by Matt Barr

"Help is on the way"

John Samples has an interesting, thorough post on some Pew Research data that has some unexpected news about how widely held (relative to what you'd expect) many ideas about economic and social freedom are. I don't think his conclusion is a home run, though:

One-third of Pew’s libertarians are between 18 and 29 years of age. Libertarians are thus fifty percent more likely to be found among the young than in the population as a whole. They are also much more likely to be found among the youngest cohort than are conservatives or populists.

So the present may seem bleak for libertarians. But just wait. Help is on the way.

I don't think it follows that these 18-29 year olds will form a surging tide of liberty 'cross the land. Younger people don't want anyone to tell them what to do. But then they have kids and start lobbying for mandatory soccer helmets and V-chips that can be implanted directly in skulls. Everything -- everything -- that was against the law but they thought shouldn't be when they were 20 they want punished harshly enough to deter their progeny. As they work to support the family, "economic freedom" means the ability of their employer to cut benefits and outsource to India. None of this seems as cool as it did five years before.

Then, nature being one big cycle, when the progeny gets in to Duke they want the government to get their grubby hands off what little money they have left. But in the meantime whatever support there was for libertarian ideas is distinctly bell-shaped when graphed across age. So help may be on the way, but it's apt to take a detour through prime child bearing and rearing years.

The wild card is the father of the teenage girl, who is likely to amass as impressive a gun collection as possible to show to prospective suitors. That's where the libertartian parent base is.

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