“Cruz, Rubio, and National Security”

If he becomes the Republican nominee, I’ll support Ted Cruz.

And not just while holding my nose.  There’s much to like about him.

But I do worry about his views on national security, for reasons partially set forth here.

I always describe myself as having libertarian tendencies, especially in economics, but I never call myself a libertarian simpliciter.  And the principal reason for that is my inability to accept the hardcore Libertarian (with a capital L) stance on foreign policy, which seems to me dangerously naïve and much too inclined to isolationism.  Rand Paul’s candidacy has faded largely because of his Libertarian foreign policy positions and, though I like him on several levels, I’m fine with his failure to catch fire with the voters.

That said, let me revisit the question of Libertarianism (with that capital L) from another angle:

Some people I know have tried to persuade me to vote Democratic here in Utah for the sake of having a flourishing two-party system.  It’s not good, they say, for a state to be governed by a single, essentially unchallenged political party.  There’s too much danger, they say, of arrogance, complacency, and corruption.  I heartily agree, based on both common sense and the dismal record of many Democrat-controlled states and cities.  So, yes, I wish that Utah had a more vigorous state-wide opposition party.  I would personally like to see the Republicans and the Libertarians challenging each other at every election.

Likewise, speaking nationally, I think that Libertarian critiques of American foreign policy can be quite bracing.  They’re not always entirely without merit.  I simply haven’t been able to bring myself to buy the whole package.  But it wouldn’t hurt for potential international actions to receive a more fundamentally skeptical examination than they often have.