Americans Warm To The Message Of Economic Freedom, Personal Liberty
Fox Business anchor John Stossel produced a show documenting the rise of libertarianism recently. He opens the show with a montage featuring the attack by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie‘s attack on Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and the “dangerous” strand of libertarianism in the Republican Party.
Stossel also featured a quote by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who represents the portion of the conservative and Tea Party movement that have a big tent policy towards ‘Ron Paul‘ styled libertarians in the GOP.
Stossel produces an honest television show, with plenty of skepticism and playing of devil’s advocate against libertarian positions. He criticizes Reason Magazine’s Nick Gillespie & Matt Welch, who claim that it’s a “libertarian era”.
I think Americans confuse libertarian and “libertine,” Stossel says.
Gillespie responded, “The fact is if you believe in social tolerance, you’re going to have to put up with a lot of lifestyles that you yourself may not choose. You get more peace by allowing people to go about their business as long as their not forcing it on other people. And if that means sometimes you have to look away, well do it, that’s not so bad.”
Stossel played a clip of Ann Coulter calling libertarians “pu**ies* and asked Welch to respond. Welch stated that Coulter doesn’t see libertarians as useful at all moments in her “war against liberal democrats.” Welch says that libertarians aren’t involved in politics just to suck up to anybody, but because we generally believe it is a genuinely bad idea when government gets involved in your personal decisions. He reminded viewers that it’s also a conservative position as well.
Welch blasted Coulter as an “intolerant,” “tribalist,” before Gillespie weighed in to explain why the drug issue should be important to conservatives. Stossel played a clip by a conservative tea party leader Scottie Nell Hughes who equated libertarianism with anarchism. Welch didn’t deny it, but countered that anarchist economic theory has a valid place in the debate. He backed away from calling himself a full-blown anarchist however.
Stossel then produced a clip of Governor Palin speaking on how the Republican Party needs to listen to the “independent,” and “libertarians.” Palin says “I’m listening to those independents, to those, those libertarians who are saying, you know… it is both sides of the aisle, the leadership, the good ol’ boys in the party…”
Stossel also included Fred Barnes from The Weekly Standard to criticize the libertarian foreign policy position. Stossel argued against the neoconservative foreign policy position while Barnes criticized libertarians as “naive”.
This is a 40 minute show that features great talks with libertarians such as Ron Paul, Glenn Beck, Penn Jillette and many other free minded people. It’s a great discussion on recent gains made by the liberty movement as well as the future of liberty in general.
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