New York
Times reporter Jonathan Weisman correctly
perceives “common ground” between “liberals and libertarians”
in the House on several issues, including drug policy, sentencing
reform, and limits on government surveillance. But some of the
“left-libertarian legislation” Weisman cites as evidence of this
alliance has little or nothing to do with it:
The House on Thursday voted 221 to 200 to approve an amendment by
one of its most vocal liberal members, Representative Rosa DeLauro,
Democrat of Connecticut, to ban federal contracts for companies
that set up sham headquarters in offshore tax havens like Bermuda.
Thirty-four Republicans bucked their party to push it to
passage….[In May] 76 Republicans joined Democrats to add $19.5 million to
the federal instant background check system for gun purchases. The
House Appropriations Committee has approved an amendment to allow
Peace Corps volunteers who become pregnant by rape to have a
federally funded abortion…
It is hard to see in what sense these are libertarian positions.
Weisman seems to be assuming that whenever Republicans support
progressive causes, they do it for libertarian reasons, which would
be nice but plainly is not true.
Weisman’s gloss on left-libertarian opposition to federal
interference with state medical marijuana laws is also rather
misleading:
On May 30, 49 Republicans crossed the aisle to approve language
barring the federal government from raiding medical marijuana
dispensaries.“Some people are suffering, and if a doctor feels that he needs
to prescribe something to alleviate that suffering, it is immoral
for this government to get in the way,” said Representative Dana
Rohrabacher, Republican of California, once one of the chamber’s
most ardent conservatives, now a co-sponsor of the marijuana
measure.
It is true that
support for this measure was much stronger among Democrats than
among Republicans. But Rohrabacher, who introduced the
amendment and has sponsored such legislation seven times since
2003, is hardly a Johnny-come-lately on the issue of marijuana
federalism. The
Times was
similiarly grudging in describing the common ground
between libertarian-leaning Republicans and Attorney General Eric
Holder on sentencing reform, suggesting that Republicans such as
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) are mainly interested in saving money, while
Holder is interested in justice.
To the extent that progressives and libertarians
are allied against statists of both parties on issues involving
individual freedom and limited government, that is surely a welcome
development. But it is important to understand the basis of such
collaboration, which is the classical liberal values that both
groups partly share, and not to confuse mere bipartisanship, which
is more often the enemy of liberty than its friend, with the
advancement of those values.
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/1mV0jrU
via IFTTT