For several years now, possibly since the 2010 mid-term election and the ascendance of the Tea Party’s influence in Congress, Democrats have been gleefully enjoying what they call a “civil war” within the Republican party. Prior to and concurrent with that particular internal squabble, the term RINO has been applied by many self-styled true conservatives in denouncing those within the GOP with whom they disagree.
Of more recent vintage is a state of discontent on the Left with the lack of progress towards the ideals of modern Progressivism. This is personified by the steady urgings aimed at Elizabeth Warren by the left wing of the Democratic Party, a faction that is not happy with the prospect of Hillary Clinton bearing the (D) standard in 2016.
Neither of these internecine political squabbles compares, however, to the perpetual dyspeptic wranglings within the libertarian movement. Libertarianism tends to draw people who enjoy deep thinking and analysis of political minutiae, people who tend to ideological purity and who are often aggressive about it. I’ve noted many times in the past that libertarians seem to love denouncing their own more than they like deconstructing and debunking statists and their ideas. Exhibiting the characteristics of Godwin’s Law, any debate involving libertarian ideas, principles or politicians that carries on for a while will eventually devolve to someone putting forth some sort of ideological straw man or denouncing others for lacking proper libertarian bona fides. The purist will declare himself the victor, whether tacitly by challenging others for not giving the “correct” response to the straw man question or overtly by saying “you/he/she/it isn’t properly libertarian, therefore you lose and I’m not supporting you/he/she/it.”
That’s a lovely conclusion if one’s looking for gotchas or simply wants to walk away the victor, but if the goal is to promote and advance libertarianism, such a victory is pyrrhic, doing more harm than good to the movement. It also provides ammunition for libertarianism’s opponents, enabling them to portray libertarians as detached, deluded, extreme and nutty. It’s also great fun to watch one’s political enemies cannibalizing their own.
People of all political stripes have a tendency to envision and judge the changes they desire from a fait accompli perspective i.e. things would be better if they were this way. There’s certainly utility in that. Libertarians are notorious for analyzing in painful detail how everything would work in a libertarian society, and are thus armed with responses to the many questions (both honest and provocative) that are asked by non-libertarians. The purists fall flat, however, on the topic of how to achieve that new, libertarian state of being. Getting from A to B, from the current state of government and society to one that is wholly (or even mostly) libertarian, is a discussion that many would rather not have.
That transition, however, is what connects the ideal to the real, and it’s more than fair to ask about it.
– How do you convert a non libertarian society to a libertarian one?
– How do you undo a century of progressivism?
– Is it fair to the people who live their lives under assumption and expectation of government nannying to pull the net away all at once, to impose on them the responsibility that comes with liberty in one fell swoop after they’ve spent decades learning things the other way?”
The statist society within which we live wasn’t created overnight, or in one Congressional or Presidential cycle. It’s a product of over a century of statism and a movement that began with Woodrow Wilson. People who live today have been raised and conditioned to live their lives under certain presumptions. They expect that certain things will be attended to by government. Government’s efficacy or lack thereof doesn’t matter, the expectation is there. Just as it’s difficult for someone who’s grown up thinking in feet and miles to start thinking in meters and kilometers, it’s not trivial to expect someone who has certain expectations with regard to the goods and services he buys to instantly grow accustomed to a different set of expectations. Applying libertarian principles as a sword taken to the Gordian knot that is today’s statism is a far cry from introducing them piecemeal and demonstrating that they work better, but just as the former did quite a lot of damage to the rope, a “boom and done” conversion to a libertarian society would do harm to many who aren’t ready for it. It’s also simply not going to happen that way. Even revolutions don’t impose pure and uncompromising new systems on societies, and no matter what some preppers and conspiracists think, our society isn’t very likely to change via one massive and violent shakeout.
If this sounds to you like a call for compromise and for accepting the imperfect, it is. However, it is NOT a call for simply accepting the lesser of two evils, which is the demand often made by Republicans of libertarians come election time. Being content with small steps in the right direction is a far cry from abetting the continuation of movement in the wrong direction, which is what the “lesser of two evils” argument is in its essence. Voting for a candidate that espouses some of the ideals you find desirable is probably a good thing if “some” is enough to move things in the right direction. Voting for a candidate simply because the other candidate is worse accomplishes nothing positive, not in a big-picture sense. Like the sort of ideological purity that makes no candidate viable and no pathway from A to B acceptable, it perpetuates the problem rather than addressing it.
Not voting can and does send a message, as does voting for a candidate who has no chance of winning but matches up to your ideals. Never voting because no one’s ever good enough sends a different message, the message that, since there’s no point trying to win your vote, what you want is irrelevant and can be ignored. Never voting because no one’s good enough is no different than always voting for “your” party, no matter who it nominates. Your vote should be in play, and if there’s a candidate that will move things in the direction you like, your vote should find its way to that candidate, even if he’s not “pure.”
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