http://www.danoconnor2012.com/
;)
Damned Class Traitor.
He acknowledges ABCT but doesn't call for the fed's abolition? D'oh!
The Anarch is to the Anarchist what the Monarch is to the Monarchist. -Ernst Jünger
A free market, anti-Fed, low-tax Democrat makes about as much sense as a big-Pharma-slashing, anti-Fed, anti-War Republican
On a serious note though, I think if one is into coalition-building, it makes sense to build inroads with the party that is out of power. That's why I think libertarians have been trying to infiltrate the Republicans for the last four years. And if/when they get the reins, Democrats will start talking against military expansionism and crony capitalism and we can have a dialogue with them. Honeslty though, leftist hate for economic freedom basically trumps anything in their eyes, so making allies with conservatives tends to be less painful IMO.
I wonder if he's related to Charles O'Connor?
This is a good idea. Libertarians failed to infiltrate the party of Lincoln, so now they can restore the Party of Van Buren.
Under the assumption that leftists just want a higher standard of living for the working man and more small businesses, their problem is ignorance. The rightists problem is ideology, namely nationalism. Leftists already dislike injustice and just want to find a way to the best result. Rightists don't care about anything that doesn't exalt America's greatness. Give leftists an education in economics and how anti-poor inflation is and they might get it.
I also find that no matter how often you try to explain it, they still resort to lecturing us on how greedheads destroyed the economy. If you try to reason with them on that point, you become a free market fundie. Just imagine attempting to convert the comment section of a Salon.com blog piece and see where my difficulties have been
I think part of the issue with leftists is something that Rothbard alluded to in his Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature piece. Their drive for equality trumps just about anything. The fact of the matter is, capitalism won't work out for everybody. People who are lazy or disadvantaged have no guarantees. This isn't to say that they will be left in the dust, but they think that if the State sets out to promote social justice, that social justice will be achieved. They think that if it's State policy, it's guaranteed whereas if it's left up to people (i.e., the market), this is somehow less guaranteed. This bugaboo is very tough to override.
It's actually pretty funny (as now I'm getting off-topic), but there was a piece by Jeffrey Sachs about how libertarianism throws away other political values, and thus private property may be violated for the sake of economic equality. Of course, if this were the case, then the logical outcome is pretty much communism. Jeffrey Sachs has no right to the wealth he has earned; after all, why stop at El Paso, New York City, and Seattle and why stop at a 50ish% tax rate? The 3rd world needs help as well. Countries are just artificial mental constructs. If welfare is a human right, then those in the third world are entitled as well. So Sachs should give up 99% of his income to feed people around the world if he is to be consistent. Keeping any wealth above a subsistence level is implying that Sachs deserves to reap the benefits of his labor more than a person who needs food in Africa does. If he supports taking some wealth to redistribute it in America, there's no reason not to take care of the 3rd world.
Just an FYI:
I emailed his campaign asking
"Does he believe that regulation in the free market may in many ways be more efficient and moral than government regulation?"
To which it replied:
Absolutely.
Third party on the horizon
Honeslty though, leftist hate for economic freedom basically trumps anything in their eyes, so making allies with conservatives tends to be less painful IMO.
I find the opposite to be true. Liberals are good on a lot of issues that just seem to be non-starters for conservatives. And I can prove Austrian economics to liberals, if they are willing to listen, which many are.
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under - Mencken
Eric080:I also find that no matter how often you try to explain it, they still resort to lecturing us on how greedheads destroyed the economy. If you try to reason with them on that point, you become a free market fundie. Just imagine attempting to convert the comment section of a Salon.com blog piece and see where my difficulties have been I think part of the issue with leftists is something that Rothbard alluded to in his Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature piece. Their drive for equality trumps just about anything. The fact of the matter is, capitalism won't work out for everybody. People who are lazy or disadvantaged have no guarantees. This isn't to say that they will be left in the dust, but they think that if the State sets out to promote social justice, that social justice will be achieved. They think that if it's State policy, it's guaranteed whereas if it's left up to people (i.e., the market), this is somehow less guaranteed. This bugaboo is very tough to override.
Very insightful post and I agree.
I find the left particularly bad on economics. If you can't straighten them out on economics you generally can't explain to them why a free market would be better for them. They simply don't get it. And they refuse to disabuse use of coercion for government purposes. In fact they accept government coercion as a method of ending injustice, without seeing the injustices this creates.
This can perhaps be seen most easily in their endorsement of racial quotes / privileges rather than color blindness in things like job and school admission.
The root bad-premise on the left is the idea that money / property is the root of all evil. Goes back to Bakounin and still being played out today. As long as you have a left that hates property you won't have liberty.
When the Chinese communist farmers asked who owns the fields and they were told the People do, they asked who owned the teeth in their head and were told the People do. The left will use coercion to sacrifice the individual to create a mythical social justice.
Gocrew, I definitely realize that this is a possibility. Some Austrians were former leftists (I think Walter Block describes himself as having communistic tendencies and one of the moderators that run the excellent "I bet Ludwig von Mises can get more fans than John Maynard Keynes" Facebook page was a leftist). A run of the mill leftist I think can be reached. It depends on whether or not they support liberalism because they think it is effective policy or whether they support egalitarianism as the highest moral achievement.
I think economics dominates the discussion though. Conservatives tend to like (in theory) free markets and liberals don't like freedom in this area. If conservatives aren't completely vapid, they should be able to reason why free markets are morally sound and then extrapolate that to realize that the state is an extortion racket. Liberal moral judgment has a much more utilitarian/relativist bent and you can make anything sound utilitarian if you assume different values and set that equal to "utility."