Back to Gandhi:br /br /blockquotespan style="font-style:italic;"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win./span/blockquotebr /br /Libertarian thought is emerging--one might even say oozing out around the edges--into the political discourse these days.br /br /One reason, I suspect [and hope], is that Libertarians are becoming more and more willing to stand up and confront social conservatives, who were never really small-government advocates, and who have proven [at least the political leaders] to be quite willing to use both force and fraud not only to maintain their hold on power, but to remove essential civil liberties from the American people.br /br /Or maybe--as Robert Heinlein would have put it--we're just in ithe silly season/i.br /br /But when you see Libertarianism used in such throwaway fashion as the a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/us/25pig.html"NYT/a does here:br /br /blockquotespan style="font-style:italic;"No one really knows what to call the 150-pound pig roaming free in Panama City, Fla., but by eluding the authorities for five months, shaking off a Taser and four tranquilizer darts on Tuesday, the porker has become more than just swine.br /br /span style="font-weight:bold;"The pig is now a local libertarian hero/span. Supporters describe the animal as a freedom-loving outlaw with a taste for corn. His Facebook page lists more than 200 fans, like Mary K. Sittman, who asked this week, “Is the pig a symbol of our desire to live free of government controls?”/span/blockquotebr /br /... then you realize several implicit assumptions that the author of the piece has made:br /br /1) The majority of his readers will understand the term ilibertarian/i and equate it with a significant minority political view in Americabr /br /2) The majority of his readers will understand that libertarianism has something to do with championing personal freedom against the governmentbr /br /Five years ago I don't think that would have been the case.br /br /Another example of Libertarianism oozing in through the cracks:br /br /In North Carolina, after Libertarian Gubernatioral candidate Michael Munger and Senatorial candidate Chris Cole both did far better than expected in 2008, a href="http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2009/07/north-carolina-tax-department-will-honor-taxpayer-requests-to-help-libertarian-party/"the North Carolina Department of Taxation has started to honor requests to send voluntary contributions to the Libertarian Party/a, something previously reserved only for GOPers and Dems. [If you are wondering how Libertarians can see their way to cash the checks, remember: it's a voluntary donation, not a diversion of tax funds.]br /br /And closer to home in Sussex County:br /br /a href="http://www.delawareliberal.net/2009/07/24/around-the-horn-july-24-2009/#comments"Delawareliberal's own jason has joined his co-blogger Delawaredem in endorsing the candidacy of Libertarian Wendy Jones for the 19th District Senate seat/a over Barbie [oops, iPolly/i]. No, I don't think either jason or DD has suddenly developed a taste for Libertarian politics, but faced with a truly horrendous Democratic candidate they can't hold back the vomit in their throats to support, a Libertarian actually offers them a more palatable alternative than either the Republican Booth or the ifaux/i independent Opaleski.br /br /This is success. It is incremental success thanks to the people who [unlike me] are doing the heavy shoveling for Libertarianism as a viable political philosophy: Michael Munger, Chris Cole, Tom Knapp, and our own Brian Shields.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7893272060787897238-4650218679484321385?l=delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com'//div
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