The linked post on Reason's blog provides a perfect example of why I've become disenchanted with Libertarianism as a political movement in the United States and why I think that it actually undermines the purpose that it supposedly serves.

Ostensibly, Libertarianism is concerned with individual liberty. Individual liberty is not a partisan issue. The Republican party is associated with small government and low taxes, values that Libertarians share. It is also associated with efforts to curtail first and fourth amendment rights, the criminalization of recreational drug use, restrictive immigration policies, and a variety of other policy positions that Libertarians abhor. Real Libertarians cannot, therefore, call themselves partisan Republicans. The Democratic party is associated with defense of individual rights and civil liberties, values that Libertarians share. It is also associated with regulation of economic activity and redistributive social engineering, policy positions that Libertarians abhor. Real Libertarians cannot, therefore, call themselves partisan Democrats. In fact, the famous Nolan chart presents libertarianism as exactly orthogonal to the left-right divide.

A Libertarian political movement, insofar as it is unable to successfully promote its own candidates for office, would be most effective at achieving it's goals if was politically independent, and willing to lend its support to any politician, on the left or the right, whose policies are consistent with its values. Both parties might court this Libertarian voting block by putting policies on the table that are attractive to it and which further the interest of individual liberty, and by avoiding policies that Libertarians abhor. Both mainstream political parties have something to offer Libertarians in this respect, and individual liberty would benefit from providing an incentive for both parties to move in that direction.

Instead, the Libertarian movement is consistently partisan conservative. Libertarian writers and bloggers regularly devote column space to reenforcing the idea that conservatism is good and that liberals are bad. This messaging echos the partisan messaging of the Republican party, and serves to reenforce the idea that members of the Libertarian movement should, first, be loyal Republicans.

The linked post provides an example, which starts out as a diatribe about misinformation in the news media regarding the Zimmerman trial, but reveals its true agenda in it's conclusion, arguing that all criticisms of conservatives for promulgating misinformation must be set aside in light of the misinformation that liberals are promulgating about George Zimmerman.

Liberals and disenchanted conservatives who decry fact-free ideological narratives, true-believer hysteria and willful reality-denial on the right should take a good look at the left’s Zimmerman Derangement Syndrome. Some far-right blogs have trafficked in b... [ Read More (0.6k in body) ]