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By Aidan Mattis

On Friday, GOP leadership pulled the American Health Care Act from a vote, realizing that they would not have the required votes to make sure it passed. SpeakerPaul Ryan surely knew he could not count on support from the Democrats, what he didnt prepare for was stalwart resistance from the far right House Freedom Caucus.

As reported byTownhall and Politico, a secret pact made between 28 members of the HFC made the AHCA impossible to pass. The Caucus members agreed that none of them would agree to vote for the healthcare replacement bill without first consulting the rest of the group, and in the end the strategy prevailed.

The House Freedom Caucus is not nominally libertarian. It has within its ranks representatives known for their pro-freedom stances, such as Justin Amash and Thomas Massie, but they are all Republican party members. Rand Paul, the Senate Republican known for his brazen words and 13 hour filibusters, fits in the same boat. On the two party system, Paul has said that Ive been there. Ive seen what its like in the third-party world. Our system is directed to the two parties and I made the decision when I startedrunning for political office that I am a constitutional conservative and Libertarian-leaning Republican. Why? Well, hes probably on to something. This past election saw the lowest approval ratings for the two main-party candidates in history, making it a prime opportunity for a third party to enter the fray and truly break the Democratic/Republican duopoly. Jill Stein was never an option, but the Libertarian Party had a great deal of available talent to send out. When the time came, they gave usGary Johnson.

While this absolute failure is not definitive proof that third parties will never break the system, it does call into question the readiness of such organizations to answer the call when the time is right. There must be another way. Perhaps that path is already in front of us. The libertarian leaning Freedom Caucus just shut down not only the GOP leadership, but the President himself. And they didnt even need all of their members. These liberty minded people ran as Republicans and they won. While encouraging people to abandon the Libertarian Party would not be popular, and it would certainly not make the Party leadership happy, it might allow the libertarian ideology to gain a foothold in Congress. The Caucus does not disclose its members officially, but about three dozen congressmen belong to the group.

If the Liberty Movement can infiltrate the Republican Party, in its current state of division, then major changes could take place and real reform could occur. Weve just proven that we can successfully withstand the assault of both the GOP and the President, and now is the time to capitalize.

The Republicans reached their current power ratio by starting at the lower levels of government and working their way up over a decade. The Libertarians should do the same thing, within the Republican party. Freedom loving candidates should challenge neoconservatives at the lower levels of government, then the House of Representatives and the Senate.

As it stands, the Republicans need the Freedom Caucus to approve in order to pass Healthcare Reform, likely theyll need the same support to pass tax reform. Anything that the Democrats cannot be persuaded on, the GOP will need the Freedom Caucus. Given statements from Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters that they will refuse to work with Donald Trump on anything at all, it seems likely that the Republican Party will need the Freedom caucus for absolutely everything they wish to do. As it stands, the Freedom caucus controls about one sixth of the House of Representatives. Since the upcoming elections will see establishment conservatives in hot water over their failure to pass some sort of Healthcare reform as they promised, the primary races will be contested with far more ease than a normal year. Liberty candidates can challenge them in these races, especially in the deep red states, and perhaps we can come up with 60 seats in the Freedom Caucus next time around.

With one third of the Republican party dominated by liberty loving representatives, Healthcare and Tax reform would not just need the stamp of approval of the Freedom Caucus to pass, they would be absolutely dictated by the liberty movement. Gary Johnson showed us that the time being right isnt a guarantee; we need to take the initiative, and we need to take over the Republican Party.

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Fractions of Factions- The Libertarian Resistance - The Libertarian Republic

Being Libertarian

The Problem with Saying Taxation is Theft Being Libertarian It is hardly surprising that the phrase Taxation is theft has become a popular slogan in libertarian circles. After all, the closest thing to a universal tenet of the movement is the desire for the elevation of individual liberty over the collective ...

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By Jennifer Maffessanti

Earlier this year, I participated in a press conference announcing the launch of the Georgia Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty, which is a statewide network of conservatives and libertarians who believe capital punishment violates our values. The event featured well-known speakers from across the state, and I was proud to take part. However, I wasnt always opposed to the death penalty.

