Gillespie: Politicians are 'lagging indicators'

Answering our five OFF-SET questions is Nick Gillespie, editor in chief of Reason.tv and Reason.com, which draws 2.5 million visits per month and features the staff weblog "Hit & Run."

Gillespie, who served as the magazine's editor in chief from 2000 to 2008, originally joined Reason's staff in 1993 as an assistant editor. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Post, Slate, Salon, Time.com, Marketplace, and numerous other publications.

In 1996, Gillespie received his Ph.D. in English literature from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He also holds an M.A. in English with a concentration in creative writing from Temple University and a B.A. in English and Psychology from Rutgers University. Gillespie, the father of two sons, lives in Washington, DC, and Oxford, Ohio.

Gillespie is scheduled to appear on Parker Spitzer on Thursday, December 9.

Which elected official or politician out there now excites you the most? Who do you think has the most potential to capture the attention of millions of Americans?

The former governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson, is a fascinating character. He's a hard-core libertarian who ran as a Republican and beat that party's organized opposition to his candidacy. Then he won two terms in an overwhelmingly Democratic state. He refused to raise taxes, cut the public payroll, argued for school choice and drug legalization. He's running an outfit called Our America Initiative now and is hands-down the most libertarian-friendly pol out and about right now. Since leaving office a decade ago, he's climbed Mt. Everest! Very much worth checking out.

I like Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, too. He's an egghead who's also a cheapskate, which is a pretty great combination. He's done well by Hoosiers too. Most important, earlier this year, he told social cons that basic issues of fiscal sanity were more important than flag-buring amendments, anti-gay crap, and other irrelevant social issues. His voice deserves to be heard by more people.

Some of the new senators coming in, like Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Mike Lee seem to understand that the role of government is to provide a basic framework for stability and neccesary services, not control or dip into every aspect of our lives. I hope they push back strong against an ascendant Republican party that is absolutely awful on just about everything. And that they teach a chastened Democratic party that the way forward is by making government smaller and more accountable, more focused on duties such as defense (properly understood).

By the way, I am always interested in buying the Brooklyn Bridge and swampland in Florida, too.

Fundamentally, I don't look to politicians for inspiration and excitement. They are lagging indicators of change and energy in American society. As role models and leaders, I put them behind rock stars, athletes, and actors as people worth looking toward.

Why do you think there aren’t more people who say they are libertarians in the country today?

Depending on how you slice it, as much as 15 percent or so of the electorate votes in favor of broadly libertarian polices on a regular basis. That is, they are in favor of fiscal conservatism and social tolerance. What Reason has long called "Free Minds and Free Markets." There's little question that the libertarian descriptor has been gaining popularity over the past 20 years or so. Folks ranging from Bill Maher to Noam Chomsky to Bill Buckley to Glenn Beck have claimed it as their own at some point. And then there are the public figures who are actually libertarian–characters such as Penn & Teller and the creators of South Park, the John Stossels and Drews Careys of the world.

I think the relatively meager market share of "libertarian" is largely due to a lack of understanding. Do you generally like free trade and open borders? Personal autonomy? Do you think the drug war is as misguided as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? That you are in a better situation than the government to make spending decisions about your life? That you should be allowed to eat what you want, smoke what you want, marry whom you want? These are the core issues for libertarians. And the fact is that we live in a generally libertarian country, which is one of the reasons why we've been so prosperous and relatively peaceful over the years.

 You’ve got two sons. Did you raise them/are you raising them with libertarian values? If so, what are they?

One of the perennial conversations I get in with folks begins with a line like, "You know, I was a libertarian, too, then I had kids...." My sons are 17 years old and nine years old. I take my parenting seriously and there's no conflict between being an attentive responsible parent and being a libertarian. Seriously! The core libertarian values are individual freedom and responsibility. Giving your kids age-appropriate choices and helping them negotiate those and live with the consequences is a pretty solid way to prepare your children for the way the world works, I think.

That said, I make a point of not preaching to my kids, of not teaching them the catechism of Hayek or Heinlein, or anything like that. My politics are my own and they'll develop their own over time.

You have a Ph.D in English literature and you also once wrote for Teen Machine magazine. Is there anything about teen culture today that gives you hope for the future?

*Everything* about teen culture gives me hope for the future! Being an adolescent is never easy, but god, what a world they're entering, one where you have so many different identities or "subject positions" (to use a term from my grad school days) to choose from. Think about it: If you're a teen now, you're living in a world where the mainstream isn't as stultifying as it was 30 or 50 years ago. Technologically, you have the world at your fingertips; it's easier to travel the globe than ever before. To be gay, straight, black, white, red, you name it.

If you look at kids today, they do drugs and drink less often than in the past; they graduate college more. Girls have equal or better opportunity than boys. And the tools of cultural production–blogs, cheap HD cameras, audio equipment–has never been more affordable. The Cold War, which threatened to destroy the planet, has been replaced by a much smaller threat that is real and repugnant but is simply not an existential threat.

The only possible problem I see for teens today is a surplus of terrible, terrible freedom. They're all Spider-Man now: With great power to live how you want comes great responsibility.

And the only thing that really horrible thing I see for them is that, in the U.S. anyway, we are creating a political system in the form of entitlements that is looting the young and relatively poor to pay for entitlements that go to relatively wealthy and politically powerful seniors. You know, elders are supposed to offer wisdom and sacrifice to the young people they bring into the world. They're not supposed to tax them to pay for free prescription drugs they can mostly afford anyway.

You usually appear on CNN in a leather jacket—it’s sort of your signature. Should we read anything into that sartorial choice?

Yes, that I have a crude, limited fashion sense that may well have cost me the love of my life, who implored me to dress like an adult rather than like the free-market Fonzie.

My background has never been in politics, where the default costume is a suit and tie. Back in the day, I wrote about music, books, movies, TV, that sort of thing. I have more affinity for The Misfits than Milton Friedman (though I do believe that Friedman rocks harder than Glenn Danzig) and I'd rather read Jack Keroauc than listen to Joe Biden motor-mouth about high-speed rail. Which is just a way of saying that I feel more comfortable wearing a leather jacket than a sportscoat. I went to Catholic school from grades 1 through 12, so I've worn enough ties to last a lifetime.

Look, there are excrutiatingly few benefits to being a libertarian. You have little to no partisan power (though we do have more fun), liberals and conservatives shun you (unless they think you're carrying drugs), entire fiscal crises are laid at your feet (despite all the mega-regulations that were in place but somehow failed to work). One thing we can exercise is to dress how we feel. It's a small victory–really, you need a magnifying glass to see it fully–but it's better than nothing.