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The Libertarian Democrat

October 2nd, 2006 by COD

Kos got some space on Cato.org to make the argument that the Democratic party should be the new home for libertarian minded folks. I’ll grant him that the Republican party has failed miserably at governing the country. What he fails to convince me of is that the Democratic party would be any better at it. A few renegades out West does not constitute a change in the Democratic party. A split government is the safest option. I want to see the legislative and executive branches split between the two parties. It doesn’t really matter who runs what, as long as the built in tension forces either inaction, or reasonable compromises.

| 4 Comments

4 Responses to “The Libertarian Democrat”

  1. on 02 Oct 2006 at 5:47 pm   wyclif

    As much as I’d like to think that “inaction” on the part of Gov’t. would be a universal good, what about things like tax cuts and other legislation that reduces the size and power of government, as unlikely as that scenario sounds?

    In those cases, it seems to me compromises would be far better than inaction.

  2. on 02 Oct 2006 at 8:49 pm   Nathanael Nerode

    “What he fails to convince me of is that the Democratic party would be any better at it.”

    The Democratic Party couldn’t *possibly* do *worse*. The Republicans just passed a law allowing the President to kidnap and imprison anyone, forever, without ever seeing a judge.

    We need Democratic control of Congress and the Presidency just to repeal this monstrosity, and others like it. “Inaction” now means “The President continues to be a dictator”.

    Now, if you’re represented by someone like Ron Paul, then go ahead and vote Republican — but gee, how many Republicans can we rely on to remove these dictatorial powers from the President? Basically it’s just Ron.

    Once the Democratic Party has had power long enough to repeal all the dictatorial laws which the Bush Republicans passed, you can go back to supporting inaction and stalemate.

  3. on 03 Oct 2006 at 6:08 pm   Ulrike

    …[H]e said there’s a lot of antiestablishment contrariness in all of us—echoing the quip of Juil Loesh Wiley, a Catholic pro-life pacifist friend who says she went all the way from the left wing to the right wing without ever once trusting the government.
    – Rod Dreher; Crunchy Cons; p. 74

  4. on 10 Oct 2006 at 7:58 pm   Once again, Democrats try to sell out the party to an audience that isn’t listening at PunkAssBlog.com

    [...] TalkLeft believes Markos may be dressing up liberal, FDR-style ideas in Libertarian clothing to get people onboard, and based on Andrew’s comment and those of many other Libertarian blogs, I’d say they see through this little trick. [...]

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