San Francisco Chronicle

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With ‘freedom’ in fashion, is libertarianism back?
San Francisco Chronicle

Something’s going on in America this election year: a renaissance of an ideal as old as the nation itself — that live-and-let-live, get-out-of-my-business, individualism vs. paternalism dogma that is the hallmark of libertarianism.

“It is a rebirth,” said Skousen, and a reaction to a feeling shared by many that America has moved too far afield from its founding principles. “This country was established for the very thing that we’re fighting right now: excessive government control of our lives. In today’s world everything is either prohibited or mandated. You have to have medical insurance. You have to wear a seat belt. They have to pat you down (at the airport).”

Skousen has a simple analogy for all of this: “If you restrict a teenager, they rebel. I think that’s what people are feeling.”

In a 2010 paper, Cato concluded that libertarians “are increasingly a swing vote, a bigger share of the electorate than the much discussed ‘soccer moms’ of the 1990s or ‘NASCAR dads’ of the early 2000s, and bigger than many of the micro-targeted groups pursued by political strategists in the 2004 and 2008 elections.”

Voilà un mouvement plus intéressant, intelligent et mature que les chaudrons québécois. En bonus, contrairement aux carrés rouges, il n’y aura pas de violence dans les rues.