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I once had a conversation with a Libertarian friend who insisted that freedom was the answer to everything ironic since he was getting married the following week.

Freedom to have sex with others while married? I asked.

Of course not, he said.

Freedom for your children to do whatever they want?

No, thats different, he said.

Freedom for everyone to have a nuclear bomb?

No, that wouldnt be good.

Freedom for people to steal?

No, that has to be controlled.

You dont really think that freedom is the answer to everything, I said. The real question is what to constrain and what to let go free. The question in social engineering is the question in all engineering. Its a question of tolerances: What to constrain with tight tolerances and what to let run free with loose tolerances. That question is built right into the paradoxical declarations that we should all, be intolerant of all intolerance, or tolerate all intolerance.

Sorry, thats not my question, he said.

But why? I asked.

Because its hard and I dont want to bother with it.

I applauded his honesty. If you want to know why its not obvious to everyone by now that the question is what to tolerate and not tolerate, its simply this: The question is difficult.

Its so much easier to be a hypocrite, to claim that total freedom or total constraint are the only possibilities and that you favor one and oppose the other. Its easier to pretend that youre crusading for absolute freedom against absolute control or vice versa than it is to deal with the messy complexity of trying to sort out what to free and what to constrain.

Hypocrisy is the alternative to praying for the wisdom to know the difference between what to constrain and what to let run free. Just pretend that you already have theperfect wisdom to know the obvious difference. Pretend that theres no question, control is always bad, freedom is always good. Or vice versa.

And with hypocrisy, you can even have it both ways depending on your momentary needs and whims. You can claim that you always favor one as you can switch back and forth.

I dont like that this constrains me. We should all be free always.

Always?!

Yes, judgment is always bad. People should never be judgmental.

But isnt should a judgment?

No. And why do you always have to disagree with me?

I dont always and anyway, didnt you just say that people should be free always? Doesnt that apply to me too? Shouldnt I be free to disagree with you?

No. People should always do the right thing. People should always be controlled by the moral principles I know and espouse.

But, but, you just said . . .

Theres a difference between being and feeling consistent. To be consistent you have to tame the tendency to extrapolate to universal principles from whatever youre feeling in the moment. You have to be able to notice your inconsistencies.

Since thats difficult and self-compromising, its easier to just feel consistent. For that you need only hold one idea constant. Just always chant, Im consistent. I have integrity. Im not like all of the other people around me. Other people are inconsistent hypocrisy. Im not.

If you hold that one thought with all your heart then you dont have to pay attention to your flip-flopping. You can have all your cakes and eat them too.

You wont live by your inconsistent standards, but if youre insistent enough, youll be able to convince yourself that you do, and maybe youll be able to convince others too. There are lots of hypocrisy cults you can join, mutual admiration societies that claim some absolute truth, thereby liberating themselves to follow their whims, confident that theyre consistent.

These days, libertarianism is one such cult, growing in popularity, in large part through sponsorship by the Koch brothers network of donors, spending billions through private charities to achieve a cabal of about 400 billionaires ultimate aim, to be unconstrained in everything they do. The cabal was inspired by a self-serving misreading of the Soviet Union. Fred Koch, the Koch brothers father was a key provider to Stalin as he built the Soviet Unions oil industry. When Fred saw the devastation wrought by his client Stalin he wrote that, What I saw in Russia convinced me of the utterly evil nature of communism. . . . What I saw there convinced me that communism was the most evil force the world has ever seen and I must do everything in my power to fight it, whichI have done since that time.

Rather than bite Stalins hand that fed him he conveniently focused on the rationalization that Stalin employed to justify his dictatorship. Fred went on to say in 1938 that Although nobody agrees with me, I am of the opinion that the only sound countries in the world are Germany, Italy, and Japan, simply because they are all working and working hard. He loved fascism; he hated communism.

Thus was born the hypocritical Koch campaign, control for freedom; constrain for liberty, dictate anarchy. It was easy to get other wealthy donors enthusiastic about the movement, donors like our new education secretary Betsy Devos, a self-declared Libertarian who donated over $200 million to hypocritical campaigns for state-imposed religious education in the name of Libertarianism. And its been easy to find politicians who will mouth and defend the hypocrisy for the money.

