Libertarians Want What Progressives and Liberals Say They Want

(President Gary Johnson and Vice President Bernie Sanders of Earth JW-42017)

When I look at what people actually say and do, the mainstream left, from Bernie to Obama to Hillary, claim to want to make America more like Sweden and Denmark. Both of those countries are more libertarian than the USA by the numbers. If they want Sweden or Denmark, that's not socialism, that's regulated capitalism with a safety net, and more personal freedom than the USA, with higher taxes and a bigger/more comprehensive safety net.

Most conservatives never say what they want, since it's in Cloud Cuckooland of the past or future, but they seem to want Singapore. Free economy with a police state to "win the war on drugs/terror/etc." Or Russia. Russia's right wing, authoritarian federalism....new conservatives seem to like that.

In practical matters, we have a lot in common with liberals. We both want to move society in the same general direction: more liberty overall.
In ideological matters, we THINK we have more in common with conservatives, but I'd say that was a marriage of convenience largely due to the Cold War, and we created a narrative that worked.

If we set aside utopian dreams and ideological rigidity, imagine what we can do. For now, we want the same basic thing: a society with more economic and personal freedom. We can work together to make that happen, and create more liberty, opportunity, and abundance.


Reference: https://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index

What About The Roads?

What about the roads?

I like to say, "We'll see." For now, let's shrink the state to a more reasonable level...at least let's become the most free country on earth according to the indices.

Let's deregulate the economy to the levels of Denmark, New Zealand, Canada, and Hong Kong, bring banking to someplace like Switzerland, maybe look to the Swiss and Singapore for our health care issues, cut defense, end mass incarceration, change the war on drugs from the mad Jihad that it is into to a medical problem that it ought to be, and so many more things...and yeah, let's get taxes as low as we can get them, and start switching them from intrusive invasions of privacy like the income tax, to fees for services and things that are already regulated through commerce law.

Things like that are my priorities. After we've solved all those problems, then I say we can worry about the roads.

For now, let's just not spend infrastructure money on boondoggles, and who better than Libertarians to know a boondoggle when we see one?

With Great Taxation

Taxation is the price we pay for not being able to convince people there's a better way.

The Christian Label

As is often the case around Easter, in between the debate about whether Jesus came out of an egg when he was resurrected, or the bunnies announcing the good news....there are several misconceptions I keep seeing about Christians and Christianity.
People seem to mean "right wing evangelical Christianity" when they say Christian. That kinda sucks, because mainstream Christians aren't all that conservative, and there are even a decent amount of moderate and progressive evangelicals.

Religious labels are hard -- maybe harder than political labels -- and there are progressives, liberals, libertarians, liberaltarians, conservatives, conservatarians, anarchists, and whateverists, in just about every denomination, and non-denominations as well.
All, that, plus just about every denomination has members who are ready to split over some issue they dissent on. The melting pots bubble over and form new soups and stews of ideas and spiritualities. It's actually quite beautiful.

Anyway, I think it's good to remember we are in weedy territory, and to be careful with sweeping generalizations. I know I have to remind myself a million times a day about this.

The Case is Clear

The case for liberty has never been more clear. There are now about a hundred countries that are (true, flawed, and hybrid) democracies with (overly) regulated capitalist economies with safety nets. Actual socialism is a dead issue. The new game is social democracy.


Are these countries perfect? No. Are they better than what they had a century ago, or even fifty years ago? Heck, yeah.

Each one of these countries -- from New Zealand, to Denmark, to Singapore and Hong Kong -- each place makes a separate case for economic and personal liberty, and the more deeply we look at each one, the more we see that it does.


I think it behooves us to study these places, and learn from their failures and successes. Libertarians have the ability to go beyond left and right here, and look at actual liberty in these places, so we can make our case to Americans even more. The world has changed, and the facts are with us.

https://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2017

Buyer's Remorse, Trumpers?

To all those folks having buyer's remorse for Trump, to those who really want to work for freedom, prosperity, and a more Constitutional government, the Libertarian Party is accepting members.

Basically, if you want more freedom, or less government, you should be with us. If you want less war, you should be with us. Less selling of your data, that's us. More rights respected -- us again.

If you want the cost of living to go down, and the standard of living to go up, you should join us, because economic freedom has been shown time and again to be the road there, and that's the only road we wanna build.

https://www.lp.org/

My Globalism

My globalism -- or, the word I prefer, internationalism -- assumes everyone follows their own interest. It doesn't discount nationalism....it just creates a transnational superstructure for transnational interests.
It just means you want universal rights, slavery outlawed everywhere, global protection of the global environment, freedom of the seas, universal trade, open currency exchange, and rule of law between nations instead of the current anarchy and semi-belligerence.
It means pressuring China through economic means to stop treating their workers like crap, in exchange for greater net growth. Other, smaller countries as well.
I don't know anyone anywhere who is seriously pushing for global tyranny. There are no Lex Luthors.
I don't know anyone serious who is seriously pushing for global socialism. Liberal democracy and capitalism are really the only games in town, now.
My internationalism is really just a continuation of how I see the challenge begun by people like Madison, Jefferson, and Paine.

(Art by Alex Ross)