A few months ago, a professor of mine referred to Milton Friedman as a “conservative liberal” (whatever the hell that means).
I feel like every time a certain group of libertarians is associated with liberals or conservatives, it hurts our cause. Mind you, I don’t mind working with either group, as long as it benefits the cause of liberty. However, I feel like libertarians are either seen as “hedonistic” liberals, or “heartless” conservatives. These labels don’t describe our ideology at all. I feel like we should make it a point to distinguish from both, and only identify with the cause of liberty.
What do you guys think? Every once in a while, I’ll encounter libertarians who identify with either group more then the other, or favor one over the other. This is a problem.
The trick is to break people out of the liberal / conservative paradigm, and make them realize there is a LOT MORE to it. It’s hard, because they are very emotionally charged and attached to these ideas. If political science and ethics and the way to prosperity wasn’t a matter of RED vs. BLUE to them, it would be too complicated to be true.
If people aren’t willing to learn or see differently, there’s no point in wasting time on them. But that’s just my opinion.
I tend to address this by pointing out the misappropriation of the term “liberal” when used to describe the progressive Democratic party. Having more accurately labeled the primary ideologies of mainstream politics into their progressive and conservative flavors, we’re free then to use the liberal moniker as it genuinely means. Libertarianism is then better put into perspective either as a subtype or a continuation of liberal theory.
The main obstacle comes from how liberalism in mainstream American politics was supplanted by progressivism over several decades running from titular era of the 1890s to the decline of the Solid South around a century later. The gradual nature of this shift in mainstream thinking lends itself to many progressives falsely/misinformedly claiming themselves liberals. It’s a bit hard to take at face value, but it’s not hard to explain the connection to anyone willing to listen.
Probably meant classical liberal.