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Being Libertarian

Shortcuts & Delusions: Chasing Shadows, Tilting At Windmills Being Libertarian For years, a great many conservatives and libertarians warned that President Obama was a socialist, communist, or worse. Obama is undoubtedly of the Progressive Left, but he turned out to be a bigger advocate for corporatism than the workers owning the ... and more »

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Shortcuts & Delusions: Chasing Shadows, Tilting At Windmills - Being Libertarian

Being Libertarian

How The Tax Code Picks Winners And Losers Being Libertarian It's never optimal for the government to sway private decision making one way or the other, even if it's encouraging actions we support. This can be tough to process even for the most libertarian-leaning minds. This is especially true for tax policy ...

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How The Tax Code Picks Winners And Losers - Being Libertarian

The Republican and Democratic conventions to select their candidates to replace Ryan Zinke were held in a convention hall holding hundreds of delegates and on-lookers. The Libertarian convention, held at the Eagle Lodge in Helena last Saturday, was attended by three dozen loyalists including 21 delegates. It was the only convention that featured homemade brownies as a snack. The Libertarian Party has been considered an also ran party garnering single-digit vote results after their candidates paid their campaign fees then went fishing. Ron Vandevender, Chairman of the Montana Libertarian Party, is vowing to change that. Referencing two presidential candidates with the lowest likeability ratings in history and now two candidates that support the same policies and personalities Ron proclaimed, No more AAA ball. We are in this to win and build a party that can continue to win. We have the message, and this is the time for that message. The candidate selected was Mark Wicks, a published author and third generation rancher from Inverness who augments his income by delivering the rural mail and selling produce at various venues including farmers markets and road side stands. He has a degree in Aviation maintenance. Mark explained, I am just like many Montanans. I need several revenue streams to care for my family. It is a lot of work but it is what a father does. He is married to Beth and has a son Hunter (18), and three daughters Jewel (16), Choral (12), and Liberty (4). His children are all involved in the family enterprises. I think many people will see me as the candidate that truly understands the average Montanan and their daily struggles and hopes.

Positions Wicks first mentioned position concerned the long-standing platform of the Republican Party to eliminate the U.S. Dept of Education. George W. Bush opposed this plank so delegates to the Republican convention deleted it. Mark Wicks says, Reduce government spending and programs across the board starting with the Dept. of Education. Take that money and block grant it to the states. We have great teachers. Set them free and let them teach. Veterans: We should give all veterans a Medicaid card which is accepted by every hospital. They should not have to drive hundreds of miles over icy roads when quality care is right at hand. Functionality of Congress: We must stop runaway spending and social engineering. To accomplish this we must return to the intent of the 10th amendment of the Constitution. Neither major party wants to solve problems but rather prefer to cast blame. We elect Democrats and Republicans over and over yet everything just gets worse. Transfer of Federal lands to Montana: I believe federal lands would be better managed under local control. But I would never accept selling large parcels of public lands. There may be a few isolated parcels that should be considered but not many. If we were to sell off lands favored by hunters, fishermen, and wildlife I would insist on a public easement that would forever guarantee public access. Wicks admits getting out his message is problematic with only $1000 to put into the effort. But he is hopeful, The national party must recognize that out of the five federal races going on right now Montana leans the most Libertarian and is the most affordable. Libertarians across the country should be energized by this opportunity to establish a beach-head in Congress. Wicks joined all candidates at the convention in an oath to not make personal attacks against their opponents but rather to honestly discuss the philosophical differences between them. Keeping true to that he said, I am a no strings attached candidate. The other two will be beholding to the special interests and to their parties supported by the same special interests. People want a real discussion of the real issues facing America and our families. We will not accept campaigns driven by messages of 140 characters or less such as I will drain the swamp or Make America Great Again. Asked what separated him from Democratic candidate, Rob Quist, Wicks replied, Rob Quist is probably a nice guy but he plainly advocates for national registration of guns. I have never heard of anyone which thinks this is an acceptable idea. On Gianforte he said, He has worked hard and accomplished a lot. And he accomplishes a lot of good through his philanthropy. But what he offers is just more of the same partisan politics and sound bites. Wicks smiled and said, He also wants to drain the swamp. In the last election 6 percent of Montanans voted Libertarian for president. Six percent is a long way from a winning 34 percent. But Mark Wicks and Ron Vandevender vow to give it their best.

