Are Libertarians Really as Useless as a Bucket of Armpits? Or Do They Just Smell That Way?
28th August 2010
Nick Gillespie doesn’t take himself or his movement very seriously … which is why he’s one of the best writers at tReason Magazine.
I think part of the problem with these sorts of discussions, including Brink Lindsey’s liberaltarianism, is that participants are constantly mixing levels of discussions (I know I do). Liberals and conservatives are used interchangeably for Democrats and Republicans, right wing and left wing, etc. While the Dems are reliably more liberal (in a contemporary sense) than Republicans, the overlap isn’t perfect and many liberals have libertarian or even conservative sympathies. And while their numbers are small, there are in fact libertarian Democrats along with liberal Republicans. Most importantly, how someone governs is probably less a reflection of ideology than other material concerns (there’s the Marxist libertarian in me!).