The Crossed Pond

Has there been anything written this week that demonstrates greater misunderstanding (or willful distortion) of libertarianism than Patrick Ruffini’s bowel movement at Hugh Hewitt’s Townhall blog?

A vicious fisking is in order. Oh wait, its been done. Lets start with John Cole, who disabuses Patrick of the notion that Ron Paul has been the cause of libertarian rebirth within the GOP. Essentially, Ruffini appears to perpetrate, at best, a correlation to causation fallacy, and at worst a cause and effect reversal:

His popularity is not causing a resurgence of libertarianism in the GOP, it is caused by a general disgust WITH the GOP. If Ruffini would check Hugh’s archives where he wrote this, he will see what the party apparatchiks think of Paul and Paul supporters. He can also check at Red State, where he used to write.
The rise of Paul is not going to cause a surge in libertarianism in the Republican party. The rise of Ron Paul is due to his filling the void in a party filled with moralists, in-your-face social cons, warmongerers, and authoritarians.

And what are we to make of this Ruffini nonsense:

“Mainstream Republican libertarians might be gung-ho for Paul’s small-government idealism, they might adopt Glenn Reynoldsish skepticism of the homeland security bureaucracy”

I think Cole’s snarky response about sums it up:

I know when I think of skepticism to the overreaches of this administration and the Homeland Security Department and the recent privacy issues, the first person I think of is Glenn Reynolds

On second thought, perhaps Patrick’s reference to the instapundit, his singular example of a self-identified libertarian, goes a long way toward explaining his confusion regarding the philosophy in question. As a corrective, I recommend any of these Alicublog tests.

Now, fair warning, alicublog is rabidly progressive and pretty dismissive of libertarians in general (a quote “Real libertarians are as rare as pieces of the True Cross.”) But when it comes to assessing the true allegiance of Glenn Reynolds, I think they nail it.

Returning to the subject at hand: Andrew Sullivan provides a more thorough excoriation. In response to this nonsense:

“Libertarianism in the GOP took a big hit on 9/11, and it’s slowly coming back, with Ron Paul as the catalyst. Its underlying ideals still have appeal well beyond the cramped confines of the LP. If it’s possible to be known as a pro-life, pro-war, pro-wiretapping libertarian, then sign me up. Markos too brands himself a “libertarian Democrat,” though he’s never read Hayek and supports big government social programs.”

Sullivan offers:

A libertarian also understands that there is no deeper threat to liberty than war and that a state of permanent war is close to the end of libertarianism. Hence the discomfort with amorphous wars against “drugs” or “terror,” wars in which no enemy can ever surrender or ever be defeated. Patrick needs to grapple with that, it seems to me. Being a pro-war libertarian is possible if you see the war as an unavoidable measure for basic security. But Iraq, to take an obvious example, long ago ceased to be that. What being pro-war in the GOP today tends to mean is an unskeptical Hannity-Giuliani enthusiasm for war, and judgment that more of it, not less, is what we need. When you combine that with contempt for civil liberties, pride in waterboarding, disdain for even minimal judicial oversight of wiretapping, and a reflexive bent to accuse all domestic critics of treason … then you are far, far away from libertarianism, or my kind of conservatism. That’s why, in my judgment, Ron Paul is right to insist on the radical degeneracy of today’s GOP establishment. And why, for all his eccentricities, I’m immensely grateful he’s doing so well.
And some quibbles. No, you can’t be a pro-wire-tapping libertarian.
You can be for wire-tapping with judicial safeguards, but that’s not Bush’s mojo.