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NOTES FROM THE SNIPER'S PERCH. Julian Sanchez asks:
You think we're [Libertarians] toxically nuts? Try hitching your wagon to a movement that will use your nice rhetoric about environmental and labor standards as a fig leaf for raw xenophobia. Won't that be fun?I don't know, but since Libertarians have long hitched to a movement that used their nice rhetoric of individualism and liberty as a fig leaf for rank racism and regressive traditionalism, I hardly think they occupy such unimpeachable moral ground here.Democrats are betting that if they can ease economic anxieties through social welfare policies, the rumbling xenophobia powering Dobbsian populism will calm. It seems a decent bet. Much better than the Liberaltarian gambit, at least, which counsels ignoring these people in favor of the three percent of the vote that doesn't like the welfare state. Relatedly, Julian warns that the entitlement explosion is coming "either way," which he seems to think militates towards bringing Libertarians into the liberal coalition and I seem to think requires keeping them the hell out and making a forthright argument for more monopsonistic health care policy and, yes, higher taxes. Devolving Medicare and Social Security and turning health insurance into a sea of $30,000 deductibles isn't terribly likely to result in open borders and a rainbow of tolerance.--Ezra Klein
