It’s that time again: time to start a new open thread for the month of June. There will undoubtedly be plenty to talk about, so here is a space for anyone to share something that isn’t quite on topic for any of our articles. You all know the drill: just don’t slander or plagiarize anyone, and you’ll probably be just fine.
Here are some profound lyrics for this strange and trying time:
Sounds like you should be suing Nathan Normon, not throwing the rest of IPR under the bus.
“William Saturn
June 29, 2017 at 18:47
When did that happen, Andy? I don’t recall you ever saying anything about being arrested for IPR comments.”
It happened shortly after I got arrested for petitioning in Arkansas in 2015, and it landed me a second stay in jail, which lasted over a day, and would have been longer had I not had money for the bail bondsman.
I did not say anything about it here because there was a pending criminal investigation. Paul knew about it. The only other person here that knew anything about it is Jill Pyeatt.
What particular comment was considered a terrorist threat?
When did that happen, Andy? I don’t recall you ever saying anything about being arrested for IPR comments.
I had to pay $500 to a bail bondsman to get out of jail from the bogus “terrorist threats” charge that came from some troll using an IP anonymizer. My bail was set at $5,000. I did not have $5,000 on me, so I had to use the bail bondsman. The charge ended up getting dropped (as did the rest of the false charges against me), but it took almost 1 year and 6 months for the bogus “terrorist threats” charge to get dropped. A bunch of my time was wasted in the process. Plus, the $500 paid to the bail bondsman was no refundable.
Perhaps some of you who think that the troll posts from cowards hiding behind IP anonymizers here are so valuable that you all will pitch in and refund me the $500 that I paid to the bail bondsman, plus some of the other unnecessary expenses that this piece of shit troll cost me.
“George Phillies
June 29, 2017 at 15:41
Thank you all for your hard work trying to put IPR six feet under, though I am imagine that may not have been your intent.”
I am not sure if you are talking to me or not, but if you are, I don’t think that there are very many people here who post under fake names and IP anonymizers that getting rid of them, or at least getting rid of the IP anonymizers, would put IPR under. There are other websites where people can post comments that have more restrictive registration requirements for posting that get WAY MORE TRAFFIC and WAY MORE COMMENTS than what IPR gets.
Some of you people do not seem to be paying much attention, but there have been death threats made here, and I ACTUALLY WENT TO JAIL AND HAD FALSE CHARGES PUT ON ME BECAUSE OF A TROLL HERE PUTTING OUT DEATH THREATS AND PUTTING MY NAME ON IT. Perhaps some of you people would take this a bit more seriously if it had been your ass that had gone to jail and falsely charged with making death threats due to some scumbag coward troll hiding behind and IP anonymizer.
Thank you all for your hard work trying to put IPR six feet under, though I am imagine that may not have been your intent.
“Chuck Moulton
June 29, 2017 at 13:41
I like the pseuonymous comments.”
Sure, and nobody has issued death threats to you, or has issued death threats and falsely put your name on it, which landed you in jail with false criminal charges, or otherwise posted things that you did not say under your name in an attempt to smear you.
If these things had happened to you, then I doubt you’d be so happy about the comments from those who hide behind fake names and IP anonymizers.
I like the pseuonymous comments.
If we’re trying to improve IPR, I suggest a different policy change:
Andy is allowed 1 IPR comment (of up to 150 words) for each 1,000 petition signatures he collects or each (non-comspiracy) article he posts on IPR.
NewFederalist, most of the people who have posted at IPR over the years are known political activists, mostly from the LP. So I don’t see comments coming to an end here if such a policy were put in place.
The bigger issue is the IP anonymizers. These have allowed people to post death threats, and to falsely post under other people’s name, therefore making it look like people said things that they never said. The people who have done this ought to be tracked down and held accountable.
Like usual, William tries to pretend an observation of fact is an argument so that he can claim it’s fallacious.
dL: “I note the only ones who seem to have a problem w/ the moderation enforcement are you, “Nathan Norman” and a few other alt-right sympathizers.”
Like usual, dL resorts to logical fallacy, basically arguing “your argument cannot be valid because look who agrees with you. “
I’ve thought of posting under a fake name that is NOT an obvious pseudonym but why? It’s really nobody’s business who I am. If identities MUST be verified to post at IPR this site will come to a fairly quick end.
“DJ” makes some very cogent points.
You guessed incorrectly.
DJ said: “I first came here by accident and don’t remember how I found the link, but, I thought this might be a good place to learn/associate with like minded. I was wrong. I’ll still come around, but, I’ll be damned if I’ll get into pissing contests with the ego’s I see, and I won’t be commenting with any regularity, which I’m sure will hurt no ego’s feelings since some here already know more than anyone else about anything/everything that has ever been and are bound and determined to NOT be open minded, which is, IMNSHO the foundation of being libertarian.
Now, carry on with the foolishness/childishness and lets see how many new people can be attracted to participate.”
Let me guess, DJ is another troll posting under a fake name and an IP anonymizer?
I’ll be glad to see July Open Comments roll around. Maybe something new, besides “I’m more libertarian than you/how great/smart/eloquent/ I am” can be discussed. I’m new here (relatively) and don’t post often and all the chest/brow beating gets old in a hurry never mind over 400 hundred comments worth.
I first came here by accident and don’t remember how I found the link, but, I thought this might be a good place to learn/associate with like minded. I was wrong. I’ll still come around, but, I’ll be damned if I’ll get into pissing contests with the ego’s I see, and I won’t be commenting with any regularity, which I’m sure will hurt no ego’s feelings since some here already know more than anyone else about anything/everything that has ever been and are bound and determined to NOT be open minded, which is, IMNSHO the foundation of being libertarian.
Now, carry on with the foolishness/childishness and lets see how many new people can be attracted to participate.
Yep…any further comments on moderation policy should be posted here:
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2017/05/commenting-issues-on-ipr/
Anything further posted on this thread RE: moderation policy will be deleted.
“Hiding behind a fake name and IP anonymizers relieves one of having to take responsibility for one’s actions.”
So does hiding behind a first name only.
That way IPR readers don’t know your last name can’t plug it into a search engine and find out that the petitioner who’s always complaining about “mercenaries” also petitions for the Green Party and for Americans Elect ( I guess they’re only “mercenaries” when they are non-Libertarians petitioning for the LP, not when they’re Andy Jacobs petitioning for other parties).
And that way non-IPR readers can’t similarly see what “Andy Jacobs” has to say here.
But I guess anonymity/pseudonymity are sort of like petitioning — one set of rules for Andy Jacobs, another set of rules for everyone else.
^
Rehashing.
Keeping this same merry go round from being rehashed over and over is why dL has been removing such comments. And as I understand the rules we discussed, all subsequent comments stemming from that, including this one, should be deleted as well.
“paulie
June 28, 2017 at 06:41
Andy’s idea of banning IP anonymizers has been rehashed to death countless times here, ”
That’s because trolls who post under fake names and IP anonymizers keep popping up and falsely posting things under other people’s names, spreading lies, talking trash, etc…
Hiding behind a fake name and IP anonymizers relieves one of having to take responsibility for one’s actions. There have been death threats and other serious offenses committed here over the years by people doing this. These cowards keep popping up and doing the same shit over and over again, and they don’t have the stones to reveal themselves, or their locations (probably in part because whoever is paying them to do it does not want this to be revealed).
Freedom of speech does not mean the freedom to make death threats. Making comments and falsely attributing them to other people who did not say them is not free speech, it is fraud.
People should take responsibility for what they say. How can a person be held responsible for their words when they are hiding behind a fake name and an IP anonymizer?
This has been an ongoing problem here at IPR for at least 8 years now. Getting rid of all posts from IP anonymizers would end the problem, or at least greatly reduce it.
I’m not trying to rehash old arguments. I’m just saying that Andy’s comment had substantive content whether I agreed with it or not.
The policy doesn’t seem unclear to me:
Impersonation spam will be deleted, and so will replies to that impersonation spam. So, if you don’t want your reply to impersonation spam deleted, don’t reply to impersonation spam. It’s entirely possible to have the fuck-stupid debate about anonymizers without that debate taking the form of replies to impersonation spam.
Andy’s idea of banning IP anonymizers has been rehashed to death countless times here, including on the thread dL points to. I don’t know what Andy and William think will be gained from having that debate yet again. But since we do not appear to be doing much of anything else here, I don’t see how it’s necessarily any worse than debating immigration, or Johnson/Weld, or any of the things that keep being endlessly looped here either.
dL and William Saturn are both pseudo-anonymous, which is another thing Andy has called for banning repeatedly. dL has not posted any articles, at least yet. The offer to do so has been extended. William Saturn has posted articles but I think it’s been a while. I’ve posted a lot of articles but sometimes run out of steam, like right now. Taking breaks used to take care of that but now I find the same sad state of affairs when I get back. There used to be other people who took up the slack when I was less active; Chris, Jed, sometimes Jill, sometimes a combination of other people. Now, there seems to be a lot less of that. That also causes me to have a lack of inspiration since if no one else bothers to post articles why should I?
BTW I was also pseudo-anonymous when I started posting as paulie cannoli (later shortened to just paulie). However, I did not maintain much discipline over my real life identity and lots of people who are active on these boards knew me IRL, so my identity was an open secret. I only asked that people not use my real last name in searchable posts, which these comments are. When I became an alternate on the LNC in 2012-4 I let that last little bit of pseudo-anonymity go, perhaps foolishly, but it’s gone now. Nevertheless I still think people should have the right to post pseudo-anonymously or anonymously if they want, including the use of anonymizers. I’ve stated my reasons for that many times and don’t feel like repeating them.
Indeed, the endless debate over that particular set of questions was one of the more annoying things about IPR comments in recent months. I think dL has been doing a good job of nipping it in the bud since we had the above referenced conversation. But if William wants to rehash it yet again who am I to say no? Maybe something new will be said, although past experience strongly suggests otherwise.
Warren Redlich and Pauli Frankel…lol
Pseudo-anonymous, not anonymous. I’ve been in the libertarian blogosphere space for 11 years, starting w/ the defunct Freedom Democrats. My identity links to my own blog w/ 6 years worth of postings. I’ve been an active participant on Tom Knapp’s blog/platform for years. I’m also a professional programmer, IT person. Interestingly, I note the only ones who seem to have a problem w/ the moderation enforcement are you, “Nathan Norman” and a few other alt-right sympathizers.
https://iprx.wordpress.com/2017/05/07/meet-the-latest-ipr-censor/
What qualifies an anonymous person, who dropped out of the blue and contributes nothing, to enforce “policies” for a site without official commenting policies?
No, I enforce a moderation policy RE: anonymous white trash nationalist spam, impersonation spam and commentary references to said spam. You have a problem with that, take it up w/ Paulie or Warren in the comment policy thread:
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2017/05/commenting-issues-on-ipr/
Otherwise, rest assured, I going to re-delete that comment you keep restoring.
From the thread, paulie says:
“I am thinking if a comment is delete-worthy then it should follow that any subsequent comment that does not do anything except address the deleted/delete-worthy comment should be deleted at the same time, even if it comes from a source that is otherwise normally green-lighted. If the subsequent response is “fuck off” or “delete that” or “above is a government plant…” it should probably go along with the comment it replies to. If the response is more substantive, that becomes a harder call.”
You deleted Andy’s substantive call for a ban on IP anonymizers.
You make the rules now? Do you even post articles here or do you just delete comments that annoy you?
Impersonation spam and referring to impersonation spam will be deleted. You don’t like it, take it up here.
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2017/05/commenting-issues-on-ipr/.
A different thought:
Getting Active in Politics: Your First Step
If you are not in Massachusetts, you may need to adopt the details to your local legal arrangements. For example, in Massachusetts town and city governments are the only level below state government—county government except in a few places has long since been abolished.
Political Organizing, One Step at a Time
Are you a volunteer? Are you willing to invest, if not your blood, at least a bit of your time and energy?
The future will not come overnight.
The good sun will rise, one ray at a time, if we all take steps to bring it above the horizon.
So what should your first step be? Some of you may be a bit ahead of my curve here. I’m starting at the very beginning.
Step one: Get the lay of the land. You will need a small notebook, a pen, and a little time. A camera is no substitute.
Find out where your town or city hall is located. And find out when they are open. If you have no other answer, the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s very good web pages may help: http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/eleclk/clkidx.htm.
Walk by when they are open. Go inside. You’ll have to look around a bit. Your objective here is to find ways you might get involved in your town or city government.
First, you are looking for a list of boards and commissions. There may well be a bulletin board. Otherwise, ask the Town Clerk where to look. Take notes. Find boards and commissions that sound interesting. Write down meeting times and places if available.
Second, drop by the town clerk or board of elections. Ask for a list of elective offices, and the schedule for the next elections. Also, ask if there is a list of vacancies or appointment dates on appointed boards. Saying you are happy to pay for a copy likely makes you more welcome. If you are challenged, you can honestly say you are writing a letter to the editor or a blog post.
Third, take your lists home. Yes, in some places you could have found this information on the web. A web search from home misses the point here.
That’s all I’m suggesting for now.
200904
I’m not sure why dL felt it necessary to delete the comment from Andy above at 12:50. I restored it. I can tell the comment is from the real Andy. He proposes a solution to the impersonation issue that has escalated recently.
“since it’s all mainly crap we have talked about any number of times before right here”
Exactly. This page has become the mental equivalent of Robert Milnes’ couch.
And there is an important article.
State Representative Brandon Phinney – New Hampshire district Strafford 24 announced at a press conference this morning (6/27/2017, 11:00 AM) that he was joining the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire and the New Hampshire House Libertarian Caucus!
I could easily post 10-20 articles every day. I just have been lacking motivation. If you look at IPR archives, we can easily post just as much in non-major election years.
On June 27 at 11 AM the LPNH is having a press conference. They are welcoming their third state legislator to the NH House Libertarian Party Caucus.
@ Chuck Moulton
Is this the end of IPR? No more new articles, just an infinitely long open comment thread?
In fairness, has there been much news to post about? 2017 is a relatively unimportant year for elections. Don’t get me wrong, there are elections, but compared to a presidential year or even a midterm year, there’s much less to report on.
Thanks to everyone for your good wishes. I’m going to try to get back to normal (my normal, of course) this week.
Trump attack on Second Amendment fails
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-guns-felons-idUSKBN19H1KZ
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s appeal of a lower court ruling loosening the federal prohibition on convicted felons possessing guns in a case involving two Pennsylvania men convicted of non-violent crimes who challenged the ban.
The justices let stand a lower court’s 2016 ruling that suggested denying felons whose crimes were not serious the right to own guns violated the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, which protects the right to “keep and bear arms.” That ruling, which allows individuals to challenge the prohibition as applied to them, was a blow to gun control advocates, while the Trump administration called it a threat to public safety.
Jill – Get Well Soon!!!!
“My USCF from 15 years ago is around 1350. I am probably 1700-1800 strength.” – Chuck Moulton
That’s not too shabby! I haven’t played in a tournament in over 35 years but my last USCF rating was 1480 and I’m probably not even close to that anymore. I play daily on the computer but since the computer lets me take back blunders I win a lot more than I would in tournament play. I’m so old I still use descriptive notation rather than algebraic!
I met Sam Sloan in Vegas. Didn’t know anything about him at that time, just a random convention encounter. A few years later I was reading about him in a book about Bobby Fischer. My understanding is that Sloan is/was an impressive chess player.
Likewise. My own problems are a lot less dramatic. I get up, I go to work, I cook in the sun for a few hours talking to average voters, I grab a few bites to eat, and by the time I cross the river to my motel in Kentucky I am barely awake enough to watch TV or youtube if even that. Then if I happen to read the comments here, which I usually make the mistake of doing before I even think of posting articles, I lose the inspiration to post any articles if I had any to begin with, whether I reply to the comments or not. And nowadays the default seems to be more and more often to not reply to them since it’s all mainly crap we have talked about any number of times before right here. Then once I am in a pattern of not posting articles it’s harder to get back in a pattern of posting them.
