Libertarian article - help me critique

[topherX]

I received an email containing an essay: "The November Revolution" (see link below) written by Murray Rothbard, the founder of libertariansim. The article talks about the 1994 republican landslide winning in congress and general libertarian ideals.

http://www.mises.org/econsense/postscript.asp


I responded to this essay with my own thoughts. I want your help. Please read my response below and offer any suggestions on to how I can refine and improve it.


My response:

Thanks for the information packed memo written by Murray Rothbard. I googled his name and discovered that he was the founder of the Libertarian movement and was heavily involved with the Austrian school of economic. That’s the model that Reagan and currently Bush’s enactment of trickle-down economics (read decrease taxes of those will the most money and the benefits will trickle down to those with less income).

I’m a fan of liberty. I like making decisions for myself. I also know that the decisions that I make are not in a vacuum. Some of my decisions affect only me, while other decisions affect my family, my neighbors, and my town. In other words, what I do will affect other people’s lives in addition to my own. This scenario is true for everyone else too. I adhere to a set of morals so that I avoid doing things that are destructive to my life and to other people. On a broader scale, our towns, states and federal government create laws and enforce them to allow us to live our lives mostly as we see fit and at the same time to protect us from destructive acts of other people. While I’m a fan of liberty, I want that balanced with the protection from others doing harm to me.

One roadblock to liberty is the Patriot Act. I would like to see the Patriot Act eliminated. I don’t like the idea of the CIA or some other enforcement agency looking to see what I checked out from the library in the name of fighting terror. I don’t think that’s an effective way of finding potential terrorists. It also lends itself to possible abuse by those same enforcement agencies. On the other hand, I want our law enforcement to have effective tools to prevent criminal acts that hurt people.

I would like to see more protection the air that we breathe, the water we drink. Washington created a Clear Skies Act that allows corporations to pollute more rather than less. I would rather see companies held accountable for pollutants put in to the air, that to have a new industry come in to place that sells devices and products that allow us to breathe easier and purify our water.

I agree that there is a lot of rhetoric being thrown around in Washington. This is nothing new in political arenas. This has been true of both republican and democratic officials. I will focus on the Republicans here since they currently control both the presidency and congress. The white house talks about smaller government. One example is the push for social security privatization. Meanwhile taxes are cut, more money is spend on defense (including Iraq Afghanistan), and the federal deficit is higher than it’s ever been. The white house talks about better educating our children. At the same time they fail to provide adequate funding for our schools. Education has generally been the focus of state government. Unfortunately when state government lack sufficient funds they can no longer expect sufficient backup for Washington.

Murray Rothbard writes about the illusion of choice. In other words there is little difference between the republican and democratic parties. He argues that both parties seek power and control of our citizens. He also implies that both parties act similarly although there rhetoric differs. I see some very different approaches taken by Republicans and Democrats. On the Republican side, much emphasis was placed upon balancing the federal budget for much of the 80’s and 90’s. Many Republican strive to balance the well-being of corporation and the individual. On the democratic side, I have seen great benefits in regards to protecting our senior citizen’s way of life as a result of the New Deal. Many Democrats created legislation for air cleaner, safer food handling, keeping our roads in tact and protecting our country and way of life in tact from foreign aggressors. Both Democrats and Republicans help mold our education system allows for children of all socio-economic class the chance to do well in there lives and the world. The government helped make the dream of civil rights for people of various ethnicities, religion and handicaps come to life. There is real value to balancing our current political system with various parties.

Our political system can and must make room for additional political parties to create balance and better represent the people of the U.S. I would like to see groups like Libertarians and the Green Party play a greater role in American Politics. This can only enrich our political process.

I agree that some revolutionary change can be made to our government to better reflect and improve the lives of all people. I would like to better understand the libertarian argument. How severely limiting government and allowing individuals (especially those with lots of money) and corporations create a better way of life for me and everyone else in our country? I like many aspect of our capitalist system. I like to see incentive and competition. I don’t know where compassion is part of the capitalist model. I fail to see where pure capitalism would work at make life better for most. Communism in Russia provides a good example of a theoretical utopian system gone astray.

I’ve found it challenging critiquing the ideas of Murray Rothbard, the man who help form the libertarian school of thought. I have learned much in the past few years as I begin my journey of learning about politics. My goal is to increase my participation in the decision making of our country. I began by voting for my representatives of choice. I gave money to a candidate better matched my own belief system. In the future, I want to write my representatives and newspapers. I can participate with groups that will make this a better country and world to live in. Instead of saying that they only way we can make a difference is through destroying our political system and it’s institutions, we can ask ourselves how we can make a difference to mold our political system so that it better represents serves the diverse population of America.

[eallen]

1. Bush's GOP is anti-libertarian in every aspect...

There long has been a friendliness between libertarians and the more classically liberal factions of the GOP. To the extent that the Gingrich "revolution" pushed accountability and spending limits, there was something there that libertarians could support.

That was the GOP then. Even then, the GOP and libertarians split ways on the issue of civil liberties. Today, the Bush GOP is simply the mirror opposite of anything libertarian. The two underlying principles of libertarian philosophy are smaller government and greater human freedom, linked by the belief that there ever and in all ways is an inverse relation between the two. The Bush GOP pushes bigger and more expensive government that is also more intrusive into our daily lives, and intent on stripping away our civil liberties. Any libertarian today who finds something appealing in the current GOP is confused, either about the nature of today's GOP or about what it means to be libertarian.