Bleeding Heart Libertarians exsanguinated

The End | Bleeding Heart Libertarians - Matt Zwolinski:

June 1, 2020 - "Back in 2011, a group of academic philosophers started a blog called 'Bleeding Heart Libertarians.' The idea behind that blog was ... that you could be a libertarian who favored free markets and limited governments, and still care about the kind of things people on the left refer to as 'social justice' – relieving poverty, racial and sexual equality, immigrant rights, LBGTQ rights, and so on. Hence, the slogan of the blog, 'free markets and social justice'....

"Reconciling free markets and social justice seemed like an especially worthwhile project to undertake in 2011. Academic political philosophy was largely dominated by followers of John Rawls, for whom a commitment to social justice (of a particular sort) was paramount. And libertarianism remained a fringe and unfamiliar view within the academy – for most academic philosophers, it was a view that was born and died in 1974 with the publication of Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia. But a critical mass of scholars were working out new ways of thinking about libertarian ideas; and many of us who were excited by the work of scholars like David Schmidtz, Gerald Gaus, and John Tomasi thought that there was a different style of libertarian thought beginning to crystallize. And we didn’t only want to publicize that; we wanted to encourage it, to help build and develop the research program associated with it.

"Moreover, if we sought to open mainstream Rawlsian political philosophy and theory to the influence of market-friendly classical liberalism, we also wanted to wanted to steer classical liberal scholarship toward taking egalitarian liberal ideas much more seriously than it often had.

"In a more minor way, there was a political background, too. The Cold War 'fusionism' of conservative and libertarian politics was put under considerable strain during the George W. Bush administration; the 2008 presidential candidacy of Ron Paul had reenergized a strain of libertarian politics that rejected neoconservatism but embraced a kind of nationalist, anti-immigrant paleoconservatism instead. Libertarians who didn’t feel comfortable entangled with either neoconservatives or paleoconservatives, those who took the 'liberalism' in 'classical liberalism' seriously, hadn’t quite found a public voice....

"Things have changed quite a bit in the last nine years, both in the realm of academic philosophy and that of real-world politics. Rawlsianism and its particular interpretation of social justice have receded in prominence. The variety of libertarian and classical liberal views within the academy has become better known, even by those who reject those views. And that variety is now a more firmly established fact among libertarian scholars and students themselves

"I like to think that this blog, or at least the people who write for it, have played some role in at least the second of those two developments. We set out with the aim of articulating a new and distinct vision of libertarianism. And – while there are certainly a great number of important details of that vision that have yet to be worked out – I think we have succeeded.  The project of establishing the intellectual space for bleeding-heart libertarian ideas has also more or less succeeded, giving way to the various different intellectual projects people are going to pursue in that space. In other words, we’ve said what we needed to say.

"For that reason, it’s time to bring Bleeding Heart Libertarians to a close. We’ll be keeping the archives open. But we won’t be posting anything new. At least not here. All of us are still actively writing, and many of us are writing on themes that are very much relevant to the Bleeding Heart Libertarian project. But we’ve said what we wanted to say here, and we think it’s best to put a period at the end of that sentence rather than an ellipsis."

Read more: https://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2020/06/the-end/

Iowa, New Hampshire, and soft libertarians

by George J. Dance

As a political junkie, I eagerly turned to the news this morning to see the New Hampshire primary results. Not for the winners: I expected Trump and Sanders to win. (They both had won the earlier  Iowa caucuses.) I was looking further down, to see how the 'soft libertarian' candidates in the major parties would perform.

What is a 'soft libertarian'?, I hear you ask. I can best explain that term by pointing to the Nolan Chart [pictured at right], that classifies voters into four quadrants: liberal (or progressive), conservative, libertarian, and statist (authoritarian or, at the very bottom point, totalitarian). A 'hard' voter is totally committed to one of those four ideologies; a 'hard libertarian,' for example, is someone whose political beliefs put them up at the top point of the diamond. A 'soft libertarian' would be anyone else, whose political beliefs are less extreme (or less consistent, or more independent) but still land them inside the libertarian quadrant.

