Crook on Libertarians

Clive Crook explains why libertarians are lonely:

Today's main political battle is between those who want to run the economy from Washington and those who want to dictate the country's morals from Washington. (George Bush's Republican Party apparently wants to do both.) And we libertarians should not delude ourselves: If this is true, it is not because politics is letting people down but because most Americans feel comfortable in one or the other of those camps.

Crook is right that we get the kind of government we want. If libertarians want to win the battle of Washington, rather than simply airing their ideas to one another at Ayn Rand conventions, they have to make their point of view more palatable to the median voter. A politically successful libertarianism would have to be moderate and pragmatic.