Political ideology and its applications in American government

Introduction
The political ideology I align with the most is libertarianism. A lot of Americans pay lip service to liberty, but I am not one of them. The libertarian political ideology is based on the fundamental principle of human liberty: that the government should not interfere in the lives of individuals unless their actions infringe on the rights of others. I believe that the founding fathers of the United States intended for a libertarian government, which evolved out of Enlightenment values and philosophies and made their way into the writings of luminaries like Thomas Jefferson, John Locke, David Hume, and Adam Smith (Boaz, 1999). While I am not surprised to recognize libertarianism as my own political ideology, I do not believe that the current Libertarian Party of the United States has sufficient support to replace either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party in terms of popularity or influence.
Research shows that people with libertarian values also share in common certain psychological characteristics. For example, Iver, Koleva, Graham, et al (2010) found that in terms of moral principles, libertarians do indeed endorse individual liberty as a grounds for ethical decisions more than any other moral framework, and that libertarians are also more “cerebral” than emotional when making moral decisions (p. 1). This makes sense, given that libertarians lack the “bleeding heart” ethics of liberals and yet share in common with Democrats the belief that government should not interfere in any matter of personal choice, including the decisions individuals make with regard to whether or not to terminate a pregnancy, whether or not a person wishes to use drugs, or who a person wants to marry. The difference between libertarians and liberals, or Democrats, is that the latter supports a strong central government whereas the Libertarian Party is categorically opposed not just to government interference in personal lives but also opposed to federal taxes and other boated “big government” structures and institutions (Libertarian Party, 2018). The Republican Party seemed at one point to be veering towards libertarianism in its rhetoric against big government, but has turned towards social conservatism. As a result, the Republican Party now supports government intrusion in the personal lives of individuals while denying the rights of some citizens to have access to essential services: which is the antithesis of libertarianism (Vallentyne & van der Vossen, 2014).
About ten percent of the population claims to be libertarian (Kiley, 2014). In spite of the fact that many Americans support the abstract concepts of freedom and liberty, relatively few Americans are members of the Libertarian Party or even align themselves ideologically with libertarianism. Yet libertarianism is the foundation of the nation. As Silver (2015) points out, many Americans have libertarian values but few are active libertarians. Kiley (2014) implies this may be related to the fact that Americans are ignorant about what libertarian means, while ironically many members of the libertarian party are actually not true libertarians at all either. Why there is a disconnection between how people think and how they vote is a mystery. It may simply have to do with the fact that the two main political parties have become entrenched because of their collusion with corporate interests that help to strengthen their influence and power. If this is the case, it is hoped that libertarianism does start to penetrate the party platforms of the Democratic and Republican Parties. Or, it may be related to a lack of critical thought about political ideology.
Conclusion
Political ideology shapes the character of the nation. If Americans were to look deep at what the Constitution implies, it would reflect the core principles of the Libertarian Party. Libertarianism may not be the most popular political ideology in the United States, but it remains influential on how Americans perceive many political issues.




References

Boaz, D. (1999). Key concepts of libertarianism. CATO Institute. https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/key-concepts-libertarianism
Iyer, R., Koleva, S., Graham, J., et al (2010). Understanding libertarian morality. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1665934
Kiley, J. (2014). In search of libertarians. Pew Research Center. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/08/25/in-search-of-libertarians/
Libertarian Party (2018). About the Libertarian Party. https://www.lp.org/about/
Silver, N. (2015).There Are Few Libertarians. But Many Americans Have Libertarian Views. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-are-few-libertarians-but-many-americans-have-libertarian-views/
Vallentyne, P. & Van Der Vossen, B. (2014). Libertarianism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/libertarianism/