I am not endorsing libertarianism. I am libertarian as much as I am liberal. I am simply endorsing not-MAGA. Along with the idea that there are more than three choices and that you don't have to align yourself lockstep with any single one. (I also think that equating MAGA and conservatism is a misstep.)
Benji, query:
One of my biggest niggles against libertarians has been their anti-tax rhetoric. I understand it but what do they suggest we replace taxes with? After all they fund important things such as public transport, bridges, healthcare. What's their alternative? I'm currently on state funded healthcare and I receive very good services. Is the anti-tax rhetoric not similar to leftists utopian ideals? A problem with liberalism/progressivism is that so much of it is hope based. "Wouldn't it be nice if....?" is basically their platform. I'm reading the Libertarian Party website now and taxes are the first issue listed on the platform. In what way is this not "wouldn't it be nice if there were no taxes?" Are libertarians going off of real world examples to produce results for their arguments or are they like the leftists and basing everything off of laughable emotions, and theory, and what ifs, and envisioning a future, and the political equivalent of being a LARPer?
Libertarians are not anarchists. That said, many are minarchists. Police, courts, military and minimal taxes. But this isn't a requirement. Hayek argued for a strong safety net. Milton Friedman was one of the earliest advocates of UBI. (And convinced the decidedly non-libertarian Nixon.) Ancaps are allies of libertarians for many reasons and they hold a strong position within the movement but they aren't even a plurality. Mises was more of an ancap. Nozick and Hess were all over the place. Some libertarians consider a VAT to be more libertarian than income taxes, arguably the opposite of the US status quo.
Libertarianism doesn't have a limiting principle, not even the NAP. American libertarians make lots of Constitution-based arguments because of its position within American political culture and because it provides an actual limiting principle. I'd argue that at least a plurality of libertarians (and libertarian-leaners, especially those who stay Republicans) don't like immigration. Yet for the first hundred years of the country there were no immigration laws at all. Nonetheless, many libertarians believe that the non-criminal violation of immigration law constitutes an "invasion" and justifies the creation of a military police state. Other libertarians (and especially ancaps) view the path as the eventual erasure of borders and thus support a streamlining of immigration law on the way to its eventual elimination and consider this both more libertarian and more constitutional. Many libertarians (though not the ancaps) believe in some form of what Tyler Cowen calls state capacity libertarianism on the basis that a
strong state protects capitalism. But a strong state doesn't necessitate a large or highly active state either.
The joke about libertarians is the same as the one about economists, Jews, communists, etc. Put ten of them in a room and you'll get eleven opinions on what libertarianism is. Of course, all things being equal, a libertarian will usually argue for smaller government and less taxes than the status quo, whatever it is.
Most estimates are that libertarians and libertarian-leaners are about 5% of the American populace. A large chunk doesn't vote almost ever, another large chunk votes Republican, many are swing voters, many vote locally but don't care about the Presidency or Congress. Sometimes in a good year (2016 presidential race, 2013 Virginia governors race, etc.) a plurality will vote for the Libertarian Party itself based on the candidate. Sometimes Democrats even get libertarian support, see your Polis posts above but also people like Ron Wyden and the much mocked but sometimes not wrong
liberaltarian which got revived as
anti-Trump opposition after dormancy during the Obama presidency. There's also the
left libertarian which is still not a libertarian socialist. (I think the former makes a much stronger case than the latter though it is more popular within self-described anarchists (and Yurop) than American libertarians.)
Again, I'm not suggesting you (or anyone) should be a libertarian for the views you've recently expressed, that's why I mentioned the Marxists against social studies warriors (Freddie de Boer is pretty prominent) and COVID hysteria (too many to mention) among the other choices. Not that there's anything wrong with being a libertarian inherently. More what I was expressing was that there's no need to throw yourself into the MAGA package (or any single package) over a single issue, opposition to Democrats and "liberal policies" or even a desire to vote Republican in the next local race. Instead it's fine to do all these things while being mostly libertarian, Marxist, liberal, neo-fascist, whatever.