Depending on how they are measured, soft libertarians make up as much as 25% of voters. Traditionally the Republican Party has owned that vote: since the 1970s at least, soft libertarians have been voting GOP, by margins as high as 75%. However, Ross Perot's candidacies cracked that party's hold on many of those voters; and while George W. Bush brought them back, he didn't hold them long. A large number of soft libertarians voted Democratic in 2006 - I don't know the number, but it was a big factor in the Dems taking both houses of Congress that year. Obama's two terms, and the Tea Party movement, brought many back to the GOP, but whether they'll stay with it this time is frankly questionable.

In 2012 and 2016, the only candidate appealing to soft libertarians was Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson. And, to the extent he was heard, they responded. Johnson got the LP its two highest vote totals, over 1 million in 2012 and over 4 million in 2016. After that, one would think, the larger parties would have tried to capture those voters by offering them something. Instead, both parties have tacked toward one or another variety of statism: Democrats have flirted with socialism, the Sanders wins being enough said. Meanwhile, the GOP is shedding its libertarianism, replacing the Reaganist ideology of fusionism (which specifically included and appealed to libertarians) with corporatism, or as some call it, "economic nationalism".

As this month's featured post (from the London School of Economics' US Centre) explains, soft libertarians could be kingmakers this year. However, rather than attract soft libertarians, both Democrats and Republicans seem intent on driving them away. 

Hence the importance of the New Hampshire results, as the first test of where the soft libertarian vote would go. Because of the Free State Project, that state has an outsize proportion of libertarians both hard and soft. New Hampshire also has an open primary, where anyone - Democrat, Republican, other party, independent, or even a habitual non-voter - can vote in either the Democratic or the GOP primary.

There was a soft libertarian, Bill Weld and Tulsi Gabbard, running in either party. Both are strong opponents of interventionism, the surveillance state, the drug war, and the imperial presidency; while both also have held non-libertarian positions, most notably on gun control. Both were counting on soft libertarian support in New Hampshire. So how did they do?

Gabbard's campaign, with its strong opposition to an interventist foreign policy, was endorsed by libertarians from Ron Paul to Gary Johnson. She ended up with under 4% of the vote, nowhere enough to make her a contender. She will be gone from the race in a month, and with her will go most of her party's appeal to soft libertarians.

Weld's campaign is more problematic. He beat expectations, but fell short of the 10% he was hoping for. (He received 9%.) He is wealthy enough to fund his own limited campaign, so he will stay in and hope for a breakthrough somewhere else. But, so far, his campaign is not resonating with soft libertarian voters, either.

That leaves a better-than-ever opportunity for the Libertarian Party, if they cared to reach out to those voters with another 'soft libertarian' campaign like the Johnson ones. However, many LP members seem determined to run anything but. Libertarians didn't vote in New Hampshire yesterday; but based on last weekend's Iowa caucus vote, a plurality just shy of a majority is backing Jacob Hornberger, a thinktank founder and director, who wants to run to 'educate' Americans with a hard libertarian message.

To repeat, the soft libertarian vote could be key to deciding this election. If faced with the alternatives of statism (either the more progressive variety of socialism or the more conservative variety of corporatism) versus hard libertarianism, where will they turn?
   

Frank Meyer's "fusionism"

Just Don’t Call it Fusionism - Ben Lewis, Austro-Libertarian Magazine:

August 15, 2019 - "Frank Meyer ... a prominent figure in postwar American conservatism, is best known for his attempted 'fusion' of traditionalist conservatism and libertarianism. Even today, Meyer’s name is nearly synonymous with 'fusionism.' But ... the term most commonly associated with Meyer was not his creation, but rather came as something of a pejorative from his colleague and critic, L. Brent Bozell.... Meyer ... disavowed the fusionist label, saying that he was not attempting to fuse two disparate elements together, but was simply attempting to show that 'although they are sometimes presented as mutually incompatible, [they] can in reality be united within a single broad conservative political theory, since they have their roots in a common tradition and are arrayed against a common enemy'....

