Posts from 12 June 2006

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Libertarians for the New Deal

Ever wondered how to become a libertarian without even trying? It’s simple: Kos breaks it down for you in a recent post. His new addition to the political bestiary is the Libertarian Dem:

Traditional libertarianism holds that government is evil and thus must be minimized. Any and all government intrusion is bad. … Libertarian Dems are not hostile to government like traditional libertarians. But unlike the liberal Democrats of old times (now all but extinct), the Libertarian Dem doesn’t believe government is the solution for everything. But it sure as heck is effective in checking the power of corporations.

In other words, government can protect our liberties from those who would infringe upon them — corporations and other individuals.

… Of course, this also means that government isn’t always the solution to the nation’s problems. There are times when business-government partnerships can be extremely effective (such as job retraining efforts for displaced workers). … The key here isn’t universal liberty from government intrusion, but policies that maximize individual freedom, and who can protect those individual freedoms best from those who would infringe.

And, just so we’re clear, we are also informed that the Libertarian Dem supports (1) tax-funded government highways and transit systems, (2) ex-ante government environmental regulation, (3) managerial government control over wages and working conditions, (4) Social Security and government healthcare. But you can rest easy knowing that the Libertarian Dem does not view government as the solution for everything.

Or, in other words, Libertarian Dem is Kos’s new phrase for just another damn corporate liberal whose libertarian apparently consists in supporting the entire New Deal state — except maybe for gun control — and using bold, new rhetoric that you could have nicked directly from Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech in order to explain it.

Those of you who’ve been reading for a while may know that I’ve hammered on for a while about the virtues of a libertarian Left ideology, a libertarian critique of robber baron corporatism, and the possible benefits of strategic alliances between existing Leftist and libertarian tendencies.

In case you were wondering, I think that trusting the chief enabler and weapon of the plutocrats to effectively check their power, building up a Leviathan in order to protect you from Behemoth, and making sure that we find lots more opportunities for business-government partnerships, are not quite what I meant.

This may be the single most intellectually vapid post I have ever read on Kos’s website.

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