Judging by results, either I am not as good at petitioning as I used to be, or people have become less apt to sign petitions over the years. Maybe a little of both. I know big numbers are still possible, as in Andy reportedly had over 700 this past weekend and I had a 300 signature day myself just a couple of months ago in Arkansas, but they sure seem to be a lot less common than they used to be for me, and even low production days leave me a lot more drained than they used to. It doesn’t help that intitiative petitions, past and current, have made the two states I have been working in since the beginning of March (Ohio, then Arkansas, now back to Ohio) more difficult to work.
Did you find a buried stash down there?
That rating is not one of a mediocre chess player. A mediocre player would be someone like me who hasn’t really played a game since I was teenager.
Jill,
Very sorry to hear you’re having problems. I hope things improve for you ASAP.
dL: You are only digging that hole deeper, Bob.
me: Feeling firmly above ground, myself. But thanks for the feedback.
Imagine there’s no paulie, it’s easy if you try…
NewFederalist wrote:
I am mediocre at chess. I haven’t played in tournaments in 15 years. I go to tournaments to play for fun (unrated) in the skittles room. My USCF from 15 years ago is around 1350. I am probably 1700-1800 strength.
Mainly I play a chess variant called bughouse, which I am very good at. My bughouse rating is 2300 right now on chess.com and 2100 on FICS. My team finished 4th in the world championships in 2010 (I think that was the year).
You are only digging that hole deeper, Bob.
“I keep running into NY activist Sam Sloan at chess tournaments.” – Chuck Moulton
And what is your USCF (or US Chess) rating?
dL: NOTE: I could effectively reconstruct political action support for the LP platform by joining roughly ~ 10 different organizations: ACLU, EEF, Liberal Gun Club, Pink Pistols, Doctors w/o Borders, Center For Reproductive Rights, Institute for Justice, The Sentencing Project, NORML,International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons(indeed, I am a card carrying member of some of these orgs).
me: Yes, if you interested in “political action” as opposed to “electoral politics.” I see these as different things. I’d note that you may not agree with each position taken by these 10 organizations. But these interest groups are — importantly — not running for office. Rather, they seek to influence public policy and public opinion on a narrower range of issues than a political party does.
Bondurant wrote:
George Phillies wrote:
That would be great fodder for a George Phillies LPedia page. If these lack of IPR articles have given you all some downtime, you should consider going to LPedia and putting up a page about yourself or filling in some party history of your state affiliate and its activists.
It always seems a little strage when hobbies intersect. I met PA activist Ken Krawchuk at the Philadelphia Folk Fest (a camping music festival) even before I got involved in the LP. I keep running into NY activist Sam Sloan at chess tournaments.
Jill Pyeatt wrote:
Sorry to hear that. I hope life gets better. Take time for yourself.
yeah, the one oversight on my part….
The ACLU is not a single-issue organization. It also most certainly operates in the political realm.
NOTE: I could effectively reconstruct political action support for the LP platform by joining roughly ~ 10 different organizations: ACLU, EEF, Liberal Gun Club, Pink Pistols, Doctors w/o Borders, Center For Reproductive Rights, Institute for Justice, The Sentencing Project, NORML,International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons(indeed, I am a card carrying member of some of these orgs).
Back to the “lessAnarchy” drawing board, Bob…fail
LSLA Begins Publishing Newsletter
The Libertarian State Leadership Alliance, the association of state and other affiliate (DC) Chairs, has started publishing a newsletter. The test emailing went out this week. It took much longer than we had hoped, but it is here. The current test went to state chairs.
We anticipate the newsletter will be entirely focused on supporting our affiliates, including supporting the activists, volunteers, and people running for office in being more effective in their work.
Our web pages LibertarianLeaders.org and LP-History.org are now up and running, and in the process of being improved. LibertarianLeaders.org features as candidate support the famous but difficult-to-find Gene Cisewski county organizing manual and much other useful material.
The LSLA does not give money to individual candidates, publicly advocate for their election, engage in Federal Election Activity, or engage in other actions that would require us to file with the FEC. We have no paid employees. Correspondingly, we can and are delighted to accept donations from corporations, labor unions, Federal contractors, banks, and anyone else who is not elsewise barred from donating to us. Our Treasurer is Bo Brown 1201 Buckingham Drive Apt 4D, Midlothian VA. Make checks payable “LSLA”.
RC,
If you have to try to turn the ACLU into “single-issue advocacy” to make your point work, your point doesn’t work. Especially if you also have to abandon your only recently minted definition of NAPster to boot.
dL: the ACLU==NAPsters?
me: Great question. No. Single-issue advocacy is quite different from the theory and practice of NAPsterism. Practice, in this case, is in the political realm. The NAPster takes extreme positions on a range of issues, imposing their construct on all political matters.
The lessarchist uses liberty maximization as his or her True North, but is disinclined to advocate SPECIFIC political ideals, knowing that an assemblage of extreme reforms on a range of issues is likely to alienate just about everyone except True Believers. Why waste the effort?
“The only political action that could be taken is to weaken it. (free speech)
Not necessarily. Political action could remove the century long censorship of the U S ballot by restoring the right of the voter to publish the name of any damn candidates they please on the ballot. Just tally the names.
Bob, so the ACLU==NAPsters? I’m not aware of any need for the “lesser anarchist path of least resistance pursuit of free speech,” particularly when we already have a first amendment and various supreme court precedents on the books that apply across a range of speech, from obscenity, to libel, to political speech, to cryptography. The only political action that could be taken is to weaken it.
dL: libertarianism derives from liberalism which itself abides by a certain universality in its principles. E.g, Free speech is free speech, free trade is free trade
me: As a general proposition, the idea that free speech is free speech has a lot of appeal. (I also note that there can be gray areas on such matters.) My lessarchist perspective suggests that when speech isn’t completely free as we’d all like, in a political context, the relevant question becomes: What to do about the restrictions?
My sense is that NAPsters spend their efforts demanding the whole loaf of free speech. The lessarchist is more inclined to pursue freer speech. The NAPster seems to relish holding high the banner. The lessarchist pursues the path of least resistance. Is one approach right and the other wrong?
I’d submit: No.
“Jill Pyeatt Post author
June 24, 2017 at 22:37
I hope to be back some day. but this year remains challenging. I was hospitalized for a few days last week because of a blood clot in my leg and lungs. It also looks like divorce is the only solution to my domestic issues,”
Jill, I am sorry to read that you are going through rough times. Stay strong.
@ Jill
Sorry to read about your troubles. It sounds like you have more important things on your plate than IPR. Definitely take some time for yourself.
I hope to be back some day. but this year remains challenging. I was hospitalized for a few days last week because of a blood clot in my leg and lungs. It also looks like divorce is the only solution to my domestic issues,
Also, people have been rude about my last few comments, so I don’t feel a whole like participating if I’m going to be disrespected. I get enough of that at home. Perhaps I’ve grown beyond three party politics, and believe more immediate changes need to happen in this country. I still check here a couple times a day to catch comments in pending and remove troll comments, though.
I don’t know if that is what life is about, but as it pertains to the pursuit of the truth itself, yes that’s pretty close…
“Relative truth” is a loaded term…libertarianism derives from liberalism which itself abides by a certain universality in its principles. E.g, Free speech is free speech, free trade is free trade…it doesn’t recognize any cultural adjustments to those concepts(e.g. women denied the right to public speech in a patriarchal culture is not free speech after we “recalibrate” for the culture).
Postmodernism does not equal moral relativism. One doesn’t necessarily lead to the other. I myself reject moral relativism of the type that says “murder is wrong” unless you are wearing a state uniform. Then it is something to be respected and celebrated. On the other hand, if you substitute the term “moral judgements” for morality, then yes, I’m a moral relativist of sorts. More accurately, I would be more along the lines of a moral non-cognitivist, which means moral statements cannot be evaluated as true or false.
One might then say “ah-hah,” moral non-cognitivism is an easy leap to “lessAnarchy.” Nope, not at all. Combined w/ a presumption of liberty, it is actually a strident moral framework against the introduction of any authority by means of moral arguments, be it absolute morality, moral relativism, moral realism, etc…
RE: Postmodernism. Reject it in the physical sciences. In the social sciences, if you go back to the texts of some of the original authors, it might have some uses as tool of analysis. Absolutely reject it however as a framework for making moral judgement or as a basis for extracting a theory of justice. In the arts(cinema, literature, etc), I am more sympathetic to it.
I wrote there fairly regularly for a number of years.
@ George
This was the May/June ’72 issue. It’s in amazing condition. Someone took great care of it. The other issues were from later in the 70s and smaller than the issue featuring yourself.
Chuck, you’re listed as a contributor, correct?
It is indeed a familiar IPR writer; you have found one of my other hobbies. Congratulations on the find.
“Is this the end of IPR? No more new articles, just an infinitely long open comment thread?” – Chuck Moulton
Unfortunately it seems the driving force behind posting new articles must be working on a petition drive. I know other contributors are having personal issues and I would guess others still are in summer vacation mode. Kinda like a volunteer fire department… if nobody shows up the house is lost!
One of Half Price Books near me has a nostalgia section. I was browsing old editions of The Arizona Republic, Rolling Stone, MAD, Arizona Highways and came across a bundle of wargaming zine Panzerfaust. The zines looked interesting and contained material by Gary Gygax (creator of Dungeons & Dragons). Reason published recent articles about him after a staff writer obtained FOIA docs pertaining to a FBI raid on Gygax’s property in the early 80s. The dossier on Gygax read “known Libertarian”. My interested was peaked so I brought the 4 zine pack home for $6.
As I was reading issue 53 there was multiple references to a familiar name, a contributor to IPR. That is, I assume it’s the same person given the location of the writer.
It made for an interesting Saturday.
Is this the end of IPR? No more new articles, just an infinitely long open comment thread?
Bill Weld was a positive for those that despise libertarians and freedom and desire to usurp the party but nothing about him was redeeming for libertarians or the LP.
dL: when you start babbling about truth being a social construct…
me: Did I say that? Doesn’t sound right. Truth is just true. Sometimes I feel that life is mostly about identifying untruths as we stumble toward truth.
I might have said relative truths are social constructs…that would make more sense to me.
Absolute certainty about the false is something for me to consider, thank you. My gut reaction is that sounds about right, although the absolute part requires further investigation.
In a sense, I agree with you that my statements about politics are false in the sense they are not absolute truth. I suspect that applies universally. I provide feedback about why NAPsterism doesn’t work, and offer something of an alternative path toward liberty. I don’t expect everyone or even anyone to buy into the lessarchist model.
Still haven’t heard a case for a more optimal approach, but very open to one.
Well, how could anyone advance a thing that you yourself apparently deny in the second paragraph?
Hint: when you start babbling about truth being a social construct, I’m duck typing you as a postmodernist. Note: Very few people read have actually read Jacques Derrida or Michel Foucault. Like anything else, its filtered down by watching/listening to media opinion makers practice it.
RE: Truth. Yes, “truth” cannot be known w/ absolute certainty. However, what is false can be known w/ absolute certainty. For example, I may not know with absolute certainty that General Relativity is the “truth” RE: gravity. However, I do know with absolute certainty that gravity is not powered by the shell of a giant green turtle. Likewise RE: politics. I make no statement RE: the “truth” of NAP, but I do know that statements that you make about politics are categorically false. And that’s the difference between liberal rational skepticism and postmodernism.
dL,
Not sure how you think this comment advances truth, but I trust that in your mind it does.
I don’t consider myself to be a postmodernist, and looking at the summaries of it, I’ve never read a postmodernist book. I’m only interested in truth, but all my experience indicates that truth is highly elusive and difficult (possibly impossible) to know with certainty. Haven’t you noticed?
“Nonsensical gobbledygook” is a common liberal critique of postmodernism
The positives of having Bill Weld as an LP candidate would be a very short list, since there were not any positives with him being an LP candidate.
dL: …the last refuge of someone intent on not making a lick of sense
me: Really sorry you feel this way.
Then I would list the positives that came from having Bill Weld . . . . and make Andy steam from his ears! . . .Have a good weekend All!
“Listing all of the reasons why Bill Weld never should have even been considered as a Libertarian Party candidate would take too long.” – Andy
That never stopped you before! 😉
Tom Knapp said: “I, on the other hand, think that “Unlike Ron Paul, who made a case for legalizing all drugs when he ran for the Republican nomination in 2012, Johnson said Wednesday he is against loosening drug laws beyond marijuana” is far too close to the center of that square to be worth putting any effort behind.”
Yeah, it is pretty pathetic that Ron Paul ran campaigns for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination that were more libertarian than the campaigns ran by the last three Libertarian Party presidential tickets.
This is one reason why a lot of small “l” libertarians regard the Libertarian Party as a joke/disappointment, and is among the reasons they are not involved with it.
“Thomas L. Knapp
June 22, 2017 at 23:26
‘These comments came from people who would normally not consider voting for any libertarian candidate.’
And if they were talking about Bill Weld, that remained the case.
With Weld it’s not a matter of not being a “pure” enough libertarian. If you want to repeal the 2nd and 5th Amendments for people on secret government enemies lists, you’re not a libertarian or anything close to a libertarian.”
BINGO!
It should be pointed out that the two issues mentioned above are not the only things wrong with Bill Weld from a libertarian perspective. Listing all of the reasons why Bill Weld never should have even been considered as a Libertarian Party candidate would take too long. Weld should have been boo’d off stage in Orlando.
“robert capozzi
June 22, 2017 at 23:06
‘aj: One thing I find disturbing, is the (few) people who have come up to me and said that Bill Weld should have been the presidential candidate. These comments came from people who would normally not consider voting for any libertarian candidate.’
me: I heard that from the MSM, too.
We should ask, Why?
Weld has style and gravitas. He knows how to speak on camera. He’s fully in charge of the subject matter, and he knows how to frame issues to his advantage. He had the resume of a plausible president.”
I think that it had more to do with the people who said that the Libertarian Party should, or should have, run Bill Weld for President, not being libertarian at all. These are people who’d consider voting for Libertarian Party candidates, ONLY if the Libertarian Party completely abandoned its principles and nominated candidates like Bill Weld or Mitt Romney or others like them.
hmm, a phrase coined by Otto von Bismarck, a Prussian authoritarian and war monger who used his iron rule to militarily unify a German state, invented the welfare state as means to expropriate civil society mutual aid, founded the basis of the modern compulsory public education system, and whose real politick laid the foundations for the two 20th century global wars….
Indeed, politics was the art of the possible when it came to Mr. Bismarck….
Sounds to me like you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about when it comes to the concept of duck typing or runtime dynamically typed languages. lol
Now you are drifting into full postmodernist mode…the last refuge of someone intent on not making a lick of sense
TK, actually I think income tax abolition is not inherently fringe. Offsetting that revenue reduction with spending cuts probably is, even if I personally would support such a change. I’m interested in progress, not posturing. Somewhat paradoxically, appropriate posturing facilitates progress!
What motivates you is your business. And I respect that.
I’m not sure that’s the right question.
Ah, but the question is precisely what you mean by “positioning the LM on the edge of the Public Square, offering substantial-but-achievable course corrections to the current slide toward ever-increasing statism.”
You seem to consider fairly moderate proposals like eliminating a fairly recent tax (most Americans didn’t pay income tax until World War II) that, if eliminated, would only reduce federal revenues to those of a few years ago seem to be waaaaaaaaay off the edge of “the public square.”
