Most young conservatives have designs on the movement ("Conservatism, will you come bust up this chiffarobe?"), but there's always the danger that the conservatism you're selling will exclude some otherwise loyal wing of the Right. However, I'm still looking for reasons not to alienate the libertarians. As the justifications for economic freedom become more empirical and less ideological, the extent to which libertarianism was ever "of the Right" becomes less clear, and I'm not sure that liberals my age like political freedom less than I do. Insofar as they're willing to use the language of "rights" when I'm not (that is to say, ever), maybe more.
But there may be a reason to keep them around even if we decide that, where conservatism is going, libertarian thought cannot follow. This from William F. Buckley's introduction to Did You Ever See a Dream Walking? (o.o.p.):
It is intellectually stimulating to discuss alternatives to municipalized streets, even as it is to speculate on whether God’s wishes would better be served if we ordered fried or scrambled eggs for breakfast on this particular morning. Yet conservatives must concern themselves not only with ideals, but with matters of public policy, and I mean by that something more than the commonplace that one must maneuver within the limits of conceivable action... Chesterton reminds us that many dogmas are liberating because the damage they do when abused cannot compare with the damage that might have been done had whole peoples not felt their inhibiting influence. If our society seriously wondered whether to denationalize the lighthouses, it would not wonder at all whether to nationlize the medical profession.Libertarianism-as-noble-lie justifies its coexistence in the movement, although admittedly not its existence in the mind of any given conservative, (Sorry, JM.), and, the more I read Reason, the less I think anything can.
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