I've been listening to a multi-blog conversation about liberaltarianism, a political neologism for the views of a number of smart folks who find little of value in the current political coalitions in the US. Both the Republicans and the Democrats are factions of a single political party variously described as some type of fascism (e.g participatory fascism), which is in turn a flavor of socialism ("we are all socialists now"). This excerpt from one of several articles and blog posts by Will Wilkinson strikes somewhere in the vicinity of the heart of the issue.

I’m not that interested in short-term partisan politics. I’m interested in a much longer-term project. I want to help create the possibility of a popular political identity that takes the value of human liberty, in all its aspects, really seriously. As I see it, this project involves an attempt to reunify the separate strands of the American liberal tradition. . .

. . . the most common forms of libertarianism are, I think, still pretty well shot through with conservative reflexes bred by the long Cold War alliance between libertarians and the right. For many libertarians, hating the left just feels like home. So many libertarians will indeed come running home when called to service by the organs of partisan conservativism. Well, good luck to y’all, but I was never on the team, and I’ve never wanted less to be on it. I’d rather work the long angle.

I think Obama and the Democrats are already in the process of screwing it up. The romance of transformative hope is going to wear off pretty quick as all-but-uncontested Democratic policy deepens and lengthens the recession. There’s a lot of culturally and psychologically liberal people out there who are, and are going to be, interested in a liberalism that actually works. I want to use this time of ferment to work on developing the missing option in American politics: an authentically liberal governing philosophy that understands that limited government, free markets, a culture of tolerance, and a sound social safety net are the best means to better lives.

Taking "the value of human liberty, in all its aspects, really seriously" is understood as "an authentically liberal governing philosophy that understands that limited government, free markets, a culture of tolerance, and a sound social safety net are the best means to better lives."

Rejecting the fascism of the socialists while still advocating a social safety net cuts across the grain of current political wood. Many are talking about this now, though the ideas are not new news. This Virginia Postrel comment restates the idea in more specific terms.

When you get political theorists together, they assume the big divide is over the relative weights given to equality and liberty–the old Rawls vs. Nosick split. But given the right flavor of liberals and libertarians, that’s bridgeable. The real division, I believe, is over regulation. Contemporary liberals will say, as someone did at dinner in DC, that they are against stupid regulations like the controls on trucking abolished in the late 1970s. And I’m glad for that.

But finding liberals who oppose any new regulation is almost impossible–no matter what the perverse consequences. . .

Unfortunately, once you are ideologically committed to the idea of regulation, you can’t say that a given regulation is bad–or, worse, that maybe doing nothing new would have been the best course.

I would add that it isn't just liberals who use regulation as a blunt instrument. Conservatives are just as avid but wish to regulate different things, or the same things in different ways.

I find the liberaltarian view to be comfortable, attractive, in part because it mirrors my views about sensible agronomic practice. Bear with me. You might think that such analogy and comparison is strained - if your eyes start to glaze over then move along, there's nothing for you here.

By analogy, liberals and conservatives are brute force industrial farmers who seek to minutely control their fields. They justify this as the scientific means to maximize output, but it is also a temperamental preference for strict order and risk avoidance. Libertarians are the flower children - organic growers, permaculturists, voodoo ag victims - who trust that things will work out for the best when nature is allowed to take its course. Jupiter will align with Mars and their moons will be in the seventh house. Love will fill the world.

Liberaltarians, in this analogy, see that the planets will not soon align without some help, and so are willing to use some brute force methods. By this definition I am a liberaltarian. I do what I can to make my fields self sufficient as well as productive, but will use selected fertilizers to help them become healthier in future. If an animal is sick I'll happily medicate it, to do otherwise is stupid and cruel. It's an ag analogy of a social safety net.

I natter on about soil tilth, organic matter, nitrogen fixing plants and bacteria, soil minerals and PH, biochar, beneficial fungi and glomalin, ad nauseum. I'm aware of and cater to the lifecycles of plants and livestock, managing them both for the benefit of both, seeing them in some ways as being functional modules of a single integrated organism of which I too am a functional module. But to do it well requires some external inputs, a safety net that helps the natural processes become stronger and more effective. The end goal of a society (i.e. farms and fields) that is so robust that it no longer requires a safety net won't be reached soon if ever. It's a goal, a direction vector, but you never actually arrive.

This, like Wilkinson's liberaltarianism, is working the long angle. I'm not suggesting that this is extraordinary. Society is peppered with malcontents who don't fully support the participatory fascism of Democrats and Republicans, and a few of them are high profile growers. Joel Salatin's opposition to regulation - everything he wants to do is illegal - from a socially conservative, religious, nuclear family perspective sounds an unusual note in the fascist kumbaya. Wendell Berry sounds another off note celebrating private property as the only viable method to achieve good land management, though he is also socially conservative and a not unwilling darling of the fascist left. There are many others speaking diverse forms of heresy.

Neither am I suggesting that this will ever amount to anything. Liberaltarianism is no match for fascism. At best it can provide some comfort for those who plainly see the nastiness and feel isolated or excluded. They are not alone.