I, on the other hand, think that “Unlike Ron Paul, who made a case for legalizing all drugs when he ran for the Republican nomination in 2012, Johnson said Wednesday he is against loosening drug laws beyond marijuana” is far too close to the center of that square to be worth putting any effort behind.
dL: Duck typing means if it walks, swims and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. …Indeed, “lessAnarchy” politically duck types to “the same ole shit.”
me: Sounds like you believe that the phenomenal world is black and white. Duck, porn, aggression…all these things are easily categorized and defined. I suspect you’ll be near-universal agreement on some subjective judgments about what is or is not a duck, sure. I wish everything was like that, but in my experience, at least, definitions about is-ness can get quite fluid in so much of this world, which is in part probably why we have so much strife.
As for the lessarchist path being the same ol’ shit, I’m sorry I have failed to convince you that that’s not what I’m pointing to. Rather, I point to positioning the LM on the edge of the Public Square, offering substantial-but-achievable course corrections to the current slide toward ever-increasing statism.
It may lack the “macho flash” that appeals to so many NAPsters, but it makes little sense to me to shout from the fringes in the desperate hope that doing so will be of any consequence.
tk,
That’d be pretty silly were it true. I disagree with MANY policies on the table, MOST in fact. But most of those are — sadly — QUITE possible.
“IMO, politics really is the art of the possible.”
You sure do say that a lot. It’s sort of the opposite of a little trick from the movie Caligula
—–
Caligula: I want a bonus for my guards.
Longinus: Oh, but Caesar, that’s not possible.
Caligula: All things that happen are possible, Longinus. Make the impossible happen, then it will be possible. Logical?
Longinus: How, Caesar? The deficit, you see, is …
Caligula: Look, how much is my purse?
Longinus: Well, Lord, that is as much as you may require.
Caligula: Oh, good.
…
Caligula: In honor of your new commander, Chaerea, ten gold pieces to every man!
—–
Saying that politics is the art of the possible is just a prelude to declaring whatever policy you disagree with to be impossible.
L: If so, then congratulations, you have your own “non-negotiable side constraint”
me: Yes, I likely do, although I don’t have a catalog of single-issue side constraints. NAPsters have an ABSTRACTION as a side constraint, making their approach to politics sound quite odd to non-NAPsters.
The truth is: it is and always has been a world FILLED with aggression, aggression coming in many sizes and flavors. It’s a lovely sentiment to contemplate an aggression-less world as part of a navel-gazing exercise. Such visualization can be helpful in undoing aggression.
IMO, politics really is the art of the possible. For the non-NAPster lessarchist, this would involve IDing the most addressable current dysfunctions and the most sellable remedies to undoing those dysfunctions. Often, those remedies involve trade-offs that — in isolation — could be deemed to increase aggression in isolated ways but overall puts us on a lessarchist path.
NAPsters won’t engage in these trade-offs, near as I can tell.
No problem w/ the fed talk. Quite a bit of the early bitcoin adopters were Paul enthusiasts. Indirectly, his preoccupation w/ promulgating that topic played a part in driving the early bitcoin rise.
IIRC, Paul himself rarely if ever employed that rhetoric(at least not in the debates). It was left to ghost writers, newsletters, on the ground campaigns, etc. Even today, anytime I happen to catch a Ron Paul Report video, it certainly appears to me he doesn’t share, say, Lew Rockwell’s taste for Trumpism.
Andy,
I never said that Ron Paul shouldn’t have talked about the Fed. On the contrary, I said that it was an important issue, and that he should have talked about it. I just felt that sometimes he went a little overboard with it. For example, I have seen multiple speeches/interviews where he spent probably 80% or more of his time talking about the Fed. He barely mentioned anything else. This seems like overkill.
Also, it matters whether you are talking about his first campaign, or his second. In 2008, one of the main issues was the housing bubble. Given that the Fed played a huge role in causing the housing bubble, it made sense that Ron Paul would spend a lot of time talking about it. I don’t really blame him for that. But in 2012, he should have focused on it less. I’m not saying that he should have completely abandoned it, but that he should have simply spent less time on it, and more time on other things, especially since anyone who wasn’t convinced in 2008 was unlikely to suddenly be convinced by hearing him say the exact same thing four years later.
RC,
You seem to think the notion of a “non-negotiable side constraint” is something odd, or peculiar to “NAPsters” (libertarians). But pretty much everyone has them. In fact, I’m guessing you have some, too.
For example, think about whatever you consider to be the ten biggest problems in the world today. Now, imagine that some politician said he had a plan that would solve every one of them. You’d probably be at least a little curious, right? Now, imagine that he started by saying, “Well, it’s a 3 step plan. Step 1 is to randomly select 1,000 children under the age of 10, and torture them to death. The next step…”
At this point, I’m guessing you would reject his plan out of hand, without even waiting to hear the other 2 steps. If so, then congratulations, you have your own “non-negotiable side constraint” (probably one of many, even if you aren’t consciously aware of most of them). Maybe your thinking is a little more “rigid” than you realize!
No, “peckerwood” also refers to his ground and air campaigns that he ran in Iowa and New Hampshire(targeting socialcons) that did not jive w/ his debate performances.
The immigrant-bashing is actually a good example of what I mentioned earlier, when I said that the right has developed their own form of identity politics. In Ron Paul’s specific case, though, he seemed to abandon that sort of rhetoric as his campaign picked up steam. In any case, though, as I said earlier, “libertarian populism” would do well to avoid any sort of identity politics.
Well, political authority doesn’t survive a socratic dialogue conducted by a skillful interlocutor. However, you run up against a status quo bias, namely political authority unfortunately exists. So, you could lead a con or lib to contradiction vis a vis their own stated reasons for “why do we have political authority?” If they are honest, they will concede. However, the first mention of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, and they are immediately back to square one. That’s politics.
That’s essentially what I did. I would discern what their ultimate goal was, then demonstrate that the state was unable or unwilling to help them achieve that goal. Unfortunately, though, they seemed incapable of generalizing from one issue to the next. For example, I would spend a long time explaining to them why, if they want to help the poor, raising the minimum wage is a terrible idea. I would finally convince them. Then, I would try to apply the same basic logic to explain to them why rent control was a bad idea, but they would insist that the housing market was somehow “different” than the labor market, and so I would have to make the same arguments all over again. I finally decided that if you had to convince people one issue at a time, it was hopeless. And I still think it is, when it comes to people who have already formed strong political views. That’s why libertarians should target young people and people who consider themselves apolitical. Yes, it may be hard to get them to listen, but if they do, they’re more likely to have an open mind.
Bastiat in “Economic Sophisms,” the The Physiology of Plunder, wrote the practical utility of the study of political economy was the identification of plunder. Hmm, I imagine a degree in the classical libertarian political economy is not going to help much in the post-graduate job placement. And that includes placement in the libertarian think tanks. To be blunt, the professionalization of political science and economics does not advance the science(unlike most sciences). Most of it is the foolishness of epistemic closure and turf war battles. And that includes most of the “libertarian economists.” If the professionals are fools, why should you expect the amateurs to be any better?
Well, I wasn’t studying political economy. In fact, the school I was at (Georgia State) didn’t even offer any classes in political economy. My area of concentration was political theory, so instead of economists, I studied a lot of philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Mill, Spencer, Marx, Rawls, Nozick, and so forth). I actually never got my MA. I completed all the course work, but never finished my thesis. Ironically, my thesis was less purely philosophical and a bit more similar to public choice, in that it stressed the irrationality of political decision-making, especially in foreign policy. I used the escalation of the Vietnam War as a case study, arguing that the actions of LBJ and his advisers were driven primarily by psychological dynamics like cognitive dissonance, group think, and so forth, rather than by some rational calculation of costs and benefits. At least, that’s what it would have been, if I had finished it.
How about the number of states where the presidential candidate gets or maintenance automatic ballot access ?
What about them?
Yes, trying to get and maintain automatic ballot status is a worthy goal, but if the only way to do so is to keep running non-libertarian candidates, then it’s a waste of time.
Duck typing means if it walks, swims and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. Well known phrase in computer science(in relation to dynamic typed runtime languages). It occasionally makes its way into the popular vernacular as a way to denote something that is pretending to be something else. E.g: “that liberty-flavored republican is walking and quacking like a social con.” In your example, it means there is no relationship between porn and lessAnarchy. Indeed, “lessAnarchy” politically duck types to “the same ole shit.”
Damn, I was hoping Fidel could have hung on until 2024….alas, what could have been
Bob, I’ve previously anticipated you’re rational for the 2020 ticket. Already got that ball rollin! If politics is hollywood for the ugly, the LP is hollywood for the has beens…
“These comments came from people who would normally not consider voting for any libertarian candidate.”
And if they were talking about Bill Weld, that remained the case.
With Weld it’s not a matter of not being a “pure” enough libertarian. If you want to repeal the 2nd and 5th Amendments for people on secret government enemies lists, you’re not a libertarian or anything close to a libertarian.
aj: One thing I find disturbing, is the (few) people who have come up to me and said that Bill Weld should have been the presidential candidate. These comments came from people who would normally not consider voting for any libertarian candidate.
me: I heard that from the MSM, too.
We should ask, Why?
Weld has style and gravitas. He knows how to speak on camera. He’s fully in charge of the subject matter, and he knows how to frame issues to his advantage. He had the resume of a plausible president.
Politics is show business. How you say it is as important as what you say.
I’d say this even about RP1, who used his inarticulateness to his advantage. He may come across as a bit wacky, but he’s sincere and authentic in his wackiness, and he had enough of a Shiny Badge to get past the Credibility Gate.
This is probably not what you want to hear, but that doesn’t make it untrue.
Former CIA Spy Who Carried Out a False Flag Attack Talks About False Flag Terrorism
https://lewrockwell.com/2017/06/no_author/former-cia-false-flags-guy/
Quote from the article: “Most terrorists are false flag terrorists or are created by our own security services. In the United States, every single terrorist incident we have had has been a false flag or has been an informant pushed on by the FBI. In fact, we now have citizens taking out restraining orders against FBI informants that are trying to incite terrorism. We’ve become a lunatic asylum.”
– David Steele, the second-highest ranking civilian in the U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence and a former CIA clandestine services officer
He didn’t make ending the Federal Reserve System a big issue. In terms of public mind share took it from a microscopic issue to a tiny issue.
To the extent that libertarian political campaigns are supposed to “educate and inspire” people, here are two approaches:
First approach: Pick an issue that LOTS of people care about, and that libertarians have a great answer for, and let those LOTS of people know “we’re on YOUR side of this issue — come find out more about us.”
Second approach: Pick an issue that almost no one cares about but that libertarians have a great answer for, and try to convince all those people who don’t care about it that they should care about it and that they should get on your side of it, and hope they’re interested enough to come find out more about us.
I don’t think that you should sacrifice principle to get votes. But votes seem like a plausible indicator of whether or not you’ve accomplished the mission of making common cause with people and getting them interested in you. Someone who gets interested enough to vote Libertarian is presumably someone who might stay interested enough to become a libertarian.
All that said, I don’t have a problem with Ron Paul having emphasized the Fed, for various reasons. I’m just saying he may have missed an opportunity to accomplish more by talking about something else. On the other hand, every minute he spent talking about the Fed was a minute he wasn’t being an authoritarian douchebag on e.g. immigration and marriage.
Tom Knapp said: “How well might Paul have done — not just for himself, but for the freedom movement — if he’d spent the time he spent talking about the Fed talking about something some significant number of people already gave a shit about instead?”
Ron Paul did spend a significant amount of time talking about more “popular” issues. He talked about ending military imperialism, ending the War on Drugs, ending unconstitutional surveillance programs,
gun rights, cutting taxes, etc….
He may have drawn more people in by talking about some of the more popular issues, but once he had their attention, he educated a lot of people about the dangers of the Federal Reserve and fiat currency, and this greatly increased public awareness about this issue, which was a very good thing.
“His emphasis on the Fed did not have a negative effect, IMO. It energized a few libertarians and made a few new libertarians. But there was an opportunity cost there. Spending that time on some other issue that he was right on and that was already important to a lot of people would probably have energized just as many libertarians, made just as many new libertarians, and knocked down a lot more votes.”
I am surprised to see you of all people use the “getting more votes” argument. First of all, we have no way of knowing whether or not he’d have gotten anymore votes by not talking about the Federal Reserve as much, and by spending even more time than he did talking about legalizing marijuana, or ending military imperialism, or some other “popular” topic. Second of all, Ron Paul never stood a legitimate chance of being elected President. Sure, he stood a better chance of being elected by running in the Republican primaries than a Libertarian Party candidate, or some other minor party or independent candidate, but this does not say much. The system is way too corrupt to allow somebody like Ron Paul to have been elected President, and there’d have to be major changes to occur for this to even become a realistic possibility. So given that Ron Paul was NOT going to be elected President, no matter what he did, his job as a candidate was to educate and inspire as many people as possible. Him having made ending the Federal Reserve System a big issue went a long way toward having accomplished that goal.
“Given the success of Ron Paul 2008 and 2012, and by success, I mean greatly raising public awareness for pro-liberty issues, and giving the libertarian movement a much needed injection of adrenaline, I believe that the passage of time has shown that I was correct in my assessment.”
As I’ve previously acknowledged, Paul’s campaign did a lot to raise consciousness about ending the Fed. Because of him, perhaps 5% (instead of the previous 1/2 of 1%) of Americans have noticed the issue, and perhaps 1/10th of 1% (instead of the previous 1/100th of 1%) consider it important.
How well might Paul have done — not just for himself, but for the freedom movement — if he’d spent the time he spent talking about the Fed talking about something some significant number of people already gave a shit about instead?
His emphasis on the Fed did not have a negative effect, IMO. It energized a few libertarians and made a few new libertarians. But there was an opportunity cost there. Spending that time on some other issue that he was right on and that was already important to a lot of people would probably have energized just as many libertarians, made just as many new libertarians, and knocked down a lot more votes.
“robert capozzi
June 21, 2017 at 11:46
aj, no, that’s not a good surveying methodology. It’s anecdotal.”
If myself, and others with whom I have discussed this, being on the ground gathering petition signatures in multiple states over the past year, which puts one in contact with THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of people, from all walks of life, is not a good method for doing a survey, then what is?
I have not asked anyone any “loaded” questions to get a response that was to my political liking. If anything, I have tried to AVOID talking about Johnson/Weld, because I view them as an embarrassment. I have had people come up to me and comment about Johnson/Weld, without me having prompted them to do so, beyond asking them to sign a petition (some for the LP, and some not for the LP).
I am not BS’ing when I report that most of the comments about Johnson/Weld are negative, and they are almost all due to their lack of libertarian principles and/or them coming off as unprepared/uniformed/goofy in interviews.
“Yes, there surely are people who felt J/W was a ‘sell out.’ There were others who didn’t find their delivery compelling. There were some who voted for them as merely a protest.
I stipulate all that.
There were also many who thought they were the most qualified in the field, who liked their message, despite the inevitable gaffes.”
Yes, there are some who liked their message, or who at least thought that they were better than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump (which does not say much). I am not saying that 100% of the feedback is negative, just that most of it has been negative.
Out of the feedback that has been positive, or at least not negative, the data that I, and the others with whom I have discussed this with whom I referenced above, the supportive comments have mostly been lukewarm.
Also, even out of the people who were supportive, nobody has given me any indication that Johnson/Weld having been former Governors was a big deal to them, or played a big role in them having voted for Johnson/Weld. The LP’s Shiny Badge Caucus cares more about this than does the general public.
One thing I find disturbing, is the (few) people who have come up to me and said that Bill Weld should have been the presidential candidate. These comments came from people who would normally not consider voting for any libertarian candidate.
“Tamara Millay
June 22, 2017 at 10:16
Ending the Fed would certainly be a good thing.
Ron Paul seemed to get a tiny bit of traction with it in his presidential campaigns.
My guess is that at this point perhaps 5% of Americans have noticed it as an issue and perhaps 1/10th of 1% of Americans consider it an important issue.
While I would prefer that an LP candidate be on the correct side of the issue, I wouldn’t invest time, money or work in a candidate who plans to make it a major part of his or her campaign. A good candidate will relentlessly flog a libertarian position on issues that people already care about rather than trying to get them to care about something else.”
