Brink Lindsey, on a potential alliance between Dems and libertarians.

Brink's a smart guy, but I don't think so. There are too many irreconcilable differences--on guns, on the role of the government, etc.--to put together a workable coalition. In addition, I continue to object to calling collectivists liberals. In many ways, they're the exact opposite. I'm a liberal.

The article starts with this...The conservative movement--and, with it, the GOP--is in disarray.

If you remember when the GOP won the House and the Senate, along with the White House, the talking heads said the same thing about the Dems. They're still here and back in power soon. With that historical fact, there is some disbelief after reading that first sentence.

I may be a jilted Libertarian, but it will be a cold day in hell before I vote Democrat.

I'm with Foxy, I'll vote for Mickey Mouse before I'll vote for a Democrat.

"...it will be a cold day in hell before I vote Democrat"

And with that comment, Foxy Wizard, you marginalize yourself along with the other approximately eighty percent of the population that always votes for the same party. The Democrats know you won't vote for them, so they ignore you. The Republicans know that you will vote for them - or, at worst, stay home - so they don't have to listen to you either.

It is the swing voter that gets the attention. For the freedom movement to win, it must either build a third party that is big enough to encourage the major parties to chase after its votes or it must be willing to switch, as a block, from one major party to the other, perhaps several times.

Rand, I agree about the stolen word liberal. I've taken to calling myself a free-market liberal just to piss off those quasi-socialists on the left.

ack! I'm all confused again.
So what's a liberal?
What am I?
Who is pulling my strings?

8)

The distinction between liberal/conservative has changed with every social movement. The free marketers were liberals to the feudalists. Pick a moment in time and play the game. What's next? Libertarians are liberals in the right context.

I know a number of left leaning libertarians. Most were anti-Vietnam war types and tend to be violently Christophobic.

In the same way that most Christians don't bother me, they seem to accept the anti-capitalist/economic control types as just wacky folk who don't mean any harm. Their position on gun control is that the Democrats will quickly learn that it's bad politics and move away from it.

They were more or less neutral about Republicans until Iraq, and now tend to be heavily afflicted with BDS, with (Republican)derangment syndrome as a complication. It's been my experience that many of these folks were dedicated to a libertarian political movement, but have now been polarized by the war.

It will be interesting is this is a good or bad development in terms of the future of freedom in this country.

I'm still trying to figure out how a free-trade guy like Brink could imagine a fusion between libertarians and the party that's beholden to unions, who are protectionist at their core.

Protectionism is the coward's way out of competition.

The mistake is to think that Democrats are of a single core. We aren't.

But the party leadership is dominated by the far leftist core. The libertarian party has nothing to gain from cooperation with Dems as long as that core is in charge.