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Public Domain"We've been compromised...by forces...of populism and protectionism, isolationism, xenophobia," says Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, about his own Republican Party.

In a new book that borrows a title from Barry Goldwater, an NPR interview, and a no-holds-barred column in Politico, Flake is making the case that the GOP and President Trump are dishonest and disinterested in limiting the size, scope, and spending of government.

He has impeccable credentials as a libertarian-leaning politician who once ran the free-market Goldwater Institute in Phoenix. Flake is a dedicated free-trader and defender of immigration who accompanied Reason on our trip to Cuba in 2016. Since arriving in Congress in 2001, he has passionately attacked the Cuba embargo as misguided, immoral, and ineffective: "We preach the gospel of contact and commerce and trade and travel, yet with Cuba we turn around and say, 'No, it's not going to work there.' It just seemed to be a glaring inconsistency in our foreign policy." An "unapologetic member of the Gang of Eight" that sound comprehensive immigration reform, he is one of the few remaining Republicans in high office to champion higher levels of legal immigration both as a humanitarian gesture and as a practical boon to the country.

Flake tells NPR that his discontent "is a long time in coming. I got here in Washington in 2001.... And we got [President George W. Bush's education overhaul law] No Child Left Behind, which was, I thought, big federal overreach into local education policy. And then we got the prescription drug benefit, which added about $7 trillion in unfunded liabilities. I didn't think that was a very conservative thing to do."

As important, Flake notes,

When we couldn't argue that we were the party of limited government anymore, then that forced us into issues like flag burning or trying to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case, things that we wouldn't have done otherwise if we would have been arguing about true principles of limited government or spending.

He says that conservatives need "to be honest with people" about the causes of economic dislocation. While Donald Trump and his fellow populists wail about Mexico and China, Flake stays grounded in reality. "We manufacture twice as much as we did in the 1980s with one-third fewer workers and those productivity gains will continue. Globalization has happened and the question is: Do we harness it for our benefit or are we left behind by it?"

In his Politico piece, Flake ranges close to calling for Trump's impeachment, or at least official censure, writing that "unnerving silence in the face of an erratic executive branch is an abdication, and those in positions of leadership bear particular responsibility." Flake says that revelations about Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election and the president's bromance with Vladimir Putin were among the reasons he's channeling his inner Goldwater. Where should his party go from here?:

First, we shouldn't hesitate to speak out if the president "plays to the base" in ways that damage the Republican Party's ability to grow and speak to a larger audience. Second, Republicans need to take the long view when it comes to issues like free trade: Populist and protectionist policies might play well in the short term, but they handicap the country in the long term. Third, Republicans need to stand up for institutions and prerogatives, like the Senate filibuster, that have served us well for more than two centuries.

No wonder there have been whispers about Trump working to primary Flake, who is up for re-election in 2018.

You might not agree with Jeff Flake on everything, but it's good to see a principled free-market, open-borders Republican going public with his discontent, especially because he's got a strong record of calling out massive expansions of the government going back to his first days in Congress. We need more people like him in Washington, not just the handful we already know (Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Justin Amash, Thomas Massie...).

In 2008, at Reason's 40th anniversary gala in Los Angeles, soon after Barack Obama's and the Democrat's win over John McCain and the GOP Congress, Flake talked about how his party needed to get back to limited-government principles. Take a look:

Read the original here:
Jeff Flake's Conscience Is Good for Libertariansand the Country - Reason (blog)

Being Libertarian

Why the Youth in the UK are Generally Left, and Why They Should Prefer Libertarianism Being Libertarian This article looks to examine the reasons why the left has such a clear advantage amongst younger people within society and why those same young people would be more suited towards a libertarian political viewpoint. Perhaps the main reason left-wing ...

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Why the Youth in the UK are Generally Left, and Why They Should Prefer Libertarianism - Being Libertarian

Millennials, millennials, millennials it seems as if we cant ever stop talking about these kids.

As a millennial, I always find it amusing to watch the old guard try so desperately to get a grasp of our motivations and often times our lunacy.

I imagine elders trying to understand the youth of the day is a concept as old as society itself.

I find that most contentions with millennials are precarious in nature, but there is one that I find genuine: the rise of socialism and other Marxist ideas among my peers is downright terrifying.

Many have tried to articulate why this particular ism is so popular with todays youth. Some say its because of a lack of historical and economic knowledge; some say its because of the bleak and uncertain economic future that has been bestowed upon the generation. These points are valid, but I feel they miss the mark almost completely.

Forget about your rationality for a moment and you may be able to see what I see.