Is this really Tamara, or is this Tom Knapp in drag again?
Regardless of whether it was Tom or not, I remember back in 2007, when Ron Paul 2008 was in its early stages, and when Tom was working for Steve Kubby for President, we had a little debate about whether or not a candidate should make abolishing the Federal Reserve System a big talking point in their campaign. Tom said that they should not, because not enough people know enough about it to care about it. I said that they should, because it is an important issue about which more people should be informed, because part of the job of a candidate should be to educate the public about important issues, and that once people start to gain an understanding of what the Federal Reserve is and does, a lot of them will agree with libertarians in that it should be abolished (or phased out).
Given the success of Ron Paul 2008 and 2012, and by success, I mean greatly raising public awareness for pro-liberty issues, and giving the libertarian movement a much needed injection of adrenaline, I believe that the passage of time has shown that I was correct in my assessment.
I am not suggesting that candidates run on single issues, but rather that they pick a few issues that will serve as their primary talking points. I see adding End The Fed as one of a candidates main talking points (if they are running for a federal office) as a good thing. Candidates should of course be prepared to talk about anything, because you never know what issues will come up during the course of a campaign, particularly in debates or interviews or in places where the candidate talks to the general public. No candidate is going to be an expert in everything, but they, and their campaign staff, should prepare to answer questions/address issues on a wide variety of topics (this helps to avoid “What’s Aleppo?” moments from happening).
Ending the Fed would certainly be a good thing.
Ron Paul seemed to get a tiny bit of traction with it in his presidential campaigns.
My guess is that at this point perhaps 5% of Americans have noticed it as an issue and perhaps 1/10th of 1% of Americans consider it an important issue.
While I would prefer that an LP candidate be on the correct side of the issue, I wouldn’t invest time, money or work in a candidate who plans to make it a major part of his or her campaign. A good candidate will relentlessly flog a libertarian position on issues that people already care about rather than trying to get them to care about something else.
“Tony From Long Island
June 22, 2017 at 07:04
So we should advocate things because they are ‘exciting?’
I know a lot of people who thought voting for Donald Trump would be “exciting.” We see how that worked out . . . .”
Ending the Federal Reserve System and fiat currency is an issue that a lot of people do not understand, HOWEVER, once they do start to gain some understanding of it, a lot of people agree that it should be abolished. It really boils down to an issue of the ruling elite and their establishment lackies vs the rest of the population. Ron Paul greatly increased awareness about this issue during his presidential runs, and he was able to get enthusiastic rooms filled with lots of 18-22 year olds to chant, “END THE FED! END THE FED! END THE FED!” Raising public awareness about this issue was one of the biggest accomplishments of the Ron Paul r3VOLution.
I have long thought that Libertarians should be on the cutting edge of issues. We should be like Wayne Gretzky was in hockey, in that he did not skate to where the puck was, he skated to where the puck going to be.
So we should advocate things because they are “exciting?”
I know a lot of people who thought voting for Donald Trump would be “exciting.” We see how that worked out . . . .
“T Rex
June 22, 2017 at 00:40
‘Second, as I mentioned above, I think he should have focused a little less on the esoteric details of monetary policy,’
Au contraire! Abolishing the Fed is far more radical, libertarian, and exciting than “reforming Social Security” and the like. In fact, many of the other libertarian ideas don’t work so well if the Fed is kept in place.”
BINGO!
dL: porn duck typing…
me: You could elaborate, then, since your comment was completely obscure to me.
Well, you knew that Cato was not going to sit still w/ the contention that “economically conservative/socially liberal” is an empty electoral constituency.
https://www.cato.org/blog/how-many-libertarians-are-there-answer-depends-method
“Second, as I mentioned above, I think he should have focused a little less on the esoteric details of monetary policy,”
Au contraire! Abolishing the Fed is far more radical, libertarian, and exciting than “reforming Social Security” and the like. In fact, many of the other libertarian ideas don’t work so well if the Fed is kept in place.
Whatever…besides the point to my original remark RE: porn duck typing…
George, the policy is clear RE: impersonation spam. And any comments responding/replying to such will also likely be deleted so as to avoid the very conversations we are having now.
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2017/05/commenting-issues-on-ipr/
Andy never deletes anything. He doesn’t even use the ability he has to edit his own remarks. He just annoyingly makes an addendum later.
“George Dance
June 21, 2017 at 21:03
‘No, impersonation spam will be immediately deleted when detected.’
so Andy deleted it, for whatever reason. Why and how does that obligate me to make it “more clear that the comments to which you were responding did not come from [him]?” – when I had and have no way of knowing whom it came from?”
I did not delete it, somebody else did, which is a good thing. I just don’t like the idea of people attaching things I never said to my name. That was a troll posting under an IP anonymizer.
“No, impersonation spam will be immediately deleted when detected.”
so Andy deleted it, for whatever reason. Why and how does that obligate me to make it “more clear that the comments to which you were responding did not come from [him]?” – when I had and have no way of knowing whom it came from?
Also, I disagree that Johnson/Weld are the only candidates that could have picked up ballot access for the LP in any states. I bet that the party could have run Peterson or McAfee or Perry, with either Sharpe or Coley for VP, and that the party would have gotten more votes than normal for President, and would have picked up ballot access in a few states, and the party could have done this without looking like a bunch of sell outs like it did with Johnson/Weld.
Steve m, when in the HELL did I ever say that the LP should exist, or get on the ballot, for the sake of giving work to petition circulators? I NEVER said such a thing, and I have NEVER advocated this position, and I would go so far as calling this an IDIOTIC statement.
I was a dues paying LP member for 4 years BEFORE I ever worked on any petitions.
Also, if you analyzed the time that I have worked on petitions, plenty of this time, more than half of it, was spent working on petitions that were NOT LP.
Last year, I worked on LP petitions for about a grand total of 4 weeks out of the year. There are 52 weeks in a year, so there were about 48 weeks in 2016 where I was NOT petitioning for the LP.
I did a grand total of ZERO LP petitions in 2002 and 2003.
LP ballot access is only a very small percentage of the total world of the petition business.
There are people who make a lot of money in the petition business who have never touched an LP petition.
No, impersonation spam will be immediately deleted when detected. Referencing it in a reply will likely get moved to the trash bin, too.
Andy – “George Dance, the comments to which you were responding did not come from me, so I’d appreciate it if you did not use my name, or if you at least said that they were from a person falsely using my name.”
And i was to know those comments came from a person using your name, just how, exactly?
“I know that you put my name in quotes, but still, I would prefer it to be more clear that the comments to which you were responding did not come from me.”
That’s understandable. One way to make it more clear would have been to have said something at the time, if not in reply to him then in reply to me.
@ Steve m: All ballot access laws are ballot censorship. The voters have a First Amendment right to publish the name of any person they please on the ballot without prior-censorship or publish nothing at all for any candidates. Equal protection of the voter’s First Amendment right means no ballot access censorship – zilch!
Jumping through hoops devised by the Ds and Rs proves nothing except gullibility that hoop jumping is not a form of taxing First Amendment Freedoms. Tear off those ballot access blinders and see the bigger scheme of censorship to shackle voters to the status quo.
RE: Andy
June 21, 2017 at 10:23
Excellent explanation of the obfuscation of ballot censorship by the state-sponsored parties at the state level.
There is no First Amendment basis for excepting the ballot to censorship. The only way to emancipate voters is an all write-in ballot ballot. No pre-printed party labels, no candidate names pre-printed on the ballot. Print the office name print a space for the voter to write-in a name, if they choose.
With an all write-in ballot there is no excuse for candidate filing fees, no excuse for petitions, no excuse for vote quotas or voter registration quotas – no prior censorship of the voters options.
This would also mean that parties cannot be compelled to nominate or endorse any candidate for any particular office in order to overcome ballot prior censorship. If the Libertarians want to skip nominating a POTUS slate, it would not allow discrimination by anyone against any candidates but the people who actually vote – NOT election administrators at the mercy of incumbent party officials.
Yes, the states could retain a monopoly of printing essential information on “official” ballot paper, but it would be “content-neutral” and not prejudicial to any party or candidate as it is in today’s election regime.
“Like it or not…. political parties exist to run candidates for office with the hope of win[n]ing.”
The Libertarian Party exists to give voice to and implement the principles embodied in its Statement of Principles.
Running candidates for office with the hope of winning is one of several ways in which its bylaws calls for it to attempt to achieve that purpose.
In the paper calling for its formation, the possibility of winning elections was listed dead last and as a vaguely possible and not especially important goal.
Personally, I consider it more important than that, and I suspect that by the time he died the author of that article, David Nolan did as well. But it is not the reason the LP exists nor is it the LP’s primary purpose.
Andy,
The party also shouldn’t exist just for the sake of providing petition gathers a sporadic income. Ballot access is the most valuable tangible asset the LP has. It makes it easier to run candidates with libertarian messages. It gives our candidates credence in the news media.
So yes in my opinion just like where you can voter registration is a measurement of party success as is vote totals but so is retaining or getting new ballot access.
Like it or not…. political parties exist to run candidates for office with the hope of wining.
tk,
Yes, “non-negotiable standard” works better still.
Thanks.
It’s not so much of a “problem” for me as I am a NAPster in recovery, so I retain residual sympathies for that approach. It no longer feels true to me, and I don’t think it works as a serviceable political philosophy.
RC,
That works fairly well, but for clarity I would replace “the standard” with “a non-negotiable standard.” The people you’re trying to pin down presumably as individuals have other standards (as opposed to a single “the” standard), and I suspect that the non-negotiability of that particular standard is part of your problem with them.
dL: I can categorically say that “NAPsterism as a subset of Lessanarchy” ain’t never going to come close….
me: You can say whatever you like, but most of the NAPsters I’m aware of are in favor of less government vs the status quo. Therefore, most if not all NAPsters are lessarchists.
tk,
Thanks for the feedback, esp. the “side constraint.”
Rewording: “A NAPster is one who explicitly uses the non-aggression principle as the standard against which political theory and practice is measured.”
Does that work for you?
dL,
You misunderstand my point. Ls — despite the deontological NAPster foundation — negotiate all the time. (Although in my experience they negotiate on an abstract, theoretical level…e.g., what should the abortion plank say? Completely open borders or some checks at the border? Etc.
That’s intra-LM negotiation.
I think a few times in 16, GJ said he supports a “safety net.” This is an example of negotiating with the general public, since I suspect underneath that was an assumption on GJ’s part that no way will the safety net be abolished anytime soon. Voters and influencers who are invested in a safety net (or who recognize that safety-net abolition is all-but-impossible) were put somewhat at ease by GJ’s positioning.
If an L were ever to get elected, s/he will be in a position to negotiate over tangible things. Now, s/he could take the RP1 approach and vote No on everything. That approach was ultimately ineffective, IMO.
Now you may find any approach futile. You may be of the “let’s plant the flag of anarchy and when the system collapses the population will recall how righteous and correct the Ls were, and that could create an opening for worldwide nonarchism.”
Good luck with that.
nope..we can ducktype porn by it’s internet traffic. I can categorically say that “NAPsterism as a subset of Lessanarchy” ain’t never going to come close….
RC,
A “basis” is “the underlying support or foundation for an idea, argument, or process” (Oxford Dictionaries).
From my point of view, non-aggressionis what Nozick called a “side constraint.” I don’t build my ideas on it — I’m open to any idea that doesn’t violate it.
I was trying to think of a group that treats non-aggression as a “basis,” and it suddenly occurred to me that there was once such a group.
The group still exists, but contra its founder’s claim that “[non-aggression] is the fundamental rule from which can be deduced the entire corpus of libertarian theory,” its members abandoned libertarianism in favor of authoritarianism.
The causes of their decision to abandon libertarianism in favor of paleoconservatism might or might relate to some flaw in Rothbard’s dictum. It’s an interesting question at least. It seemed to me that Rothbard’s idiotic “paleo strategy” was a departure from, not an implementation of, that claim, and that all the rest (e.g. Lew Rockwell handing Rothbard’s means of intellectual production over to the likes of Marxist intellectual Hans-Hermann Hoppe) followed from that departure, but I could be wrong.
Bob, the day they have the District of Columbia “Rolling Back Intrusive Government Accords,” we’ll get back to you…negotiations, lol
TK,
OK, I’m open-minded and open to adjusting that definition. I note that “basis” is not an absolutist standard. But if you have a problem with the word “all,” we could substitute it with “primary,” “predominant,” or “virtually all.”
Or, as you are a great exponent of what I see as NAPsterism, I would be open to a different approach entirely.
Could be that NAPsterism is like porn: We know it when we see it. 😉
RC,
OK, so, the definition:
“A NAPster is one who uses the non-aggression principle as the basis for all their political judgments.”
I don’t know anyone who fits that definition.
Both left and right are deeply implicated in the existing regime of ballot censorship. The Republican right tends to favor measures to suppress total voter turnout selectively in any given election. The Democratic left tends to favor measures to suppress total voter turnout across the board in all elections by starving the voters of information with campaign finance “price controls.”
Taking yesterdays special congressional elections as examples, the usual regime of ballot censorship with Georgia and South Carolina variations was enforced on voters.
The untested question is how many votes were skewed or not cast because of censorship. The amount of spending to elicit turnout for just two candidates in these races suggest that censorship skews elections more than mere money spent on propaganda can overcome.
Allow me a deep cynicism that so-called political scientists will continue to ignore this plague on the ballot. Instead, they will parrot the line of campaign finance regulation and elimination of all private funding to further entrench the authoritarian ballot censors.
Both the establishment left and right collude to block “populism” at the ballot.
aj, no, that’s not a good surveying methodology. It’s anecdotal.
Yes, there surely are people who felt J/W was a “sell out.” There were others who didn’t find their delivery compelling. There were some who voted for them as merely a protest.
I stipulate all that.
There were also many who thought they were the most qualified in the field, who liked their message, despite the inevitable gaffes.
I suspect that 16 was the first time where the L ticket had many who actually believed they were MOST qualified. To me, that’s huge, since I believe that we teach more through demonstration than pontification.
RP1 and the R3volution did have a certain charisma about it. If RP1 was not an MC and an R, I severely doubt it would have become the phenomenon that it was.
I note almost no follow through on the R3volution. It all but died in 12 that I can see.
tk: …what is your definition [of NAPster]? Sometimes it seems to refer to “those who demand immediate abolition of the state,” sometimes to anyone who opposes any morearchy whatsoever, and so forth.
me: Thanks for asking. I’ve used the term mostly intuitively, but I’ll attempt to clarify.
First, there are morearchists and lessarchists (some of whom are NAPsters). NAPsters are a fairly small subset of lessarchists, is my sense. A NAPster is one who uses the non-aggression principle as the basis for all their political judgments. This is in contrast to myself, who appreciates non-aggression as a sentiment, but who believes the most important political insight is that government is too big and intrusive overall. The specifics of how and where to roll government back is viewed as an art, not a precise science, and that there are areas where rolling back government is a priority. Engaging in politics necessarily involves negotiation, and that hectoring those who disagree about absolute moral principles is ineffective and sometimes counter-productive. Virtue is certainly in my view an important rhetorical component to any political discourse, but practicality and likelihood of success also need to be part of the mix.
There are discernible tributaries of NAPsterism, but at root it’s a deontological thought system that posits in a near-absolutist manner that virtually all political issues boil down to a question of aggression vs. non-aggression. Some NAPsters are abolitionists, some incremental abolitionists, some abolitionist minarchists, some incremental minarchists. NAPsters largely agree in theory, but I note some differences in application of the theory.
Make sense?
“robert capozzi
June 20, 2017 at 17:23
aj,
You seem to base many of your assessments on anecdotal evidence. Consider reconsidering that approach.”
