John Stossel wrote a mediocre peice labeling Romney as a big government guy. It's not a bad argument, just poorly poorly formed. Many people agreed with him but I was surprised at the amount of hate Stossel and Libertarians were getting from some readers. Here area few examples:
I've heard many people refer to the "Libertarian wing of the Republican party" but this situation goes completely against that notion. It basically tells Libertarians: "We'll take your votes but leave your ideas at the door".
I'm a big Stossel fan. Stossel gets air time on Fox Business channel and an hour a week (I think) on Fox News. He worked for ABC for 30 years. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...use-it-sucked/2012/04/12/gIQAaMrKDT_blog.html Granted, he somehow lasted 30 years at ABC, but he is surely much happier at Fox where he is a bit more than "tolerated." As a long time actual Libertarian, I've debated with other Libertarians the strategy for the Party. For example, I question if is it better to spend what limited funds we have on getting on the ballots in 50 states only to get an optimistic 1% or 2% of the vote. I have repeatedly suggested that these funds would be better spent focused on a lesser but high profile office, like governor of California or better yet, Senator from California. Like at ABC, Libertarian ideas tend to get buried. Yet opportunity to speak on the floor of the senate regularly is a year-round megaphone that can't easily be buried. Surely once Libertarian ideas are injected into the social debates, the party's popularity will grow. Along came Ron Paul. He used the system against itself. He ran as a Republican so he could get elected, which he did. Prior to that, he ran for president on the LP ticket, and obviously lost. He got his megaphone and was reelected every time he ran for his House seat. As presidential candidate, he went from obscurity (1988 as Libertarian) to a household name in 2008 to a guy who had ~200 delegates at the Republican Convention, ~10% as many as Romney. His ability to raise money and generate a loyal following has moved the Libertarian Party and cause from obscurity to main stream (hey, even YOU are writing about it). When you realize that it's a massive uphill battle to be fought, and it's going to take time, you do what you have to do. If it means using the Republican Party as a means to elected office, you do it. The Democratic Party is not an option. As to the "conservatives" who disagree with Libertarians? LOL. Libertarians aren't "Conservatives," we don't vote for "Conservatives," we recruit "Conservatives!" (and Democrats, too). Consider the Tea Party movement. Here's the platform: http://www.teaparty-platform.com/ If you are so violently opposed to the Tea Party, please point out which plank of this platform you disagree with. Of course, the platform is entirely inspired by Libertarian philosophy though not 100% of the way there. The movement itself proves that there is a significant portion of the population that is more than open to Libertarian ideas. I want Obama to lose. But I want Romney to lose, too. I want Obama to lose more. This doesn't mean I'd vote for Romney. <-- there's a word "for" in that sentence, and I'm NOT "for" Romney. The good news is that 6 of 8 years of republicans controlling Senate/House/Presidency has been followed by 2 years of democrats controlling all 3, and people clearly don't like either. They are realizing they need to stop picking one or the other with unfavorable results, and that's where WE (the people) get noticed. Put another way, actual Conservatism is based upon three principles: Libertarianism, Anti-Communism, and Traditional Values. Because there is the element of Libertarianism (republicans talk about smaller government, keeping govt. off peoples' backs, economic Liberty), a Libertarian candidate can be noticed. What we have today in the Republican Party isn't Conservatism, it's something else. There's lip service to Libertarianism, right? Govt. in the bedroom, govt. grew under their control, anti-immigrant, anti-gay, and so on. The communist bogey man is dead. It died with the USSR. I think with that being the case, there can not be any true Conservatism anymore. However, there is a tinge of Libertarianism in anti-communism, right? ANTI-AUTHORITARIANISM. Traditional Values has been morphed into something else entirely. Where it originally meant values passed on from generation to generation (like work ethic, blood is thicker than water, etc.), it now has some religious context to it. Yuk. Traditional Values means all men created equal (not segregation!), we keep ourselves out of wars, etc. So these same people you say are posting hate toward Stossel and Libertarians aren't Conservatives, which is fine. They didn't agree with Ron Paul for his foreign policy (bring the troops home). Their rhetoric hasn't changed much since then. They didn't back Romney before he was the nominee, did they? Now they so desperately want Obama to lose they'll vote for the guy? I'm fine with letting them spew whatever.
As an aside, the piece is well written and perfectly fine. In fact he nailed it: "Romney emphasizes revenue neutrality because he doesn't want to be accused of proposing to increase the budget deficit, which he repeatedly pounded Obama over. He could avoid that charge by calling for spending cuts. Our deficit is a spending, not a tax revenue, problem. The federal government already collects $2.6 trillion! That's more than enough." I'd also point out that TownHall.com is home to many "conservative" writers (you found a good site for your research). Yet they publish Stossel. I'd also point out that I don't see the comments you quoted in the opening post to be representative of the comments posted on Stossel's article. For example: etc. So it looks to me like there are plenty of Libertarians who are speaking up against "conservatives" on that site.
In either party where there are only two main parties, there are going to be tensions. I don't think that it's unhealthy that socially conservative Republicans and libertarian Republicans don't agree on everything, but I don't know that comments on an online article are true indications of the level of that disagreement. Ed O.
I don't think it's fair to label Romney a Big Government guy based solely on his responses in a debate. I'd like a little meat in Stossels argument, some examples from Romney's record that shows he has a history of growing government. Instead Stossel's argument relies on skepticism:
Geez. Romney's not a smaller govt. guy. His budgets forecast a faster than inflation growth of govt. spending. I mean, there's reason to be skeptical, not just a hunch. It's also fair to say that "waste fraud and abuse" has been the buzz phrase of many a politician, yet when you look at how much of that there is, it's spit in the bucket. (not much) RomneyCare. Is that so critical it's worth borrowing from China? I think Stossel begs to differ (as do I).
Really, my main exposures online to conservative ideals are this site and Fox News. I've never read anything with this amount of contempt for Libertarians coming from the right until this article. I thought it was interesting enough to share.
Heh. FWIW, Ron Paul has not endorsed either of the past two republican nominees, and his delegates showed proper contempt for the republican party's process of keeping Paul from a speaker's spot at the convention. The feeling is mutual
OK, a different approach then. I think he laid the grounds for his case just fine and pretty much first thing in his article.
King George III did. Karl Marx did, too. As did Hitler and Mao and Stalin and Pol Pot and quite a few other guys you might know of.
The founders were Libertarians. When I look up the word Libertarian in my encyclopedia, there's a picture of Thomas Jefferson at the top of the article. Thus you can figure that Marx didn't like them because they were as pro property rights as possible. I think the list in my 3rd sentence includes those who are not for individual rights nor did they "cherish" the individual. They are certainly statists of the highest order.
