A Stitch in Haste

Senator Chris Dodd is pulling double-duty in the headlines these days. First, as I already noted, he is proposing a flagrantly socialist intervention in the distressed mortgage market. Shame on him.

But then he turns around and does this:

Few things are more detrimental to this country than the erosion of and attack on the civil liberties we enjoy. This isn't a Democratic issue or a Republican issue; this is an American issue. If after debate, the Senate appears ready to pass legislation granting telecom providers retroactive immunity I will use any and all legislative tools at my disposal, including a filibuster, to prevent this deeply flawed bill from becoming law. More and more, Americans are rejecting the false choice that has come to define this administration: security or liberty, but never, ever both. For all those who have stood with me throughout this fight, I pledge, once more, to stand up for you.

Okay fine, I get it: There is a breed of politician who embraces -- even obsesses over -- privacy rights, but who also totally shuns any commitment to economic liberty.

My question remains this: What core philosophy allows such a hopelessly schizophrenic politics masquerading as "left-libertarianism"? You cannot have privacy rights without property rights. You cannot have property rights without freedom of contract. You cannot have freedom of contract without broad-based economic liberty. How, exactly, do the "left-libertarians" (with whom Dodd may or may not identify; I don't know) escape this flowchart?

The only answer I can come up with is: "It's the correct policy because I happen to like it." But that unimpressive variation of Kip's Law is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for "Left-Libertarians" to earn praise or support from "Not-Antilibertarian-Libertarians."