Is anyone closely tracking Sarah Palin’s continued popularity with libertarians?
Charles Murray, one of the Beltway’s favorite libertarians (ensconced at the manically pro-war American Enterprise Institute), told the New York Times that he is “truly and deeply in love” with Palin.
Joe Bast, the head of the Heartland Institute, said that Palin “was a great choice [for Vice President] for all the familiar reasons – she’s more free-market, has more executive experience, and is smarter than either McCain or Obama. What’s not to like? In a better world, she’d be running for president, not vice president.” Bast, writing in the October-November issue of the Heartland newsletter, also praises Palin’s “zero tolerance for government corruption.”
Has anyone compiled a list of other prominent libertarians who have gushed over America’s best-known moose hunter?
I continue to be mystified at how Palin could have become an instant saint for so many libertarians. The woman is and has long been a professional politician. Her performance in the debate with Joe Biden (another perfidious professional politician) should have shattered her halo once and for all – at least for anyone who doesn’t support perpetual U.S. warring around the globe.
It’s not possible to be a Libertarian and support her. Just these Neo-Libertarians do. Considering the national debt went from $5.7 Trillion to $10 Trillion under these so-called “Conservatives.” You cannot call your self a Libertarian and support these people unless you are totally in denial about a thing call facts and reality.
How can these people seriously call themselves or think of themselves as Libertarians and support people who will further insanely expensive ongoing falsely-started foreign-wars, civil-liberty destruction, trillion dollar banker bailouts, separation of church and state wrecking, and other economy and society destroying increases in government? They have one last line they falsely use to pretend they are conservative, lower taxes, while they sneakily destroy the dollar and load the national debt to insane proportions while massive layoffs hit the heartland. DC is sucking the life out of America and these government types don’t care as long as they are fat and happy. This happened before in history. See Politburo. Ready yourselves for sitting in a room drinking Vodka and eating potatoes under bare light bulbs while they dine daily at fancy DC eateries. They have possibly destroyed America. They are not conservatives. Lets call things as they are, they are big-government liars who sell out the American people to the highest bidders. These lobbyists, “conservatives” and governmentalists provide little or no or negative value to society; they eat from the work of us who take entrepreneurial risks and do things of actual value.
I am a bit mystified too. I guess there are a few things in her record which can be spun to be libertarian, but when you take a closer look, she is a typical politician. When I saw her lie about opposing the bridge to nowhere in her acceptance speech, I realized that I would have no love affair with her. Also, she is an unadorned militarist.
I have a lot of respect for Lew Rockwell. I think he has some sympathies for Palin (though I am sure there are limits to these) at least in part because she expressed support for an Alaska secession movement. While praiseworthy, in my view, I have to wonder whether this position was taken out of any Jeffersonian tendencies on her part or (more likely) she thought it would be to her advantage to pander to this group.
Jim, you’d better be careful about picking on Mrs. Palin. I saw your post on this at AntiWar.Com and noticed that some folks were upset. You don’t want to piss off all those “libertarians” that support perpetual U.S. warring around the globe who hang out an AntiWar.Com.
Plus, any negative stuff about Palin might hurt sales of my Sarah Palin School Girl Inflatable Party Doll (TM) with and without orifices.
I tried to defend your identification of Palin as a moose hunter without revealing the slang meaning of that term. These libertarian Palin fans would really get pissed if they knew what “moose hunter” actually means.
Tom, I appreciate your comment on Antiwar.com. Gracious, I didn’t know that there was a Moose Hunters Anti-Defamation League.
As the old saying goes, “Blessed Are Those Whose Critics Do Not Possess a Spellchecker.”
Saul – I agree with your comments on Palin as militarist. I suspect she will sing whatever song that will get her a spotlight.
I like the fact that even libertarians who are sympathetic to her, like Rockwell, admit that she is a politician, the same as every other blowhard pol that you meet in Philadelphia, or Paris, or Tokyo. The adulation that she gets is beyond me. I think that this is the last step before Palin and McCain declare themselves gods upon election. (Barack Obama will declare himself to be the reincarnation of Marcus Garvey on inauguration day.) What in the world makes Palin special? If you want a woman who is articulate, feminist and different, give Wendy McElroy a chance. She should debate Sarah Palin, which wouldn’t take too long. Perhaps she should debate Sonny Maravaillosa.
( Palin couldn’t even get within ten feet of either of these two without bursting into flames from their sheer awesomeness.) Forget all of that and bring out Karen “DeCaustic” DeCoster.
This whole election proves how sad our political scene has become. These are awful candidates bar none. I would rather vote for Bullwinkle and Rocky than Palin/McCain.
The main reason libertarians should oppose Palin is that John McCain is her running mate and McCain is the neocon – pentagon socialist candidate. (See here. Obama, if his right wing critics are to be believed, represents a different kind of socialism. It’s probable that Obama’s right critics have exaggerated his radicalism in which case he may represent more of the same. In McCain’s case their is no “probable doubt” about that.
The Palin experience / inexperience factor is a tougher issue. She is definitely comparatively inexperienced, however the ‘experience’ of McCain, Obama and Biden is the wrong kind of experience. None of them have experience fighting “for” rather than “against” limited government, constitutional principles, individual freedom and free markets. Biden’s record on privacy and domestic surveillance is horrific. He may as well be the Veep candidate from 1984. So maybe Palin, by some stretch, and if we are feeling remarkably generous, deserves the ‘benefit of the doubt’ here. In all probability she will be more of the same again, however in the other cases they have already proven themselves to be ‘more of the same’.
More broadly, Palin is however an unconventional figure in American presidential politics and, in her public persona at least, not from the usual beltway crowd. That plus the fact that she makes left liberals’ blood boil are positive characteristics. The left liberal’s antiwar credentials are purely imaginary and their domestic statism record worse than the neocons. They do show some concerns for individual rights in areas many Americans would consider moral vices but they more than make up for their libertine tendencies by their invention of whole new classes of moral sins for which they seek government control in fields as distinct as political correctness, carbon emission and recycling.
Whether these later positive characteristics of Sarah Palin are sufficient the overcome the former negative association is another matter.
I meant to add these links to my comment.
On McCain’s Neocon socialism…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-lauria/the-personification-of-th_b_118964.html
A right wing view of Obama socialism…
http://www.brookesnews.com/081910obamasocialist.html
You are diluting our brand, Jim. Please do not call Mister Bell Curve a libertarian.
Chris – my specific description was that Murray was “one of the Beltway’s favorite libertarians.”
Maybe that is not quite a neon-light oxymoron, but…
The Beltway likes their intellectuals non-threatening.
Tom Blanton brings up a good point — except that every time I see Palin open her mouth (where’s the Fargo accent from?), she makes the blow-up doll seem almost sentient by comparison.