I just read an opinion piece by Julia Gorin in the Wall Street Journal tonight, which seems to be trying to poke fun at the Libertarian Party. Well, I thought it was funny…

Gorin starts out by identifying the Libertarian Party and its 2004 Presidential candidate, and a brief synopsis of the LP’s politics:

Most of us have heard at least vaguely the party’s guiding principles, which usually center on a “government out” ideology that says the government has exactly two functions: to protect citizens from foreign attackers, and to create and defend a body of law that protects citizens’ property rights and physical safety. There is also an emphasis on personal liberty and individual responsibility.

Which is true enough, as far as it goes. Then she begins telling Libertarian jokes, some of them not exactly suitable for general audiences. Consider this gem:

Someone who thinks he should get a medal for being home in time for dinner and helping the kids with homework regardless of what the lower part of his anatomy was doing earlier in the day.

In fact, this person seems overly preoccupied with sex for some reason. Perhaps she isn’t getting any?

Politically, the Libertarian world isn’t a bad place to be. Libertarians have more credibility with the left than Republicans do, even though their conservative side is callous compared with the charitable Christian right. And they have more credibility with the right than Democrats do, despite being more godless than the left. If Republicans and Democrats are the thesis and antithesis, Libertarians are a synthesis.

Callous? Just because we believe people should give freely out of the goodness of their hearts, rather than being forced at gunpoint? Godless? She also calls Libertarians atheists elsewhere in the article. We believe politics is not a good place for religion, and vice versa.

Let me break it down for you. In an ideal utopia, government would not even be necessary, because everyone would treat everyone else with dignity, respect, compassion and love. (See the Greek agape and Matthew 22:34-40.) Unfortunately, humans are far from perfect. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…” The proper role of government is to protect its citizens from anyone, foreign or native, who would kill them, steal from them, etc. In other words, if you aren’t bothering anybody, do what you like.

The U.S. government has morphed into something entirely different. One former resident of the Soviet Union, now living in the U.S., says of the U.S. today:

I was born and lived many years in the USSR. I know how it looked like from inside.

Now I live in US (I’m a US citizen) and it is painfully obvious that US is slowly but inexorably becoming a replica of the good ol’ USSR. Blame Republicans for playing the scare and morals cards, blame Democrats for playing the equality and compassion cards. Blame American people for buying in to the collectivist bullshit pushed by the politicans on all sides of the “mainstream” political spectrum and forgetting what this nation was supposed to be about.

Indeed. It is time for the U.S. to return to the principles on which it was founded, and that is what the Libertarian Party is about. It isn’t often successful, and it suffers from a great deal of infighting between one faction which hasn’t yet figured out you can’t reverse 200 years of damage in a day, and another faction that has learned it is quite sufficient to simply move in the right direction. Much has been said about this, and Tim West covers it well. See also The Modern American.

Notwithstanding the trouble with the party, anywhere a Libertarian has gotten into office, the end result has been smaller government with less interference in citizens’ lives. In other words, while Republicans and Democrats promise, Libertarians deliver.