It's been a good week...

First the trillion plus dollar spending bill was, at least temporarily, thrown out, a major victory for anyone who wants to downsize the federal government.

Then the ban on allowing gays to serve in the military was repealed, another major victory, this time for social liberals.

Rarely do we libertarians celebrate even one decision made by our lawmakers, much less two in one week.

The DADT policy was unrealistic and, more importantly, beyond disrespectful to a whole lot of people who were willing to join our all-volunteer military force and serve to the best of their abilities. It's worth reviewing why it needed to be repealed:



The ban was repealed in the Senate by a vote of 65-31, with just seven of the votes coming from Republicans. The 31 Republicans who voted against repealing the ban were just following what they believe their political base wants, good old-fashioned social conservatism. They were probably mistaking this for this:

While all Tea Party activists are advocating for bringing down the cost of the federal government, the majority of Tea Party supporters also want the reach of the government pulled back to the boundries defined by the Constitution. Somewhere in that mix are the libertarians, who make up a good 50% of the movement, and are social liberals who want the government out of our wallets and our bedrooms.

It'll be interesting to see if the career politicians on the Republican side of the aisle will be able to truely understand what limiting government really means.