Thats what happened to what once was the Republican party. The Republicans who embraced American traditions bent to the Kochs will or were chased out by Koch-funded candidates from the Tea Party. If youre wondering whatever happened to our country, what explains the weird jack-knifing lurch toward libertarianism, the Koch brothers are a good place to find answers. The Tea Party wouldnt have lasted any longer than the Occupy movement if it werent orchestrated and funded by the Kochs.

Do I sound like a conspiracy theorist? If the alternative to conspiracy theory is the assumption that there are never any conspiracies, were in real trouble. There are conspiracies. The difference between conspiracy theorists and people who reveal real conspiracies is in whether the eagerness to find oneor the evidence leads one to the conclusion that there is one. If you read the facts on the Koch brothers, I think youll find that the evidence stacks up pretty conclusively.

But no matter how much money you pour into selling something, it wont sell if theres no latent appetite. With Libertarianism as a rationalization, theres plenty of appetite, the appetite for some alternative to having to think about whats worth and not worth constraining.

Libertarians have bought themselves the ultimate freedom, paid in full with a commitment to hypocrisy, the freedom to never have to wonder about or learn from anything ever again, the freedom to feel consistent without having to trouble themselves with the hard question that shows up everywhere since sometimes freedom turns out well and sometimes it turns out badly:

In engineering:There are bolts and there are ball bearings. We bolt some things down and we let other things run free.

Computer engineering:Algorithms are constraints that enable you to input a free range of variables and get reliably constrained results.

Social engineering:We want people to have freedom to do what they want so long as it doesnt cause more damage than their freedom is worth. Laws, at their best, are constraints that maximize freedom.

Liberty and justice for all:Justice constrains us, liberty frees us. Justice is security. Government at its best seeks the best mix.

Freedom and responsibility:Youre free on the dance floor, but unless youre special (P.S., youre not) your freedom comes with responsibility for not constraining other peoples freedom. You dont get to crowd everyone into the corner by dancing wildly with your eyes shut shouting I believe in freedom!

Social movements:The best and worst movements in human history have all had the same rallying cry, a proud We demand more! Thats the cry of those crowded out but also those who already have more than their fair share. Its the cry of the womens and civil rights movement but alsoof the Nazis. So whats the difference between the good and bad versions of that rallying cry? Hypocrisy, demand for more dance floor when youre already taking up plenty of it.

Player vs. married:A player is free to date whomever but the freedom comes with a loss of security, no reliable partner to come home to. A married person is more constrained but in the bargain gains some security.

Freelance vs. salaried:Salaried workers are more constrained than freelancers, but in exchange, they get a bit more security.

Evolution:Life is a trial and error process and we are the trials. This makes us ambivalent, rooting for ourselves as trials and rooting for the trial and error process. In our hearts, we cry let the best man win and it damned well better be me!

Sore losers:Sore losers smash the game board if they lose. Libertarians are like that. They think that if they dont win, the game is rigged against them and must be destroyed so that they always win.

Free willvs. determinism:We claim that free will as better than determinism but actually were ambivalent. What wed really like is the freedom to advance and the determinism that locks in the advances weve already made. What we really want is a ratchet, freedom to climb, constraint against falling.

We can have that ratchet if we shut our eyes, dance impulsively and shout freedom is the only answer! while crowding everyone else into the corners by meaning only our personal freedom, the hell with theirs.

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What does freedom actually mean? Self-indulgent Libertarian hypocrisy knows no bounds - Salon

The Libertarian Party continues to bask in a historic election year, gaining party status and ballot access in more states in 2016. The general platform of fiscal conservatism and social liberalism/tolerance/openness is striking a cord with many voters looking for alternatives outside the two-party political structure.

In some states, like Iowa, the local Libertarian Party is celebrating major party status. However, other Libertarian Parties must fight Republican and Democratic forces to gain the party status or ballot access they believe they rightfully earned after the 2016 elections.

In Tennessee, the state Libertarian Party asked the secretary of state to declare it a qualified political party, according to Ballot Access News. Current law requires minor parties to get at least 5 percent of the vote in the previous gubernatorial election.

The last gubernatorial election was in 2014, when 5% of the vote was 67,687. The partyscase for qualified party status is that Gary Johnson received70,397 votes. I reached out to the chairman of the Libertarian Party of Tennessee for comment, and will update the article with the chairmans comments.

