Should Libertarians Vote for Republicans in 2014?

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Should Libertarians Vote for Republicans in 2014?

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"A lot of times, when [Republicans] are on the stage with Libertarian candidates, we are agreeing with you guys–with libertarians–more than we are agreeing with Democrats," says Kirsten Kukowski, press secretary for the Republican National Committee.

So should small-"L" libertarians vote for Republicans next week?

Reason TV's Nick Gillespie recently sat down with Kukowski to give her a chance to explain why libertarians, who hold a broader definition of social freedom than the GOP platform lays out, should vote for Republicans during Tuesday's midterm election. During the interview the two discussed what lessons the Republicans have (or haven't) learned during the Bush years, why 2016 is shaping up as the year when libertarian-leaning Republicans will push to change the party, and whether Libertarian candidates should be seen as spoilers by GOP and Democratic partisans.

Approximately 7:30 minutes.

Produced by Nick Gillespie and Meredith Bragg. Camera by Joshua Swain and Meredith Bragg.

Go here to see the Libertarian Party's Vice Chair Arvin Vohra make the case for why libertarians should vote for LP candidates.

Note: We reached out the Democratic National Committee but were unable to schedule an interview.

Scroll down for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason TV's YouTube Channel to receive automatic updates when new material goes live.

Comments

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Did she draw the short straw?

[Johnny Bravo]

A Federalist, A Libertarian, and a Statist walk into a Bar.

Comments, thoughts??

[Shirley Knott]

Lots of false dichotomies there, mixed into a heaping helping of simplistic thinking.
The guy must be a pundit of some sort.

[Johnny Bravo]

No idea if he is a pudit or not.

Adam Gurri
Adam Gurri works in digital advertising and has a master's in economics from George Mason University. His present research focuses on the ethics of business and work, from the perspective of virtue and human flourishing.

Can you point out some of these false dichotomies and simplistic thinking examples, from your point of view?

[A Secret Band of Robbers]

If I can say so without reading the piece yet, Gurri's solid. I recommend his site The Umlaut for some very thoughtful libertarian philosophy. Try this piece on what he calls telescopic morality.

[Knarf Yenrab!]

When faced with such lists, the propertarian rarely bites the bullet and says, "Yes, some people will be excluded. There are some circumstances in which some people might fall through the cracks."

Maybe I hang out with and read different propertarians than others, but libertarian theorists love to find the marginal cases that threaten to push libertarian theory to its breaking point. That's why Rothbard is accused of wanting to allow parents to starve their children to death, namely that he's unafraid of examining the worst-case scenario of a world that abides by a libertarian legal theory. Unafraid probably isn't the right word--exuberant is more like it. Rothbard gonna Rothbard.

The issue here is that we're comparing some putative worst-case libertarian scenario (in a world that, by dint of the thought experiment features none of the charity, neighborliness, or tribe-loyalty that have defined non-Randians from the time that we abandoned the forests for the savanna) with the best-case utopia of today's system. Never mind that children have starved by the millions under statism--Walter Block would allow parents to renounce their parental responsibilities!

[Knarf Yenrab!]

Narratives of liberation and property thus are vulnerable to all the problems of monoculture . . . The narratives of property and of federalism, on the other hand, face the conceptual difficulty of drawing any lines when actual propertarians and federalists (those with consciences) would probably want to.

Calling propertarianism a philosophical monoculture is misleading. Propertarianism is a basic legal philosophy & framework that allows a multitude of common-law principles to emerge and adapt to the attitudes of a particular culture. Although property rights must be well-defined for the system to work, there's no question as to whether those rights are necessarily malleable in the sense that they differ from culture to culture and epoch to epoch. None of that changes fundamental human nature--that we are a social species--or the empirical reality that market arrangements produce a more sociable character by strengthening social bonds via win-win arrangements.

The idea that propertarians would be forced to sit by and watch while minorities starve to death in a libertarian society is bizarre--it would violate basic proto-economic principles (namely that traders want more trade partners rather than fewer) while positing that necessarily wealthy, trade-based societies that are based on mutually beneficial relationships would lead to less altruistic attitudes to minorities.

