So there has been a lot of hay lately over the idea of the "libertarian democrat" especially with Markos posting over at Cato. The result is that a number of diaries have sprung up asking what a libertarian dem is or coming from libertarians offering "advice" to dems on how to win their votes.
Now I can't speak for every libertarian, or libertarian democrat but I can speak for myself and what I believe and why I believe that it's high time to evict the squatters on capitol hill, if not the ones squatting over on Penn Ave completely.
One thing I see bandied about is the libertarian involvement and belief in the free market and limiting the role of the government. For me yeah the role of government should be limited. Limited in it's ability to tell me what I can and cannot do.
See libertarianism, and libertarians listened to republicans (or at least have in my experience) and their ideas on how bad government is and that bigger means more involved yadda yadda. Some, at least, drank the kool aid.
Leaving economic policy and free markets aside for the moment I want to talk about the rights of the individual. This is the sacred cow so to speak for me as a libertarian. Fuck with my rights and freedoms and you have just signed your own eviction notice (to use the vernacular above).
As the title for this entry says "If you repeal Habeus...prepare to become a corpus". The moment the state tells you what to think, what to say and repeals rights given to you by the constitution and bill of rights its role is no longer limited.
When I hear a supposed libertarian say to me that rescinding Habeus doesn't matter I can be pretty damn sure he ain't a libertarian, or at least not one who broke his addiction to the right wing kool-aid.
Why? Put simply every libertarian I know believes in the words of the founding fathers, in the bill of rights, and the constitution. In fact the very word libertarian means a person who maintains the doctrine of free will especially with regard to thought or conduct.
When those put in office sign legislation allowing what the so-called "Military Commission Act of 2006" allows they have effectively violated the core tenets of libertarianism. By allowing this administration the ability to designate anyone it wants as an enemy combatant they have limited my freedoms of thought and conduct if not explicitly then implicitly.
This is, or at least was, the libertarian sacred cow. I say was because a lot seem to have bought into the free market horse shit they've been fed by the republicans all these years. Last I knew corporations and monopolies limited my freedoms as an individual as well. The free market that a libertarian should be, and used to be concerned with, was the free market of ideas.
In short this government and this administration in signing the military commissions act, in seeking ways to undo FISA, in implied threats made against those who dissent no longer deserve the support of their citizens let alone the support of libertarians.
They screwed the pooch and their lease is up, time to clean house.