away or turn a blind eye to the need to compensate for their shortcomings and failures in generating humanistic results (viz. numerous northern European family, health, and social policies, inter alia, for exemplars). And the fact is that much regulation is just a satisficing response to worst actors--it only takes an Enron and a Worldcom or two to stick everyone else with Sarbanes-Oxley. La luta continua. Open minds always!

but we can't wish away or turn a blind eye to the need to compensate for their shortcomings and failures in generating humanistic results

Agreed. Market failures are real, and in some cases market successes produce results that are obviously socially undesireable. In these cases my preference is for limited, but strong, government intervention.

Healthcare, for instance. I would be *very* opposed to an attempt to nationalize the hospital system a la the NHS in Britian. However, the healthcare industry is different than most industries in that it should produce *health* not *wealth*, and government regulation should provide incentives for companies to be profitable by producing good healthcare outcomes, rather than be profitable irrespective of good measureable outcomes. I'm not saying I know how to do this, but these are the sorts of policies I can find common ground on with liberals.

Basically, there's enough stuff that's crappy and broken (War on Drugs anyone?) that we can address those things first and worry about arguing over the other stuff later.

I think, on the merits, that law-abiding adults should have pretty broad latitude to own and possess firearms of their choosing. I don't believe that allowing them to do so would (or does) seriously increase the incidence of violent crime...

Matt: I'm in agreement with you here, but I tend to think that government in the US tends to do a rather poor job of keeping guns out of the hands of those who aren't so law-abiding. And this, in turn, is a direct result of the lax, disorganized, and innefficient regime of US firearms regulations. In other words, I think we can have a system that allows "law-abiding adults" to possess guns, but at the same time does a much better job of preventing their use in crimes. Do you not agree with this? Don't you at least concur that there is (still) a lot of room for improvement in America with respect to violent crime, and that reducing gun ownership (while keeping it perfectly legal for those who are willing to follow the rules) would help this cause?

When it comes to gun ownership, I'm against prohibition, but I'm also against laissez-faire, and I think US gun policy mostly amounts to the functional equivalent of the latter, with predictably poor results.

Andrews: Well, then--libs unite! Let the world tremble! ;-)

Some on the side of a "women's right to choose" believe that that should also mean the right of a pregnant woman to have a beer in a restaurant if she wants to without suffering government persecution, how about "progressives"?

In how many states could a pregnant woman actually be charged for having a beer in a restaurant? I don't think that's actually illegal most places, just strongly discouraged. Or do you think the surgeon general's warning on bottles of alcohol constitutes persecution?

artappraiser, I think I'm missing the point of your link--whether I'm missing the point of what's linked to or the point of your linking to it I'm uncertain. It seems to be arguing for privacy not as a freedom from the prying eyes of others, but as a social obligation on everyone to keep their own private stuff hidden from view--with the rationale that failing to keep yourself private invites public attention on not only you but everyone else.

Which means, to the extent that "the power of public opinion can be as effective an instrument of coercion as law", then what Velleman and Nagel call for--for public (though not legal) opposition to expressing certain aspects of yourself--is inherently coercive. And in the case of homosexuals (at least in Nagel's case), a particularly onerous coercion at that.

I would agree, as would most of those with common sense, that having other people constantly deconstructing your words to detect hidden signs of bigotry is a bad thing. But it seems to me that Nagel would take that too far and create a reverse-political correctness--it would become politically incorrect to express the view that racism is wrong.

Moreover, I disagree with the Nagel's principle that sums up his whole argument "Communitarianism -- the ambition of collective self-reaization -- is one of the most persistent threats to the human spirit." I think the most appropriate reaction to such a view comes from Kurt Vonnegut's "Player Piano"

"The great American individual. Thinks he's the embodiment of liberal thought throughout the ages. Stands on his own two feet, by God, alone and motionless. He'd make a good lamppost, if he'd weather better and didn't have to eat."

In truth, just as light is both a particle and a wave, the formation of opinions should be both individual and collective. The opinions of other people should have some weight in my opinions, but not total weight. All individuals and all societies are fallible, therefore both should bow down somewhat to the other. A society is empty and worthless without the people it contains, but the person is empty and worthless without the society and culture that contains him or her.