The Libertarian Parties in Ohio and Washington stateare also fighting state officials on being denied major party status, despite Johnsons success in 2016. In Washington, the secretary of state added the total number of write-in votes to the total presidential count to drop the Libertarian Party below the required number (5% of the vote total) to obtain major party status.

The Ohio Libertarian Party has long been locked in conflict and litigation with the states Republican secretary of state, Jon Husted, over candidates being denied access to the ballot and denying the party recognized status. Multiple lawsuits have been filed by the Libertarian Party against Husted, which have had no success before the Supreme Court.

Husted denied the Libertarian Party of Ohio recognized party status because Gary Johnson had to run in the state as an independent, even though he was the Libertarians presidential nominee. The party had been previously stripped of its party status and the state would not let Johnson run under the Libertarian label.

These are just a fewexamples of the struggles the Libertarian Party and other minor parties experience just to get on the ballot. In many states, the petition requirements to appear on the general election ballot area deterrent. And even if a minor party believes it can get the signatures necessary, many fear legal challenges from the major parties that could potentially cripple theirparty financially.

The Libertarian Party of Illinoischallenged a law before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appealsthatmakes it harder for third parties to gain ballot access. An update from the Courthouse News Serviceindicates that the court may be poised to rule in the Libertarian Partys favor. It would be a big win for Libertarians not only in Illinois, but across the country.

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Libertarian Ballot Access Fight against Two-Party Duopoly Grows Stronger - IVN News

When Nigel Farage, the man behind #Brexit, spoke at CPAC 2017, I was pleasantly surprised. As a fan of that event myself, but not a Trump supporter, I assumed that many attached to Britains separation from the European Union might also be aligned similarly and, therefore, be less apt to associate with President Trumps more aggressive approach. So the mere appearance was nice enough, but when Mr. Farage then stuck around to mingle and chat, I was more than pleasantly surprised I was blown away.

I came [to CPAC] two years ago, Farage explained when discussing his past relationship to the event with us just outside the ballroom doors. There are a lot more young people here [than last time]. So there is more of a buzz and excitement in the air. Winning does that.

And winning is certainly something both Farage and Trump have in common. And the POTUS even promised more winning for America in his own speech that kicked off the second full day of events at CPAC at the top of the morning. That appearance, which contained a healthy mix of truth and fiction (Trump claimed that he had a line going back six blocks of fans waiting for him at the Gaylord Convention Center; he did not), set the tone as being quite cheeky. The President started things off with a joke: that if the audience never sat down, the dishonest media would likely be able to spin that into a headline claiming that he received no standing ovation. Ha.

But that rhetoric clearly works. The man got elected. And while sitting in the audience during the speech, I was involuntarily back-slapped and elbow-jabbed by an elderly gentleman to my right who kept raving about how bright he thought Trump was, and how he would wager that Trump has a lot more in common with us than with them. Us vs. them. And there it was Trumps winning formula. Not only was his a strategy of populism, but a type of populism based around the concept of the frontier of antagonism. Want solidarity? Unite against a common enemy. Except with Trump, the common enemy is everyone.

Well, everyone except Bernie Sanders. I like Bernie, Trump proclaimed at one point during his appearance.

Luckily, the trend of an open and accepting CPAC, which started one day prior, continued into this day, which saw yet another conservative minority group setting up shop and voicing their views.

This time, it was a group of black Americans who were not only pro-Trump, but adamantly against what they saw as the media-pushed idea that Trump or Republicans at large, are racist. I have always been for God, but now I am also for the Republicans, proclaimed Maurice Symonette, the group leader and administrator of the website Gods2. Symonette continued by pulling from history on behalf of the Republicans and citing failed regulation policies to disparage the Democrats: The Republicans fought to free us; the Democrats are the ones who want to keep us enslaved. The shirts worn by everyone in the group read as follows: TRUMP & Republicans Are Not Racist.

Even more surprises were found as well once one entered The Bone Zone, a booth on the show floor dedicated to taking pictures with overnight sensation Ken Bone, because of what Mr. Bone was actually doing at CPAC. Contrary to what a lot of people may thing, Ken is much more than just a meme he is currently working with a company called Victory Holdings, which is itself developing an app known as DonorDex that aims to provide a network of potential donors for small-profile and third party political candidates to reach out to with but a touch of a button. In this way, Mr. Bone hopes to raise awareness about this new service and therefore make it easier for underdog candidates to truly compete with the elite politicians they will run against. Not a bad idea, at all.

