Bill, your analogy falls apart because Mr. 'Big D' is not a competing suitor; he's just a gigolo. You get him for one day only, and you're paying for it the next four years. Better to stick at home and work through your differences with the simple honest Joe who respects and cherishes you for who you are, blah blah blah. Now what's for dinner, babe? I'm starving!

Bill, here is a big neolibertaian hug from moi. I quibble with but one thing in your post; Reason and many-to-most Reasonoids are not nuts, and are not remotely in league with lunatics such as Justin Raimondo. I've taken that magazine since about 1980, and former editor Virginia Postrel and her minions allowed me to learn why I could not really identify myself as a conservative, even tho I abhorred the left.

The war in Iraq has created a schism among we Reasonoids, but nevertheless, the domestic positions issuing from that publication remain entirely sound, and nothing akin to the ravings that often issue from the Libertarian Party and Raimondo's anti-war.com. Further, a few of the staff are also hawks on Iraq, such as Charles Paul Freund.

During this last election cycle, what with sites such as yours, Glenn's, Michael J. Totten's, Ann Althaus's -- as well as Postrel's -- and so many others, that we anti-Islamicist libertarians are many, and we have quite a few influential voices. If the social conservatives wish to ignore us, and carry on crusades to impeach S. Ct. justices and howl about probate judges in pull-the-plug cases -- until said judges are under death threats and armed guard -- they may continue that irresponsible activity. I won't join them, and they push me toward wanting another party, or hoping a Lieberman-like Dem runs in '08.(I know, fat chance, with the moonbats having as much pull as they do.)

At this point, a Dem who was strong on foreign policy would likely get my vote no matter what other noxious left-wing statism I might have to tolerate.

Anyhoo, please feel all warm and fuzzy due to emanations from this end. ;)

Thanks Mona, but for some reason I only date abusive men.

Reason and many-to-most Reasonoids are not nuts,

I don't really think that they're nuts, but they are "big L" Libertarians.

Images I could live without: Any one treating Bill like a 'beautiful woman'.......

You know what will really bridge the gap? The DVD release of Team America: World Police.

It's like marriage counseling, but with a lot more kinky doll-sex.

Let the healing begin!

If the libertarian voting block is small, then why are the conservatives getting worked up over it at all?

I don't really think that they're nuts, but they are "big L" Libertarians.

I really think you've got that wrong. Virginia isn't; she voted for Bush. So did Freund, and some of the other staff voted for Kerry. The articles spend very, very little time on the positions or antics of the LP. Are you perhaps thinking of the magazine Liberty, which Reasonoids frequently scoff at us the alternative for the LP wack-jobs?

I got into some pre-election flame wars over foreign policy at Reason's Hit & Run board, but even for the anti-war crowd there, when Raimondo occasionally parachuted in, he was treated, um, discourteously.

But anyhoo, I did not write to argue with you, but rather to affirm the sentiments in your post.

Fair enough. Though I recall reason's pre-election round-up of who noted libertarians were voting for, and it was, mebbe 40-30-10 (R-D-L), with the rest sitting out.

Bill:

Interesting analogy, but don't expect me to treat you like a beautiful woman. I used to be in the same position as you (more or less), but I parted company with the conservative movement in general once the evangelicals got to be too much for my taste.

I think small-l libertarians tend to be fairly close to the center; the job for centrists on either side, I think, is to try to pull the two parties closer to the center. The ideal, of course, is for each party to put forward a candidate who is close enough to sanity that a reasonable person could choose either.

For reference, say, a Brenz Bozell vs. Dennis Kucinich race would not be one of these. However, say, Rudy Giuliani vs. Mark Warner might be.

--|PW|--

Ok, see here's the thing ...

but I parted company with the conservative movement in general once the evangelicals got to be too much for my taste.

Fine, but you don't know how that sounds ...

but I parted company with the liberal movement in general once the homosexuals got to be too much for my taste.

Sure the left wing has the moonbats and the right wing has the kooks, but I really can't tell much difference between libertarian kooks and conservative kooks, except that there seems to be more of the former, as one might suspect considering a lot of so called libertarians are really just over educated contrarians.