People can disagree on what the size of the public and private spheres should be, but clearly if one's definition of coercion extends to public opinion, strict libertarianism bumps up against unworkable contradictions really quickly.

"In how many states could a pregnant woman actually be charged for having a beer in a restaurant?"

Zero.

-----

And FWIW, the NYT had a nice article sometime in the past two weeks about how zero alcohol tolerance policies for pregnant women were nothing but voodoo.

Are you referring to this article?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/29/dining/29preg.html

What I found amusing about that article is that if you scroll down to the related articles, they say the opposite of what this one is saying--evidence indicates that moderate drinking during pregnancy is dangerous.

Obviously, government bans on drinking by pregnant women would be completely unworkable. OTOH, I'll put my pseudonym out on a limb here and say that social disapproval is entirely appropriate and sensible.

In the US, Libertarianism seems to have become = Economic Libertarianism only ... perhaps because Social Libertarians = Liberals? At which point, it's hard to find much meeting of minds between the two.

Matt writes:

In a lot of ways, I see more promise in trying to fuse elements of the progressive agenda with some elements of the much-derided cultural conservatism.

I think this is highly unlikely. The problem with cultural conservatism is not so much the specifics, like the hating of teh gay, it's the mindset that leads to this kind of thing to begin with. Moral absolutism, moral infallibility, traditionalism, fundamentalism, the belief that society must punish sin, etc. -- these are what culturally conservative views are based upon. When they finally get shamed out of their gay hating, they'll just find some other illiberal belief to rally around.

As for finding common ground on the issue of promoting stable families, the problem is that cultural conservatives perceive the issue much differently than do liberals. To the conservatives, unwed mothers and divorce are sinful, and sin must be punished. Their solutions typically consists not so much of inducements to form stable families, but rather harsh sanctions against those who don't fit the socially accepted standard. The rest of us don't see things that way at all. Single parent households or whatever may be less than ideal, but they aren't immoral, and trying cause people caught up in those kinds of situations more misery than they already experience is counterproductive.

To put it another way, liberals tend to have a utilitarian outlook about these things, while cultural conservatives have a punitive moralistic outlook. The two are just not compatible.

Petey:

re: "zero"

Go back to where I mentioned it and see where I labeled it "agitprop"? It was a pre-emptive, as I don't want to see it in the future. What I am saying is: should the current Congress start busying themselves with such examples of "public good" matters, I predict they will suffer a "Schiavo" from those with libertarian sympathies.

Libertarian: the Federal government is there to assist with massive disasters that states can't handle. If I don't like a local government lawmaking (i.e. "the people's republic of Santa Monica" as many of its citizens are wont to call it,) I can move.

Having a F.D.A. that thinks it's a national disaster that I can buy tryptophan as a food supplement is a whole nother thing. Have another example: ask any well-trained nutritionist if the feds food "pyramid" info. (or whatever they are calling it now) is of much use. There is a reason Bill Proxmire became a nationally known Senator.

I'll be honest, I am genuinely concerned that the Kos "netroots" is going to demand and get some results in the vein of excessive Federal lawmaking. I think this could mean a Republican becoming president again and the GOP winning back some seats in 2008. The current Congress should do a few things well, and keep libertarian sensitivies in mind.

firefall writes,

In the US, Libertarianism seems to have become = Economic Libertarianism only ... perhaps because Social Libertarians = Liberals? At which point, it's hard to find much meeting of minds between the two.

Got any kind of cite on that? It seems to me that there are plenty of people out there who identify as Libertarian who continue to have both social and economic Libertarian impulses -- at risk of being obvious, the author of the article in question, or Julian Sanchez, who is also linked above, or Jim Henley, or, say, me.

There are a few high-profile cases of people who identify as Libertarian but who hew closely to the Republican line (Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, for example), but in the absense of any non-anecdotal data, I see no reason to believe that they're the rule rather than the exception.

