Rand Paul wins republican primary

Are you forgetting ,in your bile you spew about Palin that she endorsed him unlike many in the Republican party?

Is this a step towards the republican party becoming more libertarian?

You seriously think there isn't a significant portion of the population - including quite a few politicians - who would like nothing more than for all those dirty Mexicans to go back to Mexico and never return?

I was referring more to the Tea Party's quite insistent claims that taxes are currently extremely high. No matter how you look at it, that's not true. Perhaps taxes will rise in the future, and perhaps they have ground to stand on, but the rhetoric they're using to convince people is based on deliberately misleading statements. That's intellectually dishonest.

As pointed out by others in the thread, the Republican party is still the party of social authoritarians in the US and, given the place of religion in the US, it is very difficult to imagine that changing any time soon. That points to the election of Rand Paul as being a one-off.

You need to stop listing to the BBC for your US news and try to get yourself access to some US-based news sources if you think it's the social issues that are motivating the tea party to reshaping and reinvigorate the republican party. The future of the GOP is going to be all about smaller less wasteful government. Republicans lost their focus in recent years and that's why we have democrat majorities, but that is soon going to change. The political climate is extremely hostile to democrats and some democrats have resorted to campaigning against obama to get elected. Obama is such a toxic and polarizing figure that many democrats don't want him on the same stage.

I'm a registered republican because I want smaller government, less taxes, and less wasteful spending. Outside the bible belt, republicans are republicans because of their positions on economic issues, not social issues.

The entire tea party movement that is retiring democrats all over the country has absolutely nothing to do with social issues. In fact, there have been many polls done of tea party members that show that it's low taxes and spending that they want, not school prayer or creationism or any of that nonsense the BBC is always yapping about.

In Florida, Charlie Crist used to be a popular governor, but he supported the stimulus that cost us 800 billion without creating a single job. Because of this, he now has to run as an independent becasue he was on the verge of getting slaughtered by tea party backed Marco Rubio in the next election for senator. All over the country we are seeing tax and spend republicans and democrats defeated by fiscally conservative republicans. For the first time in over a year, I am really getting very optimistic about the future of our country. Obama, Pelosi, and Reid were very big mistakes that we are working on correcting.

Why did you quote me? Nothing you said is really relevant to what I said. My point was that people aren't really going to rapidly become more socially liberal than they are now, so the idea that this is the start of a libertarian revolution is misguided. As you say, the tea party is mostly about economic issues; that means it isn't likely to bring a libertarian social agenda to the GOP. It's focused on economic liberalism, not libertarianism.

You seem to think libertarianism is all about a "libertarian social agenda", but what you are missing is the economic side of libertarianism, something that is a whole lot more relevant in this political climate. The democrats are better for the libertarian social agenda. The republicans are better for the libertarian economic agenda and that's far more important right now as we spend our way into oblivion and are on track to become the next greece.

I have no idea what Paul's position is on gay rights or abortion, but he probably thinks it's a decision best left up to the states to decide upon. As for him being anti-immigration, yes, you are totally confused, because there is no US mainstream politician who is anti-immigration. Anti-ILLEGAL immigration, yes, but no US politician is opposed to legal immigration. Do you think we should just have open borders and let anyone walk into the country? I'm not aware of any country that has a policy like that.

I'm not missing the economic side. It's simply that libertarianism covers both economic and social ideas. A movement that is focused on economic policy (and contains members with a mix of social views) cannot really be called a libertarian movement. The GOP won't become libertarian (which was the OP's hope) unless it addresses both, but, as I said a couple of posts ago, there is no indication that there is any significant change in social ideas in the Republican Party (and, indeed, there is reason to think it won't occur for a while).

Maybe we should look at Rand Paul's stance on segregation!

All he said was that he wasn't too keen on the idea of government telling a private business who they could or couldn't do business with. I can see where he is coming from, he just hates the idea of a government trying to regulate every aspect of a person's life. At least he is consistent with his thinking.

