Fair enough, if you think these are “lesser” evils than taxes and labor laws. Economics does affect all of us, whereas those other things affect only a subset of us who are Muslim or pregnant or gay or whatever. But is it really “irrational” for any libertarian to tip the other way? In your response to my hypothetical in the other thread I thought you suggested it could go either way. No?

Speaking of that other thread: I know I pressed a bit hard. Here’s the thing: as a liberal who is increasingly tired of “creeping socialism” I have been wondering whether some form of libertarianism could be for me. With that in mind, I’ve been kicking the tires – I suppose a little haphazardly at times. But I was trying to tease out exactly this point, that libertarians’ sympathies are predictably right-leaning. To me, they seem to overlook all kinds of anti-liberty ideas as long as they are “traditional” anti-liberty ideas rather than “liberal” ones.

What I love about American liberalism – in its best, Painean tradition – is that it’s animated by principles of individual freedom and choice, as much as by communitarian impulses and compassion. That line of fusion isn’t always clear in practical terms. Perhaps that’s where it is susceptible to “creeping socialism.” But it seems there is no room in the libertarian tent for tolerating “communitarian impulses and compassion” even as there clearly is room for at least strategic tolerance of enforced traditionalism.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=z8p1zDXdQRQ

Both want to supress free speech-in this respect McCain is worse since he’s actually succeeded in doing so-tax and regulate you for emitting carbon, i.e. living, in addition to other activities, manage the economic activities of oil companies-to start with-and increase the size and scope of the federal government, albeit for different purposes.

The only respect in which McCain is a pure libertarian is his unstinting support for open borders, and to be quite honest, I don’t see how allowing in millions of individuals with little to no education, who will agitate for the adoption of socialist/statist measures once they become naturalized citizens, advances the cause of liberty.

This may be the perfect juncture — especially for people who want a libertarian messenger who represents libertarian-conservative fusion — to send a message, since there are so many disgruntled conservatives and the the GOP candidate is so unlibertarian.

Complicating factors in the calculation, though:

(a) Hard to tell just how bad Obama is — not much legislative track record, which is fine with me, but some alarmingly sweeping rhetoric that might portend big changes — or just more big talk.

(b) Hard to tell how good McCain is — possible budget-cutter or entitlement-reformer but also an opportunistic, unreliable authoritarian with no clear ideology.

(c) Hard to tell if Barr — for all his quite admirable effort — will be _heard_ as if sending a clearly libertarian message or will be remembered, due to his old track record, as “that right-wing guy who seems to dislike gays, illegal immigrants, pot-smokers, and Wiccans.”

(d) Hard to tell whether the war trumps all other concerns right now.

(e) Hard to tell what to do about it even if it does trump all other concerns (McCain? Barr? Obama??).

Choose accordingly, and if you choose incorrectly and the result is the destruction of civilization, man, are you going to feel gulty.

I know this much: I don’t want Nader to be president.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTE5ZTQyNzM2MzE1NmQyMzQxYjgxYjEzNWU5NmQxYjM=

At our debate Wednesday, the commenter on yesterday’s entry using the handle E5 jokingly said, in fact, that McCain’s best chance for victory might be picking _Hillary_ as his running mate.

(Though I would certainly hope _that_, at least, would inspire libertarians to bolt to Barr instead of trying to pick the lesser of two evils — after all, with a McCain-Clinton ticket, you’d be getting _both_ evils!)

How much impact the minor candidate will have in any one or two election cycles is hard to gauge — but common sense suggests that if the major parties conclude that they _never_ lose votes to the minor parties as long as they can plausibly argue “Our major-party candidate is 3% better than the other major-party candidate,” then there is no incentive for the major party to shape up.

At some point, when its behavior has gotten bad enough, the GOP needs to be shown that some of their constituents _are_ willing to defect — and crucially, to defect to the party with the _correct_ message. Voting Dem will surely punish the GOP even harder than voting LP, but it would merely encourage them to act more like _the Democrats_, which is not the message defectors should be sending (which is why I was horrified by libertarians contemplating Kerry votes in 2004).

Essentially, libertarians seem anti-McCain because he is only a half believer in their cause, yet with bluster they seem to gloss over a large elephant in the basement of the Lolita Bar–that the same can be said of Bob Barr. The message seemed further confused when the pro-Barr debater brought out the idealistic line, “the cause is larger than any one person” (the justification for abandoning Ron Paul for Barr). Using that reasoning, one might just as convincingly set aside gripes with McCain and work to ensure that the Democrats don’t take the White House. Hardcore idealism could very well doom libertarianism to the margins of politics and undermine any real chance for any iteration of this cause that is, we are to believe, cared for so much.

The other example that comes to mind is Nader spoiling Al Gore’s race. Looking back on the last 8 years, could Nader’s people really feel that they were finally heard by the Democrats? Perhaps Nader would argue that the Democrats are finally tacking hard to the left in 2008 as a result of his 2000 campaign, but I think that gives Nader too much credit. The Democrats seem to be racing to the left because of Iraq and other Republican disasters like the handling of Katrina, not because of Nader’s principled strategy in 2000. Instead of a US entry into the Kyoto Protocol, the Green Party got a popular movie by private citizen Gore.

I’ve taken a real liking to the libertarian party in recent years, but I am wondering how serious they really are about having more influence in Washington. Perhaps they are as serious as they seem, but I’m not convinced by their strategy in 2008.