What Is "Libertarian"? | Learn Liberty
Are we living in the libertarian moment? What is a libertarian, anyway? With prominent libertarian figures like Ron Paul, John Stossel, Penn Jillette, and even Ron Swanson, and libertarian-l...
By: Learn Liberty
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Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, says he's one of the most conservative members of the Senate on issues like spending, taxes and demanding balanced budgets. But there's no denying that he has a whole other set of what he calls "libertarian-ish" issues that define his political ideology.
In an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday, Paul said those issues include a belief in privacy and a reform in the criminal justice system to make sure everyone is treated fairly under the law.
"We still have a large problem in our country that, if you are black, you're not always being treated fairly under the law. And I want to fix that," he said.
Paul - who announced last week that he is running for president in 2016 - has been a vocal proponent of trying to make the party more inclusive. He says he's not finding resistance among other members of his party as he tries to do that.
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Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus says that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be bogged down by scandals, includ...
In a separate interview, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said the GOP is working on expanding the map of states where they can win.
"There's no doubt that we have to be about perfect. And the other side can be about good. And so the fact is that we do have the higher burden," he said. "When I talk to people every day, even people who are trying to defeat me in the nomination process, come up and say, 'Oh, yeah, but we do like that you're trying to make the party bigger.' So I'm not finding much objection from Republicans," he said. "It means not just showing up once every four years, five months before the election. It means talking for two and three years, in these communities, about things that we have in common before you go in and sell the final product."
Paul noted that he has traveled to Ferguson, Missouri, Detroit, Chicago and Milwaukee as part of these efforts.
"I've tried to say to the African-American population: One, I'm going to fix the criminal justice system. Two, I believe in your privacy. And three, I believe in economic opportunity," Paul said.
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RE: Indinana Religious Freedom Bill and the shifting libertarian party
a simple reply.
By: RedScare TV
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RE: Indinana Religious Freedom Bill and the shifting libertarian party - Video
[330] Royal Dutch Shell buys BG Group and Caplan on libertarian economics
Energy companies have not been doing so hot these days, particularly in the face of plunging oil prices. As a result, some energy companies are preying on their weak competitors. This week,...
By: Boom Bust
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[330] Royal Dutch Shell buys BG Group and Caplan on libertarian economics - Video
Libertarian Doug Casey Fear Mongering Since1980. The Fall of America. Got Everything 100% Wrong!
Same Old Peter Schiff Bullschitt! Year, After Year, After Year! Fear Mongering is the bread and butter of the neo libertarian retards! http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2015/03/31/deconstructin...
By: Minethis1
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An Update from libertarian pundit Alex Merced (the podcast and more)
Alex Merced updates on what he #39;s been doing email alex at emailalexmerced@gmail.com and support his efforts by going to support.alexmerced.com.
By: Alex Merced
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An Update from libertarian pundit Alex Merced (the podcast and more) - Video
Dr. Oliver Crisp on libertarian Calvinism and universalism - trinities 082
http://trinities.org/blog/podcast-82-dr-oliver-crisp-on-libertarian-calvinism-and-universalism/ In this interview, Dr. Oliver Crisp and I continue to discuss his explorations of the boundaries...
By: khanpadawan
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Dr. Oliver Crisp on libertarian Calvinism and universalism - trinities 082 - Video
Rand Paul Is Not A Libertarian
On April 7, Rand Paul the junior Senator from Kentucky will announce his candidacy for President of the United States. Paul is pitching himself as a different kind of Republican...
By: Secular Talk
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Socialism and Libertarian Discussion
A discussion between Ben Heacox and members of the Libertarian and Socialist groups at Cleveland State University. Follow Our Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/VindicatorCSU https://twitte...
By: The Vindicator
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Why Libertarian Rand Paul Stands Out fom the Pack
The second Republican to enter the race for president could be the most unconventional candidate the party has seen in quite a while.
By: The Christian Broadcasting Network
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8 Great Libertarian Apps That Make Your World Freer Easier to Navigate
Here are 8 great apps that make your world a little freerand a whole lot easier to navigate. Waze is a real-time, crowd-sourced map that not only tells you about traffic jams and finds...
By: ReasonTV
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8 Great Libertarian Apps That Make Your World Freer & Easier to Navigate - Video
Debating the death penalty: Libertarian vs Conservative
Marissa Semkiw reports for TheRebel.media: The Boston Marathon bomber was found guilty yesterday and is now eligible for the death penalty. Toronto Sun columnist Anthony Furey debates the...
