Seriously though, the Republican party isn't a libertarian organization and never has been. They've been marketing themselves that way lately, since they are a bit closer to the libertarian ideal than the Democrats (I guess not in this case though!).
Also if you were thinking about Rand Paul, in a way he's his father's son, and unlike others who just pay lip service for liberty and such, he's actually fought hard against the Patriot Act, FISA, NDAA, drones and so on. He filibustered them for many hours, introduced amendments (which obviously got rejected), etc. However, he also seems to play way too much towards the overly religious base in the Republican party, and in that way he's also much like the "old" Republicans, which is a shame, and I think it makes even libertarians have second thoughts about him. The "always lower taxes" attitude at least could work on most libertarians, but the very religious side of him, kind of ruins it for libertarians, too.
This changed in the '60s- Democratic support for the civil rights movement caused a massive shift in the south, in which a huge number of voters (evangelical, socially conservative voters who had supported the Democrats since the end of the Civil War) switched allegiances from Democrats to Republicans. That period also saw the rise of Barry Goldwater, who also wasn't a traditional Republican- he was more of a demagogue who engaged in a lot of flag waving and and emotional oratory to get people riled up.
Ever since then there's been a cognitive dissonance within the GOP- the old-school libertarianesque beliefs wedded to the social conservatives and demagogues of the Religious Right (who aren't traditionally right-wing (or left-wing) at all, they've just latched on to the Republican party as being more amenable to being bent to their will).
This cognitive dissonance has reached epic proportions in the last 10 years, in some cases leading to polarization in the party (fiscal conservative/social liberals vs. those who are completely driven by religion and social conservatism). In other cases it leads to politicians who somehow try to appeal to both the libertarians and the Religious Right (Ron Paul being a prime example), and I just don't know what to make of that. The views of the world embodied by those two groups could not be more different, and seems impossible to reconcile in any intellectually honest way.
The left-right divide is best described as a tendency to support established power versus a tendency to support those who seek to overturn established power. Hence "conservative" (meaning "preserve the existing social order, or return to the social order of the recent past"). Republicans on the whole are, without a doubt, right-wing, since the best way to predict what cause they will support is to look at the causes of the already wealthy and privileged.
The left roots for the underdogs, the right roots for the top dog. This explains why, today, the left more sides with Palestine and the right with Israel. Why rightwing-types are more likely to defend the rich (low taxes helps most those who pay the most) and leftwing-types to defend the poor. Why in Soviet Russia, the "right" were those who supported the ruling party, and the "left" were those who supported the opposition.
Yes, the more-left(/less right) party currently controls the White House and 1/2 of Congress. This doesn't mean that they have become the established order that the left should now oppose, since the established order is much bigger than mere politics.
The terms "right wing" and "left wing" date back to the French Revolution and the preferred seating positions of the nobility and the reformists in the Estates General. I'm really stretching my powers of speculation, but given that the nobility would have received training in arms, is it coincidence that they would have preferred a seating position that allowed the easier use of their sword-arm when directed toward the center of mass of the opposition party?
When all you have is a right, everything looks like a left.
(Source: Until recently I served on the State Central Committee of a major swing state's GOP.)
That might not be the majority but it's certainly the loudest group.
But definitely agree about punks. Or punks with jobs. Also cypherpunks, crypto-anarchists, etc.
I think what happens is that the deeper you go into the left, if you are of a generally radical anti-mainstream bent like I was entering school, you're attracted to leftist ideology because of the fairness aspect of the politics. It's a great time to read Howard Zinn and get pissed off about government, but I think as people who still hold that anti-government bent get older, they do tend to lean Libertarian. I know lots of ex-punks that are hard paleoconservatives now.
I went to all the left-wing anticapitalist protests and was routinely mistreated and violated by police and government. While my politics have moved center, I still maintain that distrust of the system because I know when you are outside of it, you're going to get mowed down. As I've gotten older, I care less about unfairness and more about interference. I've found unfairness can be overcome while interference cannot.
In short, I've found that while I've pretty much abandoned any desire to become a communist hobo, I still have a starting point of extreme suspicion and distaste for central authority.
Anarcho-capitalists are _not_ capitalists. So liberal liberal arts students can be anarcho-capitalists, despite not being capitalists.
Actually, the term "anarcho-capitalism" is completely invalid. It's like "blue-reddish" or "big-smallism."
Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned. (Credit goes to the Ayn Rand Lexicon for this particular wording of the definition)
No form of anarchism can protect individual rights, therefore, anarcho-capitalism is not capitalism.
Except the scenario that _my_ gang, also known at the U.S. government, happens to expand its territory to cover the entire United States, which is the goal, and enforces a monopoly on government.
Politicians really support the views of the people who actually matter to them - the donors who fund their campaigns, the lobbyists who give them nice perks while they're in office, and the companies who promise them high-paying jobs once they've left public office.
- Libertarians evaluate things on a freedom/tyranny axis.
- Republicans evaluate things on a civilization/savagery axis.
- Democrats evaluate things on a fair/unfair axis.
