Most of us eventually have to grow up. If you look at the earliest posts on this blog, I’m embarrassed to admit that you’ll see that I started out as a Neo-Con, or at least something similar. I used to think that if the U.S. did something, internationally, it was axiomatic that it was good. After 6-7 years of reading, learning, listening, watching the news, and reading a great deal more, I’ve become a libertarian of one sort or another. The economics and morality of this position seems clear and consistent to me.

If you want government to intervene domestically, you’re a liberal. If you
want government to intervene overseas, you’re a conservative. If you want
government to intervene everywhere, you’re a moderate. If you don’t want
government to intervene anywhere, you’re an extremist.
– Joseph Sobran (1995)

I am now amazed when I see people worship FDR, Bush, Obama, et al., blind to their numerous faults. I see that Joseph Sobran was once a Conservative , who from what I can tell followed the same path, end up a libertarian.

War has all the characteristics of socialism most conservatives hate:
Centralized power, state planning, false rationalism, restricted liberties,
foolish optimism about intended results, and blindness to unintended
secondary results.
— Joseph Sobran

There was a time when I told my dad that he shouldn’t try to find tax deductions, but should instead try to help the country by paying as much in taxes as he could. I still hear people say essentially that today. What a horribly naive or ignorant view. My defense? I was 12 years old when I had that discussion with my father. Check out the column from Sobran below. I think that he took a great deal of grief from the political Right after his move to libertarianism.

Lies, As Usual by Joseph Sobran: “Bernard Shaw’s play The Devil’s Disciple ends with an ironic exchange between two British officers who have just realized that Britain is about to lose her American colonies because of a flukish oversight by the British cabinet. Flabbergasted, the obtuse Major Swindon asks: “But what will history say?” General Burgoyne replies suavely: “History, sir, will tell lies, as usual.” Americans, ever earnest about what “history” says, can’t bear to believe that some of their “great” presidents have been evil men. So it was probably inevitable that the aging historian-courtier Arthur Schlesinger Jr. should observe the end of the twentieth century by naming Franklin D. Roosevelt “Person of the Century.””

‘Need’ now means wanting someone else’s money. ‘Greed’ means wanting to keep your own.
And ‘Compassion’ is when a politician arranges the transfer.
— Joseph Sobran

Additional links:
Joe Sobran, Requiescat In Pace …
A Libertarian Conversion Story …