earthling wrote:I do like the graphic however you label them or view their past. Libertarians tend to be too much against regulation (so attract pro small govt GOP'rs who are socially liberal) but given how polarized DEM/GOP parties have become, Libertarians are looking relatively more moderate and are trying to attract moderates (as the graphic implies). They have trouble finding a way to gain traction but I do think they may manage to attract both moderate DEMs and moderate GOPs in future if they can show (with specific agenda) that certain levels of regulation is appropriate, to keep playing field fair. If they play their cards right, they could plausibly attract moderate DEMS who are socially liberal but not into socialism.
If Hillary can tone down the DEM socialism and turn the party a little more moderate (ie, promote self-sufficiency rather than govt dependency), the Libertarians will have a hard time getting a foothold with moderate DEMs.
You are absolutely delusional if you honestly think the Dems are "socialist" or otherwise as polarized as the GOP -- and I don't say that in defense of the Dems, who I wish would be far more liberal than they are. There are certainly
some liberal Dems (although the only member of Congress to identify as an outright socialist is Bernie Sanders, who is an independent, albeit with ties to the Dems -- but he's an outlier), but the Dems as a whole are not particularly leftist except insofar as they are left of our other major party (which has been camping on the far right and forging further in that direction over the past few years, so they are not a particularly useful reference point).
I also agree with Max that libertarianism is an intrinsically extreme position. If you believe that "certain levels of regulation" are appropriate, how much regulation do you get to support before you're no longer libertarian? When you start diluting libertarianism to address concerns that won't take care of themselves through operation of the free market or through basic human social behavior or through whatever mechanism you would otherwise expect to kick in, you end up with something much more closely resembling the existing parties (depending, of course, on the specific regulations you find acceptable). You say the purpose of regulation is to "keep the playing field fair," and that's exactly right -- social conservatives don't think there's a fair playing field when a mother can abort an unborn baby that isn't capable of speaking for itself, socialists don't think there's a fair playing field when wealthy business owners can exploit their workforces, etc. The debate has never been about the purpose of regulation, it has always been about deciding at what point the playing field is level and calibrating regulation accordingly. Libertarianism, as I have always understood it, essentially holds that the playing field is level when the government refrains from social engineering and economic distortion, leaving everybody free to pursue their goals without interference, to succeed or fail on their own merits. If you don't think laissez faire results in a level playing field and that some degree of regulation is necessary, I wonder if you're still a libertarian at all.
Because of this, like Max, I disagree that libertarianism is in the "middle." This is a commonly cited failure of the left/right spectrum, which fails to encompass the full breadth of political thought. It's deceptively attractive to place libertarianism in the middle because it broadly borrows from each party. Your little graphic is drawn up specifically to reinforce this notion. But if your focus isn't libertarianism, but instead some basically authoritarian corporatocracy, you could draw the same graphic by swapping out everything that's in the box, and it, too, would appear to be in the middle both visually and also intuitively, as it borrows in apparently equal measures from both positions. But I'm not sure such a political party, verging essentially on fascism, would strike many people as moderate, and there's no reason that libertarianism must be ipso facto moderate either jsut for having done the exact same thing with other components of each party's platform. On a broader plane of both social and economic policy, libertarianism is solidly planted deep in the quadrant of less economic regulation, less social regulation. The Dems and even the GOP, by contrast, which are both more ramshackle coalitions than political monoliths, by necessity appear closer to 0,0 -- if they didn't they'd lose some members, fracture, and fail.
What this thread does do is show who is caught up in the polarization - especially those who don't realize how caught up they are in it.
This is ironic, since you thus far come across as oblivious to the fact that your graphic cartoonishly oversimplifies and even misunderstands (or perhaps intentionally distorts) those positions that don't fall within the libertarian box.
Libertarians appear to be changing too and while any political position tends to benefit someone and not someone else, the direction Libertarians seem to be heading is at least less polarizing than what's going on with DEM/GOP
I don't know that this is true at all. For instance, I don't know what the Libertarian Party's position is on the Civil Rights Act (I briefly checked Wikipedia and the platform page of the party's official site, neither of which mentioned it), but obviously guys like Ron Paul have come out firmly against it, on the basis that the government shouldn't interfere with the individual's right of free association. That sounds nice, but I suspect it will be pretty polarizing when that law is repealed and it becomes legal again for racists to discriminate however they please. I'm not sure if libertarians believe this won't happen for some reason (no idea what that reason could be, racism is clearly still alive and well) or if they just think it's a necessary evil (but that's pretty rich coming from a group that is
overwhelmingly white and male), but it certainly won't be a harmonious change for society.
Similarly, other aspects of the libertarian agenda are already part of the mainstream political discourse, albeit often in watered down form -- eg doing away with Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, either completely (the libertarian platform) or at least through some kind of privatization scheme (the more common mainstream proposal). These are already lightning rod issues and I'm not sure libertarians can abdicate their role in the polarization just because it's officially the GOP actually pressing these positions in Congress.
One that might not fit is that I'm pro spending for building/maintaining domestic infrastructure and less on military, which it partly implies but not clear on.
The graphic certainly opposes the ways in which we've used our military lately, but I'm not sure it implies less military spending overall, and I certainly don't think there are many libertarians out there who are into infrastructure built, owned, and maintained by the government.
