# The 24 Types of Libertarian **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 30, 2010, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120 "2010-06-30T21:50:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120/141 "2010-07-08T17:00:50Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The Democrats have controlled congress for years. They’ve controlled the White House for almost two years. Care to define “controlled congress”? Surely you’re aware that parliamentary procedure is currently being exploited to allow a 41-person minority in the Senate to overrule a 59-person majority. Note, too, that another 1/3 of the three branches of government has a majority of its members appointed by Republican Presidents (five Supreme Court Justices appointed by Republicans; three appointed by Democrats; and one empty slot that was up until recently filled by an appointee of a Republican). So, currently, Democrats control one branch (Executive), hold a majority in but do not control another (Legislative), and absolutely do not control a third (Judicial). That’s hardly the kind of power you seem to be crediting them with. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120/142 "2010-07-08T17:20:53Z")
They’ve had a bigger majority than Republicans have had for a long time. So I guess Republicans aren’t at fault either. Hell, it’s no one’s fault! It just is what it is. Don’t blame anyone. Right after the 2008 election, Democrats had the executive branch, a huge majority in the House, and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. When was the last time a single party dominated Washington like that? The problem they had pushing through their agenda is that they tacked to the left and lost the support of the conservative members of their own party. The fact is, if Democrats had governed as fiscally conservative moderates, they would be maintaining big majorities. Had they proposed moderate policies that attracted moderate Republicans and kept blue-dog Democrats in line, they would have had filibuster-proof votes. They didn’t. The pushed their own agenda, froze Republicans out of conferences, ignored polls showing that the public didn’t support what they were doing, and the result is that they’re going to get an ass-kicking in the 2010 elections and they’ve lost the small but growing support of some libertarians. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120/143 "2010-07-08T17:23:57Z")
Way to continue the narrative there, Sparky. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120/144 "2010-07-08T17:54:39Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Care to define “controlled congress”? Surely you’re aware that parliamentary procedure is currently being exploited to allow a 41-person minority in the Senate to overrule a 59-person majority. Note, too, that another 1/3 of the three branches of government has a majority of its members appointed by Republican Presidents (five Supreme Court Justices appointed by Republicans; three appointed by Democrats; and one empty slot that was up until recently filled by an appointee of a Republican). > > So, currently, Democrats control one branch (Executive), hold a majority in but do not control another (Legislative), and absolutely do not control a third (Judicial). That’s hardly the kind of power you seem to be crediting them with. I’d like to ask a slightly different question. Regardless of what the reality of their power may be, what have they TRIED to do that should have appeased libertarians? **Sam Stone** outlined a lot of the issues that had me, as a libertarian, upset with the Bush administration and, despite not voting for Obama (or, FWIW, McCain), hopeful that perhaps the Obama administration could make steps in the right direction. I haven’t seen what I take as an honest attempt at correcting any of those issues, and I’ve seen even more that a I disagree with, like the stimulus, passed. So, can you point out an instance where they’ve done more than simply say they’ll address some of those issues? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120/145 "2010-07-08T18:26:38Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > As long as Democrats demagogue against business, support highly progressive taxes, embrace interventionist economic policies, trade tariffs, and a bigger regulatory state . . . Yes, when are they going to **start** all that?! ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120/146 "2010-07-08T18:59:36Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > They’ve had a bigger majority than Republicans have had for a long time. Way to sidestep the question. Cloture wasn’t being regularly used as a method to circumvent the design of the Senate and require a supermajority until fairly recently… Hrm… Conveniently since the Republicans lost their majority, I believe. You \*still \*haven’t rebutted the argument that there is no “control” when 41 people \*can and do \*overrule the decision of 59 others and engage in other loophole games to grind the processes of legislation to a halt. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120/147 "2010-07-08T19:12:27Z")
The easy answer is that if Democrats had moderated their policies and sought greater consensus, they could have gotten filibuster-proof majorities. They didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120/148 "2010-07-08T19:34:02Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The easy answer is that if Democrats had moderated their policies and sought greater consensus, they could have gotten filibuster-proof majorities. They didn’t. So, let me get this straight. You think that elected representatives who have more than the votes they need to pass new legislation by the actual design of the system should be required to get even more votes by changing things around completely because the people who can disagree can just take their ball and go home? Why is the onus on the legislative majority to bow to the desires of the minority? Why isn’t the onus on the minority to follow the rules of the system as it was designed and intended? I’d say you’re showing a pretty clear conservative/Republican bias for someone who’s trying to claim some sort of middle ground. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120/149 "2010-07-08T23:27:13Z")
