“Asset forfeiture, drug legalization, and the mainstreaming of libertarian ideas”

The “Libertarian Moment” proceeds apace, writes
Ilya Somin at The Washington Post‘s Volokh Conspiracy
blog, as asset forfeiture takes center stage in policy debates:

As in the case of drug legalization, asset forfeiture reform is
a cause long-championed by libertarians, which has recently hit the
mainstream. The Institute for Justice,
a prominent libertarian public interest law firm,
has highlighted the issue for years, and is currently
spearheading both legal and legislative challenges to the system.
Similarly, libertarians have for decades advocated abolishing the
War on Drugs; at times, they were almost the only ones doing so,
with the exception of a few on the far left. But only recently has
this idea begun to attract widespread
mainstream public and elite support.

Somin, who teaches law at George Mason University, occasionally
contributes
to Reason, and is regularly cited in our
pages, sagely notes:

…libertarians have successfully helped put these issues on the
political agenda, it remains to be seen whether they and their new
allies on the left and right will be able to push through effective
reforms. In both cases, there is a danger that newfound public
interest in the issue will be quiesced by merely cosmetic changes
that only marginally improve the situation. And, obviously, the
majority of non-libertarians do not – so far – fully endorse the
libertarian approach to these issues, which calls for the complete
abolition of both civil asset forfeiture and the War on Drugs.
Still, the two cases are dramatic examples of previously
marginalized libertarian ideas becoming a part of mainstream
political discourse.

Read the full thing.

He’s right to fret that real reform will be difficult to achieve
(often a pessimist, he remains a skeptic of whether state-level
eminent-domain reforms have worked).

But his larger point about libertarian ideas being mainstreamed
is inarguable and cause for optimism. It’s essential to recognize
that what we at Reason.com call the Libertarian Moment (or
Era) is not fundamentally about politics but about larger
currents in American and society that will ultimately
inform politics and policy.

Growing out a huge set of
massive and inter-connected social, demographic, economic, and
technological changes, the Libertarian Moment is about power being
spread throughout the system and end-users making more and more
decisions about how they want to live. When Matt Welch and I first
started yapping about the Libertarian
Moment back in December 2008, we were in the throes of the
financial panic. George W. Bush was launching TARP and auto
bailouts, both of which came only after endless incursions on
choice and freedom in the political arena. Barack Obama had just
won the White House (giving the Democrats full legislative control
of the federal government) on the promise of massive stimulus
spending and a national health system. The point isn’t that there
are not endless examples of expansive government.
It’s that

folks are still getting on with their lives regardless, asking
less permission and figuring out workarounds to live the lives they
prefer (this is the large point of my and Matt
Welch’s Declaration
of Independents). And if you don’t understand that such
attitudes are growing and flourishing in every aspect of
contemporary America—in churches, in business, in education, in
entertainment, you name it—you’ll never understand that it’s coming
soon to politics too.

This is where we are, even as a largely unreconstructed GOP is
poised to capture the Senate. Libertarian issues and sentiments are
popping up all over the place in spite of attempts by pols and
partys and vested interests to maintain the status quo. Such issues
and sentiments have already swept through virtually all aspects of
American life: work, love, family, culture, you name it—all are
more varied, expressive, and accommodating of difference and choice
than ever before. Politics is the endgame and it’s already
underway.