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The United States Libertarian Party is a strange beast. It has a wide following within the movement and is comfortably the countrys third largest party. Yet, its had little meaningful electoral success in the decades of its existence. Smaller parties in other countries, with far less widespread support have managed to convert their core base into electoral breakthrough; so, what is causing this failure in the Libertarian Party?

Part of the problem is the dual mandate the party has given itself to both compete in elections and be an educator on libertarian principles and policy.

A political party, by its nature, is distinct from any think tank, club, or foundation, because it is designed to engage directly in the political process and fight real campaigns. An additional mandate to educate the public is fine to have, but that mandate should not alter the unique position and role the party has, as a political agent.

The Libertarian Party must take up its unique position in the libertarian movement and do all that is necessary to professionalize its messaging and organizational strategies to be competitive in the political sphere.

If the party truly believes that its platform, if enacted, would make the country and the world better, then it has an obligation to fight for this enactment; If its going to happen, we need to rethink how we approach both the electoral and educational mandates.

We need to focus less on making statements or proving points, and more on convincing people in their hearts. This will require a fundamental reevaluation of the way libertarians (in the party or otherwise) spread the message to those not yet convinced.

Perhaps even more importantly, the Libertarian Party, and the libertarian movement more broadly, must think in terms of how to convince people.

Too often we get caught up in internal factionalism and disagreements on philosophy. Worse still, libertarians often become dogmatically attached to notions they determine to be axiomatically true; such as the claim that taxation is theft, or that the non-aggression principle is an a priori moral absolute. While libertarians may be convinced of these principles and may even consider them intuitively self-evident that is not the case for society at large. They need to be convinced of these principles.

The problem is that libertarians usually fail to engage skeptics in a way that could potentially convert them to our way of thinking.

Because we are convinced of the axiomatic truth of our beliefs, we treat opponents like they are wrong, ignorant, or even morally perverse. This attitude throws up a barrier between the libertarian and the skeptic, that, once raised, is very hard to break down.

We are a long way from a libertarian world because not enough people have adopted the libertarian mindset. We need to change those minds before we can meaningfully change society. Libertarianism can only succeed if it reconciles all its sides and factions purist, radical, pragmatic, or whatever other sub-label a group chooses. This squaring of the circle can only begin when we start to think about messaging as a unifying, rather than a divisive, exercise. The Libertarian Party and other libertarian organizations should look toward exploring the effects of their messaging strategies, and to refashion them to engage outsiders.

This is not a matter of abandoning our principles or beliefs. It is a matter of understanding how people think and how they respond emotionally and psychologically to new, and often radical, ideas. We need to understand how people think and feel, and talk to them like human beings. Maybe then well at last begin to see the world we want to live in take shape.

This post was written by John Engle.

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

John Engle is a merchant banker and author living in the Chicago area. His company, Almington Capital, invests in both early-stage venture capital and in public equities. His writing has been featured in a number of academic journals, as well as the blogs of the Heartland Institute, Grassroot Institute, and Tenth Amendment Center. A graduate of Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and the University of Oxford, Johns first book, Trinity Student Pranks: A History of Mischief and Mayhem, was published in September 2013.

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The Right Engle: How to Talk to Non-Libertarians - Being Libertarian

ScotHibb/Reddit

Anytime I see something viral about restaurant tipping, I brace myself. Because for every great story about a waiter being tipped an insane amount by a good samaritan, theres a terrible story about jerks who bully their server by threatening to take away money or leave a bible verse instead of a tip.

Luckily, this customer in a restaurant in Missouri was able to make their political point while still leaving money for the server. So while its odd, its also kind of sweet?

The picture, which surfaced on Reddit, shows that the customer wrote $0 as the tip, writing in that Taxation is theft.

However, they did leave a cash tip of over 20% with a note saying, This is not a tip. This is a personal gift and not subject to federal or state income taxes. Now, the internet is exploding over the message and calling it the Libertarian way to tip.

