Finally, another young Conservative has awakened and smelled the coffee brewing.
Quote:
Mr. D — As a ‘young intellectual conservative’ mulling over factions in the coming Big Conservative Brouhaha, I’m thinking of jumping the USS GOP in favor of the Libertarian party. 3 quick reasons
- It’s ideologically coherent. Or, at least, built on a strong foundation of promoting individual liberty and, y’know, actually deferring to the Constitution.
- It’s ‘cool’. Libertarians are generally viewed as either uncompromising personal freedoms/open market zealots, or in the case of those just looking for a political party that justifies their bad behavior, party animals. Both are preferable to the ‘sexually repressed bigoted fundamentalist freakshow’ image the Republican party now engenders, thanks largely to the media and, well, Republicans in general lately.
- Compassionate conservatism sucks. I don’t want a holy-roller welfare state any more than I want a degenerate welfare state.
I’m not under the illusion that we’re somehow going to see the end of the two-party system, and of course I take pause with some of the nuttier Libertarian policies, but what on earth is nuttier than Republicans nationalizing swaths of the economy hither and thither?
Right now, the Republican brand is in shambles, mainly having ignored its own principles. The party that most unabashedly protects those principles I hold paramount — individual liberties, respect for the Constitution, and free markets — is the Libertarian party. Either way, I suspect conservatives will be out in the wilderness for a while, and if you’re going to be a bear, you might as well be a grizzly.
Of course, I disagree with some of Derbyshire’s responses, but I think it is a very positive thing to see, that finally some of the young people within the Republican Party are waking up to the fact that G.O.P. No longer represents them any longer. That, in itself, it is a step in the right direction.