Our most basic political problem in this country is a philosophical one. The vast majority of Americans don’t understand that the fundamental role of government is to defend individual rights.
That’s a secondary problem. The fundamental problem is that Americans have lost touch with the meaning of “individual rights.”
While the original indies probably meet SN’s definition in terms of their middle-of-the-road politics, I believe that a great deal of the current expansion of indy numbers is made up of people like me who finally understand that Dems and Reps, while they preach social and economic freedom (respectively), actually stand for economic and social servitude (respectively). I base this on a sample of two (me and my wife) who have both switched from Rep to Ind in the last few years. I also base it on general surveys which find that Americans in general are “socially liberal” and “fiscally conservative,” as if the two are ideologically opposite stands that represent a middle ground between Liberalism and Conservatism, rather than a rejection of the anti-individual bases of both of those ideologies.
Of course, your point is well taken, that people who recognize individual rights often go overboard to the Libertarian/Anarchist fringe, and fail to consider that an institution they recognize as evil, actually has a proper and significant role to play in individual freedom. It is this proper role that Objectivists should prepare to expound upon, to break the notion that we stand simply for “laissez faire” and “selfishness” in all their extreme literal implications.