It seems to me that there's a strong strain of wishful thinking in recent liberal blogs and comments: people who wish to believe that the recent election signifies that all of a sudden, the majority of the population have become good party-line Democrats. And so you see comments like firefall's, saying that perhaps all the libertarians who are at all sympathetic to the Democrats have already turned into liberals, and a half dozen others in this thread which said some variation on, "Well, it sure would be neat if the libertarians would keep voting for us as long as we don't have to make any concessions whatsoever."

The truth, I think, is that the Democrats rose to power on the basis of a bunch of people who were intensely dissatisfied with the conduct of the war in Iraq, maybe a few other related issues, like the hateful military commissions bill, and the Republican personal scandals from right before the election. Those dissatisfied people include some libertarians, and certainly others as well. I don't think that the commonality of the coalition currently extends much beyond "Bush's war is a transparent lie which kills people, and also we don't approve of Foley's IM habits."

So it's a little baffling to me why it is that some liberals seem to think that the 2006 election was a Mandate From The People To Universalize Healthcare.

I mean, hell, I understand why you all want to go for it, and having helped vote you into office, I'm not going to bitch about it (as long as you do also try to get us out of Iraq and maybe subpoena a few members of the Administration as well). But it seems like some people aren't thinking of this as, "We happened to get into power, so we're going to pass progressive legislation and show everyone how great it is," but rather, "Everyone has finally realized how great progressive legislation is, and they voted us into office to pass it."

"I'll put my pseudonym out on a limb here and say that social disapproval is entirely appropriate and sensible."

Expressing social disapproval to a pregnant woman having a glass of wine with dinner, whether you know her or not, is unpleasantly dysfunctional social behavior at very best.

flippant angel:

I care less about his quoting of Nagel than I was more impressed by Velleman's main point in his summary paragraph, It really struck home with me. My highlighting:

My claim has been that liberals should not be fighting for control of the culture -- that they should embrace a form of cultural restraint comparable to that which governs the liberal attitude to law, and that this is the largest conception of the value of privacy. No one should be in control of the culture, and the persistence of private racism, sexism, homophobia, religious and ethnic bigotry, sexual puritanism, and other such private pleasures should not provoke liberals to demand constant public affirmation of the opposite values. The important battles are about how people are required to treat each other, how social and economic institutions are to be arranged, and how public resources are to be used. The insistence on securing more agreement in attitudes than we need for these purposes, and on including more of the inner life in the purview of even informal public authority, just raises the social stakes unnecessarily.

Basically, for me it's about social engineering, a favorite of some political liberals. Governments have rarely been good at that when it comes to personal emotions. Who gets to chose what the mores are? What will be the blowback with the groups that don't feel it "right"? Tax incentives, financial incentives, ironically, are the most successful social engineering tool, all the others fall flat compared to them. And that's where the quote by Brink Lindsey rings true about more socialist liberals not seeing capitalist impulses as an ally. Instead of making law prohibiting something, make a little financial beneficial for behavior to change, and the culture may even change on its own.

Mho: All the lobbying and rallying pro-homosexual rights as to getting laws to change aren't worth one damn episode of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" in helping to change cultural attitudes that will eventually make those rights a majority consensus. Matter of fact, many of the political activities may be counterproductive.

Separation of church and state for me also means the liberal secular morals church. I'll be honest: some of the moralizing I read by lefties in the blogosphere commentariat over the last few years is just plain scary to me.

Oops, my last comment should have been addressed as a reply to CONSUMATOPIA and not FLIPPANTANGEL. Sorry for any confusion.

Expressing social disapproval to a pregnant woman having a glass of wine with dinner, whether you know her or not, is unpleasantly dysfunctional social behavior at very best.

Actually, I was thinking more whispering behind her back, but I'm utilitarian and/or gutless that way. Confronting her would achieve nothing, but just keeping that meme of disapproval, displaying that example for the herd--that's what's important.

It's a sexist and convenient thing for me to believe of course, as a man who probably only drinks once a year or so anyway, but convenient doesn't mean false, deconstructed doesn't mean disproven.

