Why not add "Goldwater Democrats" to the Big Tent?

[BurtWorm]

As Andrew Sullivan describes them, they seem to share a lot of real values with progressives. Perhaps they disagree about what a fiscally responsible government spends money on, but after the Bushist disaster in national security management, maybe they'll finally agree not to throw half the Treasury away on "defense spending."

Most important, they'll stop voting for the psychos they've helped enable for the last 30 years.



http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2006/10/welcoming_the_c.html


Welcoming the Converts
Posted by Shadi Hamid

Is it just me or is the Andrew Sullivan the most intellectually honest blogger/writer out there today? In a recent post, he flirts with the possibility of switching sides:

Well, we've had Reagan Democrats. And we've had Goldwater Republicans. Why not a new version: Goldwater Democrats? By Goldwater Democrats, I mean old-style libertarian conservatives who actually believe in fiscal responsibility, small government, prudent foreign policy and live-and-let-live social policy. After being told we are completely unwelcome among Republicans, should we shift to the Dems?

I have never thought of myself as a Democrat or left-liberal in any way. And there are plenty of people among Democrats I do not agree with at all. But it's getting to the point that the illiberal, authoritarian big government Christianism of the GOP makes me completely supportive of backing the Democrats this time around. My one reservation is, of course, spending. But at this point, could they be worse than the GOP? No Congress has been worse on spending than the current crew since FDR! The war? Again, at this point, we desperately need some check on an administration utterly without prudence or a capacity for self-correction.

If Andrew Sullivan and others like him would like to join the Democratic Party, then I say welcome. Not only that, I think the Democrats will be stronger for it. Apparently, Markos Moulitsas - another former Republican - is doing some outreach, taking names, and looking for converts in an article for Cato Unbound, titled "The Case for the Libertarian Democrat." So, Sullivan continues, taking his post to an interesting and perhaps inevitable conclusion:

And so I find myself in a very uneasy alliance with Markos Moulitsas, who writes the lead essay in the libertarian magazine Cato Unbound. Strange bedfellows. But these are strange times.

[Skinner]

1. I thought Markos made a compelling case in his Cato piece.

The modern GOP is no friend to liberty.

[SteppingRazor]

2. I agree...

it was a great article. And I'd welcome these "Goldwater Democrats" with open arms. I've always been more of a civil libertarian than a traditional liberal anyway. I hate to admit it about as much as he hates to admit he's allied with Kos, but Andrew Sullivan and I do share a lot of similar views.

[BurtWorm]

6. I'm reading Kos's Cato Unbound article now.

It's reminding me of a post on Feministe earlier this week, which I linked to in a short-lived thread yesterday on the subject of abortion. That, too, is a libertarian issue that Dems could use to seal a bond between the Cato-ites and themselves. Fundamentally, abortion rights is about freedom from government control of the individual body. Why would a libertarian want to enable the authoritarians who are trying to take that right (and so many others) away from the people by government coercion and prohibitions on liberty?

[BurtWorm]

12. Here's how Right Wing News reacts (hysterically) to Kos's piece:

:rofl:


http://www.rightwingnews.com/archives/week_2006_10_01.PHP#006525

The problem with the idea of a "Libertarian Democrat" is that philosophically, Democrats and Libertarians could not be farther apart. Libertarians believe in having a weak federal government and minimal government interference in people's lives. That's just the antithesis of what the Democrat Party has stood for over the last 70 years.

The Democratic Party supports a powerful, centralized form of government that regulates, spends, and taxes with absolute abandon. States rights? They give a little lip service to them if the state is doing something they like. Nothing more. The free market? The Democratic Party views corporations as evil, cash cows that are to be milked of their money to use for social programs.

Of course, that's not to say that Libertarians and Democrats have no similarities. They do, but the philosophical underpinnings are different.