By: Rebel Media
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Debating the death penalty: Libertarian vs Conservative - Video
TROY SENIK: Rand Paul must walk tightrope to White House
Buttons in support of the presidential candidacy of Sen. Rand Paul are shown at the Galt House Hotel in Louisville, Ky., where Paul spoke Tuesday.
WILLIAM DESHAZER, NEW YORK TIMES
What a difference a decade makes. In 2005, only the most obsessive political junkies knew the name of Texas Congressman Ron Paul, a somewhat eccentric figure who had been the Libertarian Partys presidential nominee in 1988.
His son Rand was even more obscure, known mainly to the clients of his ophthalmology practice in Bowling Green, Ky.
On Tuesday, that small-town eye doctor stood on a stage in Louisville and declared to the world that he intends to become the 45th president of the United States.
You cant fully grasp Rands rise to prominence unless you understand how dramatically the Republican Party has changed in the intervening decade. In 2005, George W. Bush, fresh off re-election, was seeing the last positive poll numbers of his presidency (he hit 50 percent approval in the Gallup poll for the final time in May 2005) and writers like The Weekly Standards Fred Barnes were touting the presidents penchant for big government conservatism. Under this theory, it was no big deal to increase federal spending or add a costly new entitlement, like the Medicare prescription drug benefit, as long as those liberal means were being directed toward conservative ends.
Then the bottom fell out. While the broader publics second-term distaste for Bush owed largely to the pre-surge sense of aimlessness in Iraq, the gut-wrenching images that accompanied Hurricane Katrina and the economic meltdown that occurred in the dying days of his administration, conservatives focused in on an entirely different critique: He never cared about limiting the size, scope or influence of government. Bush couldnt be an example of conservatisms failures, they told themselves, because he was never a conservative in the first place.
It was in that environment that the elder Paul first rose to sustained national prominence, launching a 2008 Republican presidential campaign that initially felt quixotic. With the likes of Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney jockeying for the nomination, who really cared about the starkly libertarian views of a doddering seventy-something obstetrician from Texas?
An awful lot of people, it turned out.
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Anarchast Ep. 205 Avens OBrien: Libertarian Love and Loneliness!
Jeff interviews Libertarian blogger and social media activist Avens O #39;Brien, topics include: the NAP - what else is there?, feeling alone in a minority, a beautiful break up, being an excellent...
By: TheAnarchast
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Anarchast Ep. 205 Avens OBrien: Libertarian Love and Loneliness! - Video
Sen. Rand Paul has officially announced hes running for president. But can a libertarian-leaning candidate win the Republican nomination and ultimately the presidency?
In a political world dominated by the liberal-conservative divide, there are many doubters. But theres growing evidence that Paul can broaden the Republican base and appeal to the broad center of the electorate.
The Republican base may be divided into establishment, tea party, Christian right, and libertarian wings. Paul starts out with a strong base in the libertarian wing, which gave his father, Rep. Ron Paul, 21 percent of the Iowa caucus vote and 23 percent of the New Hampshire primary in 2012. With his strong opposition to taxes and spending and his book The Tea Party Goes to Washington, hes also well positioned for the tea party vote. His pro-life views will make him acceptable to religious conservatives as the field narrows.
Rand Paul is trying something different in a Republican presidential race.
The wild card may be who can attract voters who dont usually vote in Republican primaries. Pauls stands on military intervention, marijuana, criminal justice reform, and the surveillance state give him a good shot at getting independents and young people to come out for him.
The race could come down to former Florida governor Jeb Bush as the establishment candidate against the last standing insurgent candidate, and Paul is, as pundit Peter Beinart wrote recently, as bold as any reformist in the race.
Political observers usually talk about liberals, conservatives, and moderates. But not all voters fit into those boxes. Every year Gallup divides the public into liberal, conservative, libertarian, and populist. In the 2014 survey the firm classified 27 percent of respondents as conservative and 24 percent as libertarian. Paul has the libertarian field all to himself.
Indeed, a 2006 Zogby poll for the Cato Institute asked respondents, Would you describe yourself as fiscally conservative and socially liberal? Fully 59 percent said yes, and only 27 percent said no. Thats a huge untapped market for a candidate who can cut across red-blue barriers.