Philosophically conservative libertarians (if it ain't broke don't fix it) might take into account that while evangelical ideology might not be based on reason, logic and the study of nature, at least it has been subjected to considerable fool proofing administered by the evolutionary school of hard knocks. A rather obvious fact that kooky libertarian naval gazers seem to miss.

boris writes: Philosophically conservative libertarians (if it ain't broke don't fix it) might take into account that while evangelical ideology might not be based on reason, logic and the study of nature, at least it has been subjected to considerable fool proofing administered by the evolutionary school of hard knocks. A rather obvious fact that kooky libertarian naval gazers seem to miss.

Many of us do understand this; I've read my Hayek, and agree with his assessment that organic (meaning, not forced by the Commissars) social change is best. But like Hayek, and unlike many conservatives, I do not rule out that some change becomes desirable, in principle and for practical reasons.

On the one hand, I think that "libertarian" is almost as meaningless a term these days as "conservative".

On the other hand, there are definite divisions on the red side of things, and social conservatives with an attitude, like HundredPercenter, are just irritating, and I sure as hell am not slaving in front of no kitchen for an ingrate like him. He can bake his own damned pie.

"We vote for dead terrorists, less government intervention, lower taxes and scads of available porn and ammo"

Add secure borders and there's a party platform I can fully support.

The bottom line for me is that I don't see such a party on the horizon. From my view the nutballs make up much less than half of the R's, around half of the L's, and more than half of the D's. Unless there is serious change in those ratios, I'll be voting Republican. Sure, a little love would be nice- but I wouldn't expect any... until right before the next election.

Methinks that if Lieberman turned libertarian (switched parties and beliefs), he'd probably win in 2008.

Bill--here's your hug:
{{{{{{}}}}}}

BTW, TexasNative steared me to this post, although I'm a regular reader of your's anyway.

Lieberman is a great guy, but he's actually sort of a conservative on social issues.

Nonetheless, thanks for the love.

>And would it hurt for you to make me feel like a beautiful woman every now and again?

It's lines like these that'll keep you on the company plastic, eating alone at Panera Bread reading a Redbook. I'm sorry, it's just the truth.

Whatever the nomenclature, surveys show the younger electorate especially trending socially liberal & strong on natl defense. My problem with the Religious Right is that I don't see them as true political conservatives: they support social engineering & intrusive legislation just like the hard Left

they support social engineering & intrusive legislation just like the hard Left

One difference I see is their political activism is defensive against hard left imposition of militant secularism in schools and government.

Of course some libertarians who agree with militant secularism (not that there's anything wrong with that) are prone characterize that defense of an older status quo as attacking the new status quo they prefer.

My view is on the front lines of our military one is more likely to find traditional conservative values than libertarian or liberal. That's not a threat, it's a demand for respect.

My problem with the Religious Right is that I don't see them as true political conservatives: they support social engineering & intrusive legislation just like the hard Left

Could you give some examples of legislation passed in, say, the last four years by "the Religious Right" which you feel is social engineering and intrusive?

I'm not Religious Right (atheist, actually) but I'm constantly amused at how they are blown up into a bogey man. Yes, of course it's fine for everyone else to seek a government more in line with their view of how the world should be, but somehow when christians do it, simply by participating in the political process, it is a sinister and illegitimate "intrusion".

See, it used to be that people had to pass laws the old-fashioned way. For instance, if you wanted to allow a civil marriage between two men, there would have had to be a law passed. Then the courts got busy and started by-passing all that. Now you have to pass laws just try (usually unsuccessfully) to keep the courts from imposing an entirely different set of laws, that no legislature ever enacted. And these laws to simply preserve the status quo as it's always been are then labelled "social engineering" and "intrusive". On the other hand, court-ordered redefinition of a millenia-old institution is *neither* social engineering, nor intrusive, I suppose...?

Of course they're conservative - they're trying to keep what they feel are (and what have always been) various core institutions of society from being trampled by the activist liberal courts.

Anyway, just where are these reams of intrusive laws supposedly passed by the Christian right? I must have missed them. Religion in this country has been in a state of head-long retreat for decades. What we are witnessing right now is a desperate rear-guard action, trying to hold onto a few surviving vestiges of the social traditions that existed from the before the founding of the republic right up until the sixties.

I certainly don't sympathize with their entire agenda - I'm just saying that the characterization of the Religious Right as running roughshod over the country, dictating the law at will, seems utterly delusional.