Robert, since Johnson/Weld won the LP nomination in Orlando last year, I have been on the ground and gathered thousands of petition signatures in several states. When you are out in the field asking people to sign petitions, people make comments about a variety of political topics, and I have had a lot of people comment about the Johnson/Weld ticket, and I can tell you that the majority of these comments have been negative. The negative comments have been about Johnson/Weld’s lack of libertarian principles, and/or about them coming off poorly in interviews.
Yes, it is true that they received more votes than any prior LP presidential ticket, but the fact of the matter is that most of these votes were merely PROTEST votes, as in they were not so much votes for Johnson/Weld, or for the Libertarian Party, as they were votes AGAINST Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
I have not encountered very many people who had any real enthusiasm for Johnson/Weld, unlike in the past, when I encountered people who were VERY enthusiastic about Ron Paul, and even though far less people knew who Michael Badnarik and Harry Browne were, the level of enthusiasm people who voted for them had was much higher on average than the typical Johnson/Weld voter. I have encountered several people who aren’t even sure if they voted for Johnson/Weld, as in people who told me that they voted for “that third party candidate” (which, unless they were in one of the four states – North Carolina, Georgia, Indiana, and Oklahoma – where Johnson/Weld were the only alternative ticket to qualify for the ballot, they could have voted for some other “third party” or independent ticket). If a person does not even know which alternative presidential ticket for whom they cast their vote, it tells you that they are not really committed to ideology, and were merely casting a protest vote against the major party candidates.
I have heard the same thing from other petition circulators, that is lots of negative comments about Johnson/Weld, based on their lack of principles, and/or based on them coming off poorly in interviews.
Do you not agree that going out and talking to thousands of people in multiple states is a good way to survey the public?
“langa
June 21, 2017 at 00:24
‘There is no hidden ‘live and let live’ silent majority among the non-voters, at least none that would remain that way if brought into the political process.’
I didn’t say that libertarians compose a majority of non-voters. I simply said that the percentage of libertarians is likely higher among non-voters than among voters. From my conversations with people, there are quite a few people out there who view government, and hence politics, as hopelessly corrupt, and they think trying to fix it is a waste of time.”
I have been saying for a long time that the largest potential support base for Libertarians is with independents (as in people who generally vote, but who are not aligned with either major political party) and non-voters. These groups of people tend to respond more favorably to the Libertarian Party, and libertarian issues, than the typical Democrat or Republican does.
langa said: :Second, as I mentioned above, I think he should have focused a little less on the esoteric details of monetary policy,”
I disagree. One of the great successes of Ron Paul for President 2008 and 2012 is that he greatly expanded public consciousness of the dangers of central banking and fiat currency. Getting rooms full of 18-22 year old college students to chant, “END THE FED! END THE FED! END THE FED!” was a good thing.
I have been involved in this stuff since 1996, and I encounter way more people now, post Ron Paul r3VOLution, than I did prior to the Ron Paul r3VOLution of 2007-2012, who are aware of the destructiveness of the Federal Reserve System.
“steve m
June 21, 2017 at 01:03
langa,
How about the number of states where the presidential candidate gets or maintenance automatic ballot access ?”
Johnson did not get the LP ballot access in that many states. Some states the LP has ballot access by meeting a vote test for an office other than President (like Governor, or some other statewide office, like in Texas, it was the candidate for Railroad Commissioner that got the LP two more years of ballot access). Some states the LP has ballot access by having a certain number of voter registrations. There are some states where the party has party status, but the candidates still have to petition their way onto a primary ballot (Although the states where the LP has this, the presidential candidates are exempted from this. The Libertarian Party currently has party status in Massachusetts, but the only office that gets put on the ballot automatically is President, but, considering that the party status is only good for two years, this does not guarantee the LP presidential candidate in 2020 an automatic spot on the ballot, as whether or on the LP maintains party status in Massachusetts for 2020 will depend on an LP candidate for statewide office getting a certain percent of the vote (3% I believe), and candidates in Massachusetts for every office other than President who run under the party banners of state recognized parties have to gather petition signatures to get on a primary ballot.). Some states, like Pennsylvania, have no method of getting automatic ballot access (even Democratic and Republican candidates, including presidential candidates, have to gather petition signatures to get on a primary ballot).
The Johnson/Weld vote total picked up ballot access in a few states, like Oklahoma (where they were the only alternative presidential ticket to qualify for the ballot), and Kentucky (where they only needed 2% of the vote), but they did not gain the party ballot access in as many states as some people seem to think, and unlike some of the misinformation that was floating around prior to the election, there is NO SUCH THING as getting a certain percent of the vote getting a party national ballot access.
The ballot access laws are pretty complicated, and they vary from state to state.
Given the dynamics of the 2016 presidential election, the LP could have put just about anyone on its presidential ticket, and they would have been likely to get more votes than normal for an LP presidential ticket.
Also, as I, and some others here have pointed out multiple times, we should not be involved with this stuff just for the sake of getting votes. Our goal is SUPPOSED to be to advance the Libertarian Party’s platform (and therefore advancing the cause of liberty), and you don’t do this by running candidates who RUN AGAINST the party’s platform on multiple issues, severely water down the party’s platform on other issues, downplay that they are even running as Libertarian Party candidates, and gush over one of your opponents in the election (Hillary Clinton, whom they referred to as being a, “wonderful public servant”).
If your goal is to just get votes for the sake of getting votes, you are in the wrong political party. You should go to the Democratic or Republican parties.
“the party of the cause”
Should read, “the party or the cause…”
Thane Eichenauer (@ilovegrover)
June 21, 2017 at 01:19
Libertarian State Senator Needs Help Raising $5000 for Reelection by Luke Henderson
‘Nebraska State Senator Laura Ebke, who switched to the Libertarian Party from the Republican party last June, is attempting to raise $5000 for her reelection campaign by July 4.'”
Can you give us any assurance that Laura Edke is not like Assemblyman John Moore, from Nevada, who switched to Libertarian from the Republican Party when the Nevada state legislature was on a break, and then conned the LNC and some other Libertarian Party members into giving him around $70,000 for his reelection campaign ($10,000 came directly from the LNC), and then after the Nevada legislature came back into session, he voted to INCREASE the motel occupancy tax to pay for a new football stadium (he was the deciding vote on this issue), and he voted to allow for a sales tax INCREASE for more funding for the police, both of which were bills that the Libertarian Party of Nevada was actively opposing, and both of which brought negative publicity to the Libertarian Party, and who SQUANDERED the donations that he was given by Libertarians, doing nothing to promote the party of the cause, and who then lost badly in his reelection campaign?
Hopefully, Laura Ebke is a legitimate Libertarian, and not a lying scumbag like John Moore, but how can we be assured of this?
Also, note that in Nebraska, their unicameral (one house) legislature runs in a non-partisan (as in no party labels on the ballot) Top Two Primary (as in only the top two vote recipients in the primary go on the general election ballot).
Don’t get me wrong here, she may be a fine candidate for the Libertarian Party, and IF she is, Libertarians should donate, and I hope that she wins, however, I don’t want to see Libertarians get burned again, so do some investigating before you donate.
“langa
June 21, 2017 at 00:37
good start
http://knappster.blogspot.com/2008/10/key-word-is-principled.html
That article makes a lot of good points, but one area where I strongly disagree is the idea that libertarians should position ourselves as part of the left. In the eyes of the average voter, the left has basically become synonymous with extremist, SJW-style identity politics.”
I agree with langa here. Libertarianism ought to be marketed as NOT being part of the “left vs right” political paradigm.
“Using my definition of NAPster, most of the commentariat can be fairly described with that label.”
True — but only because your definition of NAPster seems to be “most of the commentariat.”
Assuming that your definition isn’t what it seems to be, what is your definition? Sometimes it seems to refer to “those who demand immediate abolition of the state,” sometimes to anyone who opposes any morearchy whatsoever, and so forth.
Among those who hold to non-aggression as an essential/defining element in the LP’s party/purpose, there’s a much larger spread than that. There are anarchists, and there are people who think it is possible to have a state without aggression (Nozick wrote a whole book arguing for that conclusion). There are no-particular-orderists and [insert issue here]-firsters. There are incrementalists and there are absolutists.
Absent a reference/standard definition that everyone knows, it’s not obvious that “NAPster” actually means much.
tk,
Using my definition of NAPster, most of the commentariat can be fairly described with that label.
If you have a better one (aside from “libertarian,” or “radical,” neither of which work for me), I’m happy to adopt a superior descriptor. NAP adherent? NAP advocate?
Realize, of course, that I came up with “NAPster” as a riff off your own “Kn@ppster” term.
“Of course, this is heretical from a NAPster perspective”
I wonder if any of these NAPsters will ever be found in the wild, or if they just sort of hover invisibly off the edge of the map a la the medieval “Here Be Dragons.”
tk,
Yep, government is the problem. I’ve long felt that Ls should emphasize the demonstrable redistribution from the rest of the country to the DC area over the past 50 years as evidence that we are being screwed.
The challenge is that when Ls engage in this State v People angle, we come across as hard right. It’s very difficult to avoid.
My hypothesis is that this can be overcome with the adoption of something like UBI or negative income tax, which would be a tangible way to demonstrate that the less well off would not end up eating cat food. (A Georgist argument would suggest that this would be justice, not redistribution.)
Of course, this is heretical from a NAPster perspective, even though most NAPsters acknowledge that some “transitions” — at least — would be necessary.
The LM is boxed in, as it stands.
Given the thousands of candidates the Libertarian Party has run for office, I have to assume that quite a few have (hint: My 1997 city council campaign slogan was “You Shouldn’t HAVE to Fight City Hall”).
At the presidential level, none of them stand out to me as having done so, but I haven’t closely studied the LP presidential campaigns from before my time.
Ronald Reagan certainly understood libertarian populism as a sales strategy, but apparently either wasn’t able to master delivery or wasn’t interested in doing so.
Unfortunately, he also understood peckerwood populism as a sales strategy. His choice of Philadelphia, Mississippi to kick off his post-nomination campaign with some states’ rights based dog-whistling to the segregationists in 1980 was not an accident.
So I’d say we’re still at a point where a genuine libertarian populist appeal at the presidential level has yet to be tested, especially with the practical elements of a good campaign (e.g. fundraising, organizational messaging, possibly pre-existing name recognition, etc.).
tk: It’s hard to think of an easier populist sell than the state v. the people.
me: Have any candidates used this easy populist L sell?
No, “peckerwood” also refers to his ground and air campaigns that he ran in Iowa and New Hampshire(targeting socialcons) that did not jive w/ his debate performances.
You’re right. But my “hidden silent libertarian majority” retort should be taken in the context of the original article. If libertarianism is functionally zero for voters, a hidden functional libertarian block wholly derived from non-voters would require an effective plurality within that group for choices > 2.
Hell, almost everyone is like that. Nonetheless, politics is a winner take all contest which introduces its own rationality incentives apart from that observation. Everyone knows politics is corrupt, but everyone also thinks they can use the state for their own preferred ends(paraphrasing the famous Bastiat quip).
Well, political authority doesn’t survive a socratic dialogue conducted by a skillful interlocutor. However, you run up against a status quo bias, namely political authority unfortunately exists. So, you could lead a con or lib to contradiction vis a vis their own stated reasons for “why do we have political authority?” If they are honest, they will concede. However, the first mention of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, and they are immediately back to square one. That’s politics.
Political Science grad school, hmm. While in college, I used the university library to read quite a bit of the professional journals in political science/economics. Quite a bit of public choice literature. The 3rd generation Chicago school(efficient markets, rational expectations). Carried that with me for awhile until the political economy of the real world turned me(3rd generation Chicago School public choice argued something along the lines that markets for political corruption lead to rule of law efficiency. Rents will always==outlays). Gravitated toward the Virginia School of Public Choice(George Mason U). Here, political rent-seeking introduces sunk costs(outlays > rents, always). So, political rent-seeking leads to inefficiencies in the rule of law. Then I read the “Encyclopedia of Public Choice” edited by Charles Rowley. Hmm, discovered that The Virginia School had a problem, deconstructed by Tullock himself. Namely, he was finding quite a bit of evidence of rents>>outlays, something which lays waste to the methodological individualistic approach and implies “ruling class.” The denial of the former and the sanction of the latter is a complete anathema to the entire public program originally put forth in Buchanan’s and Tullock’s “Calculus of Consent”(read: “The Individualistic Postulate”). Tullock’s explanation out of the dilemma was a farce: rents>>outlays is explained by the barrier of entry of inefficient rent-seeking tech(e.g, rent-seekers communicate in hieroglyphic smoke signals to retain a learning curve entry barrier to competitors). Yet, interestingly, I have found no one ever broaches that problem. Seems to me it is something that should have been broached w/ the massive Tarp bailouts(the Tarp bailouts forced me to drop Virginia School for someone like Anthony de Jasay).
Bastiat in “Economic Sophisms,” the The Physiology of Plunder, wrote the practical utility of the study of political economy was the identification of plunder. Hmm, I imagine a degree in the classical libertarian political economy is not going to help much in the post-graduate job placement. And that includes placement in the libertarian think tanks. To be blunt, the professionalization of political science and economics does not advance the science(unlike most sciences). Most of it is the foolishness of epistemic closure and turf war battles. And that includes most of the “libertarian economists.” If the professionals are fools, why should you expect the amateurs to be any better?
Libertarian State Senator Needs Help Raising $5000 for Reelection by Luke Henderson
“Nebraska State Senator Laura Ebke, who switched to the Libertarian Party from the Republican party last June, is attempting to raise $5000 for her reelection campaign by July 4.”
https://libertarianvindicator.com/2017/06/20/libertarian-state-senator-needs-help-raising-5000-for-reelection/
langa,
How about the number of states where the presidential candidate gets or maintenance automatic ballot access ?
I would say that RP1 was probably in the L populist neighborhood, but his “peckerwood” baggage took a lot to overlook.
I would say Ron Paul’s campaigns were pretty close to ideal for libertarian populism, with a couple of minor tweaks. First, it would have been nice if he had been a bit more charismatic, and a bit more polished as a speaker. Second, as I mentioned above, I think he should have focused a little less on the esoteric details of monetary policy, and a bit more on cutting regulations (e.g. licensing requirements) that actually benefit big corporations by making it difficult for smaller businesses to compete.
As for the “peckerwood” stuff, if that’s a reference to the newsletter controversy, I highly doubt that had much of an effect on the success of either of his campaigns. It was a lot like Johnson’s “Aleppo” gaffe, in that it seemed like a big deal to people who: A) pay close attention to politics, and B) already disliked the candidate to begin with. For everyone else, not so much.
good start
http://knappster.blogspot.com/2008/10/key-word-is-principled.html
That article makes a lot of good points, but one area where I strongly disagree is the idea that libertarians should position ourselves as part of the left. In the eyes of the average voter, the left has basically become synonymous with extremist, SJW-style identity politics. Not only is that sort of collectivist philosophy very hard to reconcile with libertarian individualism, it is also unpopular with a huge segment of the population, including many people who are sympathetic to “libertarian populist” views on economics and foreign policy. Of course, the right is no better. They have attempted to “fight fire with fire” by adopting their own, equally idiotic form of identity politics, which many people find equally off-putting. Thus, the only chance for “libertarian populism” to succeed is to clearly distance itself from the “culture warriors” on the left and the right.
There is no hidden “live and let live” silent majority among the non-voters, at least none that would remain that way if brought into the political process.
I didn’t say that libertarians compose a majority of non-voters. I simply said that the percentage of libertarians is likely higher among non-voters than among voters. From my conversations with people, there are quite a few people out there who view government, and hence politics, as hopelessly corrupt, and they think trying to fix it is a waste of time.
In fact, I felt that way myself for a few years, from roughly 2004-2007. In 2004, I was in grad school in political science, and I spent most of my time trying to convince otherwise intelligent people of just how foolish their economic and political views were. It was like pulling teeth. I would spend weeks convincing them on one issue. Then, when I finally did, I would try to apply that same principle to a similar issue, but they would have none of it. It was right back to square one — as if they had learned nothing.
