Libertarians for Webb

In response to this article, I wrote the author the following e-mail. Thoughts?

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Hi David,

I enjoyed this article and was glad that you came to your provisional conclusion:

"It might be in libertarians' best interest to ally with Democrats for this election."

I found it insightful until the last few paragraphs, when I think you moved a little bit away from your initial cogent analysis:

"Even when [the Democrats] are railing against NSA wiretapping, they're wishing they could be passing higher taxes and entitlement payouts."

It's certainly up to you whether or not you'd be let down by some future Democratic majority that you helped elect solely because it was preferable to a Republican one, but I think that last sentence of yours I quoted was off the mark. All of our politicians these days love entitlement payouts: the Democrat or Republican label simply tells you which ones. Republicans spend more on tax breaks and the military; Democrats spend more on social programs and the environment. Neither party wants to do the responsible and correct thing, which would be to cut taxes AND cut spending. Jonah Goldberg of the National Review recently said that George W. was spending like a pimp with a week to live--what a reversal of the party line! Libertarians might end up rightly being disappointed by Democrats they elect for their own reasons, but no Democrat wants to raise taxes just to raise taxes. I think that increasing spending and increasing taxes, while terrible, is always better than increasing spending and decreasing taxes, which can lead to a recession. I'm open to revision on this position.

I hope this is helpful--I'm glad we both agree that we need more people like James Webb.