Libertarians and Democrats

This article on the libertarian overture to the Democratic party is generating a lot of buzz. As I blogged about previously, despite many people having some libertarian leanings, I think the actual number of libertarians as the CATO Institute defines libertarianism is quite small.

That said, I thought this was an article worthy of discussion. My first point is I am skeptical of Mr. Lindsey's motives. No one trusts a frontrunner whether it be in sports or politics. It is interesting that Mr. Lindsey and other CATO Institute scholars didn' propose this alliance in 2004 but waited until 2006 when it looked (correctly) that Democrats would take at least one house.

Furthermore, Mr. Lindsey may be pro-choice and pro federal spending on stem cell research but Libertarians themselves are divided on those issues (see Ron Paul or Steve Chapman). Libertarian (big or small l) and social liberalism are not one in the same and are too often confused. As I have blogged about previously, Goldwater the libertarian Conservative ran against Rockefeller the social liberal and they disagreed on more than just economic principles.

Here are a host of major issues that almost all Libertarians of the CATO Institute variety and liberals disagree on:

(1) Guns (except those liberals in pro-gun states who are doing so now for political expediency. Do you know of any non-rural blue state where a Democratic Governor is pro gun?)
(2) free trade
(3) size of the government in general
(4) socialized healthcare
(5) foreign policy on humanitarian interventions (no prominent libertarian that I am aware of favors going into Darfur)
(6) tax cuts
(7) minimum wage
(8) social security
(9) affirmative action
(10) differences still on immigration as libertarians tend to favor guest worker programs more than liberals do
(11) environmental regulation
(12) Judges (see Libertarian scholar Richard Epstein's version of a good judge versus a liberal's version)
(13) reimportation of Drugs
(14) Campaign Finance Reform

The representatives with the most libertarian economic views (i.e. Tom Coburn and Shaddegg and Pence) also have very socially conservative views as does the one libertarian in the house, Ron Paul

Even if the Democrats were to adopt Robert Rubin's fiscal policies (and he moved to the left on free trade recently) and move away from their recent Buchananite trend, it is still unlikely that libertarians (small or large l) would flock to the Democratic party. Did they do so under DLC President, Bill Clinton? No. DLC Democrat politicians (if the term still has any meaning) are more pro-business than other Democrats but they are not necessarily more capitalistic and there is a discernable difference between the two. Clinton, it could be argued was a crony capitalist as opposed to a true believer in the free markets.

Realignment or hot air? I think is the latter and not the former. See this article if you have any doubts.