Inquiring minds want to know:
And once again I have to ask, why do they all choose the Republican party? There isn’t even one civil liberties, anti-war elected official in the Party and barely any GOP voters who agree with them on those issues. There are a handful of elected Democrats and tons of voters on the left who do. And even if Democrats are guilty of the same sins as Republicans, meaning that they would not end wars any sooner, why assume they wouldn’t be happy to shrink government and cut taxes? There are many more Dems who are on the austerity bandwagon than there are Republicans who want to cut military spending.
I think we know the answer. They have prioritized their concerns and they believe Republicans are more likely to follow through on their primary issues, which are low taxes and small government. The foreign policy piece is simply less important. It must be. Nobody would join the Republican Party if shrinking America’s military empire was what they really cared about. The Democrats may be warmongers too, but it’s definitional in the modern GOP. You have as much chance of changing that as you would have declaring the US is a Muslim nation.
It’s an interesting theory. I have a feeling it may be correct, at least to an extent. There is, of course, absolutely nothing wrong with prioritizing economic issues over foreign policy issues, I’ve just never heard it outlined in this way. Anyone have any thoughts / other theories as to why libertarians largely operate within the GOP? Is Digby correct here? Or is it more of an accident, since Ron Paul operates within the GOP and so that’s just the world his folks are used to? I don’t know that I really have an answer.
520 Chestnut 
I think that is a complicated question and I’m inclined to disagree with the answer you provide. Actually, I don’t disagree with the answer you provide, but I think it describes only a small portion of libertarians (this going off absolutely no data whatsoever, but more feeling and experience) and is both biased and overly simplistic. Like anything else, people that identify themselves as libertarians or tend to subscribe to the libertarian message fall into many categories. There are those I would call “Ron Paul libertarians” (not his supporters necessarily, but older more established members like him specifically) who remain within the GOP because they feel they represent what the party set out to be. In other words, they feel they ARE the GOP and people currently associated with the party are the ones that don’t belong. What we would call libertarianism, they would call conservatism. What we call conservatism, they would call insanity! Ron Paul’s followers (I use Ron Paul as an example, but there may be others), on the other hand, represent a newer, younger block of libertarian-esque voters. They, themselves, are also complicated. I would say that a lot of them are either republicans that have been convinced by his message and hope to move the party back to “where it should be” or are truly libertarians in the sense that they don’t identify themselves as republicans at all, but fall under the new banner of libertarianism (again, what Ron Paul libertarians might call conservatism). These people might tend to vote republican because they are following the lead of some of the more old school libertarians, like Ron Paul.
I would not say that the people above fit the description that you provide. People like Ron Paul and his supporters view our foreign policy as a debt producing act of tyranny and colonialism that must absolutely be stopped. They openly and proudly support an end to war as well as an end to runaway spending. People who claim to support a new foreign policy but actually ignore it for low taxes, “strong defense” and a week federal government are generally ones I associate with the tea party movement. I think the tea party and the libertarian movement tend to be lumped together and they tend to sometimes cross associate because their rhetoric sounds the same, or similar. The difference is in their actions. The tea party is just right wing insanity with a libertarian-esque mask, put on to capitalize on the libertarian’s increasing popularity both within and outside of the party.
Now with that being said, I do agree that libertarians and democrats need to work together more closely. I believe I posted about this on the kraken some months ago. Lee Greenwald wrote an excellent blog post on this topic as well. If I can find it, I’ll provide the link.
Sorry for the rambling. haha..I hope it was somewhat coherent and/or helpful 🙂
As a Libertarian, I can think of two reasons why I find myself more often joining the Republican side.
