United Liberty
Jim DeMint: Republicans must listen to libertarians
Wed, 02/08/2012 - 10:01am | posted by Jason Pye
In case you missed it, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) made some waves recently by urging his fellow Republicans to listen to libertarians, particularly Ron Paul, on fiscal issues. The comments were, as you can imagine, important given DeMint’s influence in the Tea Party movement and on fiscal conservatives in general. These comments are in stark contrast to what he said a little over a year ago, claiming that “you can’t be a fiscal conservative without being a social conservative.”
DeMint, author of a new book — Now or Never: Saving America from Economic Collapse, is challenging members of both parties to balance the budget through promoting pro-growth, free market policies. He sat down recently with Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch of Reason to discuss his approach to begin solving the budget crisis in Washington and again repeats his warnings to Republicans and conservatives to listen to libertarians:
I was glad to see DeMint urging his fellow Republicans to listen to libertarians on fiscal and economic policy, but he shouldn’t stop there. He’s been a leading voice for social conservatism in the U.S. Senate. But social conservatism is increasingly a turn-off for general election voters and it’s completely dead on arrival among younger voters. Republicans need to listen to libertarians on both fiscal/economic issues and social issues. I would add foreign policy, but unfortunately I don’t think most Americans are with us on that (yet).
Although Jim Demint has just seen the light. I would encourage him to look deeper. How can you be a fiscal conservative when almost everything we do is debt. Education government controlled, we are not master’s of our own bodies,sugar,trans-fat,alchohol,cigarette smoke, drugs..prescription/other. We are not masters of our own future we are the future debt slaves. Just remember this those who refuse to make any sacrifices today by passing on crushing debt might find themselves on the wrong side of a death panel when we have to ration gov’t healthcare.
Matthew, I think your logic module is malfunctioning a little.
We’re only slaves if we refuse to turn out those who would enslave us, which fortunately for us doesn’t involve having to engage in a rebellion a la Spartacus. No, all you have to do is vote for people you think will actually do what they say when they claim they’ll halt and diminish the government, and then kick them from here to China if they don’t live up to it.
So get off that government gin bottle you’ve been sucking on and get to work.
This article makes little sense. Conservatives and libertarians already agree broadly on fiscal and economic issues. So saying that conservatives should “listen” to libertarians on economic matters is simply saying that we can agree where we already agree. The difficulties emerge over issues like gay marriage, abortion, and drug legalization.
Exactly. In the comments of the opinion section of the local paper here in NE Nevada (likely the most Libertarian area in America) Conservatives and Libertarians get along just fine as long as the subject is held to fiscal and monetary policy. But let things shift to gay marriage, abortion, and drug legalization and the fur flies. Since we have completely different first principals (freedom vs virtue) it really should not come as any surprise.
Conservative = A “gone far enough” socialist.
I dont think we can demand the repubs abandon social conservatism, despite the fact that I think it is a losing issue for them now, in an election year, like 2010, that is driven by fiscal conservatism concerns. But they can try for a small gov social conservatism. The recent controversey over the Obama birth control mandate is a good example. Libertarians support socons on this one, not because we oppose birth control, but because we dont beleive big gov should be telling ANYBODY what health care they are forced to pay for. If socons move from Bush 2 style right wing nanny statism, to a socon leave us alone cooalition, libertarians will strongly support them. And the big swings between dems and repubs in 2008-2010 show that the decisive swing group in politics today are conservative leaning libertarians, whose main value is fiscal conservatism, and shrinking big gov to constitutional bounds. They are also the core of the Tea Party.
Most young people today are also social moderates or liberals, but are open to fiscal conservatism, because they know they will be the ones stuck paying the bills in the future. They voted for Obama in 2008 because they were disgusted with Bush 2 style conservative nanny statism. Now they are becomming disgusted with Obama spending, his crony capitalism, and the way his regulations are destroying jobs. But if their only choince is a return to Bush 2 style conservative nanny statism, and repub crony capitalism, they will not change to repubs.
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