On civil liberties, Republicans are more concerned about them than Democrats, but sometimes that doesn't show because both parties have different priorities. Republicans get worried about serial killers and rapists. Democrats get worried about people protesting abortion. Republicans get worried about terrorists flying planes into our buildings. Democrats worry about law abiding citizens who have guns. It's just hard to paint the Party of paging through the FBI files of political opponents, the Fairness Doctrine, and gun control laws, as a party akin to Libertarians on civil liberties issues. The truth is that the Democrats have few qualms about curbing civil liberties, they're just on the same side as Libertarians on some issues because #1) Democrats aren't serious about protecting us from terrorists #2) There are Republicans in office and Democrats tend to disagree with them on everything for no other reason than because they're Republicans.

Then there are social issues like abortion, gay marriage, and drug laws, where Libertarians and Democrats do find some common ground. But again, look to the philosophy. Libertarians oppose these laws because they believe that the government shouldn't be involved in them. Democrats have no problem with getting the government involved; they're just pro-abortion, pro-drug use, and pro-gay marriage.

[VelmaD]

3. As long as they are not allowed...

into positions of power and are not allowed to subvert the principals and ideals the party is founded on. I don't trust them...they've been too enmeshed for too long with a party that doesn't consider my rights as a human being important because I'm not a rich white male. If they want to vote Democratic that's fine. If they want to start at the bottom and work and PROVE that they really believe in the ideals of the Democratic Party...that's fine too. But they never really want to start at the bottom. One would think we've learned from the DLC and the example of Texas what happens when you let former Republicans run the Democratic Party. :eyes:

[Burried News]

4. Ouch - good one

"One would think we've learned from the DLC and the example of Texas what happens when you let former Republicans run the Democratic Party."

[VelmaD]

5. Thanks

I guess I'm still really bitter about what happened here in Texas. A few years back our state party chair was a woman named Molly Beth Malcolm. She had been a republican as recently as the 1980s. And somehow she managed to become state Democratic party chair in the late 1990s. It was beyond belief. Of course we proceeded to lose every state-wide race during her tenure and we lost control of the Texas legislature (which allowed the redistricting fiasco to happen). She was worse than useless and I still believe deep down that it was intentional...that she may well have been a plant.

[SoCalDem]

11. Conservatives are clever planners

They figured out how to fly just under the radar, and to plan long-term.

No race was too small for them to capture, no organization too small to infiltrate..

They are true subversives..

They infiltrate and like any good parasite, they go to work destroying and remolding that organization..

It's how they got control of the media..and once they did that it was an easy thing to take control of the government.. Once in , they changed rules so they could stay in power..

[BurtWorm]

13. Let's be clear about who we're talking about.

There's a breed of "conservative" who loves politics while hating government. This would be the Grover Norquist, Karl Rove type. Scratch them a little, and underneath you'll find someone who wants to control the system so they win all the time and anyone who disagrees with them always loses. These guys are essentially authoritarians and fascists. They're the termites who would eat the structure of the Party out from under it, just as they have with the Republican Party.

But there's another kind of conservative that I'm talking about, one who is interested in ideas, and this type, I submit, would probably be able to find much more common ground with progressives in this day and age than with that other type of "conservative." And as Kos writes in his article for Cato Unbound, which Skinner mentions in post #1, the common ground is liberty.

Kos's article can be found here:

http://www.cato-unbound.org/2006/10/02/markos-moulitsas/the-case-for-the-libertarian-democrat/

[SoCalDem]

14. The Rove-ians are the ones who took over.. they are the dangerous ones

Here's hoping they have finally imploded, and that people have realized it..

[BurtWorm]

15. We should also distinguish between the libertarians and the DLCers.

The former, again, are principled, which the latter just aren't. The DLC is another example of politics-obsessed trolls ruining everything they touch. I'd just as soon lose the DLC to gain the libertarians I'm talking about.

