Do Libertarians Have More Fun ?

[Punu]

Wall Street Journal

Party On!

Do Libertarians have more fun?

BY JULIA GORIN

Tuesday, March 15, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

Since the 2008 campaign season seems to be off to an early start, Americans should think about getting a better handle on one of the other political parties--specifically that smaller one whose candidate finished with 0.3% of the vote in the 2004 Election.

I'm not talking about the Green Party, with whose tenets most Americans are by now familiar but which drew an even smaller 0.1% of the vote. I'm talking about the country's third-largest, yet still somewhat enigmatic, party, the Libertarians--which is often overshadowed by other minor parties (even the Greens, if you can imagine), and whose candidate's name I'd wager most people still don't know. (It's Michael Badnarik.)

Most of us have heard at least vaguely the party's guiding principles, which usually center on a "government out" ideology that says the government has exactly two functions: to protect citizens from foreign attackers, and to create and defend a body of law that protects citizens' property rights and physical safety. There is also an emphasis on personal liberty and individual responsibility.

But that's the straight-faced answer. When those who still haven't quite grasped the nature of this political party or its adherents ask, "So what's a Libertarian, anyway?" it can be summed up with any or all of the following quips:

A conservative with an unhealthy preoccupation with sex.

A Republican with a wild side.

An amoral Republican.

Someone who thinks he should get a medal for being home in time for dinner and helping the kids with homework regardless of what the lower part of his anatomy was doing earlier in the day.

Libertarians generally bill themselves as fiscally conservative but socially liberal, a translation of which came from Yale Law student Angus Dwyer at a recent gathering of New York conservatives: "a cheapskate who can't keep his pants zipped." Mr. Dwyer elaborated: "It's hedonism combined with the desire to not be made to take account for the needs of others. It's a person who thinks about the public commonweal in terms of how much he has to pay to support it. It's 'I don't give a sh--, and I'm not paying for sh--.' "

A post by "Cousin Dave" on the La Shawn Barber's Corner blog had a different take: "There are two aspects to governing: #1 making and enforcement of the law and #2 ethical and moral leadership. . . . Libertarians, because they concentrate on minimizing #1, have a tendency to overlook #2." This inadvertently helps Democrats, who "want to maximize #1 and actively work to destroy #2."

Based on her experiences with Libertarians, blogress Karol Sheinin thinks of them as Republicans who can't admit it yet, but who don't want to be as noncommittal and bogus-sounding as "independent," which isn't exactly a political party.

Comedian Jeff Jena defines a Libertarian as a Democrat who wants to own a gun, or a Republican who wants to smoke pot. A TV newsmagazine producer named Kristina explains a Libertarian as a Republican with bad manners. And for New York writer Bill Huhn "a Libertarian is a libertine-arian."

Unlike the Green Party, which can be taken as a more specific and radical offshoot of the Democratic Party ("Democrat squared," as alternative publisher Olga Gardner Galvin describes it), the Libertarian Party offers a little of both major parties. The Libertarians' atheism, together with the hedonism-as-a-virtue outlook they share with Democrats, allows them to laugh with the left at the "Puritanism" of the right. But their ability to view and digest the right's good-sense policies without knee-jerk antagonism enables Libertarians to roll their eyes along with Republicans at the political correctness and do-goodism of the left's compassionate classes.

Politically, the Libertarian world isn't a bad place to be. Libertarians have more credibility with the left than Republicans do, even though their conservative side is callous compared with the charitable Christian right. And they have more credibility with the right than Democrats do, despite being more godless than the left. If Republicans and Democrats are the thesis and antithesis, Libertarians are a synthesis.

Even if this party never puts a candidate into the Oval Office, its ultimate purpose may be to help the two opposing major parties view each other through more sober lenses, and thus help the country arrive at a happy, if gay, marriage.

Ms. Gorin, a contributing editor of JewishWorldReview.com, performs with RightStuffComedy.com and performs tomorrow night in Republican Riot.

[melodius]

Vraiment concon comme article. Enfin, il n'est pas négatif, c'est déjà ça.

[Taisei Yokusankai]

Enfin, il n'est pas négatif, c'est déjà ça.

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