Saturday, September 13, 2008

Reaching Out To Culturally Conservative Political Libertarians

Here's a quote from a conservative writer named James Poulos in a post he did about Gov. Palin:

"The solution, however, seems clear enough: we need more vocal, convincing, and honest people who are socially culturally conservative political libertarians, and we need them to take on the establishment, and we need them to win. It also seems clear enough that we’re not going to find enough of these in politics — national or state and local — to achieve critical mass, at least not for a while. I don’t know how much more comforting it would be for the revitalization of the GOP to rest on the shoulders of bloggers and writers instead of on Sarah Palin’s, but when you call for a thinning of the herd, you imply by necessity that you’re interested in being among the ones left standing."

Now, the question I pose is the following: Can libertarian Democrats address some of the concerns of these culturally conservative political libertarians?

I think that we can, and I will try and talk about this as I go on. Do I think that there will be a mass exodus from the GOP from this group? No. But I can imagine some coming over to the Democratic party, and I can imagine some others making common cause with us on some very important issues.

For example, localism. The support for local farmers through local farmer's markets. As I talked about in an earlier post based on a comment I received on the Daily Kos, we can require that charter schools be under local control or, at least, have strong local input.

Also, freeing local farms and businesses, especially small ones, from unfair regulation. Anyone who's read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" or Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle " knows what I'm talking about.

There might well be others, and it is certainly a path worth exploring.

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