What does that have to do with it? The only elected official mentioned in the story is demanding more information because he's worried it sounds like a Fourth Amendment violation.
Republicans/conservatives being the party of small government and individual liberty is kind of dead, if it ever really was serious in the first place.
During the Cold War era there was kind of an uneasy alliance between actual-libertarians and conservatives against authoritarian leftism and Marxism. National conservatism and MAGA are kind of an explicit rebuke of that alliance. The model is now more like Orban's Hungary: big government in service of right-wing goals.
This shift really started during the Bush II era. I remember seeing the writing on the wall back then that if the right couldn't win its culture war democratically it would abandon democracy, and if freedom meant too many people doing things they didn't like they would abandon freedom.
Actual-libertarians are kind of orphaned right now and may become a wing of the Democratic Party... at least the ones who aren't antivax conspiritainment kooks. Those will probably remain permanently orphaned or eventually follow the libertarian-to-alt-right pipeline and become fascists.
This is a weird time for small government pro-individual-liberty libertarians. On one hand many things that such people have fought for like drug decriminalization and LGBTQ+ rights are winning, at least in many US states. On the other hand the movement itself is on the ropes being pounded from both the authoritarian left and the authoritarian right, both of which have experienced surges in the last decade or so. Saying you are a 'liberal' in this sense in 2024 is deeply unpopular and will get you attacked from both sides.
I think it's anxiety over change. Any time you have a lot of change happening the instinctive human behavior is to grab hold of a big strong (usually) man to protect you. You're seeing this globally right now: Trump, Putin, Orban, Xinpeng, Maduro, etc.
The writing was on the wall for Republican party policy when it sold its morals for votes with Nixon/Goldwater's Southern Strategy by courting the racist Southern Democrats after the Civil Rights Act/Voting Rights Act passed. [1]
Thus the (originally) pro-Union anti-Slavery Republican party married its "limited government" conservative midwest base with a "states rights" southern democrat base.
Now the old guard Republicans are dead or retired and the existing Republicans were made from the mold the old Republicans created.
I think Republican party policy today would be significantly different if the Southern Democrats had never joined.
How do you figure the authoritarian left has experienced a surge in the past decade? What are some examples of policies or positions that you consider authoritarian on the left, particularly in the US?
I was an actual libertarian once upon a time. The more I read about the actual function of government, structure, and just “civilization,” the less I was able to hold on to my libertarian values. Now I’m a ridiculously liberal democrat, still with some core libertarian beliefs that I think should hold, but which don’t work in practice.
What I personally favor is a socially liberal social democracy with minimal regulation but a strong welfare state funded by a mostly neo-Georgist model of taxation.
Socially liberal: you can be/do mostly what you want as long as you are not hurting anyone, and what other people are or do is not your business. The exceptions are at the edges where people are arguably harmed indirectly, with CSAM and other non-consensual pornography as obvious examples.
Social democracy: largely democratic but with a strong constitution.
Minimal regulation: economic freedom, at-will employment, business friendly economic climate.
Welfare state: a strong social safety net with at least a minimal level of universal health care and universally available education. A basic income system could perhaps be an alternative model, though there's a risk that this would be actively harmful to people with self-control or other psychological issues.
Neo-Georgist taxation: Georgist taxation is land-value taxation. Neo-Georgism tends to add taxes on other "things people didn't create" such as natural resource extraction and taxes on externalities such as carbon emissions and other forms of pollution. There would be no sales or income tax. Some versions add a tariff on imports. I'd be in favor of tariffs on imports from countries that do not meet a minimum human rights standard.
That's about the best situation I can imagine working on Earth in the 21st century. I don't think it would be half bad.
I call it the music festival model of civilization: run around and do what you want but keep the festival grounds clean and there's a chill tent you can go to if you're having a bad trip.
As with other libertarian-ish models of civilization it's a tough sell because you are throwing the ring of power into the fire. It doesn't offer much opportunity for people to force their views onto others or play central planner and direct the course of human history. I realized a while ago that you don't see too many genuinely pro-liberty politicians because it's kind of like being a vegan butcher. People tend to be attracted to politics because they want power over other people.
I ran for office as a Libertarian many years ago, not seriously, but they needed people to run to retain their privileged position on the ballot in the future.
As a long-time Democrat, I was amused and angered by local Republicans on TV who griped about Libertarians who were siphoning votes. “You think these voters would vote for the Democratic party?” Yes, jerk, some of them would, because we believe in civil liberty.
What does "liberal" Los Angeles have to do with conservative hypocrisy about small government? It would be expected that opposing philosophies would end up in the same place if one was hypocritical and the other was not. Do you know what point you're making, or is it just a generic pavlovian red vs. blue escalation?
When was the last time the "conservative" wing of US politics truly cared about "small government"? It's a stupid platitude at this point, so repeating it should be met with scorn, because its like calling some neolib a communist. Hyperbole. The uniparty won't, and can't, roll back the federal behemoth.
State, local, and federal law enforcement agencies, regardless of where they're located, get what they want in regards to technology, militarized equipment, surveillance, etc.