First, I find more of the academically minded Republicans are prepared to debate their positions with Libertarians. In my experience the more academically minded Democrats tend to write off Libertarian positions as offensive or crazy or extreme, which honestly hurts a little. When a Libertarian takes the position that Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act went to far people on the right seem to approach the issue like “Really? Why do you say that?” while people on the left seem to say “Those backward, dangerous ideas have no place in modern America! Take it back!” When Libertarians present the idea “Drug laws waste money and hurt more people they protect” the right tends to reply with “We have data that suggest otherwise. Drugs hurt people!” Now, even though there is disagreement, the right seems more willing to hash it out and not call Libertarians names. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. Plenty of people called Ron Paul’s foreign policy naive and dangerous, but that came from both sides, and it the whole party wasn’t united in that opinion.
Secondly, at least for me, Republicans are less destructive long term. When Republicans lead the way and write laws that infringe on a person’s freedom of speech or privacy, I feel those laws can be easily undone. Take the PATRIOT Act. I hate that law, and even though a lot of Republicans support it, I feel confident that a future Congress could simply not renew it or repeal it without much consequence. When people become more tolerant and want more freedom, those sorts of laws vanish (much like oppressive blue laws in many States). While these laws can seriously destroy people’s lives, they remain offensive to at least some of the population. When the Democrats lead the way and pass a financial reform law, or an education bill, or a health care law, or Social Security, those systems don’t go away. Republican’s opposed the Department of Education and even elected Ronald Reagan, in part, to get rid of it. Alas, the Department lives on, and now the idea to get rid of it isn’t even embraced by the Republicans. I’m sure Social Security was the same way. I really don’t like the Affordable Care Act, and right now Republicans don’t like it either. If they don’t repeal it within a couple of years, it will be with us for a hundred years.
So, in summary, for me, as a Libertarian, I find the Republicans play more nicely with me and don’t call me hurtful names as often as Democrats. The Republican social law and military support look like they can more easily be undone than Democratic health care, education, and environmental stuff.
For those of you Democrats reading this, admit it, you feel like calling me names when I talk ill of health care, education, and environmental laws. 🙂
libertarians smell funny :p
@Jastonite When you say republicans are more likely to “play nicely,” do you mean that in terms of your own experience or in general? I hadn’t really thought about it that way, but I’m inclined to agree with you. I’ve been called homophobic, racist, classist, war mongering, radical and all sorts of things by people on the left. From the right i’ve been called a hippy, orgy-having, gay, retarded drug addicted, lover of the nanny state. While both sides tend to give hateful names to the people with whom they disagree, I guess the left does tend to hit a little harder in that regard. That being said, I think that, nationally, both parties are equally in terms of their hateful closed-mindedness! 🙂
@BenignMoose
I was speaking mostly in terms of my own experience interacting with Republicans and Democrats. They both use names, and both parties do have their fair share of ignorant supports who love to dish out hateful things, but I do find the Republicans are a little more kind to Libertarians, at least for the past several years. I am not claiming that Republicans are more kind in general, particularly with toward those with whom they disagree. I guess the real thrust of my “play nicely” comment was that, in my experience, Republicans seem more willing to engage in the conversation, while Democrats seem more willing to simply talk about how terrible my position is.
@BenignMoose
Also, I think Republicans are more aware of their own bias. I find that people on the left tend to find their positions more objective and rationally based, which puts them at odds with Libertarians who find their own positions more objective and rationally based. Those on the right tend to fall back on a moral/tradition argument which is an admission of a bias, resulting more often (I think) in a “well, we will have to agree to disagree.”
interesting discussion guys, thanks! Not being a libertarian or republican, I really don’t have a decent answer to the question, Digby’s theory which I relayed sounded plausible (and still does) but so too do yours. The answer which is most likely, of course, is the good old classic “it depends who you ask”. Everyone has their own motivations and opinions.
As for Jastonite’s statement that Republican policies have less staying power than those of Dems, I would mention the Bush tax cuts. We will see what happens in December (OK, lets be realistic, January) but I have trouble forseeing the expiration of the cuts. Its simply the case that raising taxes is unpopular and lowering them is popular. The average person couldn’t care less about macroeconomic policy, they just know that their paycheck is larger or smaller.