I was raised as a conservatarian, which is essentially a cross between conservatism and libertarianism, and I supported capital punishment for much of my life. I felt that there were certain crimes that were so heinous that the perpetrator had forfeited their right to live among other humans, and for some time, I didnt question my death penalty position. Yet, once I became a mother, I started asking myself what kind of world I wanted my children to inherit. So, I became more politically involved and began to critically reexamine my views on a great many things, including the death penalty. Over the course of about 5 years of considering capital punishment, I finally turned against it, and I now view it as little more than a gross overreach of government power.

When I researched capital punishment, I was increasingly shocked by what I found, which is what ultimately changed my thinking. Thus far, over 156 people nationally and 6 in Georgia have been released from death row because they were wrongly convicted. Thats 156+ individuals who easily could have been wrongly executed had the mistakes that led to their convictions not been discovered. Others have indeed been executed even though plenty of questions about their guilt remained. This is a heartbreaking fact, but it shouldnt surprise anyone.

The staggering number of exonerations indicates that we have some fundamental problems in our criminal justice system. The human element in our judicial process makes the whole idea of a functioning, efficient, and efficacious death penalty absurd. It requires a level of knowledge and insight that is just not possible. There are no greater stakes than life and death, and so long as the death penalty remains an option, innocent lives are endangered.

While the risk to innocent lives is paramount to my death penalty opposition, there are a host of other reasons that gave me pause, including capital punishments expensive nature. The monetary costs are shockingly high. This is because capital trials are much longer and require more resources. Then there are several stages of mandatory appeals, while the perpetrator is kept in a special section of prison, death row, which is incredibly costly. All of this quickly adds up and is quite expensive. Statistics vary, but according to a host of studies, the death penalty easily costs many millions more than life without the chance of release.

The taxpayers are charged for this enormously expensive program, but it really doesnt help We the People. I dont think it deters homicide in the least. Many murders are crimes of passion or they were committed by people with intellectual disabilities. During the commission of these crimes, these individuals werent rationally thinking about possible consequences. Therefore, the death penalty fails to adequately protect society, and there are even studies that have clearly made this point.

The impact on murder victims families is another issue that demands our attention. Its often said that capital punishment exists, in part, to serve justice to murder victims families, but the process is, in practice, quite harmful to them. Prosecutors who are bent on seeking death frequently offer promises to them, stating that their case is a slam-dunk, which will be resolved quickly and result in an execution. These promises largely never come true. Furthermore, the process is complex and drawn out, which means during every trial appearance, appeal, and media story, the loved ones of the slain must relive their loss and pain. That is cruel in and of itself.

Georgias death penalty system is afflicted with the same flaws as any other states capital punishment program. We can and must do better, and since nobody has been sentenced to die in Georgia in nearly 3 years, I believe the process of reexamining the death penalty is already underway. However, our goal should be nothing short of eliminating capital punishment because it empowers an error-prone government comprised of flawed humans with a great authority with which it cant be trusted. Humans are simply too imperfect to apply an irreversible death penalty with regular accuracy. Given what we know, repeal is the only answer.

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Conservative and Libertarian Georgians Should Oppose the Death ... - The Libertarian Republic

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by Ram Jayaraman

It seems nowadays that people cannot have a conversation about politics without setting fire to any possible notion of perceived tranquility. Debates seem to irrevocably devolve into ad hominem assaults. However, in the interest of tranquility, I ask that you humor me while I try to describe my political inclinations, and why I think libertarianism is essential to free thought.

The concept of libertarianism is eponymous. At the core of the movement is the idea that ones liberty must be unfettered, necessarily unrestricted provided it does not interfere with the liberty of another. Very broadly speaking, this aligns mostly with the social perspectives of modern liberalism and the economic perspectives of modern conservatism. However, there is an important distinction that must be made which is best highlighted through example. Take the recent gay marriage ruling, for instance. The socially conservative stance, owing primarily to the philosophical tenets set forth by the Judeo-Christian pantheon, posits that marriage is an institution between a biological man and a biological woman. The socially liberal stance posits that marriage is an institution of love and therefore is not confined to heterosexual norms. In contrast, the libertarian stance is simply that the government has no business telling you who you can or cannot marry in a consensual relationship. At first glance, one would argue that the liberal and the libertarian perspectives are synonymous. However, upon closer inspection, this argumentation is deemed specious. Under liberalism, marriage between homosexuals is permissible; id est there exists an implication that the government is allowing its existence. Alternatively, libertarians advocate that the government should not have any leverage to regulate the institution of marriage. This example highlights, in brevity, what libertarianism is: provided I am not harming anyone else, the government should not act to restrict my agency.