[Johnny Bravo]

Thanks Knraf, I appreciate the well considered responses. Philosophy and psychology are advanced by examining those issues at the "breaking points" of any theory.

[christinecarbinoeta]

my co-worker's sister-in-law makes $71 every hour on the internet . She has been without a job for five months but last month her pay was $15713 just working on the internet for a few hours. look at this site ....

????? http://www.netjob70.com

[Lord Humungus]

That's 221 hours of work to make that $15713 @ $71/hr. I would hardly call that a few hours for a month.

[Hugh Akston]

I imagine that libertarians have better things to do than vote.

[Brandon]

No, with a very small number of exceptions. Next question, please?

[Swiss Servator, spare a franc?]

Seconded.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

With some glasses, and a sexy librarian outfit, she could...wait, what was the question?

[Anonymous Coward]

TIWTANWL.

[lap83]

Waspy Libertarians?

[A Secret Band of Robbers]

There Ain't No Such Thing As A Female Libertarian.

[Swiss Servator, spare a franc?]

why 2016 is shaping up as the year when libertarian-leaning Republicans will push to change the party

I would welcome that, but I suspect the Establicans will cling to the levers of party power.

[Paul.]

Vote Establicans! Why switch horses mid-ocean?

[Paul.]

"We believe marriage is between a man and a woman, we are a pro-life party... [we just need to explain ourselves better]"

You're losin' me, babydoll, you're losin' me.

[sarcasmic]

I'll be voting for one Republican anyway. Guvna LePage. Otherwise I will be voting against a bunch of liberal yahoos.

[Sevo]

"I'll be voting for one Republican anyway. Guvna LePage. Otherwise I will be voting against a bunch of liberal yahoos."

I think this prolly describes how most l'tarians will vote, assuming they bother to.
I'm not going to vote the D or R ticket even if there are no l'tarian candidates for this or that office. Tell me what you propose and I'll listen, at least until you insult me.

[sarcasmic]

There are a bunch of bonds on the ballot this year, so as a matter of principle I will get out there and vote against all of them. Even though they will all pass. They always do.

[Sevo]

We in CA get a bunch of taxes, too, since the various agencies have been STARVED of money for so long!
No, no, no, no, no, and no. Oh, and NO!

[James Anderson Merritt]

You forgot "HELLLLL NO!" 😉

[lap83]

"We reached out the Democratic National Committee but were unable to schedule an interview."

Will the nerdy libertarian kid keep pursuing the sexy braindead Democrat cheerleader who hates him or will he realize the boring but wholesome Republican girl was the only one who ever gave him the time of day.

[Bill Dalasio]

I don't know. When I think Democratic women, sexy and cheerleader aren't the first two words that come to mind. I mean seriously, if this
http://www.politico.com/story/.....91207.html

or this
http://hollywoodlife.com/2014/.....rpet-2014/

is what comes to mind with sexy, you might want to check you prescription.

[lap83]

Wow, Lena Dunham actually looks worse in makeup. That's an impressive feat.

[DarrenM]

Well, it's Halloween.

[lap83]

I live in Kansas so for me it's between a crappy Republican. a crappier Independent, and a Libertarian that no one knows about. I'll probably stay home.

[Bill Dalasio]

Well, I will say that she's 85% less full of shit than Jared Polis.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Eh, this seems like it should be a case-by-case determination. IMO, you are profoundly stupid if you vote against Rand Paul in Kentucky in a close race; voting against McCain is, OTOH, a badge of honor in my estimation.

[A Secret Band of Robbers]

Yes. I'm happy that the comments on this are mostly not glib one word answers. It's worth thinking about and there might not be an easy answer.

[MegaloMonocle]

Vote for the candidate, not the laundry.

If the Reps want me to vote for their candidate, they need to put up a candidate that isn't a grinning crypto-authoritarian tool.

Same goes for the Dems.

Simple as that, really.

