Libertarian Brotherhood: Growing or Shrinking?

[Latrinsorm]

Molly Lambert (http://grantland.com/contributors/molly-lambert/) linked an article today from the Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/the-illusion-of-a-libertarian-moment/375844/?single_page=true) on the topic. Highlights:

-Today's youth are among the least libertarian ever, and are trending to go even lower. The only lower group were the Greatest Generation, suggesting a direct causation between living through mass economic hardship and dismissing libertarianism.

-Another possible explanation: racial minorities are much less libertarian than whites, and they represent a much higher proportion of young than old.

-Draws a fascinating parallel from conservatives and libertarians to liberals and socialists: neither subgroup is strictly speaking a subgroup at all, but especially in the eyes of critics the larger group is often led around by the smaller.

Obviously the first two points feed into the last, as the Republican party is also growing less interesting to youth and racial minorities. If the Republican party is growing more influenced by libertarianism (although it could just as easily be anti-Obama's authoritarianism) this is the same demographic suicide as continuing to insist on family values et al. We're throwing the social welfare baby out with the gay marriage bathwater, if you will.

[Gelston]

Libertarian Brotherhood? Sounds like an Islamic Terrorist group in Liberia. Probably full of the AIDS and Ebola. What are Obama's opinion on this organization?

[waywardgs]

Libertarian Brotherhood? Sounds like an Islamic Terrorist group in Liberia. Probably full of the AIDS and Ebola. What are Obama's opinion on this organization?

They're on the watch list.

[Latrinsorm]

There are plenty of non terrorist Brotherhoods. The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, for example.

[Dendum]

Did this piece actually verify the idea that it is non-white voters under 30 that are pushing the younger age group away from libertarian ideals...or is this just an assumption based on the known over 60 demographics?

I did like this line "Conservatives who still want to compete, win, and govern must trust that this despair will pass. The “libertarian moment” will last as long as, and no longer than, it takes conservatives to win a presidential election again. "

so I guess we can find out in 2020 if this is true or not.

[Wrathbringer]

Molly Lambert (http://grantland.com/contributors/molly-lambert/) linked an article today from the Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/the-illusion-of-a-libertarian-moment/375844/?single_page=true) on the topic. Highlights:

-Today's youth are among the least libertarian ever, and are trending to go even lower. The only lower group were the Greatest Generation, suggesting a direct causation between living through mass economic hardship and dismissing libertarianism.

-Another possible explanation: racial minorities are much less libertarian than whites, and they represent a much higher proportion of young than old.

-Draws a fascinating parallel from conservatives and libertarians to liberals and socialists: neither subgroup is strictly speaking a subgroup at all, but especially in the eyes of critics the larger group is often led around by the smaller.

Obviously the first two points feed into the last, as the Republican party is also growing less interesting to youth and racial minorities. If the Republican party is growing more influenced by libertarianism (although it could just as easily be anti-Obama's authoritarianism) this is the same demographic suicide as continuing to insist on family values et al. We're throwing the social welfare baby out with the gay marriage bathwater, if you will.

Are you kidding me? The last two administrations and the reactionary legislation tied to the 9/11 terror attacks have done wonders in advancing Libertarian ideals out of the realm of pot smoking anarchists and into relevancy for the average person. Call me an optimist, but I believe we're on the rise. If I had no life, <here> I'd link some stat from some web page that supports my position. Oh well.

[Ker_Thwap]

Are you kidding me? The last two administrations and the reactionary legislation tied to the 9/11 terror attacks have done wonders in advancing Libertarian ideals out of the realm of pot smoking anarchists and into relevancy for the average person. Call me an optimist, but I believe we're on the rise. If I had no life, <here> I'd link some stat from some web page that supports my position. Oh well.

I have slight libertarian leanings. The problem is with self proclaimed (Libertarians with the capital L) that I've met in real life. I've met maybe 100 through my career, and a few more in my personal life. There are pockets of them living in western NH and I had the misfortune of having that territory at one point in my career.

They tend to have a poor standard of living, a minimum of one derelict car in the front yard, that they're selling for parts, accumulated litter along their driveways because they're collecting and selling scrap metal or children's toys or whatever. They send their unwashed children to public schools, bitch about every bit of spending at the town meeting (firetrucks, roads, who needs those!) They don't pay their property taxes after spouting outdated/made up laws about how if you have a greenhouse (plastic tarp eyesore over rotting timbers) on your property, you're exempt from from taxation! They run up hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical bills when they do get sick and old, they have no problem using the infrastructure that they never contributed to. After all, they never agreed that the US dollar was a mutually agreeable exchange medium. Can I pay you with these pressure treated lumber scraps that I'm burning in my wood stove?

Maybe I've met less crazy libertarians and didn't know it. The crazy ones at least, will make a point of telling you they're libertarian and try to hand you some literature.

[Latrinsorm]

Did this piece actually verify the idea that it is non-white voters under 30 that are pushing the younger age group away from libertarian ideals...or is this just an assumption based on the known over 60 demographics?It is a fact that under 30 voters are less libertarian and less white, and it is a fact that whites are enormously overrepresented in libertarianism. I have not seen polls (in this piece or otherwise) that specifically drill down into the libertarianism of under 30 minorities vs. over 30 minorities, which I think is what you're asking, so I'll look for them now. This (http://reason.com/poll/2014/07/10/reason-rupe-2014-millennial-survey) is the best one I can find, but it only goes off of self-identified libertarians which as Thondalar can tell you doesn't turn out to be very accurate. For instance, 30% of self-identifying libertarians in that poll described themselves as socially conservative, which is pretty crazy. (As did 12% of self-identified progressives, which is even crazier.) 29% of them said the government should promote traditional values, 28% said the government should regulate business. Bottom line is that the sample size is pretty small at 140 SI libertarians, but it's big enough that the differences are significant to the overall libertarian demographics. The question now is whether we can usefully talk about millennial libertarianism as the same thing as Ron Paul's libertarianism, or whether it's just general teenage malcontent. Consider how they were the only group to net disapprove of each political party in Congress, and that the combined disapproval percentages look like this:

libertarian: 130%
conservative: 103%
progressive: 102%
moderate: 99%
liberal: 92% (wusses)
Are you kidding me? The last two administrations and the reactionary legislation tied to the 9/11 terror attacks have done wonders in advancing Libertarian ideals out of the realm of pot smoking anarchists and into relevancy for the average person. Call me an optimist, but I believe we're on the rise.You're an optimist.
If I had no life,You're an optimist.