Lindseytarianism

There’s a fascinating Sunday Discussion Group over The Carpetbagger Report (link), one of my favorite political websites. The kickoff point is a proposal by Cato Insttitute’s Brink Lindsey, who wants to fashion a new breed of “liberaltarians.” Apparently Lindsey is trying to fashion some sort of détente between the cultural liberalism of the Democrats and the economic liberalism of, well of Brink Lindsey.

The proposal certainly invites serious exploration, but what fascinates me is the tone of the CB comments—last time I looked, they appeared overwhelmingly negative, at least in tone if not in number (I didn’t count)—coupled with a distinct sense that the readers feel they are being had: that Lindsey has devised a cunning trap, and that they need to be careful lest they spill into it.

This works for me on so many levels. One, the hostility of the response that the readers must find it at least beguiling—otherwise they could perfectly well blow it off as beneath contempt. But from another point of view, go back to the original idea: pretty clearly Lindsey has soured on his “traditional” allies—and who can blame him for that? He’s looking for someone, anyone, to provide him a home.

My own guess is that American “libertarians” will never find a home in a two-party system. They might be able to function in a continental system where there often is one party committed to both open markets and cultural freedom (not the British liberals, god knows—something more French or Italian). The name for such parties is “pretty much irrelevant.” But it does have the constructive consequence of thrusting libertarians into the rough-and-tumble of mainstream politics, where they have to spend at least some of their time thinking through the implications of their beguiling but often half-baked proposals—an obligation from which United States libertarians have pretty much stayed free.

[FWIW, that last seems to me to be a pretty good tag line for the whole Lindsey project. I liked Against the Dead Hand—thought-provoking and with some good, worthwhile examples. But he seemed at his best when he was writing about stuff he knew least about.]