{"id":28041,"date":"2014-09-30T09:33:53","date_gmt":"2014-09-30T13:33:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=28041"},"modified":"2014-09-30T09:33:53","modified_gmt":"2014-09-30T13:33:53","slug":"implementing-libertarian-principles-in-practical-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/09\/30\/implementing-libertarian-principles-in-practical-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Implementing libertarian principles in practical politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

P.J. O’Rourke<\/a> talks to Senator Rand Paul:<\/p>\n

The Senator smiled and shrugged. \u201cI never really felt like it was a problem explaining libertarian principles in practical politics. Republicans are champions of economic liberty. Democrats are champions of personal liberty. Bring the two back together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Senator said, \u201cThe problem is mostly how people characterize libertarianism. But that\u2019s changing. Libertarian has gone from being something scary to something people like as a label for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cThere are different ways to get where we want to go.\u201d And gave an example of going nowhere. \u201cNothing good has come out of the war on drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s a different way?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like the unenumerated powers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.<\/em> The Tenth Right in the Bill of Rights keeps us from having just nine rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn The Federalist Papers<\/em>,\u201d I said, \u201cHamilton argued against<\/em> the Bill of Rights on the grounds that government even mentioning rights like free speech implied government had some power over those rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s a good thing we did write them down,\u201d the Senator said, \u201cotherwise we\u2019d have nothing<\/em> left.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senator Paul asked, not quite rhetorically, \u201cIs this the \u2018Libertarian Moment\u2019? If so, it probably won\u2019t come from a third party. Probably it will come from within a party.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom within the Democratic Party?\u201d He didn\u2019t seem to think it was inconceivable. \u201cIn New Hampshire,\u201d he said, \u201ceven Democrats are against state income and sales taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he didn\u2019t seem to think it was likely either. \u201cRepublicans are an ideological coalition,\u201d he said. \u201cDemocrats are a coalition of ideologies. The only thing Democrats agree on is income redistribution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Paul said, \u201cRepublicans have tradition on their side. It\u2019s the American revolution versus the French Revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was a switch \u2013 a flip-flop if you will \u2013 from Thomas Paine\u2019s radical liberty de facto<\/em> to Edmund Burke\u2019s traditional liberty de jure<\/em>. But I don\u2019t fault the Senator. No friend of liberty can avoid the tumble back and forth between Burke and Paine.<\/p>\n

\u201cTradition is a good thing,\u201d the Senator said. \u201cNinety percent of Americans don\u2019t break the law, not because there\u2019s a law against it, but because they have a tradition of conscience. Republicans are traditional. But tradition can be boring. Libertarianism spices things up. Republicans have to either adapt, evolve, or die. They either have to water [down] their message — or extend liberty.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

P.J. O’Rourke talks to Senator Rand Paul: The Senator smiled and shrugged. \u201cI never really felt like it was a problem explaining libertarian principles in practical politics. Republicans are champions of economic liberty. Democrats are champions of personal liberty. Bring the two back together.\u201d The Senator said, \u201cThe problem is mostly how people characterize libertarianism. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,10,53,13],"tags":[715,768,550,573,517],"class_list":["post-28041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-liberty","category-politics","category-usa","tag-constitution","tag-democrat","tag-libertarianism","tag-randpaul","tag-republican"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-7ih","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28042,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28041\/revisions\/28042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}