Liberals and Libertarians: Introduction

Introduction

Introduction
What we have in common.

Top Ten List
Liberals and Libertarians
Can Agree On These

Quotes
Ghandi
Henry David Thoreau;
The Tao Te Ching

This site is about the ongoing Usenet discussions between liberals and libertarians. I'm hoping that it will evolve into a forum for constructive dialog between the two groups, which at heart still have a lot more in common than either would like to admit.

Libertarians are "the Party of Principle" and there's much to be said for having principles -- heaven knows our elected representatives could use a few -- but principle alone is probably not enough to win the hearts and minds of America. So I'll be talking more about the good things that libertarians have in common with liberals. Things like idealism and caring and charity -- worrying about the less fortunate and how to help them. And here's another thing:

Tolerance.

One striking similarity between the two groups --- and a key difference with conservatives -- is that both liberals and libertarians pride themselves on their tolerance. Because of the kind of people we are, we are willing to legally tolerate speech that we disagree with. We tolerate sexual practices that are not our own. We tolerate the use of drugs that we don't personally need. We tolerate immigration. In fact, there's much more than just tolerance at work here: we don't just allow people the freedom to be different,, we encourage it! We celebrate diversity, and that is a wonderful thing.

But in our political arguments on the Net and in real life sometimes it seems like there ends up being a lot of intolerance around. There seem to be some liberarians who lack tolerance for liberals; they think all liberals are socialists whose policies are not just misguided but are actively evil. At the same time, there are clearly some liberals who lack tolerance for libertarians; they think all libertarians must be corporate apologists who just don't care about the poor.

Both sides are wrong.

If libertarians are to gain credibility they have to become known as the Party of Good Intentions. They have to remember that paring back, eliminating or privatising even the worst bloated bureaucracies and most blatant consumer rip-offs...will hurt some people. No matter how terrible it may be there are people who depend on the status quo. Libertarians have to realize this, and think about it, and try to deal with the transitional costs. They can't just wave their hands and say, everyone will benefit in the long run. They may be right, but saying so is not going to win any elections. Libertarians need to listen to their hearts and answer to the concerns that liberals have expressed and understood so well all along.

If liberals are to regain credibility they will have to acknowledge that some of their past policies have been misguided. They have to realize that in the real world having good intentions is not enough to fix the real problems. The War on Poverty has not reduced poverty any more than the War on Drugs has reduced the drug problem and there are reasons for that. Too often liberals assume that if you just elect people with the right intentions they will somehow make everything work. But government just doesn't work that way, for reasons that libertarians -- especially libertarian economists -- have expressed and understood all along.

Yet both sides are right.

Liberals have the right concerns, concerns that resonate with most of the population. But they often end up suggesting Big Government solutions that don't fix the problems and may even make things worse.

Libertarians have practical policies that will help the very people Liberals are concerned about. Policies like the Libertarian Party's Project Healthy Choice and Operation Safe Streets. But libertarians can't get their message out without help from people who care.

We need to talk.

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