I think either your interpretation of Velleman is too benign or my interpretation of you is too benign, but I still see a discrepancy. I think if you're talking about government coercion that's one thing, but Velleman seems to be going way further than that, in condemning the open acknowledgment of homosexual relationships. Indeed, Queer Eye would seem to be a really flagrant violation of Velleman's advice--what does your private sexual relationship have to do with interior decorating and fashion? To acknowledge a correlation between the two seems to violate the "cultural restraint" he's talking about.

There was one really stupid line I noticed in the Lindsey piece.

But Social Security and Medicare as currently administered are not social insurance in any meaningful sense, because reaching retirement age and having health care expenses in old age are not risky, insurable events. On the contrary, in our affluent society, they are near certainties.

Reaching retirement age is near certainty, but the number of years you live beyond your ability to earn a living is a wildly variable, risky, insurable event. Indeed, health care expenses are always risky, insurable events.

Instead of making law prohibiting something, make a little financial beneficial for behavior to change, and the culture may even change on its own.

Like what? Sin taxes are jumping to mind and I detest those. I hate the mindset behind it even worse than the money.

I don't believe that allowing them to do so would (or does) seriously increase the incidence of violent crime...

This view has gained widespread acceptance in the 25 years that the NRA has controlled the gun debate in the US, but it is no less ridiculous for all that. The basic problem in the US is a cultural embrace of the notion of righteous violence. The widespread availability of guns is both a symptom and a cause of such attitudes. It is one thing to argue that attempts to slash the number of guns in circulation are no longer politically practical, and would not at this stage result in a decrease in violence, since too many guns are already in the hands of criminals and would continue to be. But had gun-control advocates won the debate in the late '70s and early '80s before the current explosion in new-model handgun ownership, instead of being routed by Reaganite NRA forces, the landscape of gun availability and the attitude towards violence in the US would look substantially different. And we might have a murder rate that more closely resembled that in other advanced economies, rather than one resembling Russia, South Africa and Latin America.

The basic problem in the US is a cultural embrace of the notion of righteous violence.

In a way I'd agree, but I think that infected both sides of the gun debate--whether you're relying on your own gun, or you're relying on the police to take away the other guy's gun, you're still using the implied threat of force to defend yourself. One man fears his neighbors, the other man both fears his neighbors and lacks faith in the capabilities of the police. If the 70s/80s gun control advocates had, instead of turning to the government, set an example by both not possessing guns and not trying to ban guns--if they made it a moral campaign rather than a legal one--then we might be in a Canadian-type situation with available guns but low murder rates.

"The important battles are about how people are required to treat each other, how social and economic institutions are to be arranged, and how public resources are to be used. The insistence on securing more agreement in attitudes than we need for these purposes, and on including more of the inner life in the purview of even informal public authority, just raises the social stakes unnecessarily."

So, in other words, it's okay to enact laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of (for example) race, but we shouldn't disaprove of racists?

...meaning that fiscal libertarianism is simply off the table and liberals become the lesser of two evils.

I'm not sure that presumption looks as sensible after the 2006 elections--the unholy trinity of Iraq, DeLay, and Schiavo doesn't look so invincible now.

So, that means the Republican Party can now return to the fiscal restraint and social liberalism of the Reagan administration? But yes, there's probably no point to forming a coalition with people who will be eager to bolt once they're offered another unfunded high-end tax cut by Republicans who don't pander to the religious right quite so blatantly.

If I don't like a local government lawmaking (i.e. "the people's republic of Santa Monica" as many of its citizens are wont to call it,) I can move.

...though only via privately-owned roads using unsubsidized fuel.

I'll inform those in grinding poverty that they can just move. Oh, wait, no, screw them, I got mine. Yup, there's schmibertarianism at work.

If I don't like a local government lawmaking (i.e. "the people's republic of Santa Monica" as many of its citizens are wont to call it,) I can move.

Alternatively, if I don't like local government lawmaking, I have much more power to change policies and politicians which I don't like. A relativly small group of people can have a sizable impact in a local election if they are organized and vocal. National elections, not so much.

