Wichita Eagle | Libertarian candidates seek Pompeo seat Wichita Eagle Three Libertarian candidates will square off Feb. 11 to be the third choice in the special election to replace former U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo, who left his congressional seat to serve as CIA director in the Trump administration. But there probably won ... |
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Libertarian candidates seek Pompeo seat - Wichita Eagle
Conservative, Libertarian Groups Propose Campus Free Speech Bill Inside Higher Ed Several conservative and libertarian organizations are urging state lawmakers to adopt legislation that aims to "restore and protect freedom of thought and expression" on college campuses. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that ... |
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Conservative, Libertarian Groups Propose Campus Free Speech Bill - Inside Higher Ed
More thanambition, more thanability, it isrulesthat limit contribution; rules are the lowest common denominator of human behavior. They are a substitute forrationalthought. Hyman George Rickover
This quote from Admiral Rickover is one of my favorite and can describe one of Libertarians biggest dilemmas; rules, laws, and regulations. As much as an individual may want to succeed and make progress, they are restricted by these because of the incompetence of few. Take away speed limits and the majority of people will still drive a safe speed, with the exception of your friend who swears his 1991 Mustang can go 160mph. I synonymies Libertarianism with rational thought, with its lowest common denominator being the Bill of Rights. A society needs a foundation and a healthy balance of laws, but too many will cause more harm than good and sacrifice freedom for the illusion of safety.
Some laws and regulations are made to only benefit a few at the expense of others. Commonly referred as protectionism laws, they are used to protect businesses from competition. Big sugar is a popular example. Even though sugar costs half as much outside the US, tariffs are in place to ensure they cant compete with the few wealthy American sugar companies in the US. This costs the American consumers billions and singlehandedly crushed my hopes in owning a bottled Shirley Temple business. Many people accept this believing it is overall good for the economy because the money stays in the U.S. However, regulations like these drive up the costs of American products making them more difficult to compete in the global economy. These protection laws are not just limited to sugar. They are the reason we pay more to only buy vehicles from dealerships. They are preventing companies like Uber and Lyft from providing cheaper alternative transportation to protect the interest of large taxi companies. They can also prevent you from starting your business if you cant prove there is a demand for it, which basically means if your new bra fitting business causes other companies to need to lower their prices to compete with you, it wont be allowed.
There is also what I call feel good laws; laws that have no other purpose other than to make some people feel better. Many Republicans today talk down to the PC culture poking fun at the snowflakes for being so easily offended and needing their safe space yet they will fight same sex marriage, prostitution, and nudity for no reason other than it makes them feel bad. Libertarians may have different opinions and various extremes, but they ultimately respect peoples rights to do what they want with their body. This allows a general agreement with most social issues, the biggest outlier is abortion. The reason this one differentiates is because of the diverse opinion on when a fetus should have basic human rights.
There are also feel good laws that have been passed to place restrictions and regulations on businesses so that the customer feels safe with the product. In an age where communication is quick and easy and more and more consumers rely on the reviews of products from the internet to determine the quality of the goods they are buying, government intervention is becoming more obsolete. If kids want to set up a lemonade stand, they must have the appropriate permits usually costing over $100, have a health inspector verify it meets health code, comply with local ordinances, and be careful with not violating any child labor laws. It all sounds silly, but this is a continuous struggle for any business.
It is said that the average American breaks between 1 to 3 laws a day. We break laws knowingly because it seems irrelevant to us such as throwing an apple core outside (littering) or driving a few over the speed limit. But there are many laws that exist that you may not know you are breaking and there is little you can do to prevent yourself from being a criminal since we are never formally taught the laws. A quick search on the internet can reveal several websites with [Insert number] of laws you break everyday without knowing. People typically dont break reasonable laws (murder, theft, kidnapping). The laws most commonly broken are ones that the individual does not agree with, ones that they find unreasonable. Laws enforced against harmless drug use, rip families apart, ruin lives and punish individuals for a crime that is baseless. You are more likely to die from an officer arresting you for marijuana possession than smoking it. Similar to the debate on gun control, banning big scary black guns will do nothing more than make criminals of millions of U.S. citizens since the majority that own them wont agree with the law and will not obey any gun turn in.
The U.S has countless laws apply to us, continuously regulating anything from business, to your body and personal matters. As a nation we must fight irrational laws and regulations. Liberty has a price; it is not just the blood of patriots and tyrants, it comes with the burden of personal responsibility and not subjecting oneself to the binds of government for the perception of safety.
* Being formal military, Derrick knows what it is like to lose your freedom and be a slave to government. He believes its why many veterans share libertarian opinions. He owes his introduction to being a libertarian from watching a 2008 Ron Paul prediction video and he has been hooked ever since.