Libertarians famously dont believe in the government taking taxes. On their partys website they say that in the United States, all political parties other than our own grant government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent. They believe strongly that people should be able to give money to whatever or whomever they want saying, If Americans want to give money to the government for one reason or another, they should be free to do so. If Americans prefer to spend their money on other things, then they should be free to do that also.

Whether or not the server in question also believes that people should be able to (or in any world would) just volunteer to pay for roads and schools, they probably didnt mind the cash tip. Most servers prefer cash specifically so that they dont have to report it and get taxed. So while I cant say I agree with the Libertarian way of thinking generally, Ive been a server. And all of us who have been servers, I guess we have a little Libertarian in us after all.

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This Little Trick Is Being Called The 'Libertarian Way To Tip' - Uproxx - UPROXX

Libertarians have a bad reputation when it comes to foreign policy. In fact, it is one of the chief impediments to many in supporting libertarian thinking, and one of the greatest criticisms of the Libertarian Party (LP). It is typically viewed by non-libertarians that libertarians falter and stumble when it comes to making and supporting foreign policy. However, most typically, when people criticize libertarians for their foreign policy thinking, it has more to do with misunderstanding on the part of the non-libertarian than it has to do with weakness in libertarian philosophy. Understanding various aspects and nuances of libertarian principles and their application is key to understanding why it might appear that libertarians have a difficult time verbalizing consistent foreign policy positions.

The first thing people must understand is a very important distinction libertarianism (with a small l) is a political philosophy that applies to governments of any nation. Often, because Americans are so vocal and get the most coverage of libertarianism, it is assumed that it is a wholly American line of thinking, and people make the mistake of confusing the political philosophy with the American LP, which founds its positions on the political philosophy but only exists in the United States. Small l libertarianism is international in scope. If American libertarians look more broadly, we can find far more friends in other nations than we might think. Often, international libertarians are not familiar with the name but still follow the same or similar philosophies.

Because libertarianism has no nation, it has no foreigners. As such, it is impossible for libertarianism to have a foreign policy. There are no foreigners for which it can form a policy. So, the distinction between political parties and philosophy is exceptionally important in breaking through the confusion others hold on libertarian foreign policy.

In terms of American foreign policy, the LP has a tremendous challenge. By the very nature of libertarian philosophy, its thinkers are independent rugged individualists who do not think party first, but rather think of principle first and how it fits into their personal political views. If you have a political party full of people whose positions are formed in such an individualist manner, it is nearly impossible to form political positions for which every member can rally support, or even a vast majority of members. The very best the LP leadership can do is to use the party principles to develop their positions, and to approximate the general consensus of party members as best they can.

Broadly, members of the LP are anti-war. But almost everyone is anti-war. I dont think anyone truly supports the killing of other people, except when it is an absolute necessity in order to preserve ones own life, liberty, and property. So, how can Libertarians (with a big L) define when war is necessary for these protections? It gets even murkier when alliances become involved. The official platform of the LP states that it prefers trade negotiations to military entanglements. However, it would be naive to think that trade does not necessitate military protections and alliances in order to protect those trade agreements. It is also a bit naive to think that protection of a nation does not also require military alliances that create foreign entanglements.

The LP can attempt to formulate a foreign policy position by spelling it out in terms how its principles apply. However, there will still be vast disagreements even on those grounds. Principles can be easily interpreted differently by different people who are independent thinkers. By the time a policy is written it is usually already obsolete, because the nature and complexity of affairs has already changed.

So, the criticism of both large L and small l libertarians on foreign policy can only be resolved by better communication. Foreign policy positions are not going to suddenly solidify and unite all members of the LP, nor will it change the fact that libertarianism is an international philosophy. It is incumbent upon libertarians to explain the cause of the confusion and the principles which guide our thinking to explain that what appears to be disjointed, is not disjointed at all, but rather the expression of principle rather than fealty.

This post was written by Danny Chabino.

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

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Why Foreign Policy Trips Up Libertarians - Being Libertarian - Being Libertarian

The first act of the French presidential race has come to a close, and the results are seismic. Center-left candidate Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen will advance to a runoff election, leaving in the dust the candidates of the two traditional parties of right and left that had governed France since the return of democracy after the Second World War. Whoever ultimately wins the presidency, the old guard of French politics has lost.

