There’s a movement afoot in the conservative ranks. Day by day, more young people are coming out as libertarians, confusing their friends and scaring their families. I am a libertarian, and increasingly, many conservatives are coming to the same conclusion.
At this year’s CPAC, you couldn’t look in any direction without seeing a “Stand with Rand” sign. But what exactly is a “libertarian?”
Some of us are socially conservative, god-fearing, “Reagan-ites.” Some of us are pro-choice and pro-gay marriage atheists who revere Thomas Paine and Barry Goldwater and think Reagan destroyed the ideology of the Republican Party. Some of us wear suits and ties, some of us wear muddy jeans and t-shirts. Some of us have never touched a gun, while some of us shoot regularly and open-carry.
If you were to believe a recent article by “The National Journal,” you might think that libertarianism is “…that particular brand of ideology, with its intractable belief that nearly all federal government is unnecessary…”.
What binds us together is not that we want no government, as The National Journal would have its readers believe. Wanting no government would make us anarchists, not libertarians. What unites us is that we want less government. It would be almost impossible to have more government at this point, without officially crossing over into socialism. Government has its nose in what we earn, who we go to bed with, what we watch on TV, what we purchase, what we put in our bodies, what we do with our bodies. The FDA sends agents to raid farmers markets… really Orwellian stuff. Government monitors everything- except itself. Government does what it wants, spends what it wants. This is not the purpose of government as defined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. In fact, it directly contradicts them.
The foundation of libertarianism is smaller government, especially at the Federal level, and an emphasis on civil liberty, both personally and financially. While many libertarians agree with Democrats on social issues like gay rights and marijuana decriminalization, rarely do I meet a libertarian who identifies with the Democratic Party. Democrats want more government. That is their main agenda, and our main enemy.
Republican hands are not clean, either. Many libertarians don’t trust the Republican leadership. Libertarians and the Tea Party helped the Republican establishment take over the House of Representatives in the 2010 elections, but were then excluded from governing.
There’s also the establishment’s hypocrisy. The GOP claims to be for a smaller, less intrusive government, but in the 2012 GOP presidential primary, every Republican candidate except Ron Paul said he or she would support a Constitutional Amendment that defined marriage as between a man and a woman. The GOP even included the position as part of its party platform. Also, the Republican position on the role of the U.S. military is at odds with the libertarian philosophy of not policing the world.
Libertarians and Republicans have a common political enemy. Republicans want to defeat Democrats, and they need libertarians to do it. Libertarians want a smaller government, and they need the Democrats to lose in order to achieve that.
Coming off of an election loss that should have been easily won, the GOP is now starting to realize that its positions need to be tweaked. When libertarians like Sen. Rand Paul go on a 13-hour filibuster, the attack is expected from the Left, not from GOP heavyweights.
The GOP needs to support young libertarian politicians, not call them “wacko-birds.” Young libertarians like Justin Amash need support, not scorn.