[TheWildWebster]

what he said ^^^

[Almanian!]

I wish I lived in Arizona long enough to vote against McCain just once. He's that much of a fuckhead that it would be pretty much worth it to me to move there before an election just to do that.

OK, not really...but a man can DREAM...

[XM]

Reason falls asleep, allows some other news organization to post news regarding millennials.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/10.....in-droves/

[ErnieLane]

As a registered Republican who has voted consistently Republican since 1968, I would say no. In my view, and I think it's shared by millions, as long as RINOs, and specifically Sen. McConnell and Rep. Boehner lead their respective Houses, I just doesn't matter whether the Republicans win both Houses. Obama will continue not working with Congress, and he will do what he wants by Executive Order, whether legal or not. And the Republicans will not stand up to him. They haven't used the power of the purse yet, so there's no reason to think they will. As I say, the Republicans will take us too the same place as the Democrats -- they'll just take longer.

[DarrenM]

the Republicans will take us too the same place as the Democrats -- they'll just take longer.

Delay is also a strategy. You never know what might be done if you have enough time to do it.

[MegaloMonocle]

Republican National Committee press secretary

If you locked me in a room that had (1) a contract for this position and (2) a gun with a single bullet in it, and told me I couldn't come out until I had made a choice. . . .

Man, that's a tough one.

[Richard Rider]

In California with "top two," the state has essentially banned third party candidates from the November election. IF there's a Libertarian on the ballot, I generally vote for them -- but those times are past.

Most CA statewide elections are uninteresting exercises as Democrats are likely to handily win all the races. But in a couple races, the GOP has a chance, at least.

My advice: Vote Republican, even for the ones that require nose-holding (such as Kashkari for Governor). The lop-sided Democrat wins will be touted by the press as an affirmation of our state's misguided progressive policies. Every vote for a Republican is in essence a rejection of those policies -- regardless of the merits of the actual candidates in the race.

Not voting is misconstrued as voter apathy, and a general acceptance of the status quo. Few libertarians are apathetic about what is happening in our country.

[James Anderson Merritt]

I am so disappointed and sad to see legendary libertarian lion Richard Rider endorse voting for GOP candidates in California, but I feel his pain: the corrupt-beyond-words political system in this State put Top Two primaries to a vote in an off year PRIMARY election, which had one of the lowest participation figures ever. The "majority" that carried this odious measure ended up, IIRC, being about 1 in 4 eligible voters, maybe even fewer. This vote did not demonstrate either "mandate" or even consent of the governed. Yet, in consequence Libertarians and other third-party candidates are pretty much locked out of general elections until further notice. In California, even write-ins are not permitted in November, for offices covered by Top Two. It's a positively draconian situation. Newspapers that once advised us to pass the damned measure -- because we had to do something, anything, and primary election reform might be a "good start" -- are now saying that voters didn't or couldn't anticipate the harm that Top Two would cause to our system. But the arguments against the measure in that election's official voter info guide correctly predicted what we see now. It's just that the media were invested in a different narrative, so ignored those important arguments.

(concluded in reply comment)

[James Anderson Merritt]

(continued from above)

Unlike Rider, I may not be able to bring myself to vote for GOP candidates next Tuesday, even in protest. But his points are well-taken. Still, I recall an old response to the charge that a vote for LP was a wasted vote: If you could vote for death by hanging or death by electrocution, which would you choose? Right! You'd choose ESCAPE! That's the Libertarian option, which has been, effectively, off the table in California for too many years already.

[DarrenM]

Except "ESCAPE" is not an option. Minor detail, I know.

[AD-RtR/OS!]

I'm surprised that Libertarians would even deign to sully themselves by committing such a crass act as voting.
Next thing you'll tell us you support the Pledge of Allegiance.

[Sevo]

"us"?
Would that be leftie imbeciles?

[AD-RtR/OS!]

Well, I might be to the Left of Attila the Hun, but that would be a separation measured in nano-seconds.