Based on that experience, I began to feel that it was hopeless to try to change anyone’s mind. The last straw came when Bush was reelected. I don’t know which was worse: that so many people voted for four more years of that moron, or that my fellow students thought that the other moron was so much better. Anyway, while I remained a philosophical libertarian, I gave up on any sort of practical politics. It wasn’t until Ron Paul’s primary campaign started to pick up steam that I regained hope that the vast majority of people weren’t irredeemably clueless.
Try not to just cherry pick the plumbline violations of Barr and Johnson…we know about those already. Show us metrics where the compelling case is for Marrou and Browne.
I’m not sure what kind of “metrics” you’re looking for. If you’re referring to vote totals, I’ve explained many times before why they are a very poor way to measure the success of a 3rd party campaign. Put simply, we’re nowhere close to winning a single electoral vote, let alone actually electing a President.
Given that, the only reason to expend the time, money and resources that it takes to get a presidential candidate on the ballot is because it gives us a platform to spread the libertarian message. If we run a candidate who shies away from that message, why bother?
We’ll never be free until the day comes when large numbers of people begin voting for candidates because of their libertarian views, rather than in spite of them.
Is that Mik Robertson, who used to the the Chair of the LP of PA a few years back, or is that a lying scumbag troll falsely posting under another person’s name while hiding behind an IP anonymizer in the comment posted on June 20th at 20:50? Methinks the latter.
So I might as well mention that Laura Ebke is having a “Jump Start 2018” fundraiser right now (it lasts until July 4, though obviously I doubt she’d have any problems with donations afterward):
https://lauraebke.com
She was elected as a Republican but changed her affiliation to the Libertarian Party last year. I’m mentioning this because I think it’d actually be a really big deal if she gets re-elected. Although a few state reps have changed their affiliation to the LP, all of them either weren’t running for re-election (making their flip just a nice gesture), lost their re-election, or haven’t been up for re-election yet. I expect there’s a number of sitting state representatives who might be interested in changing to the Libertarian Party, but are reluctant to because they fear it could cost them their re-election chances if they lose the support of their larger party. If someone can change to the LP, then get re-elected, that might make others more willing to jump ship.
Mik Robertson,
in a word….
No!
“NAPsterism generally doesn’t lend itself to populism, as I understand it.”
On the one hand, since “NAPsterism” is a descriptor of your own making that fits anything you want it to fit for any reason that you want it to fit it, I guess you’re the authority on the subject.
On the other hand, the formula for populism is:
* The righteous masses, oppressed by
* A power elite.
The libertarian class analysis of Comte and Dunoyer — the political class versus the productive class — was arguably the first populist theory of the post-monarchy era, and was riffed on and re-purposed by Marx to create the most successful such theory to date in terms of portion of the globe brought under a political system based on it (labor v. capital/proletariat v. bourgeois).
It’s hard to think of an easier populist sell than the state v. the people. That’s even more basic than the particular establishment v. the people a la Trump.
George Dance, the comments to which you were responding did not come from me, so I’d appreciate it if you did not use my name, or if you at least said that they were from a person falsely using my name. I know that you put my name in quotes, but still, I would prefer it to be more clear that the comments to which you were responding did not come from me.
dL,
OK, thanks. I’d be interested in seeing some candidates of your description come to the fore to test your theory. I suspect recruitment may be difficult, as NAPsterism generally doesn’t lend itself to populism, as I understand it.
I would say that RP1 was probably in the L populist neighborhood, but his “peckerwood” baggage took a lot to overlook. My sense is Kokesh might fit your bill. I’d be disinclined to vote for him, though…too shrill for my tastes.
Just some Random Guy – “@ George Dance
Your most recent post involves you replying to some quotations. Where are those quotations from?
A post from “Andy” in this thread, which may have been fake and has been deleted.
No..but it is only really been possible to potentially leverage something like that for the past 15 years or so…
Running candidates is a sort of multi-option proposition.
First criterion: The candidate has to be someone whom it will fulfill the party’s purpose to run. That purpose is “to give voice to and implement the principles embodied in the Statement of Principles.” If a campaign does not serve that purpose, there’s simply no point in running a candidate. Not even if the candidate is famous, can raise lots of money, etc.
That criterion is necessary, but it’s only the first thing, not the last. If there’s more than one candidate who meets it, THEN other criteria come into play. A more well-known candidate who meets the first criterion is better than a less well-known candidate who meets the first criterion. A candidate who meets the first criterion and can raise lots of money is better than a candidate who meets the first criterion and can’t. And so on and so forth.
But running a candidate who doesn’t meet that first criterion is like a stamp collecting club deciding to run a campaign to promote bird watching.
And running a candidate who actively runs against the statements embodied in the Statement of Principles is running a candidate against the party, not for it.
aj,
You seem to base many of your assessments on anecdotal evidence. Consider reconsidering that approach.
dL, I’m asking if there has been a campaign you can point to that meets your standard of a L populist message?
good start
http://knappster.blogspot.com/2008/10/key-word-is-principled.html
Principled libertarian populism is practical libertarian class agitprop, more or less…
sans the peckerwood
no
um, no…
Root resigned only after there were calls for his removal for openly campaigning for Romney.
However, Root was a gentleman and when he perceived the conflict he resigned from the LNC.
dL said: ” And running vice-presidential candidate likes Wayne Allyn Root, someone who has used racial epithets in his blog posts and is now a strong Trump supporter, is real stain on the LP.”
Root came out as a Mitt Romney supporter while he was a sitting At Large Representative of the Libertarian National Committee, which also made the party look bad.
Bill Weld is another ugly stain on the Libertarian Party’s record.
Robert Capozzi said: “me: It’s a fair concern. There are probably some people who understand NAPsterism and may be NAPsters who feel like you describe. I suspect that non-NAPster lessarchists outnumber the former groups very substantially. GJ’s vote totals in 16 support my contention.”
Once again, Gary Johnson’s vote total had more to do with a record level of disgust with the Democratic and Republican party’s candidates, and there having been no other minor party or independent candidate for President who qualified for the ballot in all 50 states plus DC who was of a higher profile, than it had to do with anything that Gary Johnson, or his running mate, Bill Weld, brought to the table. If anything, the Johnson/Weld ticket actually UNDER-PERFORMED from what the potential was this year.
Like I have said here before, I have been out on the streets, gathering petition signatures in multiple states, in multiple regions of the country, during the Johnson/Weld campaign, and after the Johnson/Weld campaign, and I can honestly tell you that most of the feedback I’m getting from the public about Johnson/Weld is negative, and I am not talking about negative comments from people who don’t like Libertarians, or people who don’t like any “third party” or independent candidates, I am talking about people who are otherwise sympathetic to the Libertarian Party and to alternative candidates. The negative feedback is either due to Johnson/Weld lacking libertarian principles, or to them coming off as unprepared/uninformed. The general consensus that I am getting from the public who is aware of the Johnson/Weld campaign, is that the Libertarian Party blew a big opportunity last year.
Yes, they still received 3% of the vote, which is more than any LP ticket for President has ever received, but most of these votes for PROTEST votes, as in people who voted for them not because they thought that they were great candidates, or because they really believe in the Libertarian Party, but rather because they did not like Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, and Johnson was the most well known, or in some cases, the only (Johnson was the only minor party or independent presidential candidate on the ballot in North Carolina, Georgia, Indiana, and Oklahoma), alternative candidate on their ballot.
Also, it should be pointed out that there were marijuana legalization or medical marijuana initiatives on the ballot in 9 states last year, and I think that all but one of them passed. Simply being known as a candidate that wants to “legalize weed” practically guaranteed extra votes in these states.
The Libertarian Party could have run just about anyone on its ticket last year, and the party would have picked up more votes than usual for President due to so many people being disgusted by the major party candidates, and lots of people coming out to vote to legalize marijuana.
“Very few have studied NAPsterism, so most voters would not recognize any ‘sell outs’ by Barr and Johnson.”
The Libertarian Party alienated a lot of small “l” libertarians by nominating Bob Barr and Gary Johnson as presidential candidates, and even among those who are not necessarily small “l” libertarians, the party also alienated a lot of other people who knew enough to know that Barr and Johnson were not good on a variety of issues. The LP made itself look like a party of unprincipled sell outs for having nominated them.
dL: ….typed libertarian populist message
me: Are there any examples of this message? RP1? Augustus Sol Invictus?
dL: So, targeting the vote of GOP billionaires is your grand electoral strategy? lol
me: Interesting logic leap. I actually don’t have a “strategy,” I’m just sharing thoughts. In this case, I’m merely clarifying your interpretation with a quote from another source.
BOTH parties more affluent members are out-of-step with their own parties. Yes, that does sound like an opportunity to me.
You?
btw, I’m not sure I’ve specifically asked you in the past as I have the rest of the commentariat: If there’s a better term than NAPster, I am all ears. The answer I’ve got from others is “libertarian,” which doesn’t work for me, as it excludes non-NAPster Ls and those like myself who find the NAP an appealling but completely unrealistic sentiment.
The “NAPster” approach is your own self-invented straw man. The libertarian radicals on this forum to the best of my knowledge favor a typed libertarian populist message when it comes to LP partisan politics.
True…indeed, I think person count for NAPster studies is exactly one: you.
not true…it’s certainly not true in the press. And running vice-presidential candidate likes Wayne Allyn Root, someone who has used racial epithets in his blog posts and is now a strong Trump supporter, is real stain on the LP.
So, targeting the vote of GOP billionaires is your grand electoral strategy? lol
aj: …the biggest thing that the Libertarian Party has lost by running candidates like Bob Barr and Gary Johnson is credibility. The Libertarian Party looks like a party that has sold out its principles. This is why a lot of people who’d otherwise support us, or at least be more sympathetic to us, regard the Libertarian Party as a joke, and/or a waste of potential. What’s the point of even having a Libertarian Party if we are going to run candidates who don’t even really believe in libertarian principles, like Bob Barr and Gary Johnson, at the top of our ticket.
me: It’s a fair concern. There are probably some people who understand NAPsterism and may be NAPsters who feel like you describe. I suspect that non-NAPster lessarchists outnumber the former groups very substantially. GJ’s vote totals in 16 support my contention.
Very few have studied NAPsterism, so most voters would not recognize any “sell outs” by Barr and Johnson.
“I merely suggest that an approach which has consistently failed would far more likely make actual progress vs an approach that exists only in my imagination.”
Fixed, no charge.
dL,
Here’s the quote: “The richest members of both parties have more economically conservative and socially liberal views than the poorest members.”
dL: …“libertarianish” panacean milieu: it doesn’t exist.
me: No, it did not., not quite. It said, “Well, obviously, [Ls} exist — just not in any remotely large enough numbers to form a constituency.”
I’m skeptical of this source, since so many other sources say otherwise. I also suspect that we might see some significant changes to the mix of the quadrants in different regions of the country.
I have never suggested that a lessarchist approach is a panacea. I merely suggest that a lessarchist approach would likely far more likely make actual progress vs the NAPster approach.
That’s not what it said. It said libertarianism punches above its weight b/c of hardcore intellectualism backed by lots of money. It, did, however specifically address your “libertarianish” panacean milieu: it doesn’t exist.
People generally are live and let live. But not when it comes to politics, particularly American politics. American politics is a type of active ingredient that causes a sociopathic[control others] chemical reaction when dropped into the population. There is no hidden “live and let live” silent majority among the non-voters, at least none that would remain that way if brought into the political process. It’s why something like UBI would be nothing but a big time social control foray…
A libertarian populism would would simply do a big time raise on the exemption rather than attempt to push through a Cato position paper as tax policy. Attack the health care monopoly[everyone hates that], the IP monopoly, and the surveillance state. And, oh yeah, take a wrecking ball to any Trump wall.
B/c he was responding to impersonation spam that has since been deleted.
“robert capozzi
June 20, 2017 at 08:09
langa,
Can you give examples of the cure being worse than the disease? How did, say, Barr hurt the cause of lessarchism while Marrou was a great blow for liberty? Or compare and contrast the outcomes of Johnson vs Browne?
2
Try not to just cherry pick the plumbline violations of Barr and Johnson…we know about those already. Show us metrics where the compelling case is for Marrou and Browne.”
I don’t know a whole lot about the Marrou campaign, mainly because I was not in the party then. I know that Marrou ran on a pretty strong libertarian platform, and that he qualified for the ballot in all 50 states plus DC, but he was greatly over-shadowed by Ross Perot, and the Libertarian Party was not as known back then, and there was not much of an internet in 1992, all of which had an adverse effect on Marrou’s vote total.
I got involved in the LP in 1996, so I am more familiar with Harry Browne’s campaigns. Browne was also over-shadowed by higher profile “third party” candidates in Ross Perot and Ralph Nader in 1996, and by Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan in 2000. The word libertarian was less known when Browne ran, and there were not as many people on the internet back then as there are today. I will say that Browne was a very effective candidate from the standpoint of growing the party (the party reached its peak in terms of number of dues paying members, 33,000 and something, during the Browne era; today the LP has around 20,000 dues paying members), and movement, and Browne brought a lot of people into the party and movement who are still active today (such as myself), and Browne did this while running on a pretty radical libertarian platform.
I have met big “L” and small “l” libertarians all over this country, both in person and online, and one question I frequently ask people who self identify as being a libertarian is how did they become a libertarian. The most most common answer I get is after being exposed to a political campaign, usually for President. The name I hear the most frequently by far is Ron Paul, from his 2008 and 2012 runs in the Republican presidential primaries, and from his 1988 run as a Libertarian Party candidate. The name that I hear the second most frequently is Harry Browne. It has been over 17 years since the last Harry Browne for President campaign ended, and I still sometimes encounter people who say that they are libertarians today because of Harry Browne.
I think that the biggest thing that the Libertarian Party has lost by running candidates like Bob Barr and Gary Johnson is credibility. The Libertarian Party looks like a party that has sold out its principles. This is why a lot of people who’d otherwise support us, or at least be more sympathetic to us, regard the Libertarian Party as a joke, and/or a waste of potential. What’s the point of even having a Libertarian Party if we are going to run candidates who don’t even really believe in libertarian principles, like Bob Barr and Gary Johnson, at the top of our ticket. The presidential ticket are the flag bearers for the Libertarian Party. They represent the Libertarian Party to the public, and they are the de facto public face of the Libertarian Party and movement. What does it say about the Libertarian Party that it sends out people to be the public face of the party who don’t even really believe in the stated principles for which the party is supposed to stand?
—–
OK. How were Barr and Johnson “anvils” and Marrou and Browne “itchy toes,” then?
—–
I didn’t say they were. I just said that your demand for an answer did not match the question you asked. The cure being worse than the disease is about two bad things, one worse than the other, not one bad thing and one super duper excellent thing.
tk,
OK. How were Barr and Johnson “anvils” and Marrou and Browne “itchy toes,” then?
I’d like to hear more than “because they are,” or “because they were former Rs,” or even “because they violated the NAP five times more than the others.” I’d like to hear how they hurt the cause of liberty maximization.
“Can you give examples of the cure being worse than the disease? How did, say, Barr hurt the cause of lessarchism while Marrou was a great blow for liberty? Or compare and contrast the outcomes of Johnson vs Browne?”
Well, which do you want? The second and third sentences don’t match the question in the first sentence.
Dropping an anvil on my foot is worse than having an itchy big toe. That’s the cure being worse than the disease.
What you’re asking for is proof that if you hadn’t dropped an anvil on your foot, you’d have been able to set the record in the Boston Marathon.
langa,
Can you give examples of the cure being worse than the disease? How did, say, Barr hurt the cause of lessarchism while Marrou was a great blow for liberty? Or compare and contrast the outcomes of Johnson vs Browne?
