\nFrom Timothy P. Carney, \u00a0Is this the dawn of bake-me-a-cake libertarianism? | Washington Examiner<\/a>:<\/em>\n
The Libertarian Party just nominated two former governors, New Mexico\u2019s Gary Johnson for president and Massachusetts\u2019 Bill Weld for vice president, in a year when more voters than ever may look for a third choice.<\/p>\n
But Johnson and Weld at times seem to be working hard to push away one particularly homeless voting bloc that could ally with Libertarians this year: social conservatives. From their rhetoric to their policy proposals, the Libertarian nominees seem to be running against<\/em>conservatives more than for<\/em> liberty.<\/p>\n
Weld and Johnson held their first post-nomination joint interview on Tuesday, on liberal network MSNBC. \u201cWe\u2019ve never bought into this anti-choice, anti-gay\u2026sense of the Republican Party,\u201d Weld said, as his first comment to the national television audience.<\/p>\n
The message was clear: We don\u2019t need those backward Christian Right bozos as much we need as you MSNBCers.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n
Johnson has sent similar signals, suggesting that his love of liberty is second to his revulsion to religion. In January, for instance, Johnson said he would make it a federal crime for women to wear the Burqa, the full-body covering worn by women in certain strains of Islam. Johnson recanted a day later, while continuing his warnings about the threat of Sharia \u2014 Islamic law \u2014 in the U.S.<\/p>\n
This spring, Johnson pushed aside freedom of conscience. When asked in an Oregon debate about laws and lawsuits requiring caterers to participate in gay weddings, Johnson took the big-government side \u2014 for coerced baking in the name of gay rights. When later asked about this anti-liberty view, Johnson made the standard liberal conflation between selling off-the-shelf cupcakes to a gay customer (which is straight-up discrimination against a person) and refusal to participate in a ceremony (which is a freedom of conscience issue, a freedom of association issue, and often a free speech issue).<\/p>\n
The dress-code libertarianism and bake-me-a-cake libertarianism Johnson has embraced isn\u2019t libertarianism at all \u2014 it\u2019s left-wing social engineering enforced at gunpoint. Coming from Johnson and Weld, it reeks of raw identity politics. The only consistent theme is that religious people are bad. . . .<\/p>\n
This puts Johnson and Weld at odds with the rest of libertarianism. The Cato Institute and the Reason Foundation both filed amicus briefs on behalf of Hobby Lobby, the Christian-owned store that objected to Obama\u2019s contraception mandate.<\/p>\n
Even on abortion, Johnson and Weld could find common ground with social conservatives. The most libertarian GOP candidates in recent cycles \u2014 Rand Paul and Ron Paul \u2014 were both pro-lifers who pointed out that libertarianism doesn\u2019t preclude protecting babies from homicide. In fact, all the most free-market lawmakers are staunch pro-lifers. For instance, the three senators with the highest 2015 Club for Growth scores are Mike Lee, Ben Sasse and Marco Rubio. You have to go down to No. 48 on the Club\u2019s ranking to find a senator who\u2019s a legitimate moderate pro-lifer \u2014 all the top 47 are strong pro-lifers.<\/p>\n
[Keep reading. . .]\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
See also David Harsanyi,\u00a0 Libertarians Could Appeal To Social Conservatives. They Just Don\u2019t Want To<\/a>, The Federalist:<\/em><\/p>\n
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Consider this: the most popular libertarian politician over the last 30 years is probably Ron Paul,\u00a0 who maintained<\/a>\u00a0that abortion on demand was the \u201cultimate state tyranny.\u201d The only libertarians elected to Congress \u2014 Rand Paul, Justin Amash, and Tom Massie \u2014 are all pro-lifers. Perhaps a libertarian\u2019s electoral success is\u00a0predicated<\/em>\u00a0on being pro-life. Whatever the case, the \u201clibertarian base\u201d is obviously pretty comfortable with the idea. It\u2019s the only party left that could house people with both viewpoints.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
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\u00a0Or was.<\/p>\n
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At Reason<\/em> magazine, Nick Gillespie\u00a0offers a far more compelling take<\/a>\u00a0on all the tension between these two camps, arguing that the Johnson\/Weld ticket merely preaches \u201cfiscal conservatism and social liberalism.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Is that what libertarianism is about: preaching social liberalism? Or is it about offering a system of governance that allows people to live as they please with minimal interference from the state? Because the latter position might hold great appeal across a number of cultural lines, while the former makes libertarians sound like a bunch of progressives who might want to cut taxes one day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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For instance, Gillespie argues just \u201cas you can be against drug prohibition but against drug use, you can argue strenuously against abortion while not believing it should be banned by the state.\u201d \u00a0 I strongly agree<\/a>\u00a0with this reasoning. In the same way, though, a person can also be strenuously against \u201cdiscrimination\u201d and \u201ctransphobia\u201d and still believe in free association and religious liberty. Yet the arrangement seems to skew in one direction these days.<\/p>\n
You may have noticed, for example, that while there\u2019s no room for a pro-life VP candidate in today\u2019s pro-choice Libertarian Party,\u00a0 an eminent domain-loving politician who backed gun control and supported the Iraq War and the Patriot Act<\/a>\u00a0[Governor Weld] will do just fine.<\/p>\n
[Keep reading. . .]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n