Libertarians and the Reagan Rule

President Ronald Reagan supposedly quipped: “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally – not a 20 percent traitor.” Whether this quote is accurate or apocryphal does not matter. The significance it has is whether this strategy should be applied by libertarians as it has often been applied by Republicans. Despite the educational successes of the Ron Paul Revolution and the relative success of Governor Gary Johnson’s Libertarian run for President in 2012, it is obvious that no candidate capable of passing a “Libertarian purity test” is likely to win the White House in the near future. Such pure Libertarians are also unlikely to win Senate seats or significant numbers of House seats. So, the key question is whether libertarians should compromise and make alliances with those who share a significant number of their beliefs or whether they should remain “pure.”

Those who favor remaining pure would no doubt point out the number of “RINOs” that ran for President in 2012. With the exception of Congressman Ron Paul, the other Republican hopefuls – including eventual nominee Governor Mitt Romney – were for the most part “Republicans in name only.” They were a rogues’ gallery filled with neoconservatives and “compassionate conservatives” – i.e. progressive Republicans. If some Republican candidate for higher office is minutely less odious than his or her Democrat rival, should a libertarian support that candidate? Or would such support be a betrayal of everything that a libertarian Constitutionalist holds dear? Does supporting such a candidate lend support to a bogus system that instead of having two genuinely distinct parties has but two wings of the same totalitarian warfare/welfare party?

Those who favor compromise will claim that “the lesser of two evils” is often the best that can be achieved. They will point out that a “lesser of two evils” Republican President would not have given the United States things like “Obamacare.” But isn’t the “lesser of two evils” still evil?

An important historical point to note is that those who hold a particular ideology can and have infiltrated mainstream parties and influenced that party’s platform without having won elections. For example, although the Socialist Party in the early twentieth century did not achieve electoral success, the Democratic Party eventually adopted nearly all of the planks of the Socialist Party Platform of1928 as Milton and Rose Friedman have famously pointed out. This being the case, there is no reason why eventually the platform of the Republican Party could not become more libertarian-friendly.

If libertarians do take the Reagan 80% approach and abandon purity tests, what litmus tests, if any, should be applied to candidates? Below is a suggested list.

1. Willingness to audit the Federal Reserve

The roots of all economic problems in the United Stats can be placed at the door of the unconstitutional and corrupt Federal Reserve. While the ultimate goal should be to abolish the illegal Central Bank, there is no doubt that a genuine audit of the Federal Reserve would spell the beginning of the end for the pernicious banking cartel. On June 25, 2012, Congressman Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Federal Reserve – HR 459 – passed the House by a vote of 327 to 98. Although the bill never came to a vote in the Senate thanks to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid – a former opponent of the Federal Reserve – rumor is that Senator Rand Paul’s successor bill would pass in the Senate if it were given the chance to come to a vote. The Ron Paul Revolution has gradually made the idea of auditing the Federal Reserve into a relatively mainstream position among Republicans. It was even part of the 2012 Republican Party Platform. Therefore, it appears that many mainstream Republicans now support this libertarian position.   

2. Caution concerning military intervention

Since the administration of George W. Bush, the mainstream foreign policy position of the Republican Party has been of the neoconservative persuasion. During the Republican Presidential Debates, Congressman Ron Paul stood alone in representing the noninterventionist policies of the Founders. While some mainstream Republicans such as Senator Rand Paul and Congressman Justin Amash are less interventionist than their neoconservative brothers and sisters in the GOP, the party is still under the sway of the neoconservatives for the most part. It would be very difficult for many libertarians to wholeheartedly support a candidate who does not at least believe in the Constitutional principle that only Congress may declare war. Not only did most Republican politicians stand by as President Bush waged pointless, endless, and unconstitutional wars, but most have also stood still as President Obama has waged an unconstitutional war in Libya and has continued with his dubious and Nixon-like drone program in the Middle East and Africa. As so many mainstream Republicans appear determined to go to war with Iran eventually, it appears that few Republicans will be able to satisfy even the most humble noninterventionist criterion.

3. Opposition to NDAA, Obama’s assassination doctrine, warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, the Patriot Act, etc.

Republicans in Congress were all too willing to support the Patriot Act and every other violation of the Fourth Amendment and civil liberties that President George W. Bush favored. Fortunately, many have begun to question much of the machinery of the American police state since President Obama has taken office. Whether this is a sign of Constitutionalist awakening or merely partisan bashing of anything that a Democratic Party President does remains unclear. Any candidate for higher office that is going to be suitable to libertarian tastes must be willing to oppose the indefinite detention provision for American citizens in the NDAA, the doctrine that Americans may be assassinated by the President without due process, and the idea that warrantless wiretapping of American citizens is acceptable. Such a candidate must also be willing to rethink much of the Patriot Act. Even if he or she believed that that unconstitutional law was necessary after 9/11, it is apparent that a permanent loss of civil liberties is unacceptable.

4. Belief that the “War on Drugs” must be scaled back

While the libertarian ideal would be for all drugs to be decriminalized since Americans have the natural right to place anything into their body that they wish as long as it does not harm others, few mainstream Republicans will be willing to accept that. However, willingness to reconsider the draconian policies of the “War on Drugs” would go a long way toward making a Republican candidate more attractive to libertarians. The willingness to scale back the “War on Drugs” by curtailing funding of the DEA, reforming “mandatory minimum” sentencing policies for nonviolent federal drug offenders, decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana for personal use, etc. would be steps in the right direction. Such small steps might be acceptable to at least some major players in the Republican Party. Drug prohibition may not die in one fell swoop as alcohol prohibition did, but killing it slowly would be better than allowing it to gain momentum.

5. Belief in internet freedom

The internet has become the focal point for free speech in the twenty-first century. Without a free, uncensored, and mostly unregulated internet, the First Amendment will be constantly threatened. To be acceptable to libertarians, a Republican must be willing to stand against proposals such as CISPA. Unfortunately, 206 of 234 Congressional Republicans voted in favor of CISPA in 2012. Ron Paul has called CISPA “Big Brother writ large” and “essentially an internet monitoring bill that permits both the federal government and private companies to view your private online communications with no judicial oversight–provided, of course, that they do so in the name of ‘cybersecurity.’” Senator Rand Paul, Congressman Justin Amash, Congressman Blake Farenthood, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, and Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner are among the small number of Republicans who have opposed CISPA. If mainstream Republicans do not begin to understand that economic and social freedoms are dependent on one another and cannot stand in isolation, then the Republican Party will have a difficult time attracting more libertarians.   

6. Willingness to support budget cuts with teeth

Republicans claim to be in favor of dealing with the national debt crisis by making budget cuts, but when push comes to shove, many in the party are unwilling to make substantive cuts. A mere slowing of the rates of increases in spending will not be adequate. Republicans must become willing to make active – and difficult – cuts rather than just passively allowing cuts such as those with the sequester happen. Tough decisions will have to be made, and there must be a willingness to forsake “sacred cows” such as military spending. Few members of either party has shown much fortitude in dealing with the twin “sacred cows” of military spending and entitlements, so it’s unlikely that either party will attract many libertarians when it comes to the issue of the debt.