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Despite disquiet on the libertarian right, some #NeverTrump diehards are galloping to the presidents side. Illustration: Rob Dobi

Few will have missed David Frums dystopian cover story for the Atlantic, but many of the people passing it around on social media may not remember that Frum coined the term axis of evil as a George W Bush speechwriter. Backing away from his support for the Iraq war for over a decade, Frum has finally completed the transition from loyal rightwing foot soldier to Trump critic.

Hes not alone. One subplot that has gone unnoticed in this week of outrages is how much discomfort Trumps executive orders on immigration are causing in segments of the right.

In particular, some libertarians are looking queasily at Trumps discriminatory executive orders, his reckless sabre-rattling, and his big-spending plans and venting their concerns publicly. But even diehard religious conservatives and culture warriors are wondering who is in charge in Trumps inner circle, and whether they really know what they are doing.

This may not last already some of the most bitter critics of Trump during the campaign have decided to throw their lot in with him, because ultimately, they hate the left even more.

Publication: The New York Times

Author: Ross Douthat is the conservative voice on the New York Timess op-ed page. Hes also a convert to Catholicism whose conservative zeal possibly outstrips the popes, a master of the upper-middlebrow reactionary style originated by William F Buckley, and the owner of a Twitter account specializing in bad predictions and more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger sermonizing. On the few occasions where all of this isnt simply unbearable, Douthat can surprise his readers by being right.

Why you should read it: Against the apocalyptic grain of so much that has been written since Trump took the wheel, Douthat points to signs of incompetence, unpopularity and instability, and wonders how long hell last.

Extract: But nothing about Trumpian populism to date suggests that it has either the political skill or the popularity required to grind its opposition down. In which case, instead of Putin, the more relevant case study might be former President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood leader whose brief tenure was defined both by chronic self-sabotage and by the active resistance of the Egyptian bureaucracy and intelligentsia, which rendered governance effectively impossible.

Publication: Bleeding Heart Libertarians

Author: Steve Horwitz is an academic economist at St Lawrence University in New York. Along with the Austrian School, Horwitz has long identified as a bleeding heart libertarian, attuned to social justice issues as well as the need to shrink government. This position might be hard for progressives to wrap their heads around, but Horwitz does his best to explain it to a wider public as a contributor to the bleeding heart libertarians blog.

Why you should read it: Horwitz is frustrated, and more than a little alarmed, that his fellow libertarians are not taking Trump seriously as a unique threat to their vision of freedom. He takes the opportunity to offer them a few home truths, and to urge them to at least consider cooperation with the left against a common enemy.

Extract: Too many libertarians hate the left more than they love liberty. One response Ive heard to my pushing back on their take on Trump is that well Obama/Clinton was/would have been worse! No, actually he wasnt and I dont think she would have been. Yes, they might have expanded the regulatory state, but there would be no revival of torture, no wall, no registry, no trade war, no attempt to muzzle the media, etc. Trump is a tin-pot dictator wannabe (and starting to be), without an ounce of knowledge or respect for constitutional limits on government, who threatens the foundational institutions of the liberal order. Obama was not. Clinton is not. I confess to some schadenfreude myself as the left squirms in the aftermath of a defeat they didnt see coming. But every time Trump opens his mouth, the fundamental threat to liberty he and his supporters embody overwhelms that. Now, more than ever, libertarians need good-hearted, open-minded people on the left as allies in an attempt to preserve the things we agree on. We should never let our frustrations with the left become more important than preserving the liberal order.

Publication: Reason

Author: Nick Gillespie is a big wheel in the Libertarian movement. Hes the editor-in-chief at Reason, and is a Daily Beast columnist. Naturally he is on good terms with Reasons backers, the Kochs.

Why you should read it: Gillespie adds to the sense that Trumps recent actions are making libertarians uneasy. Surveying examples of Republicans who have voiced skepticism about Trumps measures, Gillespie makes sure to hammer home the message that Trumps executive orders dont appear to have any connection with the actual sources of terrorism. (Its a similar point that the liberal wonks at Vox appeared to be driving at earlier this week, and in a since-deleted tweet saying he picked the wrong countries). In any case, those looking for slow cracks on the right might start here.

Extract: Criticism is almost always more important when it comes from within a persons political party or ideology. Its a sharp sign that the person being criticized has wandered into some deep and dangerous territory. Thats certainly the case with Trump and his orders on sanctuary cities and on immigration and refugee policy. The laws were not just poorly phrased and timed, they clearly will not work to address the basic issues they ostensibly are meant to ameliorate. As Anthony Fisher noted here earlier today, the US embassy in Iraq has said that Trumps action is a recruitment tool for jihadists, as pro-American Middle Easterners realize theyre being hung out to dry. As for keeping America safe from terrorists entering the country as refugees, the fact is the country has an incredibly safe record.

Publication: Commentary

Author: A couple of months ago we offered some faint praise in our bio of Mr Rothman, and he was kind enough to give us a shout-out on Twitter. Hi again, Noah! Hes still the assistant online editor at Commentary, and hes still not sold on Trump.

Why you should read it: Some viral conspiracy theories suggested that the shambolic implementation of Trumps poorly conceived executive orders on immigration were part of some 11-dimensional chess game. Rothman shows more gorm: sometimes chaos is just chaos.