[TheWildWebster]

This is like asking "should you vote based on pragmatism or principles?"
The answer is, only vote based on pragmatism if you either have no principles or are willing to trash your own principles at the drop of a hat for convenience. (but I repeat myself - if you are willing to abandon your principles based on circumstances, you didn't really have any principles to begin with)

[TheWildWebster]

translation: the most damaging concept to anything reasonable is suggesting that 'pragmatism' is 'reason'.

[James Anderson Merritt]

When I think of GOP trying to convince Libertarians to vote for them, I am reminded of Captain Kirk vs. the Gorn. The Gorn keeps saying, "Listen to reason, Captain! I will be merciful!" And I keep hoping that we'll be able to come up with something that can knock the Lizard Man off his feet, "If we have the time..."

[GreenLantern]

"A lot of times while we're up there on the stage we're agreeing with you a lot more that we are the Democrats".

WTF? Better might have been, "Seriously, do you think you have ANYTHING in common with Democrats at all?" Is their whole pitch, "They're worse"?

When pressed on social issues, "(You'll have to suck it,) we're not doing to compromise on that." Yo, bitch, I don't support the Dem big government approach to drugs, gay "rights"/marriage, and abortion, but I'm not for your authoritarianism either. She's saying, "We may believe in big government, too, but hopefully in a way that reflects your values." When a libertarian says, "Get out of my bedroom, off my back, and out of my pocket", she says, "Sure, but only because we usually agree with your lifestyle, not because we agree that we don't have the right to make decisions for you."

She doesn't understand that libertarians don't WANT to impose our often common values. Unlike the minority whose overheard comment (pointing to the police) after Obama was elected, "Those are OUR police now", we don't want the government to do OUR bidding. Where she sees policy disagreements and differences, we see attitudinal and structural incompatibility, and Republican'ts really don't want to acknowledge nor change that.

[pronomian]

This woman is a typical hack for the republican party. Her problem is that she believes there is a difference between the two parties. Republicans have proven that that are not small gov't, not free trade, not free choice, are interventionist in people's and other gov'ts lives.

[Vjklander]

She looks like she been smoking dope. Oh wait! ....

[pronomian]

She nailed it, she told all that there is to tell, "I can't tell you we are going to change our platform, our platform is our platform..." Yes, it is, and that is the problem. If you're not a part of the solution, you are part of the problem, the problem is the platform.

[Xizang]

I'm a reformed Republican. I've been voting Libertarian for over 25 years and intend to stay true to the Constitution. And that's what it's really all about: The basic constitutional values that the Republicans USED to espouse and used to use as their platform. And yes, there are lots of libertarians who out of necessity run for office as Republicans. Good people such as Ron Paul and his son Rand. Soon, the Libertarian Party will have the numbers - and the respect - it deserves as the one party true to traditional American values.

[IT]

The answer is in your post and not in your actions. Vote GOP to change the GOP. Third party ain't never gonna happen.

[DarrenM]

By the time the Libertarian Party has these numbers, it will no longer be the same party. What matters is educating the public at large. If the majority of the voters are statist, any political party that has any kind of power will be statist.

[Harvard]

On the other hand, by electing the right (not just any) Republican over a democrat one improves the chance that conservatives like Cruz, Lee, Amash and Paul can be elevated to positions of influence. Not high odds, but so much better than the alternative, and on it's face, better than voting for a candidate that can't possibly win.

[Vjklander]

Sorry, not interested in those Evangeliban extremists running the government.

[Warren]

When you're campaigning you agree with us. When you're elected you govern EXACTLY like Democrats.

[Petie]

Kukowski's argument sounds more like grounds for Republicans to vote Libertarian. I believe the Democrats could equally easily say, "A lot of times, when Democrats are on the stage with Libertarian candidates, we are agreeing with you guys?with libertarians?more than we are agreeing with Republicans"

[Vjklander]

I'm lucky enough to have a Libertarian Senate candidate to vote for. Otherwise I would not vote. All the other races I will write in my own name. If the Republicans ever get out of thrall to the Evangeliban, I might consider voting for one, but that likely won't happen in my lifetime.