Widespread disaffection with the center-right Republican-Gaullist and the Socialist wings of French politics has finally caused a crack-up of the political landscape. Now French voters face a very real choice. They can either choose the liberally-minded, pro-trade, pro-Europe Macron, or they can choose the arch-conservative, protectionist, Eurosceptic Le Pen. Few elections in any country in recent memory have presented so stark a choice. The vote will be a turning point for France, for Europe, and for the world.

If Macron wins, we should expect a movement toward greater liberalization of the labor market, pushes to reduce trade barriers, and a more energetic France in the councils of Europe and global affairs. With Le Pen we can expect increases in economically devastating protectionism, a rollback of what few labor market reforms have been managed in recent years, and a France that threatens the survival of the European project.

The choice of Macron should be obvious to libertarians. That is because, for all her anti-establishment bona fides, Le Pen represents an illiberalism that should make anyone who genuinely believes in individualism and individual rights blanch. Her policies include favoring French industry, shortening the working week even further, foreclosing trade, and halting immigration. Even free marketers who dislike the European Union should see that a more independent France bought at the expense of individuals liberty is not worth the price.

Macron is far from a perfect candidate. He served as economy minister in the Socialist government of current president Francois Hollande. He is in favor of an interventionist state and many of the hallmarks of an economic progressive. Yet in the miasma of French politics, his promotion of competition, markets, and labor reforms should be seen as a welcome change from the current feckless administration, and by far the better of the two choices that will face voters in the second round. Opinion polls so far acknowledge this, with it looking like Macron should walk to victory in the runoff. But voters should not let polls fool them, and should get out cast their ballots.

As a whole, the election is exposing the new fault lines in politics today. The traditional party-driven left vs. right binary is breaking down in favor of a personality-driven open vs. closed binary. Some libertarians fetishize national borders and seem to believe that the closing of borders and the breakdown of supranational organizations and institutions like the EU will advance the cause of liberty. Yet that is simply false. Free trade and individual liberty are predicated on the notion that people should be able to make choices for themselves and have control of their own destinies. A reversion to a closed-off, more nativist world of nationalistic tribes is not libertarian and it is not good for human freedom or dignity.

The political elite in France is not the only one facing collapse. The rise of Donald Trump shows the power of the personality-driven political operation and of the resonance of anti-globalist, nativist rhetoric. Le Pen is much like Trump, but with even worse economic instincts and a social attitude bordering on fascistic. If libertarians choose to attach themselves to these sorts of navel-gazing leaders, they will only entrench forces that are antithetical to liberty.

As the political landscape shifts to the open vs. closed dichotomy, libertarians can seize upon that change. We can be the voice for openness, tolerance, and freedom. If we dont seize that opportunity, we will continue to wallow in irrelevance.

But for now, in France, Macron is the man of the hour.

This post was written by John Engle.

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

John Engle is a merchant banker and author living in the Chicago area. His company, Almington Capital, invests in both early-stage venture capital and in public equities. His writing has been featured in a number of academic journals, as well as the blogs of the Heartland Institute, Grassroot Institute, and Tenth Amendment Center. A graduate of Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and the University of Oxford, Johns first book, Trinity Student Pranks: A History of Mischief and Mayhem, was published in September 2013.

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Reflections on the Revolution in France - Being Libertarian

In a time where naked parasitic leftism is running wild, libertarians are faced with a choice. They can either stand and fight against this menace, or wave the white flag of surrender. This seems like it would be an easy choice for any lover of liberty, but if you listen to certain voices within the movement, cowardice is the most noble of options.

The left-wing combatants claim to be anarchists, and yet are furthering the state, commentator Dan Sanchez wrote in a FEE column. The right-wing combatants claim to be for liberty, and yet are putting liberty in danger. If these conflicts continue to escalate, no matter which side wins, liberty will lose.

