A libertarian think tank just gave up on libertarianism

[TomSea]

A libertarian think tank just gave up on libertarianism

For millions of people, ideology is the lighthouse in a dark sea of politics. An uncompromising vision of how the world is supposed to work, and how to fix it, is just too alluring for partisans to ignore. Political parties’ most frenzied supporters are demanding ideological purity from their candidates as they push out moderates, especially on the right. As a result, ever fewer temperate souls are left to hold the middle ground in politics.

Yet the libertarian think tank Niskanen Center in Washington, DC, argues the moderate middle is the future. Niskanen president Jerry Taylor wrote in an Oct. 29 essay that he is dropping the libertarian banner the center has shared with the likes of the more conservative Cato Institute. In a 3,595-word farewell to the libertarian world, he says libertarianism, and ideology itself, is a dead end. “I have abandoned that libertarian project…because I have come to abandon ideology,” writes Taylor, who invites readers to flee the “clean and well-lit prison of one idea.”

The future of American politics, he argues, is principled compromise, even if the present couldn’t seem further away. ”I think we’re living in a world in which moderation has virtually disappeared,” he says in an interview with Quartz. “And how’s that working out? I’m skating to where the puck is going to be.”

Read more at: https://qz.com/1443787/a-libertarian-think-tank-just-gave-up-on-libertarianism/

The Republican party sort of makes room for a liberarian-wing or they can indeed, split off on their own but it's hard for the 3rd party people. I fully respect this. Libertarianism is probably quite out of vogue at the moment. We have Senator Rand Paul, he's got to be respect, by myself at least. Everyone dislikes someone else. Paul for the record, campaigned with Trump in Montana.

[EasyAce]

The Republican party sort of makes room for a liberarian-wing or they can indeed, split off on their own but it's hard for the 3rd party people. I fully respect this. Libertarianism is probably quite out of vogue at the moment. We have Senator Rand Paul, he's got to be respect, by myself at least. Everyone dislikes someone else. Paul for the record, campaigned with Trump in Montana.

Libertarianism lower-case "l" isn't disappearing; a philosophy that upholds freedom, individual rights and responsibilities, and properly construed government (translation: government that keeps its big fat nose out of your business, my business, everyone's business, until or unless one would obstruct or abrogate another's equivalent rights) won't disappear. It has an uphill battle still defending the freedom philosophy while the bulk of the country on different levels and from different vantages continues to see the State as the alpha and omega of life, but it will take an unforeseeable cataclysm to dissipate libertarianism entirely.

But the Libertarian Party is a problematic beast. Has been ever since Harry Browne decided he was more interested in turning the party into Chicago-style machinism regarding candidate funding and the party's rules about it and saying nothing while his minions tried to obstruct any journalistic probing into just how deep that corruption ran, at least until it was exposed lock, stock, and barrel by the former Liberty print magazine, which now exists strictly as an Internet journal. (That corruption, by the way, is why I withdrew my own membership in the Libertarian Party and became a registered independent from that day forward.)

[Absalom]

Libertarianism is a modernist fad spawned by the French Enlightenment around 1750.
It's buzz word was Liberte' exalting freedom above all virtues, an absurdity.
The Ancients showed us the vital importance of courage, self-discipline, honor,
responsibility, work, perseverance among many; in sustaining a culture/society.
 

[truth_seeker]

Big L, Harry Browne, Sept. 11, 2001=blame America

Gary Johnston=pass the blunt, over here Dude.

Dave's not home. Where's Aleppo?

Aleppo who?

[EasyAce]

Libertarianism is a modernist fad spawned by the French Enlightenment around 1750.

Actually, its root lies with William Belsham, a British political writer and historian who was of the British Whigs and wrote in support of the American War of Independence. No French writer or thinker emerged along Belsham's line, never mind coining the phrase "libertarianism," until 1857. In the United States, H.L. Mencken described himself as a libertarian without thinking of any kind of political movement. In 1955, Dean Russell wrote thus:

Many of us call ourselves "liberals." And it is true that the word "liberal" once described persons who respected the individual and feared the use of mass compulsions. But the leftists have now corrupted that once-proud term to identify themselves and their program of more government ownership of property and more controls over persons. As a result, those of us who believe in freedom must explain that when we call ourselves liberals, we mean liberals in the uncorrupted classical sense. At best, this is awkward and subject to misunderstanding. Here is a suggestion: Let those of us who love liberty trade-mark and reserve for our own use the good and honorable word "libertarian."

It's buzz word was Liberte' exalting freedom above all virtues, an absurdity.

