Libertarians harm themselves when they criticize Pres. Obama in the simpleminded way that the Right does.
The Kochs may be sure that more and more money into Americans for Prosperity will defeat Pres. Obama, but we have reason to doubt that it will work (the GOP candidates will have choppy sailing), and those GOP candidates offer libertarians little or nothing.
If we are to argue against Pres. Obama’s vast expansion of government , we would do well not to sound like the Republicans he now leads in national polls. It’s a conservative, Don Surber, who makes this point plainly when he writes that it’s foolish to attack Pres. Obama as a radical:
This is birtherism again. This is a loser issue. Even if you prove your point that beyond a shadow of a doubt that Barack Obama is a communist Muslim who is ineligible to be president, so what? He has been president for 3+ years. The question this year is not “is Obama a communist Muslim who is ineligible to be president” but rather “is Obama doing a good job — even if Obama were a communist Muslim who is ineligible to be president?”
Now I know that Obama’s a Democrat, Christian, and conventionally liberal, but Surber’s not speaking to libertarians, he’s speaking to the Right.
If Republicans want to take any position, they’re free to do so.
Not any position, however, is a winning one, nor is any position compatible with a healthy libertarian movement (whatever happens in November).
Posted originally on 3.19.12 at Daily Adams.