This is the fifth in my ongoing series discussing libertarianism. In this diary, I'm going to try to tackle the problem of stereotypes, generalization, and strawmen arguments. It's easy to see that how the anomynity of the Internet undermines positive discourse. People are more prone to wild generalizations that lump all who disagree with them as pathetic and horrible human beings. But when presented with the idea of trying to bring people into the Democratic Big Tent and libertarian Democrats like myself who are proud to be Democrats, why is there the animosity?
For instance, in a recent diary of mine, I was attacked for using strawmen arguments that took the statements of some people at DailyKos and generalizing it to apply to the entire Democratic blogosphere. My point was trying to identify a possible divide within the Democratic blogosphere between those that have a trust in certain politicians as progressive no matter what, and those who are more critical and distrustful of even Democratic politicians. Yet in almost every single libertarian diary at DailyKos, even the ones that focus on libertarianism in the Democratic Party, has multiple people posting replies ranting about how ALL libertarians are just Ayn Rand reading nutjobs. While there are no doubt libertarians like that, why allow the extremists to define a movement? Why is it bad to generalize about progressives, but not about other groups?
Extremists on the left who only associate with the Green Party and view the Democratic Party as too conservative do not define the progressive movement. Yet for some reason I've encountered a tendency here at DailyKos to allow the extremists in the Libertarian Party to define the libertarian movement. This in my mind is intellectual sloth; it's a lazy way out of confronting the possibility that there are swing voters out there with a broad libertarian view (the topic of a previous diary).
This diary's focus is supposed to be asking a libertarian. But I am not an extremist, I am a libertarian Democrat. I would like to ask you all why you think that there is a common assumption that all libertarians have to be Libertarian Party extremists. This is a short diary, but I hope to have a fruitful discussion in the comments. I do want to identify some possible misconceptions.
Point: Libertarians only vote for the Republican Party or the Libertarian Party.
Counterpoint: A Cato study of libertarian voters (roughly 13% of the voting population) in the 2004 election found that Kerry received 38% of libertarians, up from 20% that Gore got. This was a big swing. In fact, among young libertarians Kerry won 71% to 24%.
Point: Libertarians only care about taxes (or some other economic issue).
Counterpoint: I think that the example of libertarians voting for John Kerry demonstrates that libertarian voters care about more than just taxes. They care about civil liberties, balanced budgets, and a responsible foreign policy as well. While libertarians have the historic spin of being "low tax," that doesn't mean that Democrats can't win them over by focusing on other issues.
Point: Civil libertarians are all fine and good, but we cannot welcome economic libertarians into the party
Counterpoint: Is this really the message we as Democrats want to be sending? If our tent is big enough for people who are pro-life and oppose embryonic stem cell research, why are we not also open to people who may take a more pro-market stance than the rest of the Democratic Party?
Extremists of course are not going to be willing to compromise, and that doesn't matter if they are libertarians or not. But moderates know that the political process is about compromise and constructing broad political alliances. A fiscally conservative libertarian voter may not fully agree with the economic platform of every Democratic candidate, but they can still be happy with a party that takes a strong approach in defending civil liberties, creating balanced budgets, and opposing military adventures abroad.
These are just a few misconceptions and I look forward to having a productive dialog in the comments. And please, let's try to be civil. Thank you.