I see a generation living in a truly rational era. We are long past God is dead, we are now living on his all but entirely rotten corpse. So very little is intact of the cornerstone of Western society, that it makes sense to me that millennials are the most susceptible (generation) to the dangers of isms because their options are to either grasp desperately to dead ideologies or slip into a dark nihilistic abyss.

How else do you expect us to learn up from down?

The rational mind is a deceptive one. You can make a logical argument for anything there are people actually fighting for pedophile acceptance!

So, therefore, the first man to come along screaming of revolution can take full advantage of the youthful craving to change the world and most importantly give them their first sense of purpose ever.

A purpose is what were looking for, nothing more.

This criticism can be said for anyone who whole-heartedly believes in any ideology; its just that libertarianism, or say, liberalism or conservatism has never killed 200 million people, so Im less concerned with those particular beliefs.

In a post-God is dead society, we will continue to see the rise in utopian ideals and the massacres that come along with those ideals until we find a way to revive God himself with our rational minds.

I understand the criticisms of Christianity; Ive been quite the critic myself. But, Im beginning to understand the father like representative that God is to Western society.

David Foster Wallace once said, The postmodern founders patricidal work was great, but patricide produces orphans.

When you have an overbearing father, the best way to combat his militance is to become strong and independent, to become your own separate entity.

Just because you find your father tyrannical doesnt mean you should murder him in cold blood, youve got to find a way to bring him down to size.

We live in a time where we could be cultivating the greatest minds in history.

Information is abundant and affordable the majority of historys greatest books are available for free, or at most, for 99 cents.

But instead, the youth and the majority of elders are captivated by ideologies and hold no interest in becoming individual thinkers; because that would be difficult, it would require the type of discipline only a father could provide.

* Christian Farrar is a comedian, podcast host, and often times and accidental provocateur. He has been an activist for libertarianism for the last three years.

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Godlessness Leads to Socialism - Being Libertarian

What initially attracted you to the liberty movement or to the ideas of liberty?

Whether it was a foundation in the principles of freedom learned from parents or in school, a desire to be rid of oppressive bureaucracy, or a speech (or set of speeches) from Ron Paul or some other advocate of liberty, most likely what attracted you were the ideas, or the picture of the change for good that liberty brings.

There is a movement, a tribe, gathering around these principles, because the ideals of liberty and what they offer to a person are attractive, they are desirable.

I truly believe, from what Ive seen of libertarianism and the rise of the classical liberals and constitutional conservatives, that these ideals resonate with everyone; from Uganda to South Africa, from China to the United States, people have an inherent desire for personal freedom and individual liberty.

Even the leftists, in their misguided ways, often come from a place of desiring freedom, though they tend to pursue freedom for themselves and their allies at the expense of everyone elses freedom. The underlying reasons for why many of them do what they do and fight for the ideals they desire (e.g. equality of outcome), is to bring about what they perceive as greater freedom for the people they consider oppressed.

Liberty is an attractive platform; its an inherent human desire, it just needs to be channeled towards the things that will bring actual liberty.

But, whats one thing thats never influenced you to change for the better? What has the opposite effect, making you shut out an idea rather than causing you to introspect and search yourself, the opposite effect of convincing you to pursue an idea further?

For me, that one thing is someone using a non-argument or insults to tell me that Im an idiot for my desire to make my world a better place. Let me explain.

Imagine you are a person who cares deeply for the poor and downtrodden, youve seen your single mother struggle to survive yes, its not societys fault its circumstance, or your absentee fathers, etc.

But because of her struggle, you have a certain empathy for others who struggle.

You want to see society step in and fill the gap that your extended family and community did not. A part of Americas greatness, that De Tocqueville spoke of, was its communitys involvement with helping the people of the community, being involved in helping the poor, the widows, the orphans, etc.

Maybe you dont understand either the economics nor the philosophical underpinnings behind the future you hope for, maybe you dont understand the blow struck to your own liberty when you involve bureaucracy and power-hungry individuals in more and more of the individuals everyday life. Maybe youve never seen the other side, or have only seen them as those who (because they are able to care for themselves) are too greedy to want to share with others.

So, you support government-run healthcare, you support greater welfare, free (or greatly subsidized) university, and higher minimum wages; you support the governments importing of hundreds of thousands of immigrants and the illegal crossing of many, many, more, because you see them all as people who are struggling without realizing the effects this may have on society.

You look at policy through your lens of struggle and choose anything you think will help change that. You may not even realize how these very policies actually undermine your own goals: as higher taxes, minimum wage increases, and inflation drive prices ever higher, the over supply of labor makes jobs more difficult to find, and the free universities become bureaucratic nightmares, overcrowded and pushing whatever nonsense is expedient to what is politically correct or whatever supports more government intervention and bureaucracy.