Sanchezs commentary is indicative of the academic, elitist, ivory tower mindset that plagues the libertarian movement. This mindset fosters passive inaction and stagnation. It has gotten especially pernicious since Ron Paul retired from public life. Isolated in his bubble, Sanchez and others like him have forgotten what the people need right now. They dont need a piddling crybaby making excuses for inaction; they want a brash, decisive leader. Political street fights are where these leaders can arise.

One ascendant libertarian leader has already emerged from these battles. Kyle Chapman a.k.a. Based Stickman is a Ron Paul-loving libertarian. He showed his love for liberty by slamming a stick into the skull of a communist thug amidst a chaotic violent mob, and is now a beloved national icon as a result. He is working closely with Liberty Hangout, with whom he recorded a podcast last month. He has also started a legal guild with Libertarian Party iconoclast Augustus Invictus to protect the rights of patriots against ANTIFA and their allies. Stickman has big things prepared, and he is emboldening people to stand up for their rights when it matters most.

While Stickman makes power moves, other libertarians are more tolerant of stagnation. They are not only intent to sideline themselves, but also want to inspire young minds to join them in their craven inaction. A textbook example of stagnatarianism comes from the Chief Executive Officer of Students For Liberty, Wolf von Laer. At his organizations international conference this year, he repeatedly told the impressionable audience, More Milton, Less Milo. This incredibly dull catchphrase did not even come close to going viral. It is a slogan that gives a glimpse into the entire pathology of the phony Beltway astroturfed libertarian movement.

Although he is still laying low after a nasty media hit job tried to derail his career, Milo Yiannopoulos is relevant, hip, interesting, charismatic, funny and controversial. He has the skill set desperately needed to grow a right-leaning political movement with young people in this day and age. On the other hand, Milton Friedman peaked in relevance over three decades ago, served as a regime economist, supported all kinds of government interventions into the private economy, and there is not a kid on Earth who could give a damn about what his supposed accomplishments are.

Perhaps Wolfs lousy advice was disingenuous blather meant to pigeonhole youthful activists to keep them from becoming too dangerous for his corporate masters. That seems to be the usual modus operandi of Koch-funded organizations, but I digress. Thankfully, a charlatan like von Laer never got the ear of Stickman when he was college-aged. Otherwise, he would have likely wallowed in isolated intellectual bubbleslistening to stuffed shirt bores pontificate endlessly and eventually been swallowed up by the establishment like so many other well-intentioned libertarians have throughout the years.

Having not been properly indoctrinated, Stickman failed to understand that it was improper for him to do anything but sit on your hands in the face of virulent leftism. He didnt realize that the big money donors come first, and fighting for freedom comes second. He simply acted like a man, and heeded the call to stand up for his rights. By inflicting righteous violence onto the skull of a lowly communist, Stickman emboldened many others to stand with him as well. Now, he is branching out with Alt Knight chapters across the nation. He is sparking a revolution in the hearts and minds of the American people.

Its worth noting that Stickman has accomplished more for the cause of liberty through his bold leadership in three weeks than Jeffrey Tucker has for three decades as a booze-addled scribbler. While CATO Institute analysts produce white papers that will sit on shelves and collect dust for eons, Stickman rolls up his sleeves and makes an immediate impact. His in-your-face leadership style exposes the true colors of leftists, who regularly attack women and the elderly while hiding behind masks. Stickmans leadership also exposes weak, cosmopolitan libertarians for what they are. By sitting on the sidelines, they pretend as if they are above the fray; but really, they are just cowards.

Libertarians needs to realize that the public demands strong leadership. They can whine and complain about that reality, or they can work to fill that void. Some libertarians are satisfied with being uninfluential but self-important outsiders accomplishing jack squat in actual terms. Others have had enough of tyranny and are willing to fight back. This is the line in the sand. It is time for libertarians to become more realistic, and realize that Jeffrey Tuckers idea to float away to a beautiful anarchy is the liquor-soaked delusion of a washed up old sophist. To regain lost liberties, we all must get our hands dirty. That may very well mean heading out to the streets and taking on the enemy face-to-face.

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Based Stickman Shows Libertarians That Bold Grassroots Leadership Is Necessary - The Liberty Conservative