I’m serious. Not what our opponents say we get wrong — what do you think we actually get wrong?
Every movement has a blind spot it refuses to look at. I’ve got my own answer but I want to hear yours first.
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I think Libertarians forget about pragmatism. In the two-party system, the real home for the movement is the Republican Party. It needs to shift its focus back to small government and constitutional conservatism. I think it also needs to focus on delegating as much power and authority that isn’t expressly given to the federal government back to the states. We need a return to Reagan-Goldwater-style politics. We should also focus on allowing the private sector to create more jobs, the government to defend the homeland, and to strengthen our military might.
Appreciate you laying that out, and I don’t think you’re wrong about pragmatism being a real weakness for us. Too much of the movement treats purity as the goal and persuasion as a compromise, and you can’t govern a country you refuse to talk to. That’s a big part of why I ended up making the case inside the Republican Party rather than shouting at it from the outside.
Goldwater in particular would have been horrified by a party that preaches limited government while running trillion-dollar deficits and expanding executive power every time it holds the pen.
On federalism, I’m with you on the Tenth Amendment, with one caveat: decentralization is a means, not the end. Moving power from Washington to Jefferson City is only a win if it means more freedom for the individual. A state government can violate your rights just as thoroughly as a federal one, and sometimes more efficiently. The Bill of Rights is a person’s rights document before it is a states’ rights document.
The private sector creates the jobs, government mostly gets in the way, and the movement has to start winning elections instead of just winning arguments. Pragmatism without principle is how you end up with a party that sounds like Goldwater and spends like Johnson.
Glad you started the thread.
Austin
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Thanks, Austin! I agree that all government needs to be limited. I’m not familiar with every state’s constitution, but I am aware of the Doctrine of Incorporation—the Bill of Rights applies to the states. That gives libertarian-minded Republicans a strong case to fight bloated state and local government just as hard as we fight Washington. In my mind, government starts at the local and state levels. We need to return to a party of small government.
The one that is most glaring is the issue of illegal immigration. Being against say, ICE, I would argue is about as left-wing of a position as it gets these days and I have always thought of libertarianism as fundamentally right wing.
The issue of Israel, and foreign policy and foreign aid at large are ones that are not necessarily left-wing, however those have become framed in a left wing sense. Concerns about wasteful government spending became “Free Palestine” chants.
On a personal level, I believe libertarians get trade wrong. While free trade works in theory, it did hurt our country long term because I do believe other countries ripped us off and took advantage of our good nature, particularly China and Western Europe. The notion that we would have trade deficits sickens me. I am all for free trade if we can figure out a way for other countries to let our goods and products come through their countries. Until then, I believe protectionism is the way to go.
I fully agree with the solution being creating more private sector jobs. Too many believe, especially in left wing and “paleoconservative” circles that that isn’t a solution.