Try not to just cherry pick the plumbline violations of Barr and Johnson…we know about those already. Show us metrics where the compelling case is for Marrou and Browne.
dL, thanks for the link.
Scanned it, and a few observations.
– It appears to be national data. I’d like to see what this would look like regionally. I suspect the L quadrant would light up in some areas of the country.
– Notice that it said the more affluent, the more L. Unfortunately, the LP — with its NAP millstone — has gained almost no traction because those more resonant with lessarchism are not interested generally in supporting quixotic political causes.
– I agree that emphasizing populist themes is a great idea. Discerning what is actually “populist” can be a massive rhetorical challenge for a NAPster party as its vehicle. I note that some populist figures that achieving some level of political success were not of the angry variety, but rather the happy warrior type.
Too many Libertarians for far too long have made a First Amendment exception for ballot censorship. I suggest we have not been the civil libertarians we think we are.
There is no Reason/Cato socially liberal/economic conservative constituency
Interesting article, although I think it’s a mistake to assume that the lack of libertarian voters necessarily stems from a lack of people with libertarian beliefs. I think a more logical explanation is that many people who have a general aversion to big government (or to government in general) also have a general aversion to politics, and hence, they often choose not to vote.
Having said that, I agree with your point about libertarian populism. I think the two main issues where an LP candidate could have a lot of success are the two issues that seemed to unite Sanders voters and Ron Paul voters: opposition to foreign policy adventurism and opposition to corporate cronyism. Maybe replace Ron Paul’s emphasis on monetary policy (which is a very important subject, but also one that most people don’t understand, and therefore, don’t care about) with some general appeals for cutting taxes for the middle class, eliminating regulations that hurt small businesses, and so forth.
Above all, LP candidates should avoid identity politics and other divisive cultural issues that will alienate more voters than they will gain. If pressed, simply say that we strongly support basic civil liberties (like freedom of speech, freedom of association, and so forth), and that we strongly oppose the extremists on both sides — be they alt-right types, antifa/SJW types, or whomever — that don’t respect our civil liberties.
Many/most NAPsters seem utterly unconcerned about [the LP’s lack of electoral success], and I suspect relish their fringey status as a quasi-religious declaration of their ideology.
It’s not that we “NAPsters” (read: libertarians) are “unconcerned” about it. Rather, it’s that we realize that the “solutions” typically offered (running non-libertarian candidates, or running “closet” libertarians that hide their true beliefs from the electorate) are textbook cases of the cure being worse than the disease.
@ George Dance
Your most recent post involves you replying to some quotations. Where are those quotations from? They don’t seem to be from anyone in this topic.
From the NY Mag
There is no Reason/Cato socially liberal/economic conservative constituency
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/06/new-study-shows-what-really-happened-in-the-2016-election.html
CONCLUSION:
The best way for a sufficiently funded libertarian campaign to win in a 3 way race likely would be hard core foray into libertarian class theory attacks against the other two opponents, painting them as corrupt insiders. Libertarian populist. The Sanders data demonstrates that populism can trump the fact that few may actually agree w/ your own policy positions. The NY Mag data points to the Reason/Cato libertarian-leaning respectability politics being an electoral dead end.
We need to help fulfill the last part of President Lincoln’s plan and help Afrikans, who were forced to come to America in chains against their will, to return to the Motherland.
Considering the slave trade was prohibited in 1808, there were very few slaves in the U.S. by 1865 who had been “brought to Africa in chains.”
“To this the US Government should pay any Afrikan who seeks resettlement in the Motherland reparations to help them start a new life, and should also pay Afrikan nations which were victimized by colonialist slave traders to help them accept the returning Afrikans.”
By the same token, I’ve read that a lot of European countries are worrying about the loss of their white identity, and a lot of white progressives (all Bernie Sanders’ base, for instance) are envious of the generous welfare states most of those countries have.
So, in fairness, the program should also include repatriating whites back to the European Motherland.
Power to the People! Back to the Motherland! Right on right on!
TK,
Trying to “do” something and actually doing something are different things. In my estimation, both amount to fucking around, as actually implementing NAPSTER-ism is futile for the foreseeable future.
Bob,
No, I’m not moving in a Georgist direction. I don’t support land taxes. I just predict that as income and transactions become harder to tax, taxation will shift to land. It’s harder to hide and/or carry away to avoid the taxes.
To the extent that “NAPsterism” is a thing, giving voice to and implementing it remains the party’s purpose. If we’re not doing that, we’re just fucking around.
Happy Juneteenth!
It was on June 19, 1865 that General Grander arrived in Texas and issued General Order 3, enforcing the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas and ending slavery in Texas. This marked the last step in President Lincoln’s successful march to free all slaves across the Confederacy. He only freed a few slaves on the day his proclamation was issued — there was a perpetual trickle of escapees from the land of the slaveholders — but over the next several years his promise was to be met in full, completed after his assassination with the passages of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments.
Tony,
Yes, I recognize that NAPsters generally react negatively to the mention of GJ. I feel that this is another opportunity for them to get over that behavior. The truth is that GJ was doing the best he could, and that his “uber everything” was a fairly effective way for him to appeal to more pro-market/pro-progess and generally younger and coastal/urban-type voters.
I believe TK especially recognizes the challenge of L pols to be relevant and practical in their messaging. The constraints of old-school NAPsterism have tended to see L candidates coming across more as theorists than job applicants. The emphasis on rigid “principles” has historically made Ls completely unelectable even if they had ballot access and sufficient funding.
Many/most NAPsters seem utterly unconcerned about this, and I suspect relish their fringey status as a quasi-religious declaration of their ideology.
Robert C:
Don’t say GJ!! You might release the kracken! He’s been quiet for a bit . . .
You implied the statement “bitcoin doesn’t need regulation” was analogous to a statement “markets don’t need regulation” and hence would be open to general dispute. At least that is the way I read it.
TK,
Your remarks remind me of GJ’s “uber everything” talking point. Sounds good to me.
It also sounds like you are moving in a more Georgist direction…land taxes! Sounds intriguing to me, although I wonder whether that would sell. It seems even more obscure than crypto-currency.
My guess is that crypto-currency remains obscure for the next 4 years, but it seems useful to be prepared on the issue, should the phenomenon continue to grow as it has been.
D.L , I’m puzzled by your comment, as I’ve nowhere suggested regulating Bitcoin.
Cryptocurrencies have been in practice for a decade. Its an empirically true statement. It’s not a proposition. Positing that cryptocurrencies need government regulation is like saying open source software can’t work w/o government regulation or even better, the sun rising in the morning can’t work w/o a government edict.
“How would you position him/her on the crypto issue? Would it be a top-10 talking point? Would it make the stump speech?”
Second question first: Whether or not it’s a top-10 talking point is the public’s decision, not the candidate’s decision. The public is heavily INFLUENCED in that decision by the political and media establishments. Libertarians are not yet in that weight class. We don’t get to choose the issues. We only get to try and get our viewpoint on those issues edgewise.
Third question second: It would make the stump speech if the public had decided that it was important.
The political and media establishment seem to be trying to make it important.
As far as positioning:
* Keep the government’s regulatory mitts off cryptocurrency.
This is a reprise of a fight we’ve been having for more than 20 years now, with some notable successes. As soon as the World Wide Web showed up, the omnipotent state cultists started looking for ways to regulate it, but in most cases the argument that doing so would strangle it has at least partially carried the day (the war over strong encryption, which is related to cryptocurrency, continues to break out now and then, but the state HAS lost it). We’re currently having that fight over the sharing/gig economy — Uber, Airbnb, etc. — as they begin to become viable alternatives to the old tax monopolies, the hotel establishment and so on.
The argument is simple: Cryptocurrency is a new way of doing money. Trying to use state power to lasso it into the way banks, etc. have been regulated is not only unlikely to work, it would strangle the new idea’s potential if it DID work.
* Start considering tax reform, because as more people gain control over their money in a way that makes their earnings and transactions purposely opaque to outsiders (including government itself), taxing those earnings and transactions is going to cease to be feasible.
That positioning could take lots of forms. Two that come to mind are 1) basing taxation on the one thing that it’s damn hard to hide and impossible to move (land) and 2) re-thinking taxation as such and finding ways to make it voluntary on the part of, and targeted to desired projects by, those who pay.
dL: Cryptocurrencies do not require a “public policy” to work. Hands off!
me: Many believe that’s true of markets generally. This shouldn’t be so difficult!
Most of the commentariat believe that cryptocurrencies are an important development. There’ve been vague allusions about it being important as a political matter, e.g., Schumer and NH.
How’s this: Say you were the campaign strategist for an L Senate candidate. Say this candidate was independently wealthy and was going to run full time. While your candidate is a true-blue NAPster, s/he has an impressive resume and is somewhat well-known statewide.
How would you position him/her on the crypto issue? Would it be a top-10 talking point? Would it make the stump speech?
Well, recently the LNC did manage to put out this
https://www.lp.org/libertarian-party-condemns-government-persecution-of-bitcoin-exchange-vendor/
However, you are correct that the recent LNC butthurt over Arvin Vohra’s statements re: the military reinforces expectations that the LP is not going to be anywhere near the center of cryptocurrency laissez faire advocacy. Although I might exclude some state parties like the NHLP from that expectation.
If by “lessarchistic” you mean public policy, absolutely nothing. Cryptocurrencies do not require a “public policy” to work. Hands off!
No, they haven’t. At least, not yet. However, a recent bill “Combating Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and Counterfeiting Act of 2017” sponsored by Rethug Chuck Grassley would do that if passed.
It’s up to the LP to leverage it as a political issue. I wouldn’t hold my breath though in that regard…
Yeah, I doubt too many people in the LP have given much thought to cryptocurrency. They’ve been far too busy berating Arvin Vohra for having the audacity to tell the truth about the military.
The US Government Clamps Down on Ability of Americans To Purchase Bitcoin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8DB4MjH9sA
dL,
How might you leverage cryptocurrency as a lessarchistic political issue?
Advancing the LP is not the explicit raison d’etre of cryptocurrency. It’s up to the LP to leverage it as a political issue. I wouldn’t hold my breath though in that regard…
My long term optimism is tempered by the sobering realization that the Cheetorangutang Drumpfolini has his twitter fingers on the nuclear codes. On the other hand, the internet is specifically designed to survive a nuclear war 🙂
Obscure as a stump issue. For now. Not obscure by any means in terms of being a capital hill political lobby issue.
LOL, TK
Bob,
I agree that it is not a hot button issue for campaigns for political office at the moment. It might be at some point, and in some places. And it is an issue that we are and can be on the leading edge of and have the right positions on.
As far as it being “obscure,” the term “Bitcoin” returns 4.1 million articles in the last 30 days on Google News.
That’s about 80 times as many results as Google News returns on “Libertarian Party,” 2.05 million times as many results as it returns on “private nukes,” and 4.1 million times as many results as it returns on “lessarchy” (and that one result is actually for “less archy” and has to do with eyebrows).
tk, it’s great that one state legislature took this action. It’s not surprising that Schumer is wrong-minded on this issue.
This sounds to me like an obscure issue that is not a top issue that is likely in the near term (if ever) to be a hot-button issue. I thought we agreed about this.
“even if no one here seems to have offered any political angles that lessarchists can exploit or leverage politically.”
Except, of course, that I did.
Omnipotent state cultists like Schumer are raising the roof over the prospect of money that they can’t regulate or tax. They’re also doing their best to “set an example” by prosecuting, and making political prisoners of, a few people for doing business without their permission, like Ross Ulbricht and Randall Lord, and trying to enclose cryptocurrency in the regulatory web, e.g. FINCEN.
They’ve had some success. But there have been both political and non-political responses, ranging from New Hampshire’s law — introduced, passed and signed — exempting “convertible virtual currency” from the state’s regulations on money transmitters, to people taking minimal self-protection measures and giving the Schumers of the world a look at their middle fingers.
In the latter case, I predict that it will be a lot more like the war on sharing music than like the war on cannabis. It took the better part of a century to turn the tide on the latter. The former, a decade or so before the state realized it had lost and pretty much moved on except for some ineffectual propaganda stunts.
pf: The cryptocurrency market cap is global.
me: Great point. So crypto cap is even smaller AT THIS POINT. Perhaps a better sense of the scaling is that global wealth is estimated is in the $250T range. Crypto value may be the next big thing, but it’s still in its infancy.
pf: The thing about cryptos is not whether they are a campaign issue for politicians or would be politicians but that they are helping people become more free right now, without having to win majorities and pass legislation. They will eventually free us not just from regime currencies but also from banks, money transfer services, and so on.
me: Could be. Sounds good to me! Being up on the issue seems like a good idea even if no one here seems to have offered any political angles that lessarchists can exploit or leverage politically.
pf: Apps are being used for everything from ridesharing to roomsharing to mutual/community self defense to rating businesses/consumer protection. Online group and video learning is becoming more and more viable as an alternative to traditional education. 3D printing is making it less practically possible to ban various items. While MSM still has a lot of market share, it now has to compete with many-to-many news sharing and its coverage is now frequently driven by what is being talked about on social media, whereas in the past the gatekeepers of public opinion could safely ignore stories they didn’t want to cover.
me: Cause for optimism! My sense is that TK and perhaps AJ and other members of the commentariat don’t share your optimism.
Thanks, Andy. It’s a great group. I’m very proud of us!
We hope to make quite an impact at Politicon, which is a weekend event coming up at the Pasadena convention Center in late July.
Wow, that is a good turn out. Certainly higher than average for a local LP meeting, especially since it is not close to an election. Keep up the good work, Jill.
We had 35 people show up for my regional monthly meeting in Pasadena last Wednesday evening. That more than we’ve ever had in attendance. It was more people than showed up for the Los Angeles County Libertarian Party’s annual convention yesterday.
Why? The topic was Bitcoin. Specifically, what it is, how to use it, and why we should use it.
The young man who gave the presentation had just graduated from USC as a rocket scientist. The room was packed with millenials. I would say cryptocurrency is a huge issue, especially for the younger age groups who are used to computers doing everything.
Agreed with Paulie on all counts.
I admire paulie’s insight. Thanks.
The cryptocurrency market cap is global. As far as I know there is no way to tell how much of that is in the US. Crypto transactions are not significantly impeded by regime gang boundaries. The thing about cryptos is not whether they are a campaign issue for politicians or would be politicians but that they are helping people become more free right now, without having to win majorities and pass legislation. They will eventually free us not just from regime currencies but also from banks, money transfer services, and so on. Blockchain also has a number of interesting applications unrelated to currency.
There are other things happening that move a lot of things outside the control of the state, or make the state irrelevant. Apps are being used for everything from ridesharing to roomsharing to mutual/community self defense to rating businesses/consumer protection. Online group and video learning is becoming more and more viable as an alternative to traditional education. 3D printing is making it less practically possible to ban various items. While MSM still has a lot of market share, it now has to compete with many-to-many news sharing and its coverage is now frequently driven by what is being talked about on social media, whereas in the past the gatekeepers of public opinion could safely ignore stories they didn’t want to cover.
We are still in the very early stages of this, and the most relevant questions about these things are not how they can be of service in political campaigns.
Bob,
Right now, “cryptocurrency” as a term serves the useful function of distinguishing e.g. Bitcoin from prior “digital money” schemes. But from my reading, we seem to be close to a tipping point where “digital currency” or “digital money” is starting to be understood to refer specifically to Bitcoin, et al.
“btw, I used a bad number of $6.56T, which on further inspection is the average of the past few decades. Looks like the better number is $18T. Looks like cryptocurrencies represent something more like 0.6%.”
If my math is correct, more like 1/10th of 1%. Of course, the better comparison to GDP would be the value of all cryptocurrency transactions in a given year. I don’t know if there’s a good set of stats on that, although there probably should be given the transparent nature of block chain ledger currencies.
Here’s the thing about cryptocurrency:
In 1900, fewer than 5,000 cars were manufactured in the US.