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Libertarians chose Wicks as candidate - Laurel Outlook (subscription)

Milo Yiannopoulos: Where do we start?

Before we raise our pitchforks and torches, I personally am not offended in any way with what he has to say. In fact, I find it all extremely entertaining. This opinion has nothing to do with hate speech or racism. I heard his statements on his alleged promotion of pedophilia months and months ago on The Joe Rogan Experience, and took it as a partial joke and am surprised it took this long to surface. My opinion on him has little to do with his explosive nature or his comedic tropes, but more to do with questioning what the end goal in all of this is, and how he in any way helps or advances the libertarian message. Is he the next Christopher Hitchens? Or is he just a re-hashed neo-con who doesnt like the GOP power structure, and is more akin to a right-wing Lena Dunham begging for attention? I would personally argue that he is far more the latter than a paradigm shifter of societys problems, and that he does not benefit libertarians at all.

I was introduced to him several years back, and my initial reaction was one of comedic enjoyment. I appreciated how easily he was able to make liberals who thought they had dignified and logical points turn into erratic and scrambling messes in mere minutes. With his abrasively flamboyant and no-holds-barred statements, Milo was able to expose many of our liberal foes as nothing more than sanctimonious sophists who would quickly abandon everything they said about acceptance, and encouraging diversity in thought the second they were faced with a minority that starkly opposed them. However, after hearing respectable long format interviews with him on The Joe Rogan Experience, The Rubin Report and listening to a talk he gave along with Christina Hoff Sommers and Stephen Crowder, I started to realize his entire message is nothing at all but recycled talking points and quasi neo-conservativism but delivered by an openly gay, Jewish immigrant. Dr. Sommers explained masterfully how third wave feminism is not a positive movement for women and is closer to a female supremacy movement than a bid for equality. Milo approached the mic and blew our minds with one statement, Feminism is cancer. Funny? Totally. Informative, new or intellectual? Not quite. Rush Limbaugh has said the same things for years. Anyone can do that, given you are okay with a certain amount of condemnation. When listening to him speak with Joe Rogan, it was more of the same: humorous, but not a solitary mind-blowing thought, not a single thing I havent heard a thousand times before, albeit he just takes the gloves off, uses foul language and employs ad hominems. But he hasnt espoused a single bit of knowledge that I nor any other self-respecting non-Leftist hasnt heard already. Unless he is attempting to attract liberal converts, which I do not think he is.

In addition to not really saying anything earth-shattering, Milo does us something of a disservice insofar he is now to an extent representing libertarians, and much of this may have to do with our lack of promotion in mainstream media and culture, as well as internal failures to market our movement more effectively. Milo often suggests he is fighting for libertarian voices to be able to speak unhindered, as well as alt-right and Republican voices; however I do not believe Walter Block, Ron Paul or Tom Woods are having a hard time speaking at all. He isnt a libertarian in any way, and has gone to great lengths, like he did in his interview with The Nation, to suggest he doesnt quite see us in a positive light, stating, Libertarians are children. Libertarians are people who have given up looking for an answer. This whole everybody do what they want is code for leave me to do what I want. Its selfish and childish. Its an admission that you have given up trying to work out what a good society would look like, how the world should be ordered and instead just retreated back into selfishness. Thats why theyre so obsessed with weed, Bitcoin, and hacking. To me, this sounds like a John McCain interview. My issue stems from the fact that he is the loudest voice in the room, and he is doing the talking for us. A person who slanders the entire libertarian philosophy is doing the talking for libertarians in the mainstream. But we will risk our necks for him and fully associate ourselves with him just because he mentions libertarianism a couple times? Something seems off about that.

Many of my libertarian peers have pushed back at me and suggested that we have to support his right to free speech. I totally agree. Milo has a right to speak at public universities. He has a right to some degree of protection from out of control rioters. We are forced to fund these institutions and therefore we could demand diversity of thought, no matter how foolish the thought may be. Even the former President of Iran was allowed to speak some years ago at Columbia, and was given the opportunity to talk and answer questions. I believe President Ahmadinejad is a far more offensive person than Milo is.

