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author

Many of you will note that throughout the article (and title) I used little-l libertarian instead of big-l Libertarian. This is because, though the Libertarian Party might be the best vote in specific races, often we'll be forced to choose the most libertarian Republican (or Democrat!) running. The Libertarian Party is not the answer. The answer is libertarian policies coming from politicians of all parties.

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Feb 12, 2022Liked by SimulationCommander

That may be part of the real answer, but some of it is also in simply not obeying the authoritarians. If more than a small, single-digit percentage of people openly refuse to comply with an authoritarian law or policy, that law or policy is doomed.

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author

If we tossed every authoritarian asshole out every time they violated the Constitution, I'm guessing the rest would learn quick.

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founding

You (appropriately) channel Ayn Rand (Objectivism) speaking to Murray Rothbard (Libertarianism founder, among others):

Anti-Statism needs to have a grounding in philosophical antecedents, not mere economic ones, in order to be effectively lasting. Going straight to economic reasoning skips the political in philosophical hierarchy, and leads to political hazards of which Statists, of course, take advantage, leading freedom-loving voters to be fooled.

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author

Yep. One of the main reasons I'm even writing this thing is because of the shocking lack of libertarian thinking when it came to covid. Nearly all the (few and far between) arguments were about whether or not this or that WORKED, when the far better argument is that government can't arbitrarily ruin your life by saying it's illegal to go to work.

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Feb 12, 2022Liked by SimulationCommander

I have a tough time believing that had Hornberger rightfully received the nomination he would've allowed those hacks to make his campaign one of "anti-racism." I knew the LP was about as serious as Reason Magazine but I never dreamed they would've been that utterly silent during some of the most egregious civil liberties violations we've been party to.

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founding

Speaking of a rare exception to the usual content in ReasonablyTrite magazine, the March issue has a good (but there seem to be a couple egregious typos) article by the obviously well-read books editor on the historical origins/use/etymology of that most-confusing-among-confusing terms, "neo-liberal." Sorry, no link; my wife gets the print edition, and I'm too lazy to retrieve it from her office.

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founding

See that's why YOU should write, and I should merely comment. Feel free to explain all my lame attempts, lest your readers I confuse.

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Feb 12, 2022Liked by SimulationCommander

In non-competitive races, where the winner is a foregone conclusion, choosing Libertarian sends a direct message of where a voter's interests lie.

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author

We get a lot of that in Washington :(

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Which races? Are they helping Democrats get elected?

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author
Feb 12, 2022·edited Feb 12, 2022Author

The Democrats are already getting elected :( After the 2004 recount debacle, the fix was in (IMO)

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Washington is unusual for a U.S. state in that it only requires that an absentee ballot be postmarked by the day of the election to be valid, while most other states require the ballot to have arrived at the election office by that time. Due to this as well as the state's high number of absentee ballots—more than 60% of all King County voters voted absentee—the initial result of the election was not known until November 17, the last day under state law for election results to be certified by each county's election officials.

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Sound familiar?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Washington_gubernatorial_election

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founding

But the margin of victory can be important, too. Imo, we can't slap today's Fascists (Democrat lay voters) down hard enough:

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/18/the-nazi-next-door/

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Feb 12, 2022·edited Feb 12, 2022

I disagree. The people who keep talking about how Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016 ignore the fact that there were more Republican + Libertarian (49.37%) voters than Democrat + Green (49.25%). If we adopt their narrative, we've lost already.

And let's face it, Trump bears plenty of responsibility for the COVID-19 craziness with vaccines and masks. He lacked the stones to fire Fauci.

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founding

If this makes sense, I agree with your dis-agreement, and I will never scold a fellow libertarian for voting independently. I'd be quite the hypocrite if I did so, so if I crossed that line here, at least I didn't mean to!

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founding

Also, arithmetic: some peeps seem too lazy to employ it.

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True, but I doubt that they care.

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Feb 12, 2022Liked by SimulationCommander

I should’ve known “authoritarians vs libertarians” was Orwell.

In any case, that thought was part of my latest musing on my Substack. Thank you for it.

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Feb 12, 2022Liked by SimulationCommander

What do you mean, "Now"? I've been a libertarian my entire adult life. Card-carrying big-L back in the eighties, but it eventually became clear that the phrase "Libertarian Party" is an oxymoron.

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author

It's much less lonely today than anytime other than the Ron Paul days, IMO.

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founding

Ha! In 1988, I custom-made a t-shirt that said, "Join the Party: vote Libertarian" in perfectly readable rainbow-on-white. It got lots of compliments (in Orange County, CA), but I wonder how many Democrats it reached (or helped get elected).

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founding

Would that H.L. Mencken be writing today. Can anyone even imagine HIS Substack comment section!

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Feb 12, 2022Liked by SimulationCommander

Very well written. Amidst all of the garbage that has gone on the past few years I remember when I didn't know hardly anyone who thought MSM was a propaganda machine or that corruption was rampant. As someone who is very libertarian leaning I am much less fringe than I was 40 years ago.

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Feb 12, 2022·edited Feb 12, 2022Liked by SimulationCommander

The politics of the public is the visible and felt living politics of men who change like the bonfire as wood is added or subtracted from the flames. So much fuel is on the fire now the heat burns like jet fuel in the Twin Towers. Covid the indispensable tool for tyranny touched the rabid Reactionary, Liberals, Libertarians, Liberty lovers and Lunatic Leftists equally. This moment we occupy in transition to a new polity has much of the old within it still. We have formalities of law, of good governance, hollow and painted like the nesting Matryoshka dolls. We have habits and customs dating, our heart, from a time when living in the Atomic Age thought we were free. "God gave Noah the rainbow sign

No more water, but the fire next time"

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Feb 12, 2022Liked by SimulationCommander

Excellent…

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Feb 12, 2022Liked by SimulationCommander

i don't know what the North American media is like but its probably still dancing to the authoritarian tune, thus the mases probably think the movement is just fringe loonies.

i think they need to protest outside media headquarters, block them in with trucks!

