SmarterthanYou
rebel
The rise of Libertarianism

If Fox News were to decide to put Napolitano on the air, his show would undoubtedly shake up the nice, little comfortable world of the statists. Both conservatives and liberals would undoubtedly be stunned, shell-shocked, and dumbfounded over how to deal with a television show filled with purist, hard-hitting libertarians challenging the fundamental premises of the welfare-warfare state that is so beloved to conservatives and liberals.
Well, I can’t say that the statists who appeared on the judge’s inaugural show this past weekend were stunned, shell-shocked, and dumbfounded, but I can say that for the first time in television history, they were challenged to address libertarian positions by a libertarian television talk-show host. For that reason alone, it was an absolutely incredible hour in the history of the libertarian movement.
After all, for years libertarians and the libertarian perspective have, by and large, been shut out of the television talk-show circuit. The debate has almost always been between liberals and conservatives. In other words, it’s always been a debate — if you can call it that — involving one form of statism versus another form of statism — that is, over which statist reform program should be adopted — the liberal one or the conservative one. The libertarian perspective — abolishing and dismantling statist welfare-warfare programs in favor of freedom, peace, and the free market simply has not been presented, much less discussed.
That all seems to be changing. Libertarianism is on the rise, as reflected most recently by the spate of articles attacking libertarianism, from both the left and the right. The statists are undoubtedly sensing the rising number of people who are now exploring libertarianism or even calling themselves libertarians. The statists are obviously getting nervous or even running scared.
