The New Libertarian Left

As a libertarian Republican who will most likely become a libertarian Democrat within a year, I'm happy to read Terry Michael's blog, Thoughts From a Libertarian Democrat. He spells out his evolution from a "traditional 'complete the New Deal,' programmatic, wealth re-distributive, and identity politics left-liberal" to a libertarian who wants government "out of my bank account and my bedroom, away from my body, and out of the backyards of the rest of the world."

I'm especially intrigued with an editorial he wrote for the Washington Examiner back in May, in which he stakes out a bold vision of what the Democratic Party could become.

The "stickiness" (as marketplace brand managers would call it) of the Republican Party label is in the story enthusiastically shared by Republicans of all stripes: government, with its taxes and regulation, is the problem, not the solution. You could reduce the GOP brand to this: "Government bad. America good. The marketplace will provide. In God we trust. Equal opportunity, but not equal outcomes, for all."

What's the story behind today's Democrat brand? I'm a Democrat, but I'm not sure. I believe it's something like: "Government isn't all that bad; look at Social Security and Head Start. America isn't always that good, we try to impose our will on a multicultural world. The marketplace is full of bad guys who need to be restrained. Hey, we're religious, too. And redistributive social justice for all, because, except for me and my friends, racism endures."
[snip]

From our Jeffersonian roots, we have the glue to make the [Democratic] brand sticky again. The new desktop-empowered generation, turned on by Republican economic choice, but turned off by the social-cultural intolerance of the GOP Taliban wing, could embrace Democrats if we return to our founder's philosophy -- a back-to-the-future Jeffersonian liberalism.
[snip]

We need a new story. Here's rough cut: "Government: Assure liberty by staying as far away as possible from our bank accounts, our bedrooms and our bodies. Spread pluralistic democracy and free markets by example, not by force. Restore the moral authority of the mid-20th century civil rights movement, by fashioning public policy around individuals, not tribal identity groups."

The modern libertarian movement, of course, has its origins in the merging of the radical 1960s decentralist left with the old constitutional and isolationist right. With the new "conservative" right moving from embracing statism to embracing authoritarianism, it's great to contemplate the rise of a new libertarian left.

Thanks to Nick Gillespie for pointing out Terry Michael's blog.