Libertarianism, lower-case "l," does not reject the virtues you describe. It merely rejects the precept that the State is competent to be their source and enforcer or that a propely-construed government would think itself competent or constitutionally sanctioned to try. The argument on behalf of a truly free society upholding and nurturing such virtues have probably received few more accessibly intelligent enunciations than from:

a) The late Rev. Edmund A. Opitz, theologian, longtime staffer at the Foundation for Economic Education, co-founder of The Remnant (a fellowship of ministers from the conservative and libertarian camps), and apostle of freedom whose signature works were (and remain) Religion and Capitalism: Allies, Not Enemies and Religion: Foundation of the Free Society and, I say proudly, my friend for a number of years, until he retired and we sadly lost touch; and,

b) Frank Meyer, the early National Review senior editor, in two books, his anthology The Conservative Affirmation and his single book In Defense of Freedom. (So far as I know, In Defense of Freedom has never fallen long out of print, while The Conservative Affirmation is one of those titles for which you have to prowl the used bookstores or online repositories for finding orphan books.)

[EasyAce]

Big L, Harry Browne, Sept. 11, 2001=blame America

Gary Johnston=pass the blunt, over here Dude.

Dave's not home. Where's Aleppo?

Aleppo who?

@truth_seeker
Hence the other great trouble with the Libertarian Party---its penchant, either without really trying or without necessarily caring, for finding the whackiest available candidates often enough and with a sometimes blissful ignorance of the damage they do to the libertarian argument.

[DB]

@truth_seeker
Hence the other great trouble with the Libertarian Party---its penchant, either without really trying or without necessarily caring, for finding the whackiest available candidates often enough and with a sometimes blissful ignorance of the damage they do to the libertarian argument.

The Libertarian positions on immigration/borders and not caring if the Iranians (among others) have nukes is deadly.

[EasyAce]

The Libertarian positions on immigration/borders and not caring if the Iranians (among others) have nukes is deadly.

This libertarian has never seen legal, properly-effected immigration or a sound national defense as deadly, even if I think concurrently that our own defense is long overdue for an accountable and sensible overhaul. Nor have I ever seen nuclear weapons proliferation as particularly comforting among certain countries. It's one thing to accept a particular country's granted right (Britain, or Israel, for example) to defend itself from adversaries actual or provably iminent from abroad, but it's something else entirely to accept a particular country's assumed right (Iran, or North Korea, for example) to use its arsenal to threaten the sovereignty of another country or impose its own nefarities upon another country. (These, of course, were positions that, too, factored in my decision to end my Libertarian Party membership.)

[Fishrrman]

"libertarians" -- as useless to humanity as are pacifists.

Sorry if you don't like that.

[Absalom]

Actually, its root lies with William Belsham, a British political writer and historian who was of the British Whigs and wrote in support of the American War of Independence. No French writer or thinker emerged along Belsham's line, never mind coining the phrase "libertarianism," until 1857. In the United States, H.L. Mencken described himself as a libertarian without thinking of any kind of political movement. In 1955, Dean Russell wrote thus:

Many of us call ourselves "liberals." And it is true that the word "liberal" once described persons who respected the individual and feared the use of mass compulsions. But the leftists have now corrupted that once-proud term to identify themselves and their program of more government ownership of property and more controls over persons. As a result, those of us who believe in freedom must explain that when we call ourselves liberals, we mean liberals in the uncorrupted classical sense. At best, this is awkward and subject to misunderstanding. Here is a suggestion: Let those of us who love liberty trade-mark and reserve for our own use the good and honorable word "libertarian."
Libertarianism, lower-case "l," does not reject the virtues you describe. It merely rejects the precept that the State is competent to be their source and enforcer or that a propely-construed government would think itself competent or constitutionally sanctioned to try. The argument on behalf of a truly free society upholding and nurturing such virtues have probably received few more accessibly intelligent enunciations than from:

a) The late Rev. Edmund A. Opitz, theologian, longtime staffer at the Foundation for Economic Education, co-founder of The Remnant (a fellowship of ministers from the conservative and libertarian camps), and apostle of freedom whose signature works were (and remain) Religion and Capitalism: Allies, Not Enemies and Religion: Foundation of the Free Society and, I say proudly, my friend for a number of years, until he retired and we sadly lost touch; and,

b) Frank Meyer, the early National Review senior editor, in two books, his anthology The Conservative Affirmation and his single book In Defense of Freedom. (So far as I know, In Defense of Freedom has never fallen long out of print, while The Conservative Affirmation is one of those titles for which you have to prowl the used bookstores or online repositories for finding orphan books.)

----------------------------
Repeating, the spawn of libertarianism is direct and simple.
The cliche' s of the French Radicals, from Rousseau onward, were;
* Liberte' / Freedom is Man's paramount value !
* Egalite' / We are all equal !
* Fraternite' / We are all brothers !
All of this was pious and sanctimonious secular malarkey.
Hardly a surprise, as the Gauls had spawned virtually every
theological heresy in the Catholic Church since Constantine!!! 

[Dexter]

Rand Paul is one of the only true conservatives in politics.

[corbe]

   Hello @Dexter