Extract: The businessman-president is supposed to be, above all else, competent. There was none of that evident in the terrible implementation of the presidents executive order banning entry into the U.S. of not just refugees but visa holders and legal permanent residents from seven Islamic world nations. The merits of this policy are dubious even to those Americans who believe in an abundance of caution when it comes to preventing potential terrorists from infiltrating the United States. Merits aside, the implementation of this policy was stunningly inept.

Publication: National Review

Author: David French bemoaned Trumps nomination, threatened to run as an independent candidate against him, and subsequently complained about his supporters harassing him. Apparently time heals all wounds.

Why you should read it: Read this as a reminder: even when we occasionally agree, most progressives values fundamentally depart from those of conservatives, and they can get over their antipathy for someone on their own side far more quickly than they can get over their suspicion of the left, and their obsessions. French shows us how flexible the meaning of the #NeverTrump movement actually is he celebrates Trumps consummation of one of his key campaign messages, and indulges in some seedy xenophobia, as his publication desperately tries to stay relevant.

Extract: Trumps order was not signed in a vacuum. Look at the Heritage Foundations interactive timeline of Islamist terror plots since 9/11. Note the dramatic increase in planned and executed attacks since 2015. Now is not the time for complacency. Now is the time to take a fresh look at our border-control and immigration policies. Trumps order isnt a betrayal of American values. Applied correctly and competently, it can represent a promising fresh start and a prelude to new policies that protect our nation while still maintaining American compassion and preserving American friendships.

Read more:
Burst your bubble: five conservative articles to read as Trump riles libertarians - The Guardian

Most people have agency. They live in their bubbles, their local municipalities, their facebook shitposting groups, their families. With the emotions and information they absorb in each, from their diapers to their diplomas and onward, they choose pathsthey make decisions. With the number of people rounding 7 billion and the number of possible bubbles rounding even more, its roundly impossible to intellectualize all of it. In fact, it is impossible to intellectualize most of the major parts and sub-parts of it. Even if we squint to try and better understand the behaviors of just our own bubbles, the equations dont exactly pop out.

To humans for whom curiosity and a sense of control are central, this all poses a very big problem. There are now, as its been for a while, too many branches of paths and possibilities to have anything that can meaningfully be called control. Theres too much entropy in society, too much oil on the grip of intellectual comfort.

You dont know if therell soon be a terror attack on your nation-bubbles soil, but its within some realm of possibility that merits concern. You dont know if a self-driving car might wonk out and kill someone, you dont have the resources to analyze the statistics or the software yourself, but you know that faulty systems with the capacity to kill warrant concern. You dont know if youll become ill, if your insurance company will be ethical, if youll have a doctor available, if your doctor will be capable but all of this is cause for concern. The behavior of the millions of people in the organizations whose decisions decide your capacity to commute, known as the fossil fuel industry, are both so sporadic and so impactful that youve probably felt their weight.

Theres too much information, and if you dont have a team of data scientists and access to the databanks of the NSA, JPMorgan, and Merck Pharmaceuticals like Palantir, there really is no control, and within few constraints, anything can happen. And people have a tendency to reduce anything can happen to the worst can happen and act accordingly.

How can this mass upset at entropy be resolved? How can they increase the constraints, at least in their own bubbles? With authority. Authority, whether physical, social, coercive, or economic, imposes agency onto entropy. Agency is sympathetic, agency is familiar. Even if its someone elses, so long as its not obviously opposed to yours, agency is the familiar friend who tames the wild beast of entropy with the sword and shield of authority.

But as you might see, entropy is largely liberty. Its peoples ability to take their unique circumstances, their knowledge and their instincts, and go with it where they please. Its their ability to communicate it to others through whisper or megaphone. Their ability to go on and bond with those others, as friends, colleagues, partners in adventure, or Grindr-bros. Their capacity to mobilize their assets, their land, their cars, their books and notebooks, their microscopes and fishing lures, as their circumstances call for it. And to trade those assets and relationships as they see fit.

These degrees of freedom lead any number of people to generate an enormous number of bubbles and spawn an even greater number of paths for the world to take. Some of those paths are hazard, most uncertain, and few utopian. And because entropy, the collective manifest of liberty, is without agency, its propaganda falls flat of any notions of collective workers paradise or great aryan nationhood.

Thankfully, there are many who find themselves just asif not morewary of authority, of the imposition of others agency, as they are of entropy. And even moreso, there are many, like myself, who see appreciate the necessity of entropy as clearly as the familiarity of agency.

Some, sadly, simply wear the cloak of liberty but retain a hatred of entropy, and develop some pathologies and ideologies. They identify themselves as lovers of liberty and warriors against authority, and end up attacking entropy: they convolute, and to themselves and the world claim liberty is actually a carefully orchestrated plan by a malicious shadow authority, and call for an authority which is more familiar than the supposed shadow authority to take its place. In reality, theyre fighting entropy and calling for authority with the caveat of decoration.

Liberty, to me and many others, is the way to maintain liberty. No amount of conceptual hoop-jumping and redefinition can obfuscate that. That entropy is a necessary consequence of liberty is an important understand that, although uncertain, if accepted, solidifies the notion that for us liberty is more important than fear of probability.

* Ronald Cohen is an organizational sociology student and researcher.

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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Entropy and Authority - Being Libertarian

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 ... and more »

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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