I think that explains Republican voting behavior here fairly well. They're not for small government because they're libertarian; they're for small government because the US is historically connected with libertarian philosophies.
A really powerful argument in this vein comes from the Nixon tapes. It's very much worth listening to, no matter what your views on the matter are, because I think it really crystallizes why conservatism and the religious right have so much common ground.
Edit: Found it: http://nixontapes.org. It's a lot, which one should I look at?
If you don't know or don't remember your congressperson: http://house.gov/representatives/find/
Republicans stand for strong tribalism - doing only what the tribe approves and not applying any actual rationality to it. Insanely pro-team people are regularly kicked out of this party for mild disagreement with a small subset of this weeks ideals.
Democrats stand for weak triablism - they are sort of in the same camp on some stuff, but generally are allowed to disagree with the cult on things too. No one is kicked out, but bickering gets in the way of standing up to a strong voting block of the super-tribalist republicans.
The point still stands, republicans very vocally value tribalism over most other things. They loudly rant about "real americans" and "how they don't matter, just us" and "I don't like it, but thats just how we play" (the last a particularly vile buck passing - rather than take responsibility, it gets to be no one's fault "cuz the party").
For much greater detail about why Democrats and Republicans think they way they do, read what the cognitive scientist George Lakoff has to say.[1] By the end things like "We respect life!" but "We want the death penalty!" on the same platform actually make sense.
It's a sham. The voting process is just there to create an illusion of control and provide a circus for the masses; just another means of control by manufacturing consent.
The Republican Party's purpose is just to mobilize a certain segment of the population when a war needs fighting or some banks need bailing out, and as controlled opposition to the Democratic Party's social agenda. The Democratic Party likewise serves as controlled opposition to the Republican agenda: Obama is President, but you still get the wars and Wall Street anyway.
Obama.
Healthcare ideas that originated from the heritage foundation? No way.
Romney 'won' the first debate by agreeing with Obama's platform on every single issue. The difference between them? Obama.
That's like a Democrat saying that Republicans like "letting the poor die" except when it comes to veterans, children, and those wounded by terrorist attacks. What hypocrites!
I agree with your point in that it was an invective, pithy statement, but the big government categorization wasn't unfounded.
It's an advertising term, not itself a communication of fact.
For what it's worth, it wasn't meant as a slight to democrats, just a slightly less aggrandizing presentation of the point made.
Arguably, Republicans that claim to prefer a smaller government often would take the surplus from the cut of safety-net programs and apply them to the military. In practice, that may be fair, but it doesn't necessarily result in a smaller government either.
If I were critiquing both parties on effectiveness, I would easily fault the Republican party for failing to substantially reduce the size of government, while at the same time, I would critique democrats for settling for a reduced quantity of freedom in the interest of allowing everyone to share equally in the freedoms that remain.
That said, I prefer neither party, so feel free to critique however you see fit.
The phrase is being used in lieu of the specific and extensive arguments that would have to be made connecting business regulation, social safety nets and progressive taxation with marriage being defined as heterosexual, abortion restrictions, and war(?).
"Small government" isn't purposeless, it's (supposed) tenet is to limit the government in both scope and authority to those powers enumerated by the Constitution. Either way, the point isn't just that the government should be non-existent, or smaller for its own sake, but that it should allow the citizens to provide for their own welfare and provide the minimal in opposition to that. The Republican mantra believes that people can and will fend for themselves, and either enjoy their own successes or failures with minimal intervention.
The democratic mantra is to provide a minimum standard for all, at the expense of those in excess of that standard.
It's a contrast in ideology, but neither is good or bad on its own. Also worth noting is that over time, the parties have effectively flipped positions on matters entirely. The Republicans, for example, freed the slaves despite FIERCE opposition by the democrats. Nowadays, the Democrats generally carry the African-American vote.
In short, it's a popularity contest. Both parties have ideals that they live up to some percentage of the time, but any individual politician (or party dynamic) is likely to shift their belief in the interests of getting elected, staying elected, appeasing campaign contributors or even to appease their constituency.
>I agree with your point in that it was an invective, pithy statement, but the big government categorization wasn't unfounded.
It may take a lot of money to have a social safety net, but we spend a crazy amount on the military, too.
When Republicans say they don't want "big government", it really is entirely a code phrase for the social safety net. Ask any Republican whether trimming $300 billion from the Pentagon's budget would be a good idea, and (except for a few Libertarians) you'll get a resounding no way, with vague references to national security. Despite the fact that the US spends more on the military than all other countries combined.
So no, the "big government" accusation is entirely unfounded. It's all about what they want to spend billions of dollars on, not whether they want to spend it.
Note: this assumes that there isn't just fancy grift in the whole set of red tape procedures.
It's only "big government" if you accept the Republican premise that fixing other people's roads and teaching other people's kids is a waste of money.
It's not like they're shy about it.
It is simply impossible to make a de-facto two-party system like the US make sense.
There are more than 2kinds of people, so uou need more than 2 parties to represent them.
Can someone help me out here?