So Matt, on a personal note, what drew you to the RLC and how did you become Chairman of the California chapter?
After becoming actively involved locally in the Sonoma County Republican Party, I looked for a larger Republican organization that promotes libertarian philosophy. I discovered the RLC and was inspired by their Statement of Principles and Positions.
Several other Sonoma Republicans joined me and we organized under the banner of the Republican Liberty Caucus to do political activism in our neighborhoods, on the street, and within the county Republican Party. Subsequently, in February 2009, I attended the state convention of the California Republican Party. I connected with RLC'ers from other parts of California, and was elected chairman. It has been an exciting year!
I noticed that the RLC welcomes constitutionalists, libertarians, classical liberals, and free market advocates. Will you expand on that?
All of the groups you mentioned agree that the government, and specifically the federal government, is too big. Constitutionalists believe the federal government is too big because it is doing more than is authorized by the Constitution. Classical liberals believe that people can best improve their lives without government "help" (or interference) and without the temptation and danger of becoming dependent on government welfare programs. Free market advocates believe that the government should not try to regulate, "stimulate", "bail-out" or otherwise interfere our economy. (Yet strangely some self-proclaimed "free market advocates" support macro-level government interference in the economy via the Federal Reserve and the banking cartels controlling national lending policies and the supply of fiat currency.)
So all of the above groups believe that the federal government should be significantly smaller than it is today. That is a huge piece of common ground. The RLC comes into the picture because we take that common ground and work to turn it into a specific political strategy: we work as a caucus within the Republican Party to promote candidates that support these ideals.
Since I consider myself a conservative, what caught my attention was that the RLC welcomes "tolerant conservatives." How would you describe a “tolerant conservative”?
We welcome all who support the RLC Statement of Principles and Positions. And, to answer your question, I would describe a “tolerant conservative” as a fiscal conservative who believes the government should not attempt to regulate the private lives of citizens. By “regulate” I mean things like: restricting freedom of speech, compelling military service, interfering in relationships between consenting adults, outlawing adult consumption of recreational drugs, and requiring the use of a national ID card.
Article comments
1 - Arch Conservative
Hey Christine, do you wanna start a pool on how many seats the Demokrats are going to lose this fall?
I wonder how siding with illegals over dead Arizona ranchers and high school students wearing the American flag will go over.
2 - Christine
Hey Arch: I hope the Dems lose a lot of seats!
3 - Arch Conservative
I hope they lose a plethora of seats.
Can't say that I'm overly happy about those seats being taken over by a party that views John McCain and Sarah Palin as people to be taken seriously.
4 - zingzing
archie: "I wonder how siding with illegals over [...] high school students wearing the American flag will go over."
who's condemning the students? got any names? or just making shit up?
5 - Doug Hunter
"who's condemning the students? got any names? or just making shit up?"
No one. One school administrator made a poor decision and I believe his story that the concern was safety. I get the impression that the US flag wearers were intentionally being antagonistic towards immigrant students, something I don't support; although it (antagonism, baiting) is a favorite tool of protesters everywhere and a protected right.
As for the article, I like the ideas the Republican Liberty caucus is bringing forward, liberal social policy and classic liberal economic policy. We need to be slashing government and at the same time trying to find ways to increase tax revenue without killing the economy. This music's going to stop on this game of debt musical chairs one day and we going to find out there's alot more butts needing seats than there are seats to be found. The private debt debacle is chump change compared to the tinderbox we have with government debt.
6 - Doug Hunter
Note on above: total amounts of private debt are higher than public debt, but there is no backstop for public debt.
7 - zingzing
wow, doug and i actually agree on something. the world implodes in 3, 2...
8 - roger nowosielski
The public debt has become "socialized," Doug, a distinction without a difference.
Read Les Slater's comment (#1) on Kenn Jacobine's article.
9 - El Bicho
Good interview, although since there's only one speaker, there's no need to identify every time he speaks.
I do wonder why he, like similar folk, only offers generalities about what his group wants to do but never specifics.
"We work to recruit and support candidates who will reduce the size of the federal government, and also the size of state and local governments."
Sounds great in theory, but he offered nothing about how to accomplish it, so why should a voter think they will do anything once in power.
10 - Christine
Ah, El, did I mess up the format?
11 - Dave Nalle
EB, when the alternative is a candidate who has not the slightest interest in reducing the size of any element of government - and usually the exact opposite - you might want to roll the dice and see what solutions the person who at least has the right intentions will come up with.
Dave
12 - El Bicho
As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. If someone is running for office, they should have solutions in mind before getting the job not afterward. The latter course signals they have no confidence they will get the job.
13 - STM
Republican liberty. Isn't that an oxymoron?
And is that a ponytail Matt appears to be wearing in the pic with Ron Paul???
I could understand if it was white and powdered, tied with a ribbon, with rolls at the side and held in place by a three-cornered hat, but beyond that ...
14 - El Bicho
btw, if this was done "exclusively for Blogcritics Magazine", why is it posted elsewhere online?