Back up a minute here. The original issue was whether libertarians could be attracted to the Democratic party. I said that they had an opportunity because libertarians were (and are) very disillusioned with Republicans. There was a nascent ‘liberaltarian’ movement in the libertarian party. A number of very prominent libertarians jumped ship and voted for Obama, because he campaigned somewhat as a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. He promised smaller government and lower deficits. He promised to reverse the excesses of Bush’s judicial system. So the Democrats had their moment. And I said that if they had governed as Obama promised, they could have kept that support. But then didn’t. They moved to the left and passed a huge stimulus package that was primarily a giveaway to Democratic constituencies. They rammed through a health care plan that was unpopular. They then lost all those libertarians and independents who decided that the Democrats were worse than the Republicans in terms of promoting the overall goals of libertarians. Your argument is that they didn’t have the votes to do everything. But that’s precisely because they abandoned the center. Had they been more moderate, and done things that appealed to libertarians, they _would_ have had those votes. It wasn’t an inevitability that the Republicans would close ranks and refuse to play ball - there were plenty of Republicans willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt. It wasn’t inevitable that the blue dogs would jump ship and make it impossible to find a filibuster-proof majority. For example, a health care plan that would have included Tort Reform and a catastrophic insurance component instead of the bureaucracy-heavy health exchanges and mandatory insurance provisions would have gotten at least 10-15 votes from Republicans, and would have had majority support from the public. A stimulus that was targeted more towards small business could have gotten much more support. The financial reform bill could have included reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to show the Democrats were operating fairly, and it would have more support. The Democrats could calm frayed nerves and frazzled markets by announcing that cap and trade and card check were ill-advised during a recessing and agree to table discussion of either until at least 2012. Obama could have ratched down his divisive rhetoric like he did before the election. There are a lot of places where the Democrats could have found common ground with ‘liberaltarians’. They chose not to. Now they’ve lost them, and probably won’t have another chance to get them for a generation. The level of disillusionment among libertarians is extremely high right now. On the other hand, you could make the argument that this whole ‘re-alignment’ was folly, because libertarians and democrats really have very little common ground. That’s what I believe. I think Democrats are fundamentally statists, and libertarians are fundamentally individualists. I think libertarians are naturally much closer to the Republican party, at least in terms of what both groups claim to believe in, if not how they actually govern. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120/150 "2010-07-09T01:30:20Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The easy answer is that if Democrats had moderated their policies and sought greater consensus . . . :rolleyes: Oh, come on! If they were any more “moderate” they would be RINOs instead of DINOs! ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120/151 "2010-07-09T11:58:01Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The easy answer is that if Democrats had moderated their policies and sought greater consensus, they could have gotten filibuster-proof majorities. They didn’t. Yiou are correct in saying that the Democrats have failed to achieve the degree of change that many who have voted for them wanted. You are a fool for trying to post things like the quote above with a straight face. The Republicans have done everything possible, including reversing their own positions and voting against their own bills in order to try to prevent the current administration from having any success. Anyone watching knows that this is the case, and your assertion to the contrary demonstrates that you remain an ignorant partisan shill. That, and your opening salvo about how the Democrats demogogue against business, support highly progressive taxes, and so on and so forth. That list is a rant against a cartoon, and you’re a dumbass for posting it. For instance, as you note, Democrats have been in control of everything for nearly two years, yet taxes remain very low. How could that be? Similarly, demonstrate for me how Democrats demogogue against business. Idiot. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120/152 "2010-07-09T14:37:28Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Ever hear of the concept of advancing an argument that the person you are responding to just argued against? If not, you may want to look into it. WTF are you talking about? You basically said that republicans are better than Democratsw because Democrats create spending that doeesn’t go away, I point to military spending that doesn’t go away and your response is that you never said that Republicans don’t do the same thing as Democrats? Maybe I am misreading your response. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120/153 "2010-07-09T14:39:40Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > Yes, I think the war on drugs is ridiculous. But I guess I’m just a nutjob. No I basically split libertarians into two groups. The ones that want to smoke out adn the one that don’t want to pay for the societ they live in (they’d rather pay much less for an entirely different society), there are some taht fall into both categories, THOSE guys are nutjobs. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120/154 "2010-07-09T14:53:33Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Your argument is that they didn’t have the votes to do everything. But that’s precisely because they abandoned the center. 1.) They didn’t “abandon the center.” Even the fucking “liberal” party in this country is moderate-to-conservative by the standards of just about every other nation in our cohort. 2.) They didn’t have the votes because the minority EXPLOITED A LOOPHOLE to extend their power and crush the RIGHTFUL LEGISLATIVE POWER of the majority. In summary, admit you’re a fucking Republican already. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120/155 "2010-07-09T14:54:50Z")