Events of the past few years have pushed voters in a libertarian direction, causing some observers to talk about a libertarian moment in American politics. The financial crisis, the Wall Street bailouts, the $18 trillion national debt, and Obamacare created the tea party. The revelations about spying and surveillance since 2013 have caused grave concerns about privacy. Less traumatically, growing support for gay marriage and marijuana legalization shows the strength of libertarian attitudes in a country founded on the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The small band of neoconservatives who dominate conservative punditry have tried to ignore or dismiss Pauls chances on the grounds that his mildly non-interventionist foreign policy will make him unacceptable to Republican voters. They need to read more polls. Last June 75 percent of Americans, and 63 percent of Republicans, told CBS News/New York Times pollsters that the Iraq war wasnt worth the costs. Seventy percent of Republicans opposed military action in Syria. A massive Pew Research Center survey in December 2013 found that 52 percent of respondents, the highest number ever, said the United States should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own.
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Can Libertarian-Leaning Rand Paul Really Win the GOP Nomination?
Rand Paul greets supporters after speaking at the Galt House Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, yesterday. Photograph: William DeShazer/New York Times
Republican Rand Paul, the libertarian conservative senator, has declared a plan to take America back from an unpopular Washington establishment in announcing his candidacy for the presidency in 2016.
In a speech to a hotel ballroom full of raucous supporters in Louisville in his home state of Kentucky, the first-term senator set out a vision to appeal to a coalition of civil libertarians, fiscal conservatives and anti-war proponents on the fringe of the Republican Party.
Tapping the unpopularity of Washington by railing against the special interests of the political establishment and big government, Paul painted himself as an outsider, blaming Republicans and Democrats for the problems in the US.
The Christian senator took the stage at the Galt House hotel on the banks of the Ohio River to the strains of 1970s rock music and stood before a campaign banner slogan: Defeat the Washington machine; unleash the American dream.
The anti-establishment senator, a household political name since his nearly 13-hour filibuster in the US Senate about drone attacks on American citizens in 2013, is the second Republican to declare his candidacy, following another freshman senator, Ted Cruz of Texas.
Paul (52), a former ophthalmologist, will benefit from a base built by his father, Ron (79), the former Texas congressman who ran for the presidency three times and electrified a well-organised grassroots network of young libertarians, many of whom were new to politics.
Those supporters, who backed Ron Pauls isolationist foreign policy, have been less easy with the younger Paul, who has generally opposed military intervention but who said last year that war was a last resort and recently proposed a $190 billion (175 billion) increase in defence spending.
Entering the presidential race early, with 580 days to election day, Paul sought to challenge the perception that he is isolationist on foreign policy or weak-kneed on national security. He said: Conservatives should not succumb to the notion that a government inept at home will somehow succeed at building nations abroad.
I envision an America with a national defence unparalleled, undefeatable and unencumbered by overseas nation-building.
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Rand Paul enters 2016 US presidential race with battle cry to take America back
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. walks from the stage after speaking during the Conservative Political Action Conference in February. Carolyn Kaster/AP hide caption
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. walks from the stage after speaking during the Conservative Political Action Conference in February.
Rand Paul is not like other potential presidential candidates.
The Kentucky senator, who announced his candidacy for the White House on Tuesday morning, doesn't fit neatly into the molds of either party.
Socially liberal on issues of crime and punishment especially when it comes to drug sentencing against a federal ban on same-sex marriage, and no foreign policy hawk, he's not your prototypical Republican.
As a fiscal conservative and an opponent of abortion rights, though, he's certainly no Democrat either.
"It's time for a new way, a new set of ideas and a new leader," Paul says in a Web video, with a heavy metal soundtrack, previewing his presidential campaign.
Paul fits more with libertarians. And, though he is the scion of the last carrier of the torch of "liberty," he's also not quite his father's libertarian.
Paul's father, the former Rep. Ron, ran for president three times before retiring. The elder Paul, 79, was always regarded as something of a gadfly, an outspoken fresh voice in the Republican primary with a passionate following of young libertarians.
Though Paul did not win a single state in 2008 or 2012, when measured by Election Day voting percentage, he routinely finished in the top three. In fact, he finished a solid second behind Romney in the critical early state of New Hampshire.
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Conservative US Senator Rand Paul announced Tuesday he is running for the Republican Partys nomination for the 2016 presidential race. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images.
US Sen Rand Paul declared himself a candidate for the Republican nomination for president on Tuesday, aiming to upset the political order in Washington and disprove those in his own party who doubt that a fiercely libertarian conservative can be a serious contender.
Mr Pauls brand of politics could make him both an outlier and a target among his rivals. In a primary contest of candidates debating which of them is the most doctrinaire conservative, Mr Paul is likely to be the only one arguing for reducing federal drug penalties, clamping down on the nations intelligence agencies and taking a more deliberative approach to military intervention.
