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Adrian Wyllie Libertarian Candidate for Florida Governor Town Hall
Online Town Hall on Wednesday, September 17th at 7pm at the Datex Center in Clearwater, FL . He will be taking questions from Twitter and Google as well as from the audience in attendance....
By: Adrian Wyllie
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Adrian Wyllie Libertarian Candidate for Florida Governor Town Hall - Video
The Republican Party's libertarian tide, which waxed strongly over the last four years, has begun to recede in the face of growing public fears about Islamic militancy in the Mideast.
The latest evidence of the shift comes from a Pew Research Center survey released Wednesday that shows, among other things, fewer conservatives are worried that government anti-terrorism activities will lead to violations of civil liberties. Concern over the tradeoff between civil liberties and security had risen sharply after Edward Snowden's revelations of the widespread surveillance by the National Security Agency, for which he had been a contractor.
Just a little more than a year ago, 47% of Americans said they were more concerned that government anti-terrorism policies had gone "too far in restricting the average person's civil liberties" compared with 35% who said they were more concerned those policies "have not gone far enough to adequately protect the country." A second Pew poll later in the fall found a similar result.
Now, however, only 35% say they are concerned that anti-terrorism policies have gone "too far" and 50% say their greater worry is that the policies will not go "far enough."
The Pew survey, conducted Sept. 2-9, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
The shift in public opinion comes mostly from the GOP side. Republicans went from an almost even division in November, 43% "too far" and 41% "not far enough," to a lopsided 24% "too far," 64% "not far enough" response in the current survey. Among Republicans, the shift was particularly strong among those who said they identify with the tea party movement.
Democrats remain closely divided on the issue, with self-identified liberals more likely to say they fear the government has gone "too far."
The split among Democrats has been notable in Congress, where a group of mostly western Democratic senators, led by Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, have been prominent critics of the NSA and the Obama administration's continuation of some surveillance policies adopted during the George W. Bush administration.
Among Republicans, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has led the critics of the NSA. His denunciations of government surveillance, highlighted by a 13-hour filibuster against the nomination of CIA Director John Brennan in March 2013, catapulted him into the first ranks of Republican presidential prospects.
But if the shift in the Republican mood persists, with growing support for the use of military force overseas and declining concern over civil liberties, Paul's appeal could wane. Notably, the senator has appeared to shift ground in recent days. Wednesday night, after Obama's speech, he said in an interview on Fox News that he was "all in for saying we have to combat ISIS.
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Libertarian mood in GOP wanes as Mideast concern rises
Senate campaign of Libertarian Robert Sarvis has a strong connection to the Roanoke Valley. Caleb Coulter (Cole-ter) is a Roanoke native who has been active in Republican politics. Last year, he sought the gop nomination for the 11th district seat in the House of Delegates. But recently, he left the gop and signed on as manager of the Sarvis campaign. Caleb Coulter/Sarvis Campaign Manager: i was attempting to be a part of a change for the better for the Republican party, that i think they could use if they want to stay valid in today's politics, and there's a lot of resistance to that change. And i think I'm a lot more comfortable with the Libertarian party. Sarvis is making his second run for statewide office in the last two years. Coming up at six, Political reporter Joe Dashiell will profile his Senate campaign.
