Mark at Publius Endures, whose blog is far worthier of recommendation and high praise than my own, nevertheless recommends this corner of the web and praises it rather highly in responding to my post on the prospects for accommodation of social conservatives within a left-libertarian alliance. I am very grateful for the link and the kind words, and will respond shortly and at greater length to most of what Mark says. But for now I want to make one quick point about the politics of civil liberties.
Mark writes that a left-libertarian alliance:
would be primarily centered on civil liberties and foreign policy much as the Republican coalition that included libertarians was centered on anti-Communism (and, after the fall of Communism, on the Contract with America, which by its nature could only be a temporary unifier). In the Republican coalition, libertarians sacrificed quite a few values on secondary and tertiary issues in order to protect their then-primary issue of fighting socialism and central planning (broadly defined). As such, they were more willing to go along with foreign adventurism and social conservatism. Now that anti-Communism and the Contract with America no longer serve as very good umbrellas for protecting most libertarians’ primary issues, those formerly secondary and tertiary issues (such as civil liberties and foreign policy) have moved or are moving to the forefront for many libertarians.
This analysis strikes me as overwhelmingly correct, and I find it quite tragic that those who stand for civil liberties and foreign non-interventionism can no longer count the conservative mainstream among their allies. But on at least the former of these issues, one simple thing could change that very quickly: GET BARACK OBAMA ELECTED. With a Democrat in the White House, all those right-wing drum-beaters for FISA and the PATRIOT Act will right away become very quick to point out executive abuses, and at the same time – or so there is reason to think – many of those Democrats who have been going after the Bush Administration so long as it served their electoral ends to do so will quickly become a good deal quieter about such things. The issue of international aggressiveness may be a different story – the GOP’s hawkishness, useful as it is as a club with which to beat their opponents, may not go away any time soon – but civil liberties are something that committedly partisan ideologues tend to use only as a means to get their own team the lead. The point here is not to discourage libertarians from turning to the left for allies – I, too, would much prefer an Obama presidency to a McCain one – but only to point out that on this particular issue, electoral success could quickly turn the tables on this aspect of their partnership.
Again, more on the rest of this soon enough.
(Image courtesy of Flickrer Diodoro.)
Filed under: civil liberties, libertarianism, politics, war
John- I look forward to your response. I think (or at least hope) you’re quite probably right about the effect of electing Obama on the right’s commitment to civil liberties. Of course, that is small comfort since then the right will simply switch roles with the left, ie, the right will put forward a mere token effort on civil liberties while the politicians of the left suddenly find justification for breaching those civil liberties.
This is actually why I don’t think the Dem coalition is yet ready to accommodate libertarians, and precisely why I am making the case for principled liberals to vote for Barr in the short-run. If the Dems are punished for their half-hearted efforts on behalf of civil liberties, they may then become committed to fighting for them. Once that happens, then they will have enough credibility on the issues to have the kind of monopoly on the broad libertarian vote that the Republicans had for 50+ years. Until then, libertarians broadly defined will likely remain political free agents, as was the case in 2006 and will likely be the case in 2008.