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founding

The capital-L Libertarian Party by definition cannot win a political contest. When one puts ten Libertarians in a room, there will be at least eleven positions on why things are the way they are.

I, too, am a lower-case-l libertarian. The sole commonalities among us are a distrust of government and a celebration of the individual and the individual's rights.

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founding
Feb 13, 2022Liked by SimulationCommander

Not to be a dick, but I think you have a "decent" when you meant "dissent"...

Great stuff man! You're one of my favorites!

"And as the ‘leaders’ become more authoritarian, cracking down on all decent, the proper response is for the people to become more libertarian."

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author
Feb 13, 2022·edited Feb 13, 2022Author

Turns out the editing isn't A+, either. Thanks for the catch :)

Edit: Also I love your kitty! :) Make sure it gets pets and treats from me :)

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founding
Feb 13, 2022Liked by SimulationCommander

I sure will!

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founding

Or, M. Sim could have added a "the" in front of "decent," and it would align with my personal world-view.

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founding

That's how I was reading it the first couple times myself! Bug we dissidents like to at least be acknowledged. And few would call me "decent". 😉

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founding

Ha! Even indecent dissidents should be acknowledged.

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founding
Feb 13, 2022·edited Feb 13, 2022Liked by SimulationCommander

I just re-read this and I realized I didn't applaud it enough.

May I make amends by citing another favorite writer who says it nearly as well:

https://amgreatness.com/2022/02/12/oligarchys-response-to-the-freedom-convoy-bodes-ill-for-them/

(If paywalled, find it on today's RealClearPolitics. Also, I highly recommend M. Kimball's books.)

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A european, mainly scandinavian view (so don't read it as a claim to absolute truth but as well intentioned, but with an exasperated sarcastic edge to it):

On this side the Atlantic, liberatarians are firmly pro-globalism, pro-massmigration, pro-open borders, pro-islam, pro-child brides, pro-gender mutilation, pro-polygamy, pro-pedophilia, necrophilia, zoophilia and a couple of other similar things. And of course pro-drugs, including heroin.

And against private gun ownership, stand your ground, self defence, castle laws and such matters.

Also firmly pro-EU.

Firm believers that "Atlas' shrugged" is a masterful dissertation on politics and economy, they have rarely read it but can quote a talking point or two. Much like their mirror-image the post-modern marxist who can't even be bothered to read The Communist Manifesto, much less Das Kapital. And neither group are literate enough to read Adam Smith, not even the snippet about the invisible hand. For the libertarians it's Hayek, Mises and Rothbard all the way and when one asks them "So where is you business emoire built on these guys principles' then?" they either run off or go off on a rant about the unfairness inherent in the system. As a swede, it's hilarious in the extreme to point out to them that Ingvar Kamprad built IKEA without ever having heard of those idols, and he never ever gave economists and financial analysts any say-so - they were clerks, period.

Onyl real difference between european libertarians and post-modern marxists really, is that the first want to abolish taxation while the latter wants to tax everything, preferably as many times as possible.

Of course, in the US you don't (yet) have tens of millions of moslems. But you will, and boy howdy are they going to love your laws on religious exemption, second amendment and so on.

It'll be interesting from a purely academic standpoint to follow how american liberals and libertarians start to corkscrew into ethnic nationalism without admitting it. Just as it was to follow the Maoists and other commies becoming yuppies in the eighties, all the while spouting the same slogans.

I tie marxist and libertarians together for a very simple reason: both core mentalities are of a puritan and sectarian mindset. Neither had any success until they started to compromise, became pragmatic and started bringing something to the table so to speak. Just standing to the side, being all snowy white and pure because it's either according to dogma or no way, well you wont get anything done and the powers in power are quite happy when political opposition sidelines itself.

That's how it looks from here. The sarcasm comes from 25 years of dealing with ideological purists of all colours, each and everyone of them thumping their holy book with the one true final truthy truth of truth and not a single one of them with an actual game plan as to how to get it done or why the rest of the people would want their idea(l)s, or see those idea(l)s put into practice. Also, not a single one who wants to debate a very important question: "And then what?".

It's as my father-in-law remarks from time to time, him being an engineer. Paraphrased and edited for swear-words: "A solution or method which demands the dismantling and or rebuilding of society (not to mention changing the may humans function) so that the solution or method can work, is neither a solution or a sound method but an even greater problem."

I think that's the problem with libertarians here: they don't bring anything real, pragmatic or functional to the debate. It's always abstract principles. It's never how to best organise garbage collection.

Thoroughly enjoyable articles you write, I must say. Really sets the old lecturing reflex off (or shoudl that be "Hectoring" gene?). If you take suggestions, have you ever tried to create a positive argument for soemthing you vehemently oppose, trying to make the idea work or sound right? It's a great exercise I find, since no one school of thought is all bad (or all good).

Anyways, a hearty thumbs up for your writing!

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founding

So the European Socialists steal ANOTHER word.

But, imo, you also have mis-interpreted Ayn Rand. I urge you to read her NON-fiction, not her silly novels, which she only intended to use for reach. This refugee of the Bolshevik revolution saw the writing on the wall, and tried her best to counter it. She was an excellent philosopher first, and a novelist a distant second, and only as a resort. Try her "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal."

Edit: (Upon re-reading your otherwise excellent post, I might have mis-interpreted you, and if so, "never mind!", as they say!)

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