What’s a small-l libertarian to do?

Megan McArdle writes what I’m thinking at the moment: I’m afraid, as a libertarianish commentator, I don’t see all that much difference between them [Bush and Kerry]. I mean, really, in this election, what will I be voting about? Gay marriage? I don’t think it’s a good idea to handle it at the federal level ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

Megan McArdle writes what I'm thinking at the moment:

Megan McArdle writes what I’m thinking at the moment:

I’m afraid, as a libertarianish commentator, I don’t see all that much difference between them [Bush and Kerry]. I mean, really, in this election, what will I be voting about? Gay marriage? I don’t think it’s a good idea to handle it at the federal level (see Roe, Wade v.)–plus, neither candidate supports it. The budget deficit? While I think there is some marginal effect on interest rates of the budget deficit, ultimately I think that any such effect will be dwarfed by the long term problems of old-age entitlements, which neither party seems prone to touch. This puts me rather in the Milton Friedman camp: what we should worry about is not how spending is financed, but how high is the level of spending. And on that metric, the choice between Republicans and Democrats seems to be a case of “frying pan, meet fire”. In general, on any major foreign policy metric, the differences between the Republicans and the Democrats these days seem to be pretty trivial. I don’t really care whether or not George Bush’s marginal income tax changes are repealed or not. (I am in favour of the dividend changes and the estate tax changes, but for all I care, the Democrats can recoup all that lost income by raising the top rate even higher) . Nor am I either horrified, or elated, by John Kerry’s tax proposals so far. Overall, my reaction to all the policy proposals currently on the table is . . . er . . . akhfialsfahjfhajfhajhfuq93rujhiekhfa Sorry, I dozed off and my face hit the keyboard.

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Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

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