"[F]ollowing World War II, conservatism was as much a gathering place of opposition to contemporary political and social trends as it was a coherent movement. Two strains of this opposition, however, quickly took form: libertarianism and traditionalism. The libertarians deplored the growth of the state and the collectivization of individuals that was so common in Progressive, socialist and totalitarian societies. The traditionalists, no less concerned about the growth of the state, lamented more the obliteration of traditional society and its methods of communicating enduring values. As these two lines of thought developed, their differences of emphasis led to a tension over which was the true conservatism and the true enemy of liberalism....

"It was this tension to which Meyer devoted much of his writing.... Can the traditionalist emphasis on the attributes of a healthy society – virtue, duty and a rootedness in tradition – be combined with political philosophy that emphasizes the freedom of the individual? For Meyer, the question was not can these emphases be combined, but how they can. His answer began with understanding the proper relationship of the individual to society.

"Meyer believed that 'society is not a real entity'....  What this statement means is not that society as a framework of interrelating individuals, associations, and institutions does not exist, but that it does not exist as an actual entity that can be considered in the same manner as an individual.... 'Society and the state were made for individual men,' he wrote, 'not men for them'....  To Meyer, society is comprised of and made for individuals. It owes its existence to them, and they are its end. All social activity is oriented, fundamentally, towards the individual. Echoing Ludwig von Mises, he concluded, 'Truth has meaning only for persons; beauty illumines the consciousness only of persons; virtue can be pursued only by persons'....

"Meyer was no less concerned about the development of personal and social virtue than were the traditionalists, but he believed that ... virtuous actions could not be truly virtuous if they were not freely chosen.... 'Men cannot be forced to be … virtuous. To a certain extent, it is true, they can be forced to act as though they were virtuous. But virtue is the fruit of well-used freedom. And no act to the degree that it is coerced can partake of virtue – or vice'....

"Meyer’s position on coercion and virtue appears mostly correct, although with some clarification. As Meyer said, it seems that all coercion can do is cause people to act virtuously, not to actually be virtuous.... But the mere appearance of virtue is not the aim of the good society, rather it is actual virtue instilled in the thoughts and voluntary behavior of men.... Whatever the case, even those who have historically accepted a role for the state in the enforcement of virtue must by now admit the truth of Meyer’s statement that, 'If the state is endowed with the power to enforce virtue, the men who hold that power will enforce their own concepts as virtuous'....

"[Murray] Rothbard placed Meyer squarely in the libertarian camp, pointing out that Meyer’s case for the necessity of voluntary choice in the pursuit of virtue not only didn’t clash with the libertarian prohibition of the initiation of force, but was perfectly compatible with it. To Rothbard, Meyer’s appreciation for community and tradition, for the necessary traits of a virtuous society, were not deviations from libertarianism, but were healthy components of the holistic worldview of a thinker who took both political theory and culture seriously.

"Meyer could, perhaps, have made his arguments more appealing to traditionalists by expounding how the moral order could enforce standards of virtue.... Even so, his case against the state performing this task [was] well-argued. In a modern political society, rife with centralization, there is nothing more dangerous to virtue than for its proper defenders to relinquish their duties to the state."

Read more: https://www.austrolibertarian.com/articles/just-dont-call-it-fusionism
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'Post-liberal' conservatives reject libertarianism

Conservative Divide: Libertarians, Moralists, and the Danger of Schism | National Review - Jonah Goldberg:

June 12, 2019 - "The idea holding together the conservative movement since the 1960s was called 'fusionism.' The concept ... was that freedom and virtue were inextricably linked..... Frank Meyer, the foremost architect of fusionism, put it: 'Truth withers when freedom dies, however righteous the authority that kills it; and free individualism uninformed by moral value rots at its core and soon brings about conditions that pave the way for surrender to tyranny.' This idea may have passed its sell-by date.

"The intellectual Right ... has always had ... internal fault lines.... These cracks were mostly paved over by opposition to Communism throughout the Cold War, but they started to reemerge once the Berlin Wall fell. Pat Buchanan’s 1992 call to revive the 'Old Right' vision of economic protectionism and socially conservative statism was more of a harbinger of the unfusing of fusionism than was widely appreciated at the time.

