Through the Broken Window

Ok, now I'll (try to) answer. I have a lot of different thoughts that go in different directions, so bear with me. I don't really know that there's any good answer.

James Madison understood it best when he argued in Fed 10 (and LOTS of other places) that systems cannnot be made to rely on human goodness. Human nature causes people to be ambitious and selfish; we shouldn't expect more from them just because they're given power over a large political system.

Politicians should respond to the demands of their constituents. If citizens demanded smaller government and protections for liberties, they'd get it. However, they don't.

So, we need a system wherein individual liberties are protected absolutely. The Framers of the Constitution thought they had done that, but it didn't quite work. The system is clearly broken.

OK, next. Who is responsible and who is not?

If an individual or politician claims to be a libertarian or a Natural Rights advocate, then behaves differently, that person is a hypocrite. People like that obviously value their personal comfort (at least to a degree) more than their ideals. This kind of hypocrisy becomes more glaring the more power a person has.

However, this is clearly not limited just to libertarians. Socialists, Democrats, Republicans - all of them make deals all the time, compromising their ideals for expediency or reelection or money.

As Lord Action said: "Power corrupts." So far, no one has been able to devise and implement a political system that gets around this problem.
 

Jenna,

Are you saying that there is some sort of failure in the "market of ideas" that keeps people from voting for the "best" government policies (libertarian ones)?
 

It's hard to say (with certainty) why people vote the way they do. However, even if the marketplace is performing well, we wouldn't know it because we have a pluarlity system here.

Also, the "best" government policies aren't libertarian for everyone. State employees, federal employees and recipients of any kind of government largesse have large incentives to vote for non-libertarian candidates.
 

Sorry, I guess I was unclear. The only reason we have to expect politicians to act in the public interest is if voters demand that they do so: by voting and donating money. That way, politicians acting in their own interest are acting in the public's interest as well.

In order to get them to act in the interest of human liberty? I'm not sure yet. I guess step one is to get voters and donors to care about liberty.
 

As long as the current system is a "given," I'm not sure what the answer is.

In answer to "Are we asking libertarians to abandon self-interest?":

Maybe, but maybe not. If voting and donating to libertarian causes gives one more utility than voting and donating to causes that will benefit one economically, then it is self-interested to act like a libertarian.

I guess it just goes to show that most of us love money more than liberty.

(Apologies - I'm being a total downer today.)
 

I wrote, in an attempt to slay another thread,
"Where does the desire for an anti-statist approach come from if not from a normative love of liberty?
Part of the reason we find it so hard to convince our statist foes of the relevance and legitimacy of Austrian principles and approaches is that they are blinded by a love of security or some other motivator that causes them to look to the state. Intellectual persuasion will only take us so far with these true believers. What will be required is a conversion experience from love of state to love of liberty."
Travis suggested that Libertarians might be the blind ones, and I agree. Reason has done with us and we must turn to revelation. (Groan.)
Compromise is easy, it smooths the waters. True believers rock the boat and get tossed overboard.
A conversion experience, intellectual or otherwise, is required.
Nathan
 

So, we all just throw up our hands and say "Screw it, I've had it with this liberty thing!"?

Seriously, what steps should we lovers of liberty take? There has to be something (other than giving up our cushy government paychecks) that would actually be useful.

My first suggestion: change the way we vote. IRV in North Carolina is a good start. Other suggestions?
 

Dr. Richard Ebeling has a great piece in this month's Freeman encouraging lovers of liberty to keep the faith.

My favorite line, "The case for liberty will be won outside of politics and the current political trends. It will be won through a change in the climate of ideas. And it will be won precisely by arguing the principled case for freedom, regardless of the apparent opposing trends of the time."

http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=5598

(How do you do that fancy linking thing?)
Nathan