This post’s title is a bit of a joke: it should be obvious that Gov. Walker’s not a libertarian. (He’s certainly not a Libertarian; he’s a career, and careerist, Republican.)

Libertarians advocate liberty, individual rights, limited government, and peaceful international relations.

Libertarians place liberty first. Walker talks little about individual rights, about freedom of the individual. He’s much for ‘budget repair,’ but little for individual liberty. Libertarians do not oppose the rights of workers to organize in unions. We may think unions ask too much, but it’s not a libertarian view that workers — including public employees — shouldn’t be able to form robust, collective bargaining units. Opposition to collective bargaining is a conservative, not libertarian, idea.

Limited government’s not the same as ‘budget repair.’ A libertarian would start with a plan for the proper size of government, and make necessary cuts — including layoffs — accordingly. Walker starts with so-called budget repair, and works to close a budget gap. That’s a status-quo goal.

‘Budget-repair’ is not really budget repair. Gutting bargaining rights, or adding additional political appointees in the place of civil service managers, isn’t about reduction of state government. It’s simply punitive, or the swapping of one kind of leader for another.

Budget cuts should fall first on those most privileged, and start at the top. Walker takes away collective rights from low-income workers as much as from well-compensated ones. That’s a moral mistake — to whom much is given, much is expected: leaders should take the first and greatest hits from any changes.

I’ve contended for cuts to Whitewater, Wisconsin’s budget, and I have argued that those cuts should come first at the top. (See, On Whitewater, Wisconsin’s 2011 Municipal Budget.)

Predictably, a striving, career bureaucrat will try to preserve projects important to people like himself, and ignore ordinary workers and the poor. A lot of empty slogans, dodgy claims, wrapped in a superficial, middle-brow presumption of enlightenment, do not serve our city well.

They won’t serve Wisconsin well, either.

Rushed legislation is bad legislation. Steamrolling federal health care — and here I refer mostly to the individual mandate — was a bad idea. (The individual mandate was worse than a bad idea — I think it is unconstitutional. The health care bill should not have had such a provision.)

Steamrolling the end of public-employees’ collective bargaining rights is, similarly, a bad idea.

Bad bills are rushed so that politicians can avoid public awareness (and mounting opposition) to ill-considered provisions.

Libertarians want fewer bills, with more time to consider them.

Libertarians take a long view, recalling the past. Walker’s proposals sweep aside much of settled employment law that need not be swept away. He has no long view: it’s all very short term. As it turns out, Walker’s no less willing to waste a crisis than Rahm Emanuel. He’s no less willing to exaggerate one, either.

A few years ago, commentators said libertarians were finished, that markets were the past, etc., etc. We were nonplussed. We’ve advocated the same sound policies through the years, and we come from a tradition that even predates the term ‘libertarian.’ We are a great and proud movement, and we’ll outlast a few empty bureaucrats and striving hangers-on.

We’re patient. We’re patient from the strength of good ideas, confidence in them, and a willingness to contend with opposing notions. We can take a long view.

Walker, by contrast, is a careerist in a hurry.

In Wisconsin or in Whitewater, ‘careerist in a hurry’ is sure to be a bad combination.