"Today, conservative forces concerned with freedom and virtue are pulling apart. The catalyst is a sprawling coalition of self-described nationalists, Catholic integralists, protectionists, economic planners, and others who are increasingly rallying around something called 'post-liberal' conservativism. By 'liberal,' ... they mean classical liberalism, the Enlightenment worldview held by the Founding Fathers.... They seek a federal government that cares more about pursuing the 'highest good' than protecting the 'libertarian' (their word) system of individual rights and free markets.

"On the other side are more familiar conservatives who, like George Will in his brilliant new book, The Conservative Sensibility, still rally to the banner of classical liberalism and its philosophy of natural rights and equality under the law. 'American conservatism has a clear mission: It is to conserve, by articulating and demonstrating the continuing pertinence of, the Founders’ thinking,' Will writes....

"The post-liberals think that Enlightenment-based liberalism is the disease afflicting society because it has no answer for how people should live. They have a point: It is not a religion or moral philosophy. But it wasn’t meant to be. Instead, as National Review’s Charles Cooke rightly put it, classical liberalism was a system designed to keep people of different religions from killing each other.

"This framing, however, obscures the path to reconciliation not just among the battling conservatives but in America generally. The liberalism of the Founders focused on freedom for individuals — but also encompassed institutions and communities. In the early days of the republic, for instance, some states had established churches and others didn’t. What the Founders opposed was a one-size-fits-all approach from the top.

"As far as I can tell, the so-called post-liberals now want Washington to dictate how we should all pursue happiness, just so long as it’s from the right. In a country of nearly 330 million people, however, it is impossible to define the “highest good” for everybody....

"What America needs is less talk of national unity — from the left or the right — and more freedom to let people live the way they want to live, not just as individuals, but as members of local communities. We don’t need to move past liberalism, we need to return to it."

Read more: https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/conservative-divide-libertarians-moralists/
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The importance of David Boaz's Libertarian Mind

The 'Live And Let Live' Philosophy That Informs The Policies Of Rand Paul - Ralph Benko, Forbes:

March 23, 2015 - "Libertarianism no longer seriously can be considered marginal. It has emerged as an important part of our public discourse.

"Sen. Rand Paul writes, 'They say the libertarian moment has arrived.  If you want to understand and be part of that moment, read David Boaz’s The Libertarian Mind where you’ll be drawn into the "eternal struggle of liberty vs. power," where you’ll learn that libertarianism presumes that you were born free and not a subject of the state'....

"David Boaz, gentleman and scholar and long time friend, has picked a great time to help clarify libertarianism and define it with his revised and retitled book The Libertarian Mind: A manifesto for freedom.

"Once upon a time conservatism, too, was a tiny, marginal, and not very influential school of thought.... Thinkers on the Right lamented the condition of conservatism and the seemingly irresistible tides against it. To many, like F.A. Hayek, it seemed as if the whole world was turning Left. Seeking support for his new conservative magazine, William F. Buckley Jr. conceded that the Left easily dominated the realm of ideas in America and that 'the few spasmodic victories conservatives are winning are aimless, uncoordinated, and inconclusive.'

"There the matter might have rested, with liberals gloating and conservatives lamenting, except for the publication of a remarkable book by a young assistant professor of history at a Michigan 'cow college.' The unknown historian was Russell Kirk; the book was The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Santayana (1953); and modern American conservatism has never been the same.

"The days of irrelevance for conservatism and libertarianism are long gone. Libertarianism is gaining both in popularity and stature. The Libertarian Mind belongs in the canon with the writings of Nozick, Hayek, and Epstein....

"As it happens, long ago conservatism and libertarianism came to an intermittently tense but mostly happy modus vivendi, challenging and strengthening both. The rapprochement came about primarily thanks to National Review’s Frank Meyer. Meyer postulated, and brought forth upon this continent, a new doctrine. He called it “Fusionism,” wherein, to oversimplify, conservative ends are to be achieved by libertarian means.