Maybe we should look at Rand Paul's stance on segregation!

This is the kind of thing I would let Ron Paul, a consistent libertarian, say. But when his son says it, a man who is a lot more iffy on social issues like drugs and homosexuality - it seems dodgy because its clearly not such a consistent ideological principle anymore.

As for the whole debate on republican social issues, I'm saddened by the stance of Rand Paul on them and by the sounds of it tea party people are a bit crap with them, even worse then the current republicans. Why can't they be consistently libertarian like Ron Paul dammit.

Hopefully they're SO fiscally conservative they're anti-Imperialist on economic grounds at least, but I don't want to get my hopes up on that either.

Are you sure father and son disagree on social issues? I have seen Rand Paul interviewed and when asked about what issues he disagrees with his dad on, he never mentions any social issues as a sticking point.

I'm starting to get the feeling that libertarian means different things on different sides of the atlantic. To me if you want low taxes and economic freedom, that's good enough, and that's why so many libertarians find there home in the GOP. It seems like in UK and Europe, you guys see it more about social issues like drugs and gay rights.

I'm not sure what you mean about tea party people being crap on social issues. The polls show that they have absolutely no interest at all in social issues. Is apathy about social issues crap? The movement isn't about gays, drugs and abortions, never was

Yup, apathy - and I'm not really talking about abortions. But if you want small government and government out of your life it seems like the perfect chance to get them out of your personal life as well, but they seem fine with Obama telling people they can't have equalgay rights, or use medical marijuana. Seems hypocritical to choose one aspect of being libertarian but not the other. But our conservative party is a toned down version of that anyways so we ARE used to it in the UK.

Which party is the libertarian leaning party in the UK? The UK Independence Party? We actually have a libertarian party but it is so small and obscure that I doubt many people even know it exists.

Well we have a libertarian party and believe me, it makes your one look HUGE. I'm a paying member and active campaigner of it, but the last time I went to the south-west UK branch there were 3 of us there. The last time I campaigned there were 3 of us there. There are around 400 members and in the last election we stood in 2 seats out of 650, and in the two seats we got 40 votes in one and 140 in the other. So believe me, your libertarian party isnt that small, I'm jealous of it.

UKIP is basically the republican party because its economically libertarian but not socially. Its REALLY tough on immigration and that puts people like me right off it. They're a lot bigger than the libertarian party, they got a million votes (remember we have a small pop so thats better then you'll think it sounds) but with our voting system that translates into 0 seats because their vote isnt condensed anywhere.

The conservative party has some libertarian members, you may have heard of Daniel Hannan for example? They're traditionally the free-market party but they have various non-libertarian traditions e.g. imperialism (not that we have an Empire now obviously, but when we did they were the party of it), they love the monarchy too etc. So theres some differences between USA and UK conservatives. To go really far into history we used to be whigs vs tories. The conservatives came from tories and the liberals came from whigs, but the republicans in the USA came from whigs too, so historically your right-wing party OPPOSES our one, of course though our liberal party lost its way over a century ago and became a party of the welfare state rather then the whigs small government philosophy.

The liberal democrats have some libertarians in them as well actually, despite being pro-EU and quite leftie (rhetoric on "greedy bankers" and higher taxes on rich etc), but I think libertarians like their social policy e.g. they'd legalise weed, and their foreign policy because they opposed Iraq - and its not like they're socialist like labour (traditionally anyway, new labour is centre I guess), they're meant to be economically centrist.

So to sum up, 4 parties will contain libertarians - conservatives, liberal democrats, UKIP and the libertarian party. It depends on emphasis e.g. economic or social policy, and it depends on pragmatism, are you willing to be in a minor party. Overall the biggest libertarian influence is in the conservative party but of course they're a minority of it, just like they are in the republican party.

Libertians are finding a home in the republican party though, so it seems that it fits the mold a lot better the democrat party. Without economic freedom, there really is no social freedom. A citizen can't go about living his life free from government oppression when a socialist party is destroying his business with brutal and oppressive taxation.