As long as I can remember, libertarians have been on the fringe of political discourse, focusing on issues nobody seems to care about. In the 1970s they were talking about legalizing gay marriage.…
As long as I can remember, libertarians have been on the fringe of political discourse, focusing on issues nobody seems to care about. In the 1970s they were talking about legalizing gay marriage. In the 1980s instead of “Just Saying No”, they demanded we end the drug war. In 2005 when most of the country was still seeing red from 9/11, libertarians were talking about ending the wars and the dangers of the USA PATRIOT Act. They could often be seen defending ‘scoundrels’, like when Alex Jones was kicked out of polite society, muttering about how it wouldn’t stop there.
But time is a funny thing, and politics are fluid - they’re based on the values of the people at any particular moment. These ‘fringe’ positions of yesterday are today’s mainstream thoughts. The libertarian arguments didn’t change, the politics of the people changed and became more libertarian. In this way, libertarians are often on the fringe because the mainstream hasn’t yet found their way to the libertarian position.
After all, when things are going well, who has time to sit around talking about the dangers of growing government? Why should we spend time thinking about monetary policy? We’ve got real shit to worry about. Just trust that the government is looking out for you.
You nailed it, and might be interested in my article touching on the topic:
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/were-all-libertarians-now
As long as I can remember, libertarians have been on the fringe of political discourse, focusing on issues nobody seems to care about. In the 1970s they were talking about legalizing gay marriage. In the 1980s instead of “Just Saying No”, they demanded we end the drug war. In 2005 when most of the country was still seeing red from 9/11, libertarians were talking about ending the wars and the dangers of the USA PATRIOT Act. They could often be seen defending ‘scoundrels’, like when Alex Jones was kicked out of polite society, muttering about how it wouldn’t stop there.
But time is a funny thing, and politics are fluid - they’re based on the values of the people at any particular moment. These ‘fringe’ positions of yesterday are today’s mainstream thoughts. The libertarian arguments didn’t change, the politics of the people changed and became more libertarian. In this way, libertarians are often on the fringe because the mainstream hasn’t yet found their way to the libertarian position.
After all, when things are going well, who has time to sit around talking about the dangers of growing government? Why should we spend time thinking about monetary policy? We’ve got real shit to worry about. Just trust that the government is looking out for you.