While there were some misfired attempts at humor (because Republicans), such as a sign depicting a shady looking cartoon character reaching into his pants and proclaiming lets get fiscal, the environment at CPAC was largely one of genuine chill and fun. Whispers of an exclusive party held by Breitbart on a reserved boat began circulating; certain attendees showed up who, while not scheduled speakers, were celebrities in their own right (such as Cassandra Fairbanks, a journalist and ex-Bernie Sanders supporter who very publicly switched her allegiances to Trump after Hillary got the Democratic nomination).

Whether one wants to admit it or not, modern conservatism has become cool again. And CPAC 2017 was the place to be in that regard.

This post was written by Micah J. Fleck.

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

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CPAC On My Mind: Part Two - Being Libertarian

The Libertarian Cato Institute released a study in 2016 that actually disproves Donald Trumps theory that banning Muslims from entering the United States will save American lives. That likely wasnt the intention of Cato, but their own work proves that Trump is full of it. Ring of Fires Farron Cousins discusses this.

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The Libertarian Cato Institute actually released a report in 2016 that incidentally happened to completely disprove everything that Donald Trump and his Administration have told us about the intended effects of their Muslim ban. Now as it stands right now the Administration is currently redrafting that executive order to make it into something that the courts are not going to rip apart. The likelihood of them being successful with that, extremely low considering the fact that these are not lawyers, these are not people who understand foreign policy. Its likely theyre going to write something thats not exactly going to pass the muster when it comes to being legal.

However, this Cato Institute study from 2016 shows that in the years between 1975 and 2015, a 40 year span, there were 20 incidents where refugees entered the United States and committed acts of violence. In those 40 years, of those 20 people who were refugees three people were killed. 40 years, 20 refugees involved in incidents. Only three people killed.

Contrast that with home grown terrorism. I mean, how many people died in the Oklahoma City bombing? How many people have been killed by right wing hate groups? I mean just this week two men were killed by one white man because he thought they were Muslims. He thought they were Middle Easterners. Turns out they were from India. They were engineers, very well respected people with huge educations, working to make things in the world better, and he murdered them in a hate crime because he thought they were Middle Eastern, as if thats some sort of justification for killing another human being. While he murdered them he was yelling, Get out of my country. No. You get out of the country. Thats not what we do here in the United States.

I bet if Donald Trump and his Administration actually looked in to the amount of terrorism being caused by white men in the United States, maybe wed have a different kind of travel ban. Its not hard to identify the problem when you look at all the variables. Now the Cato Institute Study was just trying to figure out if refugees coming into the United States were a threat or not. It turns out according to Cato that theyre not. If we want to address the real threats we have to look at all the data. We have to look at the acts of home grown terrorism being committed by white men in the United States, because those are the treats. Those are the real problems. The people who take over a wildlife refuge in Oregon, the people who have standoffs with federal officers in the SouthWest, those are terrorists. Those are people that we need to be worried about. Those are people that we should probably be afraid of. Those are people that should spend the rest of their lives behind bars because that is illegal.

Those are the people that we should be worrying about, but instead the Trump Administration, Republicans in general, theyve created these Middle Eastern boogeymen, telling us that we need to be afraid of them coming over here and trying to kill us. Meanwhile, the real people who pose a threat to our very lives are the ones around us. Maybe the crazy neighbor, maybe the guy down the street. The people that you wouldnt ordinarily think because statistically they pose a far greater threat to our lives here in the United States than anyone coming over as a refugee.

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Libertarian Think Tank Proves That Trump's Muslim Ban Won't Work ... - The Ring of Fire Network

Sales of both Origins of Totalitarianism, written by the German-American political theorist Hannah Arendt, and 1984, by the famous English novelist George Orwell, are soaring this year. These two books describe the most freedom hating phenomenon: totalitarianism.