Let us take this example a bit further. Assume that someones family does not condone homosexuality and views the practice as an abomination against God. He considers it nothing less than mortal sin, and to those for whom he cares, he vehemently preaches these beliefs. In the system of libertarian thought, his views are irrelevant. Regardless whether he thinks that LGBTQ+ people are destined for eternal damnation, their activities do not disrupt his agency. If one were to assume that these two constructs are mutually exclusive, consider this. The libertarian party has been pro LGBTQ+ rights for decades longer than either of the current duopoly. However, at the time, a sizable proportion of libertarians did not personally espouse gay marriage; they just advocated that they had no business enforcing their beliefs on others.

The current system of political duopoly in the United States has developed the false notion that the government need function as a moral executor. However, morality is relative. Our cultures and our beliefs are relative. My criteria for morality is not necessarily congruent to yours. As such, assuming that neither of our practices harms the other, there is no logical reason that the government should interfere. In the common vernacular, there is no logical reason, within the sphere of libertarianism, to enforce punitive measures for victimless crimes. Moreover, there is also no need to enforce such measures resulting from differences in morality that do not result in a disruption of individual agency. This notion is antithetical to the current paradigm of the duopoly, culminating in the development of a false binary with regard to political ideology.

The hypocrisy of the political binary can be evidenced as follows. Currently, liberals appear to have a disdain for firearms, yet they also believe that Muslim people are not responsible for the acts of war that terrorist cells commit under some perverse banner of Islam. In contrast, conservatives tout the existence and usage of firearms, yet they believe in the restriction of Muslim entry to domestic territory. Statistically, an infinitesimal percentage of firearms that are used in the United States are used for nefarious purposes. Statistically, an infinitesimal percentage of Muslims act in the name of terrorism. If one claims that the potential damage of an event outweighs the statistical insignificance of its occurrence, this would logically imply that liberals would deny Muslims entry to the United States. Analogously, if one claims that the statistical insignificance of an event outweighs its potential damage, this would logically imply that conservatives would allow unbarred entry of Muslims into the United States. Obviously, this is not the case. Both parties exhibit hypocrisy in their logical reasoning.

In summation, here is why libertarianism appeals to me. I barely know what is best for myself. Why on earth, then, would I try to enforce my views on other people? Obviously, there are far more intricacies that cannot be described transiently, but the core of the philosophy remains. Your thoughts are your own. A political party does not own my ideologies. Why should they enforce them upon me? Let me think, and Ill let you think. Thats what libertarianism is: freedom to think, freedom to act, and freedom to be. Liberty.

libertarianLibertyphilosophythought

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The Necessity of Libertarian Thought - The Libertarian Republic - The Libertarian Republic

I know that as soon as you saw the title of this article you thought to yourself, This isnt about me. Well I hate to break it to you, but it most likely is so shave your neck beards, burn your fedoras, take the hot pocket out of your mouth, and listen up. If libertarianism is going to grow we must address the biggest hurdle that we face today: how to market libertarianism. There are a number of issues that must be dealt with, but the one that seems most glaring and which has lead to the stereotypes that I have used to get your attention is that libertarians are just not cool.

As libertarians we must realize that our message is not mainstream yet, and therefore each of us is an ambassador when marketing it. Being an ambassador comes with a certain amount of personal responsibility to be self aware so that you do not completely disenfranchise someone you are engaging with. No one wants to be around a person who causes them discomfort, whether that is because they are a socially awkward basement dweller, a loud obnoxious internet troll, lack personal hygiene, or just generally unaware of normal human behavior.

Dont despair, however, for it is possible to change your ways and I am happy to be your guide in this endeavor with a few simple tips:

If we ever hope for the message of liberty to become mainstream we must focus on marketing, and the most important part of marketing is to be presentable. So, please, libertarians, try to be cool.

* Christopher Lee McKitrick is a writer and political commentator. He is a New Hampshire native, beer enthusiast, and lover of freedom. You can follow him on Facebook @mckitrickliberty.

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Libertarians Just Aren't Cool - Being Libertarian (satire)