by the Left Coast Rebel
An interesting take on the Gallup poll released yesterday, this one today over at Cato at Liberty. Basically the take at Cato being that polling typically leaves out a swath of detail, (yesterday's poll being no different), epecially with something as complicated as the left/right paradigm in the United States. According to the Cato post, when Americans actually express what they think out of the paradigm-box, a surprisingly high number consider themselves libertarian; namely economically-speaking. From Cato -
Interesting stuff, this article caught my eye as a reader who loves, (and often hates), my point of view alluded to this fact. Note that I seldom use the term 'libertarian'. Although I find myself aspiring to many tenants of that train of thought, I also feel that it can box one into a confined ideology that feels very restricitve to me.The word “libertarian” isn’t well known, so pollsters don’t find many
people claiming to be libertarian. And usually they don’t ask. But a large portion of Americans hold generally libertarian views — views that might be described as fiscally conservative and socially liberal, or as Gov. William Weld told the 1992 Republican National Convention, “I want the government out of your pocketbook and out of your bedroom.”They don’t fit the red-blue paradigm, and they have their doubts about
both conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. They’re potentially a swing vote in elections. Background on the libertarian vote here.
Gallup found the ideological breakdown of the public shown below. With these two broad questions, Gallup consistently finds about 20 percent of respondents to be libertarian.
My term for myself? A true-conservative, classical liberal with strong libertarian instincts. But then again, I am against abortion and socially conservative but do not brow-beat my points home.....so who really fits the mold?
Makes sense now -
For what it's worth, I'm pretty solidly in the libertarian political group (and maybe some Federalist). IMO, keep the government out of my wallet, my bedroom, the entitlement business, monetary supply manipulation, private industry, churches, state manipulation, medical care, and anywhere else it doesn't need to be to uphold the simple and necessary federal duties described in the Declaration and Constitution.
ReplyDelete@ Nick - Why am I not surprised? Without explicitly stating it, I assumed so. It is our shared ethos...
ReplyDeleteHow alone are we though?
I’m guessing most Democrats and Republicans don’t agree with every tenet of their party. So if an organized party appears promoting moderate libertarianism, my impression is it would cover over half the population. When I hear about libertarianism, I often hear about the radical elements that have purist notions of almost no government whatsoever. A moderate libertarian party would promote things like growing gov’t outlays slower than inflation, consolidating federal agencies, and reevaluating recent precedents that give more power to the federal gov’t. It seems like most people believe in that. But they vote based on whether they’re more worked up about Philistine fears of outsiders or sob stories about people who supposedly can only be saved by Washington.
ReplyDelete@ CJ - I totally agree.
ReplyDelete