Who Shot Rick Santorum?

The ex-Senator from Pennsylvania certainly made enemies of the Cato variety with this:

...One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a libertarianish right. You know, the left has gone so far left and the right in some respects has gone so far right that they touch each other. They come around in the circle. This whole idea of personal autonomy, well I don’t think most conservatives hold that point of view. Some do. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. You know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can’t go it alone. That there is no such society that I am aware of, where we’ve had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.

The Cato-ites were in high dudgeon, of course.

He declared himself against individualism, against libertarianism, against “this whole idea of personal autonomy, . . . this idea that people should be left alone.” Now he’s also against the conservative idea that taxpayers matter, that the federal government has a limited role.

Of course, the Cato crowd is wrong about a few details. Feddie provides a bit more, now from Huckabee, who drew a LOT of scorn from the Libertarian-leaners.

Republicans need to be Republicans. The greatest threat to classic Republicanism is not liberalism; it’s this new brand of libertarianism, which is social liberalism and economic conservatism, but it’s a heartless, callous, soulless type of economic conservatism because it says “look, we want to cut taxes and eliminate government. If it means that elderly people don’t get their Medicare drugs, so be it. If it means little kids go without education and healthcare, so be it.”

Well, that might be a quote pure economic conservative message, but it’s not an American message. It doesn’t fly. People aren’t going to buy that, because that’s not the way we are as a people. That’s not historic Republicanism. Historic Republicanism does not hate government; it’s just there to be as little of it as there can be. But they also recognize that government has to be paid for.

If the Pubbies buy into the social liberal/econ conservatism yappaflappa as described by Huckabee, they will also recede to Congressional numbers which resemble those of the FDR days.

We can, and should, have debates about 'how much Gummint is TOO much Gummint.' See Wiggy's post on the topic here for starters. But the lumpen-draconian libertarian MeMeMeMe stuff is simply not Conservatism. It is selfishness.