"As contemporary conservative pillar Donald Devine wrote, last November, in The Federalist:

Reagan identified his philosophy with the great Western tradition especially as elaborated by the conservative theorist Frank S. Meyer, who "in his writing fashioned a vigorous new synthesis of traditional and libertarian thought—a synthesis that is today recognized by many as modern conservatism."

[Reagan stated:] “It was Frank Meyer who reminded us that the robust individualism of the American experience was part of the deeper current of Western learning and culture. He pointed out that a respect for law, an appreciation of tradition, and regard for the social consensus that gives stability to our public and private institutions, these civilized ideas must still motivate us even as we seek a new economic prosperity based on reducing government interference in the marketplace"....

"Boaz’s manifesto for freedom presents as the contemporary gold standard of the libertarian creed ... 'the philosophy of live and let live,' which might serve well as any libertarian’s bumper sticker, and as extolled in The Libertarian Mind: A manifesto for freedom, has much to recommend it."

Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2015/03/23/the-live-and-let-live-philosophy-that-informs-the-policies-of-rand-paul/2/
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Conservatarian Manifesto "first-rate"

"Conservatarians" Welcome Both Cowboys, Community - Peter Berkowitz, Real Clear Politics:

March 8, 2015 - "Limiting government to protect individual freedom is the precious inheritance of the American constitutional tradition. Conserving that legacy is American conservatism’s unifying task.

"It is an appreciation of this task that lies at the core of Charles Cooke’s first-rate contribution, The Conservatarian Manifesto, to the robust debate within conservative circles about the future of conservatism. A writer at National Review and a proud immigrant to the United States from his native Britain, Cooke sets forth with vigor and subtlety a summons to conservatives to unite around the “timeless principles” that inform the American founding. In applying those principles to a host of prominent issues of public policy, he demonstrates refreshing common sense, a confident command of empirical realities, and savvy political judgment.

"What, specifically, does Cooke advise conservatives in America to conserve? His answer embraces the fundamentals of freedom: 'property rights; separation of powers; hard limits on the power of the state; staunch protections of the rights of conscience, assembly, speech, privacy, and self-protection; a preference for local governance over central planning; a free and dynamic market economy that permits rapid change and remarkable innovation; and, above all, a distrust of any government that would step in to answer questions that can be better resolved by civil society'....

"Cooke the fusionist, or 'conservatarian,' embraces the formula of Ronald Reagan, who 'reduced taxes, cut regulations, and relentlessly attacked the popular conceit that the answer to the nation’s problems was invariably more government intervention,' while recognizing that new times require new applications of that formula. For Cooke, as for Reagan, the essence of conservatism is limited government.

"But that does not, Cooke emphasizes, imply indifference to the moral questions. To the contrary, proponents of limited government, he argues, regard the virtues and moral beliefs as of the first importance, and therefore reserve the people’s responsibility for them and seek to assign legislation that touches them most directly to the level of government nearest to the people.

"Whereas progressivism, according to Cooke, 'is built on the core belief that an educated and well-staffed central authority can determine how citizens should live their lives,' Cooke’s conservatarian is a federalist who wishes, in conformity with the Constitution’s design, to decentralize power. Federalism promotes genuine diversity by offering Americans in different regions with varying sensibilities the opportunity to 'thrive on their own terms.'

"The conservative defense of federalism is not, as progressive critics and some misguided conservatives contend, anti-government. Rather, it strives to keep federal and local government focused on their proper tasks. Accordingly, the principled federalist whole-heartedly affirms the federal government’s constitutionally mandated responsibility to protect constitutionally proclaimed rights and uphold federal law everywhere in the United States."

Book review: America’s Way Back

Book review: America’s Way Back: Reclaiming Freedom, Tradition, and Constitution - Herbert W. Stupp, Human Events:

September 19, 2013 - "In America’s Way Back, Don Devine draws upon his first-hand knowledge of government’s failures and successes to lay out a plan for a leaner, more effective and democratically-based state ... in line with the Framers, citing Locke, Madison and others that he rightly admires.

"There are three primary themes that recur throughout Devine’s book:

"First, that the political philosophy of 'progressivism' has corrupted both major parties over the years. Dr. Devine points to Woodrow Wilson’s writings, where decades before his presidency, he argued for centralized 'scientific' management of government by 'experts' who need pay little heed to elections and the will of the people....

