National mixed emotions about libertarianism are understandable,
given that many Americans consider former Texas Congressman Ron
Paul and his many naïve or
anti-Semitic or tin-foil-hatted disciples as its leading
representatives, and that so many Libertarian Party members come
across as more interested in intellectual purity and being “right”
than in actually making a difference.
But the rise in prominence of certain pro-liberty members of Congress, particularly Justin Amash (R-MI) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) in the House of Representatives and Rand Paul (R-KY) in the Senate — along with the occasional libertarian, or at least constitutional, tendencies of Senators Mike Lee (R-UT), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Marco Rubio (R-FL) — are slowly dragging libertarianism into the political mainstream. (Rep. Amash was the only member of Congress whose campaign I contributed to in the last cycle, not least because he explains every vote he casts in Congress on his Facebook page.)
In a recent opinion piece entitled “Libertarian Populism and Its Critics,” Ross Douthat, the New York Times’ resident conservative, takes on a range of writers who have recently discussed “libertarian populism,” a term that seems to have been coined by Ben Domenech (who, like me, is affiliated with the Heartland Institute).
http://spectator.org/archives/2013/08/23/libertarian-populism-is-an-oxy
But the rise in prominence of certain pro-liberty members of Congress, particularly Justin Amash (R-MI) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) in the House of Representatives and Rand Paul (R-KY) in the Senate — along with the occasional libertarian, or at least constitutional, tendencies of Senators Mike Lee (R-UT), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Marco Rubio (R-FL) — are slowly dragging libertarianism into the political mainstream. (Rep. Amash was the only member of Congress whose campaign I contributed to in the last cycle, not least because he explains every vote he casts in Congress on his Facebook page.)
In a recent opinion piece entitled “Libertarian Populism and Its Critics,” Ross Douthat, the New York Times’ resident conservative, takes on a range of writers who have recently discussed “libertarian populism,” a term that seems to have been coined by Ben Domenech (who, like me, is affiliated with the Heartland Institute).
http://spectator.org/archives/2013/08/23/libertarian-populism-is-an-oxy
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