"I don't pay attention to either side," he claims. "I mean, I've always been a libertarian. Leave everybody alone. Let everybody else do what they want. Just stay out of everybody else's hair. So I believe in that value of smaller government. Give politicians power and all of a sudden they'll misuse it on ya."
Timmy points out that this could also be called classical liberalism and, indeed, he is correct. I would probably designate myself as a classical liberal—certainly, there are few issues that I disagree with Timmy on—but there is a reason that I designate myself a libertarian; that reason is neatly encapsulated by the fact that there are a large number of parties with the word "liberal" in the name and none of them are peddling my brand of libertarianism...
4 comments:
He's a dude -- it makes sense.
Those "liberal" parties are progressive liberals, not classical liberals. In the same way that the GDR was emphatically not democratic, the modern progressive liberal parties are emphatically not liberal.
I don't disagree Rob with your assessment of the parties, but I do of the dichotomy you posit between "progressive" and "classical". To me, there is no contradiction between the two - classical liberalism was, and remains, progressive in my opinion in that it spreads wealth, adn with the eradication of corporate welfare and protectionism will spread it more evenly and rapidly than so called "progressive government" which is an oxymoron!
The difference between a liberal and a libertarian is about the same as the difference between a vegetable and a vegetarian.
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