Daily Caller Interview, Pt. I

Matt Welch | July 15, 2011

Last week, Jamie Weinstein of The Daily Caller sat down with Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, co-authors of The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong with America, for a wide-ranging interview about the book, libertarianism writ large, and various other controversies. The results of that discussion are now online, chopped up into two segments  that I can't seem to embed here. So instead, here's a chunk of the intro:

In part 1 of the interview, they also lay out why independents hold so much power in politics.

"We talk a lot about independents in politics who don't identify with the Democrats or the Republicans because you lose political power there," Gillespie said. "The reason why the Tea Party is holding John Boehner's head underwater is because they are not Republicans. They refuse to sign up and toe the Republican Party line."

"That independence from the political party operation is very powerful for whatever you want to do," he said. "We also talk about our independence FROM politics, that our life is best where our politics is least."

In part 2, Gillespie and Welch defend their libertarian positions from fierce counterattack and explain why the "libertarian moment is upon us." (TheDC Interview: David Brooks on the budget battle, Tea Party and foreign policy)

"We would love nothing more to not pay attention to politics — and we talk about this at the beginning of the book — but unfortunately, politics got into us," Welch said. "We are at a position where more of our money is being taken, the government is putting our kids at risk and on the hook for all kinds of money going forward. We need to change the status quo right now."

Whole thing here.