The main BeingLibertarian.com account, used for editorials and guest author submissions. The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions. Contact the Editor at editor@beinglibertarian.email
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The Conquest For Liberty - Being Libertarian
For students of political strategy, the 2016 presidential race was a remarkable and informative election. This is especially true for grassroots libertarians who want to learn how to build an electoral coalition capable of winning national elections. It shows why libertarian populism must be the way forward for activists interested in advancing the liberty movement.
Donald Trump or should I say President Trump accomplished something incredible: he methodically took down sixteen of the Republican Partys best candidates in the primaries and then annihilated Hillary Clinton in an electoral landslide, holding on to traditional red states while winning states like Michigan and Pennsylvania that establishment Republicans could never even dream of winning. What made his victory even more amazing was that Trump managed to win these traditionally deep blue states despite being viciously attacked around the clock by the mainstream media, Democratic Party, and neoconservatives (who de facto are the Republican establishment).
Trump accomplished all of this while turning the traditional political strategy of beltway elites on its head. Instead of abandoning his core campaign promises after the primaries and moving to the center or, as beltway elites like to frame it, triangulating between his base and moderates Trump took and then stood by hardline stances on issues like immigration, gun rights, tax cuts, and deregulation. On other hot-button issues, like abortion, he defied political convention even more when he moved further to the right the closer he got to the general election.
While Trump was undoubtedly the most successful insurgent candidate of 2016, he wasnt the only anti-establishment Republican to enjoy success. Neoconservatives like Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and John Kasich all candidates who were treated like top-tier contenders by the mainstream media and the political class in the early stages of the presidential race failed to collectively garner more than a third of the vote in the primaries. This was because, in addition to Trump, another radically anti-establishment Republican, Senator Ted Cruz, dominated these supposedly respectable establishment Republicans throughout the primary process.
Meanwhile, the man whom much of the liberty movement placed their hopes on Senator Rand Paul abandoned much of the radical libertarian platform that his father, Dr. Ron Paul, ran on four years earlier. For example, instead of advocating for abolishing the income tax and ending the Federal Reserve, like his father did, Sen. Paul was content with calling for a 14.5% flat income tax and a mere audit of the Federal Reserve.
Many beltway libertarians thought that this abandonment of libertarian principle, combined with Sen. Paul staffing many of the top positions on his presidential campaign with establishment consultants like Chip Englander and Chris LaCivita, would make Rand Pauls campaign appear respectable to the mainstream media, the Republican establishment, and high-dollar donors. This, they had hoped, would improve Sen. Pauls electability.
But experience proved otherwise. Sen. Pauls supposedly respectable presidential campaign failed spectacularly in the first electoral contest of the presidential cycle, the Iowa caucus: Rand Paul garnered less than one-third of the vote that his radically libertarian father received in 2012 just four years earlier.
So what happened? Why did Donald Trump and to a lesser extent Ted Cruz do so well while neoconservative candidates and the self-described libertarianish Rand Paul crash and burn? All libertarians who genuinely want to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past must also ask themselves: why did Rand Paul perform so miserably compared to his father?
Despite their different ideologies, there is a similarity that Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, and Dr. Ron Paul all share with each other but are absent from the neoconservatives and Sen. Rand Pauls politics: populism.
Populism is a political strategy that aims to mobilize a largely alienated base of the populace against out-of-control elites. Because of its inherent anti-elitist attitude, populism is often confused with left-wing egalitarian movements but this is not a necessary relationship. Populism can be used just as well by nationalists to displace globalist elites, or by Christians to displace atheist or secular elites, or by free-market capitalists to displace bureaucratic or socialist elites.
What distinguishes populism from other political strategies can be broken down to:
Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Ron Paul all had elements of this populist approach deeply ingrained in their campaigns. For example, Ted Cruz and Ron Paul both were widely lauded for their superb grassroots operations that mobilized volunteers to knock on millions of doors. Also, both Ron Paul and Donald Trump made use of large rallies and alt-media to communicate directly with thousands sometimes tens of thousands of voters at a time.
Crucially, despite their ideological differences, all three candidates synced their message with their issues. They all took radical positions on issues that were vociferously opposed by the ruling classes but garnered strong support from the grassroots, e.g. Ron Paul on taxes and monetary policy, Donald Trump on trade and immigration, and Ted Cruz on defunding Obamacare and religious liberty.
Recent political history shows that Ron Pauls libertarian populist campaign performed much better than Rand Pauls presidential campaign not just electorally but also in terms of fundraising and number of new activists recruited. This, of course, is crucial to any movements long-term success.
More importantly, Ron Pauls twopresidential campaigns which undoubtedly used libertarian populism as a successful tool brought more people into the liberty movement than all other efforts combined. These other efforts pursued by the liberty movement can be boiled down to two alternatives to populism: Hayekian educationism and Fabian incrementalism.
