Derek Hunter writes The Problem With Libertarians in Town Hall:

Libertarians have devolved from the pro-liberty wing of the right side of the ledger to the annoying kid who, when he doesn’t get 100 percent of what he wants, takes his ball and goes home. The team he agrees with more than half the time loses to the team he barely agrees with at all, and he cheers while marinating in his smugness.

There’s a lesson in all this for the GOP establishment too. The disintegration of Libertarians is similar to what we’re seeing happen in the counterproductive battle between conservatives/Tea Party and the Republican establishment. If the GOP establishment can’t win with their candidate, they’d rather lose. It’s not cutting off your nose to spite your face; it’s more like cutting off your head to spite yourself.

In response to much criticism from this article Derek wrote a follow up, Obtuse: Some Libertarians, Criticism and Deliberately Missing the Point:

Libertarians hate social conservatives, and I’m hardly social conservatives’ best defender since I’m not and never have been one. But I don’t run in fear of them because I believe the top priority should be defeating the progressive agenda, wherever it is. Libertarians are happy to see a fiscal conservative defeated at the polls because they happen to be a social conservative too. That’s not only short-sighted, it’s stupid.

George W. Bush was a socially conservative President, yet last I checked abortion was legal between 2001 and 2009 and Las Vegas had not been Dresden-ed into oblivion. Gay people were not rounded up nationwide, nor in Texas when he was governor there. In short, what difference does it make if any politician is a social conservative? How did it affect the life of Andrew Kirell? It doesn’t. This is not to defend Bush, who was a disgrace on fiscal issues, as were Republicans under him.

Libertarians have a lot of passion. I just wish it were focused and mobilized for, rather than against, achieving goals for liberty. If you want to get to, say, 10, and Republicans will fight with you to get to 7, but Democrats want to take you to 0, why wouldn’t you fight alongside Republicans to at least get 7? Fight over the remaining 3 later. I’d love to have the conservative/libertarian war afterprogressivism is vanquished, or at least retreated some. But you won’t get it. You’ll continue to slip toward 0 if you sit on the sidelines focusing your energy on the fact that 7 isn’t 10.

HKO

The Democrats win because they practice unity in spite of whatever conflicts they have within their party: they unite in the voting booth. The various factions on the right suffer from moral purity. We should advocate better ideas and that is what bloggers like me and other try to do, but to put it into practice requires some compromises. Great business plans fail quickly if they neglect various forms of competition. The Leviathan wing of the GOP is also as self centered in the Libertarian and Tea Party allies.

When I hear from the non aligned that one is as bad as the other and that it makes no difference, it sounds like a cop out. Both Democrats and Republicans offer this lame excuse when their people are caught in acts of deception and corruption. It avoids the discomfort of holding their preferred candidate accountable. And for the third parties it washes their hands of failure to support a winning candidate, and thus they have to take no responsibility for the acts of any winner.

The perfect is the enemy of the good. The GOP is in dire need of leader who can unite its factions

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