"Second, the author documents how overreach by the Federal government has not only been expensive, but that Federal programs and intervention have largely been counterproductive. One persuasive example developed by Devine relates to the response to economic depressions and recessions. Presidents Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt and Obama all opted for expensive 'stimulus' programs, resulting in lots of spending, yet only more misery for the American people....

"Thirdly, the author argues for a renewed appreciation of 'fusionism' as the philosophy to transport us to the responsive, limited, properly-ordered government we want and need.... Devine capsulizes the fusionist philosophy as '... a synthesis of traditional Western values and the need for individual human freedom to achieve them'.”

Read moe: http://www.humanevents.com/2013/09/19/book-review-americas-way-back-reclaiming-freedom-tradition-and-constitution/
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The 'conservative movement' an obsolete model

PJ Lifestyle » No to Corporate Neoconservatism, No to Paleo-Libertarian Anarchism, Yes to Augustinian Realism - Dave Swindle, PJ Media:

August 9, 2013 - "Here’s the problem: on foreign policy today’s 'Conservative movement' is an obsolete model. And more importantly, a misnomer ... the 'Conservative Movement' is more accurately understood as a tool of the Anti-Communist movement. Defeating the Soviet Union is what animated William F. Buckley, Jr. and Ronald Reagan. The building of the Conservative Movement was just a means to that end.

"The philosophy of Fusionism was developed by ex-Communist Frank Meyer in the pages of National Review in the 1950s. The goal: get national defense conservatives, business conservatives, traditionalist conservatives, libertarian conservatives, and religious conservatives to unite around the common threat of Communism.

"Over the course of decades this ideological movement grew until it elected politicians, took over the Republican party, elected Ronald Reagan as president, and then successfully implemented the needed strategies to defeat the Soviet Union, freeing the millions of people enslaved within it. Reagan spoke publicly of his debt to Meyer and how he implemented the strategy. But without the unifying threat of the Soviet Union the coalition came apart in 1992. The Chris Christie vs Rand Paul fight of a generation prior was George H.W. Bush vs Ross Perot. The result of that split in the coalition was 8 years of Bill Clinton and a Conservative Movement adrift without a purpose anymore.

"Nowadays the three legs of the conservative stool squabble over which is the most important – foreign policy, economics, or social issues. There is no longer a consensus on who the enemy is or how to defeat them."

Read more: http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/08/09/no-to-corporate-neoconservatism-no-to-paleo-libertarian-anarchism-yes-to-augustinian-realism/
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George Will on "The rise of the libertarian strand of Republicanism" at CPAC

George Will: "What I Did See At CPAC Was The Rise Of The Libertarian Strand Of Republicanism" | RealClearPolitics:

March 17, 2013 - "GEORGE WILL: First, here's the New York Times headline on the CPAC conference 'GOP Divisions Fester at Conservative Retreat.' Festering – an infected wound – it's awful. I guarantee, if there were a liberal conclave comparable to this, and there were vigorous debates going on there, the New York Times headline would be 'Healthy diversity flourishes at liberal conclave'.

"Republicans have been arguing, social conservatives and libertarian free market conservatives, since the 1950s when the National Review was founded on the idea of a fusion of the two. It has worked before with Ronald Reagan. It can work again.

"What I did see at CPAC was the rise of the libertarian strand of Republicanism, which has an effect on foreign policy, that is a pullback from nation building and other kind of ambitions abroad that they never countenance from government at home, and a sense of live and let live with subjects such as decriminalization of certain drugs and gay marriage."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/03/17/george_will_what_i_did_see_at_cpac_was_the_rise_of_the_libertarian_strand_of_republicanism.html
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Gary Johnson and libertarian Republicans (new Nolan Chart article)

Gary Johnson and libertarian Republicans

---

Why liberty-minded Republicans should vote for Gary Johnson for President
by George Dance
(libertarian)
Sunday, November 4, 2012

http://www.nolanchart.com/article9940-gary-johnson-and-libertarian-republicans.html