Hayekian educationism, named after Friedrich Hayeks theory of social change expounded in his essay The Intellectuals and Socialism, relies first on persuading a core group of intellectuals to adopt libertarian ideas. Then, according to Hayeks model, those intellectuals persuade a growing number of what Hayek calls second-hand dealers in ideas like journalists, teachers, and politicians to propagate their ideas among the general populace.
Fabian incrementalism, named after the Fabian socialists of late 19th century Britain, relies on a similar group of individuals intellectuals, journalists, and policy wonks to persuade government bureaucrats and politicians to adopt gradual changes in policy. This, performed consistently over a long period of time will, theoretically, lead to the adoption of long-term social changes that the reformers set out to achieve.
Fundamentally, these two approaches differ little from one another which is why both of these approaches are often employed in tandem. The main difference between the two models of social change is simply who will be educated and persuaded and in both models, there is little to no emphasis placed on political technology, grassroots organizing/mobilization, or electoral politics.
Both of these models of social change have been employed for decades in the United States by beltway organizations like the Cato Institute, the Institute for Humane Studies, and others.
Students of political strategy will note that both Hayekian educationism and Fabian incrementalism worked well for the statist left after all, these were the two dominant strategies utilized by the left for the bulk of the 20th century, which saw unchecked growth in government.
So why were these strategies successful for the statist left, but not for the anti-statist right?
The reasons for this are explained in detail in Murray Rothbards essays about political strategy in the Rothbard-Rockwell Report, a newsletter that gained wide traction among grassroots conservatives and libertarians in the early 1990s. Rothbard argued in these essays that Hayekian educationism and Fabian incrementalism do not work well for the libertarian movement for one fundamental reason: both of these approaches rely on winning over the hearts-and-minds of the ruling classes, which will naturally oppose any ideology that threatens their power and way of life.
Instead, Rothbard saw political opportunity in the various populist movements of his time the Buchananite paleoconservatives, the religious right, and the supporters of third-party presidential candidate Ross Perot. All three of these movements utilized populist strategy and tactics to bypass the mainstream media and academia in order to grow and become powerful political forces.
Notably, these movements shared many of libertarians concerns, including state-led social engineering, high taxes, reckless wars, and increasing centralization of power in both the federal government and transnational organizations like the United Nations. Rothbard saw no reason why libertarian activists couldnt capitalize on these movements to roll back state power and establish their own lines of direct communication with the masses.
This anti-establishment right-wing sentiment is exactly what the Ron Paul campaign successfully capitalized on in his insurgent presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012.
Today, in between the religious right, the Tea Party, and the Trump coalition, right-wing populist movements are stronger than ever before. Whatever misgivings some (mostly beltway) libertarians have about them, these movements are largely anti-statist in their nature. The religious right is now almost exclusively focused on fighting to retain at least some of their religious freedoms from the states extensive social engineering programs; the Tea Party is mostly concerned with high taxes, bailouts, and growing corruption; and members of the Trump coalition are concerned about forced integration of culturally-alien immigrants in their communities, endless wars and nation-building overseas, and the increased centralization of power in the United Nations.
More importantly, the means of directly communicating with the masses are more affordable than ever before. When Rothbard wrote his essays on libertarian political strategy in the early 1990s, the chief means of bypassing academia and the mainstream media were direct mail, grassroots organizing, and (in Perots case) late-night infomercials. Today, thanks to the digital revolution, populists can easily communicate with millions of people using email, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other tools at a very low cost. These low-cost digital tools also led to the rise of the alt-media; online publications, shows, etc. by Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, and others who have audiences that range anywhere from the thousands to the millions audiences that populist candidates and organizers can easily tap into. Weve already seen Ron Paul and Donald Trump, for example, go on the Alex Jones show to communicate with his audience of millions.
These two factors the rise of several strong populist right-wing movements and the digital revolution mean that the potential for libertarian populism as astrategy is greater than ever before, especially for grassroots activists and organizers interested in making a serious difference in the political environment. Libertarian activists would be remiss to ignore this successful political strategy in favor of the failed strategies of the past.
Continued here:
The Masses In Motion: Why Libertarian Populism Is The Way Forward - The Liberty Conservative
In the new year of 2017, it seems rather impossible to think we could live without so many of the accommodations we have now that its easier to let the simpler things slide by without being noticed. Can you imagine going through the day without your credit cards, smartphone, personal and public transportation. All of these things would have not even been imaginable 100 years ago and we tend to forget that we live in one of the most advanced times to be alive. Now all of the aforementioned accommodations truly make life great, and yet what could still be the greatest one has yet to have been mentioned. There is one accommodation that often goes unnoticed. It allows us to decide what we want to do when we wake up, decide how we want to get to work, and it even lets us choose what we go home to. Liberty.