[Castlereagh]

She hit on the hard question. I was in the voting booth today. I am an old school, fiscal conservative and had to go with a winner. Sometimes you hold your nose and vote for the republican. We must do it to beat the tax and spend democrats.

[Mildred111]

Can you have some spare time to sit back in your chair having your laptop with you and making some money online for some interesting online work said Jenny Francis in the party last nightsee more what is for you there to increase your pocket money??.

http://shorx.com/clickforsurvey

[IT]

Republicans are repugnant; Democrats are worse.

At least there is a libertarian wing (or closest) of the GOP. No such group exists for the Dems.

Voting GOP is the lesser of two weevils. Suck it up and change the GOP. 3rd party crap ain't happenin'.

[Averroes Ibn Rushd]

I live in Florida and, for Governor, I am voting for Adrian Wyllie, the LP candidate. Both the Republican and Democratic candidates are crooks. One is a crook who used to run a hospital and the other is a crooked lawyer (even compared to most lawyers he is crooked).

So, yea, I am going to vote LP this year.

[Averroes Ibn Rushd]

And yea, I know he isn't going to win - I cannot bring myself to vote for either of the crooks running for the DemoPublican party.

[DarrenM]

It's better than not voting at all.

[Averroes Ibn Rushd]

If it wasn't for the medical marijuana amendment I wouldn't be voting at all. I figure, if I am going to vote I might as well vote for the other stuff as well. I am voting for it by the way, and in Florida now it needs 60% to pass. So if you are a liberty minded Floridian please vote this year - normally I wouldn't think it matters that much but this medical marijuana amendment could help suffering people - and keep some innocent people out of prison who would be in there just for smoking a plant.

[Agile Cyborg]

She says the world is different after 9-11. How?

Nazis killed millions of Jews in the 40's while Stalin killed millions while other dictators killed millions, and millions more were killed previous to these shitbags, and before those shitbags millions were being killed...

A couple of shitty fuckheads killed 3k Americans and knocked down two buildings and we're supposed to end freedom as we know it?

What a fucking braindead irritant this pencil-headed chick is. Perfect, tho, for a party of abject slimy authoritarians.

[tonidraperipo]

My neighbor's mother-in-law makes $88 hourly on the laptop . She has been out of work for 8 months but last month her check was $21643 just working on the laptop for a few hours.
Have a peek at this website. ????? http://www.jobsfish.com

[REMant]

While it would be nice if, all-of-a-sudden, there was a Ron Paul revolution, I think a more sensible strategy would be to limit righteousness as Kissinger says, by voting to maintain gridlock. In this case the GOP. Next time maybe the Dems, that is if they really are Dems.

[Hank Phillips]

Wrong. Voting for looters is a waste. Voting your conscience packs ten times the law-changing punch. It's how the commies made their income tax the 16th Amendment and how we've been making These States more libertarian decade after decade.

[Nyarlarrythotep]

Fuck the Republican Party. No way do I expect to increase my support of that bunch of assholes. Michelle Bachman. Rick Santorum. Non-stop outrageous rhetoric, demagoguery, racism, sexism. No principles. A joke. Can't believe how obvious it is to this die-hard libertarian that they are the party of intolerance, dirty tricks, and double talk.

[Averroes Ibn Rushd]

"Can't believe how obvious it is to this die-hard libertarian that they are the party of intolerance, dirty tricks, and double talk."

Sure, they are, but then so is the Democratic Party.

[Hank Phillips]

Observe that to the National Socialists, what's written in their platform is the important thing. So jailing and shooting our kids for prohibition, and asset-forfeiture of our homes, vehicles and holdings for no reason, and forcing our daughters to carry pregnancies to term for Lebensborn Jesusjugend indoctrination are nonnegotiable (to say nothing of bombing foreigners). The only way those things change is AFTER any candidate espousing them LOSES all elections, so they change the platform as they did after making FDR President-for-life over their making beer a felony.
The important thing to libertarians is the integrity to stick to our platform and cast those spoiler votes until after the looters copy it for their own.