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Former Roanoke Republican now serving as Sarvis campaign manager
OF YOUR SCREEN THERE. NO WORD YET ON WHY THE DRIVER WAS ON THE RUN. Janine Stanwood: ALMOST EVERYONE KNOWS RICK SCOTT AND CHARLIE CRIST ARE RUNNING TO GOVERNOR BUT DID YOU KNOW THERE'S A THIRD CANDIDATE IN THE RACE. HIS NAME IS ADRIAN WILY AND HE'S RUNNING AS A LIBERTARIAN. HE RECENTLY CAME TO LOCAL10 ON AND SAT DOWN WITH OUR SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER MICHAEL PUTNEY. I AM VEHEMENTLY OPPOSED TO COMMON CORE. COMMON CORE IS THE FEDERAL TAKE OVER OFF OUR LOCAL EDUCATION. Reporter: HE PULLS NO PUNCHES. HE DOESN'T THINK MUCH OF HIS MAINSTREAM OPPONENTS, REPUBLICAN RICK SCOTT AND DEMOCRAT CHERYL CRIST OR OF THE WAY BUSINESS IS DONE IN TALLAHASSEE. IT'S REALLY GOTTEN TO THE POINT IN THIS STATE WHERE IT SEEMS THAT WE HAVE A POLITICAL CLASS THAT IS NO LONGER INTERESTED IN TRULY WHAT THE PEOPLE ARE INTERESTED IN. Reporter: WILE SCOTT AND CRIST ARE INDISTINGUISHABLE POLITICAL, AND HE SAYS BOTH PUT SPECIAL INTERESTS ABOVE THE PUBLIC INTEREST. I'MA CONSTITUTIONALIST. I BELIEVE THAT PEOPLE HAVE INALIENABLE RIGHTS AND SHOULD BE LEFT TO LIVE THEIR LIVES AS THEY SEE FIT SO LONG AS THEY'RE NOT HARMING ANYONE ELSE. Reporter: WILY IS 44 YEARS OLD, MARRIED, THE FATHER OF TWO SONS. HE RUNS A SMALL I.T. COMPANY IN PALM HARBOR ON FLORIDA'S WEST COAST. THIS IS HIS FIRST TRY AT PUBLIC OFFICE. WHAT IS A LIBERTARIAN? HOW DO YOU DEFINE IT? YOU KNOW, I DEFINE IT AS SOMEONE WHO BELIEVES IN ECONOMIC FREEDOM, HAVE YOU HAD LIBERTY AND THAT GOVERNMENT SHOULD BASICALLY STAY OUT OF WALLETS, OUT OF OUR BEDROOM, AND OUT OF OUR BUSINESS. Reporter: THAT MEANS HE SUPPORTS SAME-SEX MARRIAGE, OPPOSED THE COMMON CORE STANDARDS LIKE SCHOOL CHOICE AND VOUCHERS, AND OPPOSED TO EXPANSION OF MEDICAID. SOME VOTERS LIKE WILY'S MESSAGE. IN A RECENT QUINN PEA AC POLL HE WAS FAVORED BY 9% OF FLORIDA VOTERS. THAT WAS REALLY A NONE OF THE ABOVE VOTE THAT PEOPLE SIMPLY COULDN'T STOMACH EITHER CHARLIE CRIST OR RICK SCOTT. I THINK I'M ABSOLUTELY AN NONE OF THE ABOVE VOTE BECAUSE PEOPLE REALIZE THAT THE TWO NAMES ABOVE ME ON THE BALLOT ARE MORE OF THE SAME. Reporter: WILE IS DEFINITELY NOT MORE OF THE SAME. HIS CHALLENGE, HOWEVER, IS GETTING HIS MESSAGE OUT WITH A CAMPAIGN BUDGET OF LESS THAN $100,000.
Read more:
Adrian Wyllie runs for Florida governor as Libertarian
If you watch Fox News and then MSNBC cover racial issues, you can see clearly that conversations between progressives and conservatives about race frequently bog down. This happens because each side is unwilling to vary how they present their argument, thus stifling true dialogue.
In the eyes of progressives, conservatives are too quick to blame the victim by laying the problems facing black communities at the feet of blacks themselves.
For their part, conservatives see progressive concerns with the structural problems that lead to racial disparity as attacks on an economic system that conservatives believe has done a great deal of good for all, including persons of color. They also see the progressive agenda as expanding the power of government in ways they disagree with.
Both retreat to their corners, with progressives rejecting the blame-the-victim mentality and conservatives thinking that structural racism is code for ignorantly rejecting markets.
There is a way around this unwillingness to engage. Two recent events have pointed out how. The events in Ferguson have brought out libertarian voices like Rand Paul who have long argued that the militarization of local police forces have disproportionately harmed people of color, especially in the enforcement of the War on Drugs.
Author Matt Ridley on the media backlash and Twitter outrage over his op-ed Whatever Happened to Global Warming? Photo credit: Getty Images.
As the tragedy in Missouri continues, libertarian-leaning Rep. Paul Ryan has introduced a new anti-poverty program that includes a focus on the ways in which government intervention in labor markets has worked to make it much harder for poor Americans, especially ones of color, to move up the income ladder.
What both share is a belief that racial disparities need not be the result of direct person-to-person racism or the failings of minority communities. Rather, it is structural racism at work, and it concerns both libertarians and progressives, and it should concern conservatives.
When mostly white local police forces get military gear and supplies for SWAT teams and then use them to prosecute a War on Drugs that is far more likely to target black than white users, you have structural racism.
When mostly white politicians, often at the behest of mostly white businesspeople, pass occupational licensure and zoning laws that raise the cost of entering occupations or engaging in home-based businesses that are particularly attractive to non-whites, you have structural racism.
Excerpt from:
Outside the Box: How libertarians can bridge the political divide over race