Leftists Are Listening To Libertarians

Interesting post by Jesse Walker on Reason about the Ron Paul press conference today. I particularly like this:

"I doubt anything concrete will come out of this press conference (other than the damage to Bob Barr among what ought to be his strongest supporters). But the event reflects something interesting and valuable that's happening out there in the ideological long tail, a collection of conversations that cross the ordinary political lines. In essence, two leftists and a paleocon just held a press conference to say, "We're listening to the libertarian." They did this because actual leftists and actual paleocons are listening to libertarians. And even third-party candidates -- or some of them, anyway -- have sharp enough political instincts to respond to their constituencies. "

He's right. Many on the left are now willing to listen seriously to libertarians, and to consider libertarian ideas. This is a trend worth exploring.

I've already mentioned that a balanced budget is a libertarian Democrat position, and so would be decreasing the national debt ( even if they agreed to simply not increase it) , one of the two principles discussed and agreed upon, in theory, today.

Let's keep this conversation going. There's going to be differences, but more agreement than many people think.