OH and on the subject of health care reform, A MAJORITY OF AMERICANS WANT IT. Most of the people who disagree with reform as it’s being passed now… DISAGREE WITH IT BECAUSE IT DOESN’T GO FAR ENOUGH. You fucking RETARD. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120/156 "2010-07-09T14:56:32Z")
The Republicans’ interest is in ensuring that the majority can’t pass _anything_. That’s why they keep voting against legislation that _they themselves originally proposed_. There is no “center” to which the Democrats can move to in order to get legislation passed, because that’s not what the Republicans’ opposition is about. They’ll just move the goalposts again. And it’s clear that the positions the Republicans have been taking are well to the right of the median of the American public. So where’s this holy “center” anyway? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120/157 "2010-07-09T14:59:22Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > As long as Democrats demagogue against business, support highly progressive taxes, embrace interventionist economic policies, trade tariffs, and a bigger regulatory state, they will never get the support of libertarians… …no matter how much the Republicans trash civil liberties and run up huge deficits with tax cuts that are nto accompanied by spending cuts. > [@](#): > > Libertarians oppose the Patriot Act and the religious right, but the fact is that those policies have limited effect on most people. But high taxes and regulations affect everyone. And since many libertarians are small business owners or at least highly sympathetic to small business, policies which burden small businesses with new rules and regulations tend to hit them where they live… …so as long as I get irresponsible tax cuts the Republicans hacve my vote no matter how much they offend every other aspect of libertairianism. Did I mention the Republicans like to cut taxes even if we can’t afford it? > [@](#): > > And on paper the Democrats may be for more social freedoms, but then on paper the Republicans are for smaller government. The reality in both cases is quite different. > > The Democrats have controlled congress for years. They’ve controlled the White House for almost two years. Just what have they done in that time that Libertarians like? Yeah, liberals have the same complaint. > [@](#): > > Just what exactly have the Democrats done that would make any libertarian remotely consider voting for them? What steps have they taken to expand personal liberty and reduce the impact of government on the lives of the people? Well it looks like they are jumping on teh riresponsible tax cut bandwagon. > [@](#): > > And defining ‘fiscal conservative’ as being simply about deficits is rhetorical sleight of hand. To the extent that libertarians are fiscally conservative, it means they want a balanced budget _in the context of smaller government_. No fiscal conservative I’ve ever met would be happy with doubling the size of government so long as taxes doubled to match. You’re right I should call it fiscally responsible because fisvcal conservatives are irresponsible about half the time. > [@](#): > > The Democrats had a chance to capture those people. They blew it. That’s why Obama’s popularity is down in the mid 40’s, and congress much lower. Two years ago, libertarian blogs and forums were full of debates over whether a good libertarian should vote Democrat or Republican. Today, not so much. In fact, a lot of commentary consists of Obama-voting libertarians apologizing for their vote, and other libertarians screaming, “I told you so!” at them. It’s quite tedious, actually. > > In any event, the short window of opportunity for Democrats to court the libertarians has passed. You’ll find approximately zero libertarian support for Democrats in the next election, which is the main reason they’re going to get hammered. If Libertarians really accounted for that many voters they would be a viable party, Unfortunately most libertarians are really just Repoublicans. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120/158 "2010-07-09T15:10:08Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > They’ve had a bigger majority than Republicans have had for a long time. So I guess Republicans aren’t at fault either. Hell, it’s no one’s fault! It just is what it is. Don’t blame anyone. I agree the Democrats cannot disown their lack of party discipline. > [@](#): > > The problem they had pushing through their agenda is that they tacked to the left and lost the support of the conservative members of their own party. > > The fact is, if Democrats had governed as fiscally conservative moderates, they would be maintaining big majorities. Had they proposed moderate policies that attracted moderate Republicans and kept blue-dog Democrats in line, they would have had filibuster-proof votes. I agree, if they had focused on the economy and less time on health care, they might have been able to get health care taken care of later with larger majorities. > [@](#): > > The pushed their own agenda, froze Republicans out of conferences, ignored polls showing that the public didn’t support what they were doing, and the result is that they’re going to get an ass-kicking in the 2010 elections and they’ve lost the small but growing support of some libertarians. You can’t fault them for pushing their agenda, its what elections are about. You don’t win an election and pushthe other guy’s agenda. I didn’t think the health care push was wise but you can’t blame them for freezing tou the Republicans. they were being obstructionist. There was no compromise or negotiation. The Republicans never proposed amendments to the healthcare bill in exchagne for their vote unless the amendment entirely gutted the bill. Once again, I think they should have focused on the health care bill after they passed financial regulation reform but you can’t really blame them for freezing out the Republicans when the Republicans were not at all interested in compromise. There was plenty of public support for health care, there jsut wasn’t a lot of public support for pushing health care before economic rescucitation. Democrats are going to get their asses kicked because the economy sucks. Don’t fool yourself. If we were at 5% unemployment, the Democrats could have shoved a single payer system and gay marraige down the Republicans throats and they would still win in a landslide. It has NOTHING to do with their nonlibertarian actions. