Rudy The Authoritarian

David Boaz makes the libertarian case against Rudy Giuliani. Unfortunately for Boaz, I think the libertarian case against Rudy also undermines Boaz's case (with David Kirby) that there's a large libertarian vote out there. What Boaz's study actually showed was that there's a medium-sized constituency for lower taxes plus less government regulation of sex.

Giuliani just happens to be the candidate who best represents that constellation of views. He's also in many ways probably the least libertarian candidate in the race -- someone who pretty clearly doesn't believe in any kind of principled restrictions on the power of the state, and someone who's extremely eager to see the state deploy extreme violence as the preferred means of achieving policy goals.

Comments

Anyone seems like a libertarian next to Mitt "Double Gitmo" Romney.

Posted by Max | May 30, 2007 11:59 AM

There isn't a large libertarian vote out there. But there is a huge Pseudo-libertarian voter out there (think Instapundit and worse). They're really just Republicans who want to sound edgy or smart or "I'm not really just a dumbass fratboy". But it's not incondiderable. The Libertarian (or libertarian) vote is inconsequential and should be disregarded anyway.

Posted by ed | May 30, 2007 12:22 PM

What if it is the case that Americans have to decide someday between reasonable rates of taxation and having more than 700 bases around the world, 24/7 patrols of much of the world's airspace and seas, and invasions and occupations of multiple foreign countries?

What if it is the case that however willing 51 or 53% of the American people are to voting for the more authoritarian candidate in 2008 they one day down the road they will have to realize that even the most extreme rollbacks of civil liberties they're willing to tolerate still is not enough to stop a few determined people from entering the country and blowing themselves and a bunch of other people up with them?

Posted by Linus | May 30, 2007 2:02 PM

Liberals seem to think that the era of tax revolts is coming to an end, but what if it's the case that we're about to enter a new era of tax revolts - an era of liberal tax revolts - when voters begin to realize and become outraged that their government's vast military expenditures aren't making them safer, and are putting both their entitlement security and their household bottom lines at risk?

Posted by Linus | May 30, 2007 2:09 PM

Linus,

I think military spending as a % of GDP is lower today than it was twenty years ago.

The case against Iraq is not as much about selfishness (not wanting to fund it) as it as about a deep concern for human life and our long-term strategic well-being.

I didn't think the article was a very thorough or convincing critique of Giuliani. I'd like to read a better one.

-Jed

Posted by jedster | May 30, 2007 2:58 PM

"I think military spending as a % of GDP is lower today than it was twenty years ago."

That's true, but it isn't just about Iraq; in the context of an aging population with entitlement costs (especially Medicare) set to explode over the next decade you can't have reasonable middle class taxes and generous benefits for old people as well as universal health care while at the same time military spending that dwarves any other country on earth (and quite a few other countries put together).

Entitlement spending and Pentagon spending make up the overwhelmingly largest portion of the federal budget; everything else is child's play.

I contend there is a ceiling to what middle class Americans will pay in taxes (especially in the context of an increasingly multicultural country), and that it isn't much if at all higher than what they're paying today. And if Americans aren't willing to forego their radiation and chemo there are going to have to be deep cuts in military spending.

The American Revolution started as a tax revolt. I don't think it's entirely out of the question that there will be another one - lesser, and non-violent - in the coming several decades.

Posted by Linus | May 30, 2007 6:00 PM

And defense spending is a lot lower than entitlement spending. Once you've gotten past our real defense needs, and other nondefense spending in the DoD budget (military retirements, etc), there isn't all that big a percentage left.

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