I remember, back in 1980, being enamored by Libertarian philosophy. It had ideological clarity and a pristine point of view.

So, with a young group of ideological Mensans, I headed to the Libertarian National Convention, the objective of which was to nominate a Presidential candidate to actually run for office. The convention was held in Denver, Colorado, I believe, and was packed with a plethora of Goldwater Republicans who had recently come out of the Libertarian closet.

Those were wonderful times, youthful times, and ideological times. And, at the same time, that era let loose an intellectual discovery avalanche that brought me through Rothbard, the Libertarian Manifesto, the Cato Institute, the Koch Family, and countless other influences on that side of the political spectrum.

I ended up participating, supporting Ed Clark as the Libertarian nominee to the Presidency and his wife, Alicia Clark, as the National Chair. I also ended up spearheading the Florida Libertarian Convention shortly thereafter here in Orlando, bringing in Charlie Reese and Gene Burns at various times for wonderful dialogue, poignant debate, and melodious discourse.

With all that said, I ultimately abandoned the Libertarian Party for a few specific reasons I haven’t thought a great deal about it until recently, with the rise of the Tea Party movement.

First, Libertarians were  incapable of coalescing around the idea of electing people to office and it seemed to me that the objective of the process was lost if we weren’t about trying to get people elected.  The Achilles heel of the Libertarian Party was an intrinsic mistrust of government, “as government.” As a result, there wasn’t a whole lot that could be done to take over the governmental machinery which the Libertarians were fundamentally skeptical of.  Extended to its logical extreme, Libertarianism at that level intrinsically carried the seeds of its own self-destruction.

Second, Libertarianism was ideologically sound, but so self-righteous it was pragmatically strained. . .and annoying.     Think about a political philosophy as unforgiving as was Ayn Rand in social philosophy.  I loved (and still do) Ayn Rand. . .and she got my heart pumping, but did I truly respect her when I woke up in the morning or was it just an over the top fling?  Lunging at windmills doesn’t forestall the dawn.

When left to a minimal level of interpretation, Libertarian principles make an awful lot of sense, especially within the context of the history, culture and mindset of the American experience:

• limited government
• segregation of powers
• minimal federal authority

Those principles manifest relatively easily in specific dictates:

• restricted state authority
• maximum individual rights
• popular and democratic elections around people and issues

And, at a less fundamental level, but one that is still resonant in American history, the following policies would underly political thinking:

• a powerful national government, but only involved where it belongs
• empowered state diversity
• balanced budget
• no debt, or minimal national debt in extreme times of crisis
• international policing for self-defense with a bias towards issues closer to home than far away
• “mind your own knitting” foreign policy
• a skeptical fear of “political evangelism”, domestically or internationally

So, at all of those levels. . . combining political, economic and social tenets. . .Libertarianism makes a lot of sense.

Where it fails, of course, is that the limited government framework is not of universal appeal even within the context of the American experience. Hence, there needs to be a nuanced conversation resulting in specific results with individuals, political movements, parties, and special interests that don’t necessarily buy into the view. In short, there needs to be governmental structure within which that dialogue can take place.

The problem with the Libertarian movement is that it simply did not countenance that.  In the first instance, it didn’t want to participate in the electoral process to elect individuals who would participate in that dialogue.  And secondly, few who were prepared to participate were ever able to get through the gauntlet of self-righteous political puritanism.

The problem with the Tea Party movement is that it does exactly the same thing.

Take the Libertarian movement in 1980 and add 30 years; what do you get?  Welcome to . . . the Tea Party movement of 2010.

And, my friends, your choice is respectfully no different.

To influence results, you have to get your hands dirty. And you are not going to get your hands dirty or influence the results by sidestepping the very structures where the dialogue takes place.  Nor can you take extreme positions in the name of intellectual purity and expect to get away with it.

So, the Tea Party poster children say:            

• Disband the United Nations.  You cannot disband the United Nations without our very security being challenged.
• Disband the Federal Reserve.  You cannot dissolve the Federal Reserve, bless its heart, without replacing it with some other non-private domestic and international monetary system.
• Disband Social Security.  You cannot disband social security without destabilizing social equities and robbing us of our internal integrity on which citizens have come to rely. 

That does not mean that there is no future for Tea Party influences anymore than there was no room for the influences of Libertarian thoughts.

But, what it does mean is that those influences, understandably provoked by current circumstances, need to be filtered through the lense of our time, and the influences of its founders, as it contributes to solutions directed towards genuinely attempting to solve our very real problems.

So, until the Libertarians (with a capital L) and the Tea Party acitivists (with a capital TP) get their act together, I’m going to continue on as a Republican.   And register, whenever I can, as an Independent!

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 24th, 2010 at 8:38 pm and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.