Justin said:
libertarianism’s Achilles’ heel, it would almost certainly be its tolerance for zealots, purists, mavericks, and, well, whack-jobs.
Jonah's got a bit of a plank in his eye, methinks.
Read some history. JG alluded to some of it in the review. The conservative movement has done the pruning and heavy-lifting the LP can not and likely will not ever do to make it a viable movement.
List of Groups Read Out of Conservative Movement:
1. American Mercury-style anti-semites
2. John Birchers (& like tin-foil-hatters)
3. Randroid utopians (& similar cult-of-personality types)
Until the LP/libertarian movement can do the same with its anarcho-capitalists, side-walk privatizers, and dope-for-12YO kid types, it will continue to be on the margins.
Kentack said:
I agree, libertarianism and objectivism are utopian. But, I say, "so what?"
Read up on utopian movements in the last 150 years. It is a tale of guillotines, gas chambers, terror-famines, and re-education camps. Don't think it can happen to "reason" fetishists? The architects of the French terror were just such folk, too. Tom Paine ring a bell?
Such movements seek to drive the square peg of human nature into their theoretical round hole, with the expected results.
Keep your utopian schemes away from me & my imperfect system.
Soybomb said:
If working for smaller less intrusive government with more personal freedom and responsibility is just utopian, does that mean we're just to settle for the crap we have and be happy with it?
Read the article. Libertarians and the LP have gotten so wound around the axle of ideological purity, they have never gotten around to doing the heavy lifting of popular politics.
Incrementalism is not a dirty word, especially if you can mange a ratchet effect. Take a page form the left's playbook and use it against them in real, hip-deep-in-the-muck politics.
Ratzinger_p38 said:
I take great exception to the allegation that it is some extreme ideology. It HAS been implemented before: about 200 some odd years ago. It slowly started to evaporate, starting with the death of the last of the Founding Fathers (James Monroe) and then just about dying with the loss of Barry Goldwater in the 1964 election. (Goldwater is one of the Gods of the Libertarian movement)
Bravo sierra.
The founding fathers were not, as a whole, utopian libertarians. Also, doctrinaire libertarianism is not what the fonding documents stand for. There was plenty of skepticism of popular will as well as centralized power.
Which Goldwater? The one of 1964? Perhaps the early-1980's Goldwater? I think you are channeling the post-Senate Goldwater of his twilight years.