I’m actually chucking out loud as I write this. Forbes columnist Ralph Benko knows how to unite libertarians and social conservatives and win the day. See, the way to best fight Big Brother, Benko assures us, is for libs to join social conservatives in giving Big Brother the power to decree who some people are allowed to love, date, or marry. It’s so bad it looks a lot like linkbait, so I’ll link through another site:
AlicuBlog — Even though many libertarians fully approve of gay marriage they can, with authenticity, also honor the First Amendment guarantee of “… no law …prohibiting the free exercise [of religion].” … There is much to collaborate on: preserving freedom of speech, and of the press, and of the free exercise of religion; honoring the right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress of grievances; not infringing the right to keep and bear arms; rehabilitation the right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonably searches and seizures; the right not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Even, casting the net a bit wider, the classical gold standard and the repeal of the Estate tax!
Shorter Benko, can we just agree to throw gay rights under the bus get on with helping rich people get richer? Libertarians will promise we’re going to help social conservatives do something about gay people, if you social conservatives will in reality cut our estate taxes.
Which is pretty much the same old bait and switch the big money right has dangled in front of social conservatives for decades now.
They never get around to doing much for the social conservatives, for two good reasons. One, socially conservative policies are not popular and they are becoming less so all the time, and two, actually doing what social conservatives want makes it much harder to credibly promise to do what social conservatives want in the future and thus trick them again and again.
Besides, the hard-line political-attitudes-chart-scoring libertarian message is essentially “do what thou wilt, an ye harm none” (no apologies to any libertarians in the room). No libertarian who believes in that sort of libertarianism can credibly make common cause with conservatives in any way, shape, or form. In my case at least, the “you’re free to do what you want so long as you don’t hurt other people” became “I want to be a full and functioning member of society and to that end I have to do what I can to make sure others don’t suffer because I have failed to help build a decent, safe culture.”
“I’m actually chucking out loud…”
I understand the sentiment.
Chucking UP is more like it. Libertarian thought is “when you make it, screw over everyone else who helped you get there.”
I can honestly think of no reason for opposing marriage equality that doesn’t originate from either “my god doesn’t like it” or “fuck them, *I* wanna marry a woman.”
A libertarian who was on NPR and apparently opposed same sex marriage said that “The government should not decide who can get married.” Oh,really? Who should decide? The churches? Should child brides be allowed?
I was a libertarian for a few minutes of my flamingly clueless youth. Then I met a few libertarians and that was the end of that.
@dobby: Given that he was a libertarian, I would have thought the answer was “the individuals proposing to get married”, but nothing will shock me anymore coming out of the mouth of a so-called libertarian.
Libertarians are abandoning their pretense of being separate from the rest of the right wing. Now the gold-bugs and the Hayek fans are free to mix freely with the fag-haters and the Jesus freaks. In my opinion this is a good thing.
Yes, some people climb the ladder of success and then pull the ladder up after them – a ladder, incidently, which they did mot build. Clarence Thomas comes to mind.