"All Americans value liberty, but libertarians seem to value it more. For social conservatives, liberty is often a means to the end of rolling back the welfare state, with its lax morals and redistributive taxation, so liberty can be infringed in the bedroom. For liberals, liberty is a way to extend rights to groups perceived to be oppressed, so liberty can be infringed in the boardroom. But for libertarians, liberty is an end in itself, trumping all other moral values."
-- Matt Ridley, Wall Street Journal, 9/28/2012
Yeah, pretty much.
The piece itself is cast in terms of the "moral intuition" theory of political viewpoints promoted by Dr. Jonathan Haidt in his book "The Righteous Mind"; which has been talked about extensively in the blogosphere over the past few months. It's an interesting perspective on the issue of why we believe what we believe.