[BurtWorm]

8. Some Democratic priciples, including economic justice,

should not be for sale. The deal with the Libs would have to be no deals on that principle. If they want to suggest "libertarian" solutions to the problem of wealth distribution, fine. Some might be ready for that, considering how dangerous corporations are to individual liberty.

[walldude]

7. Welcome Andrew Sullivan?

They guy who spent the last 6 years calling us liars, and left wing lunatics because we didn't stand with the shrub on his kill em' all policies? No thanks he can rot for all I give a shit.

[TygrBright]

9. Because they're NOT DEMOCRATS.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm respectful of old-fashioned ideological conservatives who appreciate the Constitution and the liberty that America provides to conduct an ongoing experiment in social evolution. I wish them well. But I wish them well in re-taking their OWN party, where they belong.

I know these guys. I remember Goldwater. He's being rehabbed now, and indeed, next to the fundy whackjobs and rapacious robber barons that have taken over the GOP, he is a model of moderation. But that's a bit like saying that next to Adolph Hitler, Jeffrey Dahmer looks pretty restrained. There is merit in old-style conservatism and one reason this country has gotten SO badly horked up the last twenty years is because of the diminishment and ultimate loss of old-style conservatism in the political mix. We need them.

But we need them as OPPONENTS. We need them to test our ideas against, and to test their ideas. In a robust, Constitutionally-protected social and political and economic marketplace under the scrutiny of a free and fair press. THAT'S how we need them. That will make Democrats and Republicans both, stronger, and America a better place.

The model of conservatism that Goldwater and his followers believed in looks benign compared to the horror that the GOPpie bolsheviks have inflicted on the world, but it is NOT fundamentally compatible with liberal Democratic aspirations. It is anti-Union. It is opposed to Federal oversight of the essential resources and services needed to secure our children's future. It believes in "deterrence" as a primary tool of international policy. It sees foreign policy primarily in terms of American short-term economic benefit.

Thanks, we don't need that. If, with all the rich opportunities the GOPpies are pelting us with at the moment, we can't take a major role in America's future and steer ourselves back to sanity without these guys, we have no business in politics.

Like I said, I wish them well. In taking back their own Party. It'll be a long, tough, dirty, messy, grinding slog for them, and they have my deepest sympathy. Indeed, they have my empathy, since we are still engaged in the long, tough, dirty, grinding slog of taking back OUR Party from the corporate shills and timeserving fatcats that have polluted our Party leadership for so long. I know what they're up against. It ain't easy. But no, we can't offer them a permanent home here, they DON'T BELONG HERE. They're welcome to temporary refuge-- they can vote Democratic, it'll be a great first step in slapping a hogtie on the monsters that have subsumed their own Party. But then they've got to get down to work at the grassroots and re-take the GOP machinery from the nutjobs like that cow in GA with her Harry Potter fixation. Best of luck to them.

firmly,
Bright

[BurtWorm]

10. I respect that point of view. But I think the Republican party is beyond

hope for the foreseeable future. It's totally beholden to the authoritarian extreme right who get out its vote and the corporatists who fund it. How can any other part of its coalition hope to take control over that mess? The Republicans won't come back to their senses until the left and center have shut them out of power for a few cycles. In the meantime, it would be better for the country if libertarians stopped enabling authoritarians, by either voting for Democrats or for their own candidates.

[ripple]

16. They can certainly vote for us

I think it would be prudent to proceed with caution before considering any 'Goldwater Dems' for office or other leadership postions, though.

Excluding them completely isn't the answer, either. If we do that, we're merely shooting ourselves in the foot.

There are plenty of dems I disagree with about various issues- that doesn't mean I don't want them in the party, it just means we disagree about some things.

There's a reason we're known as the big tent party and in my view, there's still plenty of room in here! :patriot:

[BurtWorm]

17. See #16

for a right-wing take on how well suited libertarians and Democrats are for each other. It's way off base about what Democrats stand for. Probably about what libertarians stand for as well.

[BurtWorm]

18. kick