On social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage, however, he does not stray from the Republican Party line. Mr Paul (52), a Kentucky senatore, will become the second Republican to enter the 2016 campaign, following his colleague in the Senate, Ted Cruz of Texas. It will not remain a small field for long.
Packed field
Florida senator Marco Rubio is expected to announce his candidacy next week. Also waiting in the wings are Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, who are expected to declare soon, rounding out what Republicans say is perhaps their most competitive and robust slate of candidates since 1980, when Ronald Reagan faced competition from party heavyweights like George Bush and Howard Baker.
While Mr Pauls political resume may be short - he entered politics with the emergence of the Tea Party movement, winning election to the Senate in 2010, in his first run for office - he has built over the past year and a half what Republican strategists say are some of the most extensive political operations in the states that will vote first in the partys nominating process: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.
Much of the backbone for that political operation will come from the voters and volunteers who gave his father, former Texas representative Ron Paul, a base of energetic support in his own unsuccessful bids for the presidency in 2008 and 2012.
Varied constituencies
But Rand Paul has made it clear in his appeals over the past two years to constituencies as varied as students at black colleges, tech executives, movement libertarians and establishment Republicans that his intention is to seek out a far wider path to the nomination than his father did.
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Rand Paul joins race to be Republican presidential candidate
When the presidential buzz began building around Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) a couple of years ago, the expectation was that his libertarian ideas could make him the most unusual and intriguing voice among the major contenders in the 2016 field.
But now, as he prepares to make his formal announcement Tuesday, Paul is a candidate who has turned fuzzy, having trimmed his positions and rhetoric so much that its unclear what kind of Republican he will present himself as when he takes the stage.
Hes going to get his moment in the sun, said David Adams, who served as campaign chairman for Pauls insurgent 2010 Senate campaign. What he does with it from there will have bearing on the Republican Party.
There are at least two areas where Paul has moved more in line with the conservative Republican base, somewhat to the consternation of the purists in the libertarian movement: adopting a more muscular posture on defense and foreign policy, and courting the religious right.
Where he once pledged to sharply cut the Pentagons budget, for instance, Paul late last month proposed a $190billion increase over the next two years albeit one that would be paid for by cutting foreign aid and other government programs. His tour following the announcement of his candidacy will include an event at Patriots Point in South Carolinas Charleston Harbor, with the World War II-era aircraft carrier USS Yorktown as a backdrop.
With an optimistic speech surmising that "America's best days are ahead of us," Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) garnered big applause and chants of "President Paul" at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference. (AP)
[What Rand Pauls defense spending proposal tells us about his 2016 strategy]
The haziness over Pauls positions increased last week with his conspicuous silence on controversies in the realms of both national security and the cultural fronts.
Nearly all of his potential rivals for the 2016 GOP nomination have been vocal in their support for Indianas new religious liberties law, which critics say would allow discrimination against gays. And the Republican response to President Obamas nuclear negotiations with Iran has been widespread skepticism.
In both instances, Pauls office said he was vacationing with his family and would not comment.
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Rand Paul seems to stray from libertarian roots as he courts GOP base
KAREN TUMULTY AND ROBERT COSTA
Last updatedMon Apr 06 05:14:03 UTC 2015
LAURA BUCKMAN / Reuters
HIPSTER SENATOR?: Rand Paul talks during a session at the South by Southwest (SXSW) interactive, film and music conference in Austin, Texas, last month.
When the US presidential buzz began building around Senator Rand Paul a couple of years ago, the expectation was that his libertarian ideas could make him the most unusual and intriguing voice among the major contenders in the 2016 field.
But now, as he prepares to make his formal announcement on Tuesday (local time), the Kentucky Republican is a candidate who has turned fuzzy, having trimmed his positions and rhetoric so much that it's unclear what kind of Republican he will present himself as when he takes the stage.
"He's going to get his moment in the sun," said David Adams, who served as campaign chairman for Paul's insurgent 2010 Senate campaign. "What he does with it from there will have bearing on the Republican Party."
KEVIN LAMARQUE / Reuters
RIGHT-WING: Rand Paul speaks the CPAC conference in Maryland in February.
There are at least two areas where Paul has moved more in line with the conservative Republican base, somewhat to the consternation of the purists in the libertarian movement: adopting a more muscular posture on defense and foreign policy and courting the religious right.
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US Presidential candidate Rand Paul veers from libertarian positions