Libertarian Center
The above title on Instapundit today definitely captured my attention as a centrist with interest in Libertarian ideas. That in turn links to this article by Brink Lindsey.
Here's the basic idea:
...American society today is considerably more libertarian than it was a generation or two ago. Compare conditions now to how they were at the outset of the 1960s. Official governmental discrimination against blacks no longer exists. Censorship has beaten a wholesale retreat. The rights of the accused enjoy much better protection. Abortion, birth control, interracial marriage, and gay sex are legal. Divorce laws have been liberalized and rape laws strengthened. Pervasive price and entry controls in the transportation, energy, communications, and financial sectors are gone. Top income tax rates have been slashed. The pretensions of macroeconomic fine-tuning have been abandoned. Barriers to international trade are much lower. Unionization of the private sector work force has collapsed. Of course there are obvious counterexamples, but on the whole it seems clear that cultural expression, personal lifestyle choices, entrepreneurship, and the play of market forces all now enjoy much wider freedom of maneuver.
The many and complex reasons for this trend can be boiled down to one sweeping generalization: in an age of mass affluence, economic development and individualism go together.
...
In the new, more individualistic culture, traditional attitudes about race relations, sex, the role of women in society, the role of religion in public life, the permissible limits of artistic expression, and the nature of American cultural identity have taken a beating. The country is now much more tolerant and pluralistic than before. And people are much less willing to subjugate their personal interests to standards set by families, employers, churches, and governments.
...
American society has become more libertarian because, more than any other country on the planet, it has successfully adapted to the novel conditions of economic abundance. And because of the way this adaptation took place, a broadly defined libertarianism now occupies the center of the American political spectrum.
...
Most Americans, it turns out, have moved on since the ’60s toward a common ground whose coloration is not recognizably red or blue – call it a purplish, libertarianish centrism. On the one hand, they embrace the traditional, Middle American values of patriotism, law and order, the work ethic, and commitment to family life. At the same time, though, they hold attitudes on race and sex that are dramatically more liberal than those that held sway a generation or two ago. Likewise, they are deeply skeptical of authority, and are strongly committed to open-mindedness and tolerance.
What does this mean for liberals? Perhaps this:
"...the trust in government that made possible the New Deal political order is gone and highly unlikely to return."
And the message for conservatives? Perhaps this:
"52 percent of people 18 to 25 years old believe immigration strengthens the country, as compared to 39 percent among those 26 and older. Consequently, any political movement that has trouble distinguishing between immigration and invasion is spitting in the demographic wind."
More like this, please!
Leave a comment