You dont realize this.

Rather you just want help for the people you know who are struggling day in and day out to survive, to feed their families, to pay their medical bills.

Then you come across a libertarian, and this embodiment of liberty rather than taking the time to explain to you how so many of the problems youve faced can be solved by introducing more liberty, by an acceptance of more freedom (individually and in the markets).

Rather than showing you whats so amazing about liberty, and how this mindset could help change your life through personal responsibility to help you and those you love drive towards improving your skills and providing value to others; how less government bureaucracy would lessen the tax burden (felt by all) and make reaching that middle-class lifestyle much more attainable; how ideas like the NAP could help curb the incessant appetite for foreign intervention and the costs (of both life and treasure) that come with it, and how so many bad laws and ideas could be changed if they were judged through the lenses of cost to freedom vs improvement of the freedom of others; instead of showing you the reason why so many of us were drawn to liberty, the libertarian calls you a statist or a Marxist and mocks you and your lack of understanding. Or worse, they use a weak strawman argument to point out some fallacy in your ideas.

This libertarian calls you out for being a freeloader, for being a socialist, or just straight up calls you an idiot and then moves on to the next internet debate leaving you with nothing of substance, only a deepened perception of capitalists being assholes and socialists being the ones who care driving you deeper into the arms of flawed logic.

Im not saying its wrong to debate on the internet, and Im not saying that every leftist online wants to objectively approach the ideas of liberty but how many of us were won over from the left or the right, and what was it that won us over? Was it a witty remark, or a really good burn? Or was it a set of ideals that made sense, and that we saw some person or some group of people not only espousing but truly living that set of ideals that showed the true character of what a world with liberty as its core virtue could look like?

Its not good enough to tell someone that their desire for free healthcare is akin to stealing from others to pay for yourself, its not enough to say that Canadas (or Scandinavias) healthcare systems are in shambles, because an objective onlooker would say that they are just fine, and quite frankly cheaper than the convoluted and increasingly bureaucratic systems like Medicaid and Medicare and the slew of insurance companies and bureaucracies in the United States.

But there is an idea to strive for, one where the red tape and government favoritism, the bureaucracy and high tax burden would be done away with; where medicine would be like any other service, subject to the competition of the market that brings lower prices and better services.

We need to remember to promote the goals of liberty and the outcomes that arise from increased freedom.

We need to remember to be the example of what we want to see, and to show that there is an alternative, not just become yet another voice in the cacophony of political bickering.

This post was written by Arthur Cleroux.

The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.

Arthur Cleroux is an individualist who balances his idealism with a desire for an honest, logical and objective approach to politics and political issues. Originally Arthur found that his values aligned well with the political right; however as time went on his desire for transparency and honest discourse of ideas in the political realm led him closer and closer to the center of the political spectrum! He found that on either wing there was a strong and dangerous type of groupthink, where people supported unnecessary and even bad policies because of a need to conform to the party line. As an individualist with a strong understanding of the importance of what Ayn Rand called the smallest minority on earth, the individual; he finds himself falling very closely in line with the ideals of liberty. Arthur is a lot of things but more important than anything he is a father to two amazing children! Caring for them, making sure they know that they are now and always will be loved is his primary goal, and along with that, comes a desire is to raise them to be free thinkers, to question and study the world and why it is the way it is, and to have character and grit to do what is necessary to succeed!

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Libertarians, Don't Become What We Hate About the Left and Right What Are We Thinking? - Being Libertarian

How does the Libertarian Partys 2017 Virginia gubernatorial nominee Cliff Hyra stack up from a progressive, environmentalist perspective? Lets check out his website and other sources, including the Virginia Libertarian Party platform and see (note: my comments in green). Also, for the record, Im all for including Hyra in gubernatorial debates.

Overall, on the issues listed above, Hyra gets 5 in the A range, 2 in the B range, 7 in the C range, 2 in the D range and 6 in the F range, for an overall grade of roughly a C. The reason why Democrats shouldnt vote for Hyra is that some of the areas where he gets particularly low grades Medicaid expansion/health insurance in general, womens reproductive freedom, the environment, guns are very important ones for most of us, while stuff like marijuana decriminalization is great, but not much different than Democratic nominee Ralph Northams position on the issue. So then why choose Hyra over Northam? Got me. On the other hand, perhaps if youre a Republican who detests corrupt crony capitalists like Ed Gillespie, perhaps you should consider a vote for the Libertarian candidate this year?

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Grading 2017 VA GOV Libertarian Candidate Cliff Hyra - Blue Virginia (press release) (blog)