There’s an essay online from W.E. Messamore entitled, We’re All Libertarians Now. Of course, we’re not, and Messamore’s not being literal — he’s observing the power of a libertarian message — a message he supports and shares. The libertarian message of limited government and respect for individual liberty is a powerful one, always but especially now.
Messamore observes that
It was only a year ago that President Obama was inaugurated in what some commentators hailed as a sweeping endorsement of socialism: more European-style central economic planning, federal regulation, and entitlement programs. But it would seem that the pundits misread the Democrats’ victories in 2006 and 2008. America didn’t want more, it wanted less.
Americans wanted change, and change after eight years of George W. Bush did not mean more government spending or involvement in our lives. It meant less unchecked executive power, less military
involvement overseas, less spending, less secrecy, less corruption, less cronyism, and less partisan bickering. To take his victory as a mandate for a more socialist re-ordering of American society may have been a fatal mistake by the fledgling Obama Administration.Just one year later, a majority of Americans (56%) “think the federal government has become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens,” according to a CNN Poll published this week. Even 37% of Democrats thought so. CNN reports it as “only 37%,” but think about it: thirty seven percent of Democrats believe that our federal government poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. That’s right, 37% of Democrats sound like radical, right-wing, separatist, tea partiers. (Or conversely, the Tea Party may be more mainstream and less radical than Keith Olbermann lets on.)
One sometimes encounters those who don’t understand libertarians, or those who confuse libertarian-leaning voters with members of the Libertarian Party (LP). Members of the LP are surely libertarians, but so are many Republicans and Democrats. David Boaz of the Cato Institute has written much about libertarian-leaning voters, who are no less than one of every seven Americans. (See, Are Libertarians a Political Force? — full of links to studies confirming libertarian influence.)
The opponents of individual liberty and limited government aren’t likely to grow softer; they’ll grow harder. In my small city of Whitewater, that’s surely true — bad doesn’t get better, it gets worse.