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120/159 "2010-07-09T15:35:32Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Back up a minute here. The original issue was whether libertarians could be attracted to the Democratic party. I said that they had an opportunity because libertarians were (and are) very disillusioned with Republicans. There was a nascent ‘liberaltarian’ movement in the libertarian party. A number of very prominent libertarians jumped ship and voted for Obama, because he campaigned somewhat as a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. He promised smaller government and lower deficits. He promised to reverse the excesses of Bush’s judicial system. I remember him promising better government btu I don’t remember him promising smaller government. In fact I believe the stimulus package was talked about during the debates and everyone from Obama to McCain supported it. > [@](#): > > So the Democrats had their moment. And I said that if they had governed as Obama promised, they could have kept that support. But then didn’t. They moved to the left and passed a huge stimulus package that was primarily a giveaway to Democratic constituencies. As opposed to the Republican stimulus package that allocated half the money to accelerated depreciation of all things. The Democratic stimulus package was over 1/3 tax cuts but thsoe tax cuts were aimed at people who made less than $250,000 ($275 billion of that 800 billion went to tax cuts), $140 Billion went to public schools (about 25 billion of that was to prevent layoffs), about 100 billion went to medicaid (basically it provided some relief to state budgets) and about 100 billion for unemployment benefits, the remainging $200 billion or so was supposed to go towards “shovel ready” projects (turns out most of these projects weren’t nearly as shovel ready as people hoped). > [@](#): > > They then lost all those libertarians and independents who decided that the Democrats were worse than the Republicans in terms of promoting the overall goals of libertarians. Which is pretty irrational considering that almost the entire national debt before the Great Recession was created by Republican Administrations. > [@](#): > > It wasn’t an inevitability that the Republicans would close ranks and refuse to play ball - there were plenty of Republicans willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt. It wasn’t inevitable that the blue dogs would jump ship and make it impossible to find a filibuster-proof majority. Republicans just have more party discipline than Democrats, especially in the senate. > [@](#): > > For example, a health care plan that would have included Tort Reform and a catastrophic insurance component instead of the bureaucracy-heavy health exchanges and mandatory insurance provisions would have gotten at least 10-15 votes from Republicans, and would have had majority support from the public. See what you said tahere? INSTEAD OF… Would tort reform made a single payer system more palatable to anyone? You are basically saying that teh Democrats should have adopted a Republican stance to get some Republican votes and even then they would only have gotten a dozen or so. > [@](#): > > A stimulus that was targeted more towards small business could have gotten much more support. Stimulus is targetted towards those who will spend the money. We tried giving businesses hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks and it did NOTHING because businesses don’t make long term hiring decisions absed on one year tax breaks. > [@](#): > > The financial reform bill could have included reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to show the Democrats were operating fairly, and it would have more support. Well we need some reform of FAnnie and Freddie but not the kind the Republicans are proposing. Lets not forget, it was outfits like Ameriquest, Countrywide, S&P, Moody’s, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, etc. that created this mess. The GSEs facilitated the mortgage market generally but I think we can all agree that the GSE’s absent the Amerquests would not have caused a problem. > [@](#): > > The Democrats could calm frayed nerves and frazzled markets by announcing that cap and trade and card check were ill-advised during a recessing and agree to table discussion of either until at least 2012. Obama could have ratched down his divisive rhetoric like he did before the election. His approval rating was sky high even WITH all this rhetoric before the election. The cap and trade probably doesn’t make sense right now and i prefer the solution proposed by the CEO of DUKE energy for now. Lets be blunt, we had spent more on teh stimulus to begin with and gotten out of the recession, noone would be criticizing teh Democrats right now (noone that mattered anyway). > [@](#): > > On the other hand, you could make the argument that this whole ‘re-alignment’ was folly, because libertarians and democrats really have very little common ground. That’s what I believe. I think Democrats are fundamentally statists, and libertarians are fundamentally individualists. I think libertarians are naturally much closer to the Republican party, at least in terms of what both groups claim to believe in, if not how they actually govern… …because the republicans give us tax cuts. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120/160 "2010-07-09T15:41:34Z")
I view socialism and libertarianism as sometimes-competing goods, rather than ends unto themselves - like “freedom” and “justice”. The best POV (I beleve) is to attempt, on a case by case basis, to find the best balance between 'em. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-24-types-of-libertarian/545120.md?page=9)