Is the movement of American history libertarian? Part 1

Walter Russell Mead argues that it is:  The "Christianist" Nightmare:  It's Just a Bad Dream.  (Hat tip to Instapundit.) Mead argues that the trend of American culture is towards every greater individualism.  This produces some Right effects (like lower taxes) and some Left effects (like increasing support for things like same-sex marriage). 

I think that Mead's essential thesis is largely correct, that the core push of American society since the 1960's has been towards greater and greater individualism, where people are free to define their own identies without reference to broader communities like the church and the family and the state.  In the 1960's and 1970's, the Left seemed in ascendence because the cultural push towards individualism manifested itself as an assault against the legal structures that supported traditional morality in the public sphere.  First, the laws regarding artificial contraception were struck down by the Supreme Court, then the laws on abortion were invalidated  (also by the Supreme Court), and finally the laws restricting access to divorce were removed.  The result:  with the restraints of the law removed, the sexual revolution stormed the culture, the institution of the family suffered massive collapse, and the Left appeared triumphant.  On virtually every cultural front since 1974, the family as traditionally understood has become weaker and weaker and weaker.

Now, however, the target of the culture of individualism is the welfare/taxation state and its various hangers on and cronies.  This is manifested by the rise of the Tea Party movement, but really goes back quite farther, back to the 1976 presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter.  The Left is panicked because it sees the rise of the Right behind this movement, but that is in fact a mistaken identification.  What is really happening is not that the forces of moral order are reasserting themselves in the public square.  Instead, as Mead explains, it is the force of American individualism coming to bear on collectivist economic politics.  The legitimacy of government regulation of the economy is being ravaged by the same force that crippled the government's ability to function as a moral restraint in defense of the family. 

The culture's radical individualism has pushed the political momentum towards the libertarian ideology:  no responsibilities, no duties, no restraints.  Where once this mantra was chanted in regard to the draft and government prohibitions on condom distribution, it is now chanted in regard to teacher's unions and tax rates.