” The spotlight on Rand Paul may help more Americans fully embrace their libertarian ideals
Rand Paul’s leadership in the Senate – on the budget, regulation, privacy, criminal justice, and foreign policy – and his likely presidential campaign are generating new attention for libertarian ideas.
“ Libertarianism is hot,” headlined the Washington Post in 2013. From an almost-forgotten part of American political culture, libertarianism has grown into a respected and much-discussed political faction and a compelling set of ideas that challenge the conventional wisdom. Tens of millions of Americans are fiscally conservative, socially tolerant, and skeptical of American military intervention.”
” The growth of the libertarian movement is a product of two factors: the spread of libertarian ideas and sentiments, and the expansion of government during the Bush and Obama administrations, particularly the civil liberties abuses after 9/11 and the bailouts and out-of-control spending after the financial crisis. As one journalist noted in 2009, “The Obama administration brought with it ambitions of a resurgence of FDR and LBJ’s active-state liberalism. And with it, Obama has revived the enduring American challenge to the state.” “
Now we come to the heart of the matter …
” In studies that David Kirby and I have published at the Cato Institute on “the libertarian vote,” we have found that only 2 to 4 percent of Americans say that they’re libertarian when asked. But 15 to 20 percent – 30 to 40 million Americans – hold libertarian views on a range of questions. The latest Gallup Governance Survey finds 24 percent of respondents falling into the libertarian quadrant, matching the number of conservatives and liberals and up from 17 percent in 2004 and 23 percent in 2008. And when asked in a Zogby poll if they would define themselves as “fiscally conservative and socially liberal, also known as libertarian,” fully 44 percent of respondents – 100 million Americans – accept the label.”
This is America’s innate “live and let live” attitude reasserting itself after being partially extinguished by several generations of all-encompassing Statist media , education , entertainment and public policies .
After all , there is no political tradition older nor more ingrained into the American psyche than the spirit of libertarianism , and fifty years of historical revisionism on the part of the establishment forces allied in the perpetuation of the Leviathan state have failed in snuffing it out the spark of independence .
Read the rest of David Boaz’s commentary
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