Milo, however, doesnt have the right to speak at CPAC, or at a private event or institution. A publishing company does not have to publish his book. Their refusal to do so is not a resistance to free speech; it is a capitalist business decision in which one weighs the risk of releasing it versus the reward. All libertarians should support the right to choose who you enter into contracts with and your right to discriminate as a business or property owner. If private institutions and universities decide to shun him, it is their right, just as it is our right to no longer associate with the aforementioned institutions and universities. This actually works; take a look at the University of Missouri, whos reckless expansion of rules following a series of alleged racist incidents have led to a drop in applicants.

In short, I do not see what we gain from defending Yiannopoulos so vigorously. We should support his right to speak as much as he wants, but he espouses nothing new, he does nothing to promote free market economics in any way, he supports the police state at every turn and has no interest in scaling back Western influence via militaristic intervention. Milo is a great entertainer, but we gain nothing from going out of our way to defend him. He will be fine without us.

* Nick Verdino is a libertarian and identifies as an anarcho-capitalist, who lives in Chicago, Illinois. He holds a bachelors degree in political science and philosophy from the University of Akron in Ohio.

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What do Libertarians Stand to Gain by Defending Milo Yiannopoulos? - Being Libertarian

In an interview with the Washington Examiner two months into President Trump's administration, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) reflected on the president's ascent to America's highest office, offering fresh insights from his vantage point as a libertarian-leaning representative smack in the heart of Trump country.

To explain 2016, Massie looks to previous cycles. Rand Paul's upset victory in the 2010, Ron Paul's enthusiastic following in the 2012 presidential race, and his own win in the 2012 congressional primary all looked, at first glance, like a libertarian wave.

"I went to Iowa twice and came back with [Ron Paul]. I was with him at every event for the last three days in Iowa," Massie said. "From what I observed, not just in Iowa but also in Kentucky, up close with individuals, was that the people that voted for me in Kentucky, and the people who had voted for Rand Paul in Iowa several years before, were now voting for Trump. In fact, the people that voted for Rand in a primary in Kentucky were preferring Trump."

"All this time," Massie explained, "I thought they were voting for libertarian Republicans. But after some soul searching I realized when they voted for Rand and Ron and me in these primaries, they weren't voting for libertarian ideas they were voting for the craziest son of a bitch in the race. And Donald Trump won best in class, as we had up until he came along."

Massie's observation that libertarian-minded voters, those who devoted passionate support to Sen. Paul and his father in previous cycles, are likely more attracted to "crazy" personalities than candidates with ideological purity bears important implications for the future of that movement. Do those voters, more than anything, crave change agents over philosophical disciples?

Massie sees Trump as more of a populist than a libertarian conservative, but noted important similarities between both camps. "There are some places where populism overlaps with libertarianism and contradicts the establishment here in D.C.," Massie said. "For instance, less proclivity to go to war, less appetite for having 20 or 30,000 troops in any one country to subsidize their defense."

"I see overlap there," he concluded.

Massie chalks Trump's success in the general election up to his pledge to shake up Washington, saying, "He had the change mantle and Hillary didn't."

Massie recalled an encounter he had with one of Trump's most powerful primary opponents during the election, reflecting, "I remember I ran into Jeb Bush in a hotel lobby in Iowa. He was just there, no staff and we started talking.

Also from the Washington Examiner

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned Friday that the new Trump administration will no longer pursue a policy of "strategic patience" with North Korea.

"The policy of strategic patience has ended," Tillerson said as he met with officials in South Korea. "All options are on the table."

The blunt message, delivered during his first Asia trip, comes as North Korea continues to implement missile tests and make its neighbors nervous.

In Japan, Tillerson said past efforts to rein in North Korea "have failed."

North Korea itself has backed that up, by announcing in January that it is close to developing a missile that could deliver a warhead to the United States.

03/17/17 7:57 AM

Bush, Massie said, "was adamant that Trump wasn't a real Republican."

"Ironic," the congressman noted, "because that was in my circle of hardcore supporters that's the charge leveled at the Bushes."

It's worth noting that Americans generally tend to be less devoted to ideological teams than we realize, as I outlined Tuesday in this analysis of Bernie Sanders' appeal to Trump voters. Populism transcends party lines for a reason.

Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.

Also from the Washington Examiner

Obama and Bush both enjoyed notably close relationships with Merkel during their presidencies.

03/17/17 7:24 AM

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Rep. Massie's theory: Voters who voted for libertarians and then ... - Washington Examiner