Liberty, on the scale we have today, is something unimaginable on all levels to most other countries in the modern world we know today. What we can control and decide would have been unfathomable 100 years ago. We get to choose whether we eat Wheaties or Fruit Loops in the morning, whether we take our showers before or after work, what new phone to get, what to eat for dinner, all down to whether you want to where pajamas to bed or sleep in the buff. Now imagine you had no influence on any of these things. Would you wake up, ready to tackle the day? Would you strive to exceed the performance goals for that next raise? Would you look at everyday as if it held a new adventure for you waiting to be discovered? Although everyone is different I do believe the vast majority would answer no. I know I wouldnt be able to find the worth of any action and I dont know many who could.
Albert Camus, a novelist and existentialist philosopher, once posed a rather odd question. Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee? This question, although peculiar is something we find ourselves answering every morning, even though we may not address it directly our actions do. When we are given every option available to us and the freedom to choose what we want we are able to accomplish great things. Not only have we walked on the moon, but we now have more advanced technology stuffed in our pockets today then what was involved with getting us to the moon. That is one of the greatest of many examples of what we can do when granted the freedom and liberty to pursue our passions and dreams.
The pursuit of happiness is something most of us are willing to go great lengths to achieve. One particular thing about happiness is that it is different for everyone. Happiness to me may be wealth beyond what I have ever known, yet happiness to you may be a small house with the person you love the most. One is not truly worth any less than the other, its simply what each person holds more worth to. Everyone has different desires, and being able to achieve those desires helps everyone. It has been shown in numerous studies that our emotions are influenced by those around us. When more people were able to achieve what they need to reach happiness I can only imagine what it would do for all the communities in our society. Few people still look at Obergefell V. Hodges as a loss for society, but how could that be I ask you? A court case that has now made it legal for any couple to get married regardless of gender and by this change offering even more liberty to choose how we wanted to live our own lives then the year before. Lets not forget that it once was unimaginable for women to vote let alone an interracial couple get married, and yet here we are, making even more feats in the name of liberty.
Freedom to choose all these different details about our life has drastic effects on more than just our own home too. We can pursue any career choice which now allows us to do more than work a simple 5-9 job that we despise. Waking up and heading to a job we love is one of the many advantages with liberty that will not only add happiness to our lives but also drive us to work harder. There is schools that we choose from that can teach us about any possible career choice we want, whether its being a welder or becoming a doctor. When we get our pay checks and salaries we can decide exactly how we want to spend them and what we want to acquire. In this sense the liberty each of us has even allows us to choose what businesses survive and what businesses dont. All of the choices and decisions we make that have more impact than most realize is even possible thanks too liberty.
It is clear that choice and liberty are synonymous, and that is truly what it comes down to. Liberty to me has always meant just that, the freedom to choose. When I see the status quo and am not satisfied with it the best thing to me is I dont have to be. The fact that any one person can wake up and do most anything they want to as long as doesnt harm someone else is one of the greatest privileges granted with freedom and liberty. We have all these choices and decisions we make every day without even realizing it that were unimaginable 100 years ago. All of this makes me look to the future with a very significant amount of hope and enthusiasm. It makes me truly feel that any of us in this society are able to make a significant difference in what goes on and most of us never even realize it. Did Rosa Parks ever expect to be remembered as someone who helped bring segregation to an end? I imagine all she thought on that bus in 1955 was that she was in no mood to move for someone else, especially for a completely illegitimate reason none the less. Yet here we are, in a society that is still continuously moving towards even more freedom and liberties, where just about every person you meet knows the name Rosa Parks. Alan Turing, a name not so many know, is one of the contributing reasons the Allies were able to win World War 2. He is responsible for helping bring an end to one of the most dangerous regimes by breaking the unbreakable code, the Enigma. In doing so he not only helped win the war, he became one of the grandfathers to modern day computers. He was charged with the crime of homosexuality and sentenced on March 31st 1952. Alan was sentenced to chemical treatment, and he committed suicide shortly after. This is just one of the many travesties that are almost never seen today and having more liberty means everyone is safe from being subjected to something so heinous.
When I think about freedom and liberty I also think about how any one of us can do something great and be remembered for years to come, whether its manning the helm of significant advancements in technology, or refusing to give up your freedom and liberties and standing up to those who wish to control you like Rosa Parks. It also means not having to fear being prosecuted by your government for what you choose to due in your spare time, no matter who you are. I see liberty as a chance for every person to pursue their dreams. It is also one of the few accommodations we have that is always worth defending.
* Tanner Davis is a 20 year old college student pursuing a degree in business. He has been following politics for quite a while and he is a proud libertarian.
The main BeingLibertarian.com account, used for editorials and guest author submissions. The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions. Contact the Editor at editor@beinglibertarian.email
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