And in most cases, those in "grinding poverty" can vote too.

Alternatively, if I don't like local government lawmaking, I have much more power to change policies and politicians which I don't like. A relativly small group of people can have a sizable impact in a local election if they are organized and vocal. National elections, not so much.

Federalism and subsidiarity are different from libertarianism--and I'm not sure which side I'd even be more sympathetic to as a liberal, when, say, the local zoning board keeps Wal-Mart out of town.

Oh, cool, "grinding poverty" in quotation marks. Don't you guys realize that everyone can own a DVD player now, thanks to schmibertarianism? This so-called "grinding poverty" is a liberal fantasy. But yes, as states' rights jurisprude Scalia has noted, people should have political power in proportion to their wealth, since dollars should be protected political speech. So why won't those lazy folks in "grinding poverty" get off their behinds and vote? If they would only introduce anti-"grinding poverty" measures via the local governmental process, schmibertarians would be fine with them... as those who could afford it moved away to avoid having even one penny pried from them to promote the general welfare.

when, say, the local zoning board keeps Wal-Mart out of town.

Oh, now, that's unfair interference with the free market.

I don't believe you can take liberalism and libertarianism as given ideologies and fuse them into a single political alliance.

But i do believe you can have an ideology that unifies the best aspects of liberalism and libertarianism, and have both sign on to it.

We need lots of government to provide public goods, which may even involve social insurance. That's the liberal part. But libertarians rightly don't want the government systemically redistributing wealth, and they're right.

But you can have lots of government and social insurance without redistributing income upward or downward. You simply finance any given public good on a benefit-pays principle. If a government program disproportionately benefits the poor, finacne it with regressive taxes. If it disproportionately benefits the rich, finance it with progressive taxes. Simply finance government so that the schedule of taxes and benefits do not redistribute expected income. In addition, this would make taxes less distortionary.

So, maybe we'd have national health insurance, but we'd likely finance it with a consumption-based tax, which would move taxes in a regressive direction and would encourage saving. Ths would be good, because national health insurance would proably benefit the poor disproportionately more than the rich, so it makes sense to have them pay disproportionately more. We'd keep Social Security, but we'd probably raise the retirement age. We'd have complete free trade and kill agricultural and water subsidies.

In any case, the real fusion of liberalism and libertarianism is a strong government that provides major public goods and social insurance, but does not systemically redistribute wealth. (The only redistribution in social insurance is based on who experiences the negative shock we're insuring against, which is how insurance works.)

Keith, that doesn't sound like a combination of liberalism and libertarianism, that sounds like the worst-of-all-possible-worlds exclusion of both--the inequality of libertarianism with the statism of liberalism. What you're talking about is basically big government (not even compassionate) conservatism. You're even talking about government taking a crap load of money from some people and giving it to other people, so long as the money only moves sideways and never up or down the economic ladder. I can't imagine what assumption could lead anyone to such a conclusion, but such assumptions have no place in either liberalism or libertarianism.

"You're even talking about government taking a crap load of money from some people and giving it to other people, so long as the money only moves sideways and never up or down the economic ladder."

Yes, because then the only government movements of money that can be done are those that make everyone better off.

If national health insurance really is efficient, then it doesn't need to be progressive. You should be able to structure the payments for national health insurance so that people's welfare is improved by national health insurance regardless of their income level.

Insurance in general is a giant transfer of money sideways. It makes us better off because it insures us bad low-probability events.

The whole problem is that everybody's caught up in the idea of the government as a means to take from some and give to others. That's why liberals like it and libertarians don't. But that's not government is (or should be) there for. Government is there for us all to contract with one another to make us all better off. With my approach, we obtain that government, allay legitimate libertarian concerns, and achieve liberal public goods. But first liberals have to give up their redistributive impulses and libertarians have to give up their knee-jerk opposition to government.

Assuming that there was a liberal media bias, we didn't believe the media, even though they were correct. The obvious solution, now that the media is vindicated and we were proven wrong, is to correct the liberal media bias which, as I just stated, only existed in our imaginations...........

thanks

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