It was the 4th of August 1944, the 15-year- old Dutch diarist Anne Frank was arrested in her house in Amsterdam by the Grne Polizei (Green Police, led by the German SS). Along with many millions of other Jews, she died in one of the terror apparatuses of Nazi-Germany, the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. All of this was because she was born with the identity that would make her one of the people who couldnt avoid falling into the tentacles of the totalitarian prophet hiding in his bunker in Berlin: the fhrer, Adolf Hitler.

Jews were the most prioritized group of people to perish completely according to the Nazi-ideology; along with homosexuals, political opponents, Roma (Gypsys), prisoners of war, a-socials, and musselmnner (translated as Muslims in English, musselmnner were those who were called the walking dead. these people were in the most horrible physical and mental condition compared to all the others groups in the concentration camps. They were called Muslims because they sat in the pray-position that Muslims practice, they were too weak to stand up). These are some of the many groups that had to perish, they were all taken and owned by the terror apparatus of totalitarianism.

Totalitarianism is thus the ideology of complete ownership of the people by a state. It seeks to intervene in every part of human life and society, its tentacles can get everywhere. It destroys individualization, human dignity, spontaneity and above all: freedom of thought, economic freedom, freedom of private ownership, freedom of religion etc. Hence it destroys all the things libertarians seek and appreciate: individual liberty and the principle of non-aggression.

One could think that totalitarianism is a thing of the past because of our modernized and globalized world. We think that, because we have a globally interdepended economy, it would make it very irrational and expensive for states to be completely secluded from other states. That is just simple economic theory, we are able to trade with other countries and companies are able to compete with others all around the globe. Free trade has given us our very high rate of welfare. But the awkward thing is: totalitarianism still exists and will not be disappearing anywhere soon. Just like Hannah Arendt wrote in her book from 1975, there are states, anno 2017, who could be called totalitarian or states, ones that have one of the many totalitarian tentacles.

North Korea is the perfect example of totalitarianism, life is completely oppressed and has left very little joy to its people. North Korea can be compared quite easily to the Soviet Union led by Josef Stalin. Both states leaders execute everyone around them who they do not like or trust (including many army generals), both have (had) a collectivized economy (which is in a terrible condition, just like every other socialist state), both countries have a hateful ideology which has no sympathy left for ethnic and sexual minorities, and both countries own their people.

Totalitarian states have full ownership of their people, which means that one order could lead to ones death, or one could be deployed somewhere in a position which lets him suffer horribly, like a concentration camp. But here is the thing: owning the people is totalitarian because it has total intervention over ones life. So what is the difference between totalitarian country A which forces men to join the army and to risk their lives, and non-totalitarian country B which forces men to join the army and to risk their lives? Well the answer is: nothing.

When someone hesitates, and doesnt want to die for his country just because some men in the national assembly (or a head of state) had decided to: a) go to war and b) to force men (or women) between a certain age to fight and risk their lives for their country, then it is ought to be called a totalitarian tentacle, a totalitarian policy.

Here is where liberty-advocating people ought to come in.

First: realize that even non-totalitarian states (and modern states with free trade) can obtain power to force someone to do something which is against his core moral values, even to risk his life for the sake of mankind.

Second: use this knowledge, and every time someone advocates force which is against his morality, or a force which could destroy his most valuable object his life speak out. This is needed, even in 2017.

Freedom of expression and press is under pressure. The World Press Freedom has concluded last year that freedom of press was in decline. Authoritative leaders are back in many countries (or are going to be back), even in modern countries like America (Trump) and France (Le Pen). Many semi-totalitarian countries are still here: countries which execute homosexuals (Iran, Saudi Arabia) or imprison them (almost everywhere across the African continent) because of one of the most beautiful objects possible in a sphere of freedom, namely love.

Many countries force men (and women) to join the army, many countries imprison people for their opinion (even in modern countries), liberty-advocating people we need you!

Libertarians, liberal-democrats, and any others, whos moral and political values are based on freedom: speak out against every totalitarian tentacle of a state, underline policies, advocated by your conversationalist, as freedom-hating when they are a totalitarian tentacle which could change an individuals life. Unite with other libertarians, speak out against the evil force of socialism. Your life is more valuable than a states policy or advocated policy.

* Olaf Leeuwis is a Dutch political science student living in Leiden, The Netherlands. Advocating freedom, blues, capitalism and whiskey.

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Libertarians' Biggest Enemy: Totalitarianism - Being Libertarian