Libertarian Democrats: The Titillating Myth
A couple of years ago, the great essayist and trash-culture authority Joe Bob Briggs told me about the heroic but–alas!–doomed search for a cinematic pot of gold that was called "couples porn." Back in the 1970s, after the surprising mainstream success of Deep Throat and Behind the Green Door, makers of skin flicks tried to produce movies that would appeal not simply to their traditional audience of male Pussycat Theater patrons but the guys' female partners as well. It was an intriguing idea that somehow never quite came to life in the cold, hard light of reality.
I thought about couples porn a lot while reading Markos Moulitsas's "The Case for the Libertarian Democrat," a concept every bit as titillating to me as an inveterate critic of the Bush-era Republican Party as couples porn was to X-rated movie moguls 30 years ago. "Libertarian Democrats" has a nice ring to it and I even know a few "Yellow Dog Democrats" who are undeniably libertarian in virtually all of their sensibilities. Folks such as the "Freedom Democrats" are for free trade, free speech, open borders, limited government, gun rights, the end of the drug war, and more. The former press secretary of the Democratic National Committee, Terry Michael, even has a provocative blog titled "Notes from a libertarian Democrat". Sadly, when it comes to their own party, they feel sort of like Trotsky during his Mexico City days.
In 2005, my former colleague, Matt Welch, now at the Los Angeles Times, anticipated the libertarian Democrat meme when he wrote about what he called "Deadwood Democrats" for Salon and Reason. Welch looked at "the interesting trend of popular Democratic governors like Brian Schweitzer, Bill Richardson, and Janet Napolitano running pro-Bush states such as Montana, New Mexico, and Arizona, as the region as a whole grows sharply in electoral votes" and reported that "this new Western breed of Democrat tends to be pro-gun, anti-tax and shruggingly tolerant of their constituents' various political beliefs and religious affiliations." He concluded that such characters represented a new hope for the Democrats.
Nick Gillespie
I thought about couples porn a lot while reading Markos Moulitsas's "The Case for the Libertarian Democrat," a concept every bit as titillating to me as an inveterate critic of the Bush-era Republican Party as couples porn was to X-rated movie moguls 30 years ago. "Libertarian Democrats" has a nice ring to it and I even know a few "Yellow Dog Democrats" who are undeniably libertarian in virtually all of their sensibilities. Folks such as the "Freedom Democrats" are for free trade, free speech, open borders, limited government, gun rights, the end of the drug war, and more. The former press secretary of the Democratic National Committee, Terry Michael, even has a provocative blog titled "Notes from a libertarian Democrat". Sadly, when it comes to their own party, they feel sort of like Trotsky during his Mexico City days.
In 2005, my former colleague, Matt Welch, now at the Los Angeles Times, anticipated the libertarian Democrat meme when he wrote about what he called "Deadwood Democrats" for Salon and Reason. Welch looked at "the interesting trend of popular Democratic governors like Brian Schweitzer, Bill Richardson, and Janet Napolitano running pro-Bush states such as Montana, New Mexico, and Arizona, as the region as a whole grows sharply in electoral votes" and reported that "this new Western breed of Democrat tends to be pro-gun, anti-tax and shruggingly tolerant of their constituents' various political beliefs and religious affiliations." He concluded that such characters represented a new hope for the Democrats.
Nick Gillespie
posted by Anonymous | 2:36 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home