Randy Barnett on Libertarianism 3.0 in Wash Post
Last week at The Daily Beast, I posted a story about what I called "Libertarianism 3.0." That's my term for demanding that our political allies in the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, and elsewhere take seriously our belief in social tolerance and fiscal responsibility, in free minds and free markets, in shrinking the size, scope, and spending of government in the bedroom and the boardroom.
Over at The Volokh Conspiracy, now housed at The Washigton Post, Randy (a.k.a. "Rob") Barnett comments on my piece:
In relating the role that Charles and David Koch have played in this development, Gillespie is playing off a new book by Daniel Schulman, Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America's Most Powerful and Private Dynasty, that Nick says "is mandatory reading." A truly fair and balanced account of the Kochs would freely acknowledge their enormous contributions to the growth, development, and increasing influence of the modern libertarian movement, the impact of which is now being felt by the Republican party. This is indeed big. But Schulman apparently is also sensitive to what the Left's shameful McCarthyite treatment of the Kochs deliberately ignores: the distinctly libertarian path they have funded, and in which they have personally participated, that is quite different from that of either the Republican or Democratic parties, or from either traditional conservatives on the right and traditional progressives on the left.
That sort of nuance does not drive campaign contributions, so instead we have the "vast right wing conspiracy" theories with "the Koch brothers" cast as Drs. Evil. The reality is actually far more interesting and potentially momentous. But those who get their talking points from Harry Reid, MSNBC and the DNC (I am on their list so I know what they are saying, though they think my name is "Rob") are missing the real story. They might just start with Nick Gillespie's column on the Daily Beast.