In today’s Washington Post Sebastian Mallaby discussesBrink Lindsey’s article in the current issue of The New Republic. There Lindsey argues that libertarians should ditch the Republican Party in favor of the Democrats.

Evidently Brink Lindsey defines libertarians in the very generous manner described here. According to Mallaby, Lindsey argues that"the ambition of realistic libertarians is not to shrink government but to contain it: to cut senseless spending such as the farm program and oil subsidies to make room for the inevitable expansion in areas such as health." So apparently that's what libertarianism has come down to, at least as conceived by the vice-president for research at the Cato Institute. I can't imagine that some of his colleagues and donors will be impressed by this particular formulation of what libertarians should aim for.

Mallaby concludes thus:

"The era of big government is far from over, and liberals and libertarians gain nothing from fighting over its inevitable growth. But precisely because government is on a trajectory of unsustainable expansion, liberals and libertarians have a common interest in reinventing it."

I understand where Sebastian Mallaby, a political pundit who does not claim to be a libertarian, is coming from. I'm more puzzled by Brink Lindsey, who, I guess, claims to be a libertarian.

Eric Dondero - 12/6/2006

Explain this dichotomy; there were more libertarian Republicans elected to public office than ever before, including 4 Governors.

The Republican Liberty Caucus is better oranized and larger than ever.

And these nerds want us to scrap all that and join up with the Dems??

Insane!!

Eric at www.mainstreamlibertarian.com

Aeon J. Skoble - 12/6/2006

Also, Virginia Postrel has some useful analysis of this issue here: http://www.dynamist.com/weblog/archives/002359.html. Her discussion is insightful, as always, and her first point might be a realistic one, but I'm still skeptical that the left will give up its Crolyist commtitment to regulation, its protectionism, its pathological hatred of RKBA, and its nascent interest in conscription.

Aeon J. Skoble - 12/5/2006

Interesting posts and comments threads at VC. Have a look, e.g. here: http://volokh.com/posts/1165247590.shtml

Sheldon Richman - 12/5/2006

That's truly baffling. Lindsey (prowar, by the way) joins Bruce Bartlett and others in the "realistic defeatist" school. I'm underwhelmed.

Aeon J. Skoble - 12/4/2006

No chance. I see absoultely zero evidence that the left is even remotely interested in "entente" regarding things like free trade, privatized social security, school vouchers (let alone privatized schooling!), minimum wage, RKBA, paternalism.