Category Archives: Political Animals

Sen. Hatch, on libertarians, in a recent NPR interview:

“These people are not conservatives. They’re not Republicans,” Hatch angrily responds. “They’re radical libertarians and I’m doggone offended by it.”

Then Hatch, a former boxer, turns combative. “I despise these people, and I’m not the guy you come in and dump on without getting punched in the mouth.”

Given how offended I am by his big-government establishment conservatism, glad to see the feeling is mutual.

Sun Tzu’s most famous advice in The Art of War is to know your enemy. Van Jones, in a recent speech excoriating libertarians, proved that he does not.

For one, he believes libertarians are “anti-immigrant, bigots.” He must be unaware that libertarians favor open immigration. This doesn’t bode well for his argument. The Huffington Post‘s Radley Balko tweeted, “Dear Van Jones: I’m a libertarian. I’m for open immigration. You support Obama. Last year, he set the all-time US record for deportations.”

If Jones is pro-immigration, he’ll find a lot to like about the work that libertarian groups like CEI and Cato have been putting out for years (see here, here, and here). And he’ll also be more critical of both parties for their stances on the issue.

He must also not know that you can’t be a libertarian and a bigot at the same time. It’s a logical impossibility. Libertarians are individualists. Bigotry is a crude form of collectivism. Bigots also tend not to favor liberalizing immigration.

Jones also argued that libertarians are homophobic. He must not know that libertarians are strong supporters of gay rights, including gay marriage (see here, here, and here, for starters). People who actually are bigoted against gays, such as Rick Santorum, are in fact openly critical of libertarianism.

Van Jones was never on my radar even when he was regularly in the news; he made it clear early on that he is not a serious thinker. This post marks the first time his name has appeared in this blog. And it will probably be the last. But his errors demand correction, not least because they are so common.

Think about it for a minute. Can you really imagine radical anti-government ideologues arguing for more government control over immigration and marriage? Me neither. This is pretty basic stuff. And he got it dead wrong.

The reason is that Jones has the bad cognitive habit of taking everything he disagrees with and simply giving it the name “libertarian” (or progressive, or conservative; all sides fall for the same fallacy). If Jones wants to argue against libertarianism, he would do much better to argue against positions that libertarians actually take.

The most effective thinkers and activists are the ones who at least try to pass the ideological Turing test. That’s really just a fancy way of saying, as Sun Tzu does, to know your enemy. That Jones has clearly taken no such trouble speaks volumes.

Tolerance is a virtue. And many Republicans do not practice that virtue when it comes to gay people and foreigners. It’s a big reason why under-30 voters went 66 percent for Obama in 2008. Sensing political reality, it looks like the GOP is starting to come around. They’re not there yet — not even close — but maybe one day they will be. Baby steps.

A Politico article describes the GOP’s small, tentative about-face on same-sex marriage:

It’s not like the GOP has become a bastion of progressiveness on gay rights, but there has been an evolution in the political approach — and an acknowledgment of a cultural shift in the country. Same-sex relationships are more prominent and accepted. There are more gay public figures — including politicians — and it’s likely that many Washington Republicans have gay friends and coworkers. Just as important — there’s also a libertarian streak of acceptance on people’s sexuality coursing through the House Republican Conference.

I think it was Radley Balko who pointed out that in twenty years’ time, almost everyone who today opposes gay marriage will be for it, and will be embarrassed by their former hostility. It’s a long process. In the short run, I think politics are trumping any imaginary libertarian streak:

But there’s also a political strategy at work: The economy has displaced moral issues in today’s politics. Ask most House Republicans today if they have deep convictions about gay relationships, and it hardly registers.

This lighter approach is an international phenomenon. Over in the UK, the Conservative Party is actually outflanking Labour by proposing legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.

Conservative hostility to immigration is another electoral loser, and the GOP seems to be discovering a little tolerance there, too. Sen. Marco Rubio, himself the son of Cuban immigrants, is on board with the DREAM Act, which would offer legal residency to undocumented immigrants who satisfy certain conditions (the bill is actually a mixed bag instead of an unmitigated good; more information in this podcast).

I don’t see the entire party coming around on either issue anytime soon, but it’s good that there glimmers of hope here and there. May they become more frequent.