By 1920, one single car company (Ford) had twice that many dealerships in the US. Not cars, car stores.
I’m skeptical about the future of Bitcoin proper. But unless there’s some kind of EMP cataclysm that sends us back to the 19th century tech-wise, some form of digital currency will be the primary medium of exchange within a decade or so. Cryptocurrency is the leading edge of that trend, and it is natively anti-state in configuration. Any state controls will have to be bolted on to it Rube Goldberg style, and that creates the potential for resistance.
…major campaign theme…
tk, thanks for the thoughtful response. Sounds about right to me…support cryptocurrencies (which as a former flak I’d say could use a more-positive-sounding label), but it’s probably not a more campaign theme.
tk, yes, I inferred that.
If more participated in the economy their full efforts, the GDP would be higher, too. The labor/leisure trade-off and our collective assessment of where the point of diminishing returns, however, have us clocking in where we clock in.
btw, I used a bad number of $6.56T, which on further inspection is the average of the past few decades. Looks like the better number is $18T. Looks like cryptocurrencies represent something more like 0.6%.
“How does an L candidate run on ‘Bitcoin’ in a compelling way. What’s the narrative?”
I’m not sure how or to what extent cryptocurrency will become a major issue for candidates seeking elected office.
On the other hand, L/libertarians lobbied heavily for legislation exempting cryptocurrency from state-level regulation in New Hampshire (where the LP currently has sitting legislators). That legislation was recently passed and signed into law.
And in other states and at the national level, legislators of other parties have been pushing for increased regulation of cryptocurrencies. The US House of Representatives had a hearing on the subject just last week, and prominent party leaders (including Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer) have been pushing it.
So there ARE political angles to it.
As more and more regular people start using cryptocurrency, and as “mainstream” financial institutions continue experimenting with it in concept as they are already doing), I don’t see any reason why “I don’t want to tax your Bitcoin or to have the government spy on you to figure out whether or not you’re using it and if so how much” wouldn’t be a reasonable thing to bring up in the context of a political campaign.
That said, in any election cycle there are a handful of major issues that get the bulk of the attention. The LP and its candidates are not yet really capable of deciding what those issues are going to be in the way that the major parties and the mainstream media are. Cryptocurrency may or may not become one of those issues; we should be on the right side of it, but whether or not we center campaigns on it is dependent on external factors.
aj, let’s say you are correct. Let’s say cryptocurrencies are like the Internet in the 90s, something that’s about to become a major factor in our daily lives.
Please share how they are a rich political issue for the LP, in your view. How does an L candidate run on “Bitcoin” in a compelling way. What’s the narrative?
Bob,
I was using percentage of the popular vote, too — and including the percentage who chose not to participate in that vote.
tk, I was using percentage of the popular vote, and yes, dL, with some facetiousness.
NewFed,
I always thought Foreigner sounded like a record company A&R guy’s version of Bad Company.
“$110B market cap sounds impressive, but that works out to about 1.7% of GDP. That’s better than most L candidate vote percentages, but lower than GJ’s 16 result.”
Even if the comparison was valid, GJ 16 ‘s result (1.4% of US population) would come in well behind cryptocurrency’s market cap as a percentage of GDP.
But of course you are comparing the investment of actual wealth to the “investment” of making a mark on a piece of paper. If you want to do an apples to apples comparison:
* Let’s be very, very generous and credit the LP with having invested $100 million in 2016 dollars in all of its presidential campaigns ever, and another $100 million in other party activities. And when I say “very generous,” I mean generous by probably close to a full order of magnitude. That would mean that the LP and all its presidential campaigns, over a period of nearly 50 years, have raised and spent right at 1% of the amount people currently have invested in cryptocurrency.
* In 2016, total campaign spending by the top three campaigns came to less than 1/20th of cryptocurrency’s current market cap.
Robert Cappozi said: “It feels like an obscure side issue to me, but I’m open minded.”
I consider cryptocurrencies to be a cutting edge issue. Libertarians should be like the surfers who are in the ocean catching a wave as it is starting rather than being the guys who are sitting on the beach and watching some big waves crashing on the beach and and saying, “Hey brah, let’s get our boards out of the van. Those are some gnarly waves, dude.”
You call cryptocurrencies an “obscure” issue. I call it cutting edge technology that can greatly expand individual freedom.
“robert capozzi
June 17, 2017 at 23:38
aj, cryptocurrencies may demonstrate the State is unnecessary for currency, or they may just be thought of as another trading vehicle within a wider marketplace. It’s an interesting experiment, but whether it ushers in, or is a wedge to unleash, a new era of free markets, it seems way too soon to tell, at least for me. Schiff doesn’t seem to think very highly of Bitcoin, and I suspect many fellow-traveling lessarchists of the gold-bug variety may concur with him.”
I generally agree with Peter Schiff, but he’s wrong on Bitcoin and other cryptos. Keep in mind that Schiff owns or co-owns a gold and silver business, and while I certainly am a precious metals supporter myself, I think that Schiff has a blind spot on this issue, and there is no reason why one can’t support digital cryptocurrencies and precious metals. There is a new company called GoldMoney.com that Peter Schiff has been promoting which offers bank accounts denominated in gold which have debit cards, which people can use to pay for goods and services like they can with any other debit card. I don’t know if Schiff is getting paid to promote this or not, but it is possible that he is. I like the concept of GoldMoney.com, but it does not invalidate the concept or need for digital cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dash, Monero, Litecoin, etc…
brah, I hope you being facetious.
dL, I’m not wedded to any particular method, and I’m disappointed that I’ve not clearly given you a more accurate impression of my sense of things. My gut tells me that a range of approaches would be necessary to roll back the State, appealing to a wide variety of folk.
langa, thanks for the BitNation link. It seems to be in its infancy, as there seemed very few “embassies,” “consulates,” and “allies.”
Recall that I do advocate Nonarchy Pods as a direct means to go completely off the grid.
Libertarianism is not an extreme outlier. An example of an extreme outlier is you and your self-invented linguistic constructs that only you are familiar with. Stuff like”lessAnarchy.” Who in the heck knows what that means except you?
Further, you are an example of extreme dogmatic. Your premise, best I can ascertain, is that liberty can only be advanced by public policy w/ a broad respectable consensus from serious opinion makers. Anything else, you pooh pah. When you are given examples of non-political action like cryptocurrencies, dark markets, you feign ignorance and/or resort to “yeah, but…”
Myself, i would certainly welcome “liberty advanced by public policy w/ a broad respectable consensus from serious opinion makers” if the public policy is libertarian. Unfortunately, I have yet to see any evidence of such thing. Moreover, those that are wedded to that particular method usually are more concerned w/ respectability than the content of the public policy. Hence, the derisive term, “respectability politics.”
aj, cryptocurrencies may demonstrate the State is unnecessary for currency, or they may just be thought of as another trading vehicle within a wider marketplace. It’s an interesting experiment, but whether it ushers in, or is a wedge to unleash, a new era of free markets, it seems way too soon to tell, at least for me. Schiff doesn’t seem to think very highly of Bitcoin, and I suspect many fellow-traveling lessarchists of the gold-bug variety may concur with him.
tk, $110B market cap sounds impressive, but that works out to about 1.7% of GDP. That’s better than most L candidate vote percentages, but lower than GJ’s 16 result. 😉
It feels like an obscure side issue to me, but I’m open minded.
LOL. It provides the means for transactional freedom to buy and sell what the state prohibits. Unregulated trade. Open to everyone. That more or less is liberty in the libertarian sense.
On that I absolutely concur. Cryptocurrencies and dark nets have absolutely nothing to do w/ the advocacy of your own self- invented “abolitionist NAPsterism” linguistic creation.
“Or at least not any more so than AC/DC sounds like Abba.” – Thomas L. Knapp
I’ve noticed that both of them sound like Foreigner!
It might be that cryptocurrencies are a brilliant scheme by anarchists to trigger Anarcho-Paradise-on-Earth in the next 5 years.
Well, these people certainly seem to think so: https://bitnation.co/main/
“So that sounds like various tax evasion techniques that have come and gone over the years.”
No, a separate economy with its own (plausibly) anonymous and (potentially) non-regulatable currencies does not “sound like various tax evasion techniques that have come and gone over the years.” Or at least not any more so than AC/DC sounds like Abba.
Cryptocurrencies illustrate that government is not needed to create money (note that cryptocurrencies have outperformed government fiat currencies), and they also give people away to avoid the government’s central banking system and taxes.
Darryl W. Perry was one of the only, or maybe the only, candidate for the Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination that made cryptocurrencies a big part of his campaign (John McAfee has talked about cryptocurrenices post convention, but I don’t recall him talking much about it before the convention), and in my opinion, was one of the reasons why Darryl W. Perry should have won the nomination. His idea to run his campaign on precious metals, and cryptocurrencies, may have sounded odd to some, but it actually would have been a great way to educate the public about the issue of alternative currencies, and about why the Federal Reserve System should be abolished. It is a shame that the idea did not gain more traction. The cryptocurrency market has really taken off this year, as Bitcoin has shot up to record level after being in a slump for a few years, and several other cryptocurrenices like Ethereum and Dash (to name just two) have shot up to record levels as well. Perhaps if this had happened prior to the nominating convention last year, it could have benefited Perry’s campaign. Also, note that if Perry had been nominated, those that did not want to donate via precious metals or cryptocurrencies could have donated Federal Reserve Notes to a PAC or Super PAC, and they also could have donated to the national Libertarian Party, and/or the state Libertarian Party affiliates, all of whom can spend money to promote/benefit the presidential campaign.
I have long said that Libertarians ought to provide the public with action items that they can implement in their lives that advance the cause of liberty, which do NOT rely on Libertarians getting elected (since Libertarians don’t win elections very often, and since Libertarians stand close to ZERO chance of winning a high level office like President, or Governor, or US Senate, or etc…). I am talking about things like jury nullification of victimless crimes, home schooling, gun ownership, and the use of alternative currencies (gold, silver, digital cryptocurrenices, etc…).
TK,
So that sounds like various tax evasion techniques that have come and gone over the years. Some who participate in those benefit, but I wonder whether such things broadly advance liberty for all, or even most.
Does it? If so, how so?
Bob,
Last things first: Whether or not cryptocurrencies are a brilliant scheme by anarchists to trigger Anarcho-Paradise-on-Earth (the timeframe in which they might do so isn’t particularly relevant).
The answer is yes. Cryptocurrencies emerged out of the cypherpunk/crypto-anarchist movement.
Their whole original POINT goes to your second question:
“how are cryptocurrencies significantly advancing liberty”
As a medium of exchange, they are creating an economy that in all cases at least potentially and in some cases actually, functions beyond the reach of the state’s ability to tax and regulate. Because it is merely pseudonymous and not truly natively anonymous, Bitcoin in particular has some weaknesses in that respect.
Block chain, etc. were not the first such attempts to come out of the cypherpunk/crypto-anarchist community (the late J. Orlin Grabbe’s Digital Monetary Trust was an interesting one), but so far they’re by far the most successful. As of this morning, the total market cap of the top 100 cryptocurrencies is about $110 billion as measured in US dollars.
tk: …Schumer (D-NY) disagrees with you on the question of whether or not cryptocurrency is politically consequential.
me: I’ve not taken a position on the matter. I’m asking questions….how are cryptocurrencies significantly advancing liberty, and — more importantly — how does the advocacy of abolitionist NAPsterism fueling actual liberty-enhancement?
I’m open-minded. It might be that cryptocurrencies are a brilliant scheme by anarchists to trigger Anarcho-Paradise-on-Earth in the next 5 years.
pf: That’s all in your head.
me: True. We’re ALL brains in a vat, perceiving and assessing the strange goings on around us. We are here, comparing notes on our observations and theories about this insubstantial pageant unfolding before us.
Extreme outliers are sometimes pioneers of paradigm breakthroughs. Other times they are just deeply confused by the constructs they erect in their minds. The difference is usually because true pioneers have a commitment to truth vs. a commitment to dogma.
Bob,
US Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) disagrees with you on the question of whether or not cryptocurrency is politically consequential.
dL,
Yes, I mean politically consequential.
Some have made money in bitcoin and perhaps the other crypto-currencies. I’m not sure what that — or darknet — have to do with the advocacy of abolitionist NAPsterism.
“This is from Murray Rothbard’s Nations by Consent: Decomposing the Nation-State. It was published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies in 1994.
Full quote & context below.
IV. THE PURE ANARCHO-CAPITALIST MODEL
I raise the pure anarcho-capitalist model in this paper, not so much to advocate the model per se as to propose it as a guide for settling vexed current disputes about nationality. The pure model, simply, is that no land areas, no square footage in the world, shall remain “public”; every square foot of land area, be they streets, squares, or neighborhoods, is privatized. Total privatization would help solve nationality problems, often in surprising ways, and I suggest that existing states, or classical liberal states, try to approach such a system even while some land areas remain in the governmental sphere.
Open Borders, or the Camp of-the Saints Problem
The question of open borders, or free immigration, has become an accelerating problem for classical liberals. This is first, because the welfare state increasingly subsidizes immigrants to enter and receive permanent assistance, and second, because cultural boundaries have become increasingly swamped. I began to rethink my views on immigration when, as the Soviet Union collapsed, it became clear that ethnic Russians had been encouraged to flood into Estonia and Latvia in order to destroy the cultures and languages of these peoples. Previously, it had been easy to dismiss as unrealistic Jean Raspail’s anti-immigration novel The Camp of the Saints, in which virtually the entire population of India decides to move, in small boats, into France, and the French, infected by liberal ideology, cannot summon the will to prevent economic and cultural national destruction. As cultural and welfare-state problems have intensified, it became impossible to dismiss Raspail’s concerns any longer.
However, on rethinking immigration on the basis of the anarcho-capitalist model, it became clear to me that a totally privatized country would not have “open borders” at all. If every piece of land in a country were owned by some person, group, or corporation, this would mean that no immigrant could enter there unless invited to enter and allowed to rent, or purchase, property. A totally privatized country would be as “closed” as the particular inhabitants and property owners desire. It seems clear, then, that the regime of open borders that exists de facto in the U.S. really amounts to a compulsory opening by the central state, the state in charge of all streets and public land areas, and does not genuinely reflect the wishes of the proprietors.
Under total privatization, many local conflicts and “externality” problems-not merely the immigration problem-would be neatly settled. With every locale and neighborhood owned by private firms, corporations, or contractual communities, true diversity would reign, in accordance with the preferences of each community. Some neighborhoods would be ethnically or economically diverse, while others would be ethnically or economically homogeneous. Some localities would permit pornography or prostitution or drugs or abortions, others would prohibit any or all of them. The prohibitions would not be state imposed, but would simply be requirements for residence or use of some person’s or community’s land area. While statists who have the itch to impose their values on everyone else would be disappointed, every group or interest would at least have the satisfaction of living in neighborhoods of people who share its values and preferences. While neighborhood ownership would not provide Utopia or a panacea for all conflicts, it would at least provide a “second-best” solution that most people might be willing to live with.
If you haven’t read Raspail’s “The Camp of the Saints” that Rothbard referenced, you should at least read about the book to understand what influenced him and what he was referring to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Camp_of_the_Saints “
Great video that DESTROYS the bogus arguments put forth by leftists and so called left “libertarians” on this issue.
It is no coincidence that “open borders” is also pushed by socialists/communists and New World Order globalists.
Open Borders Are Not Libertarian. They’re COMMUNIST
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCr4kN4z304
80s hair metal might survive w/ a better rep if google somehow could manage to “disappear” the video evidence…
Bitcoin, crypto currencies, dark nets inconsequential? Looks like a global, market-driven mass movement to me…
Or do you mean politics…like, you know, a mass movement for the serious people, hah, hah, hah, hah, hah,hah
rc
That’s all in your head.
dL
Actually, RL’s statement “Anarchy is order. The State is a disease,” is exactly the sort of concept that keeps the LM padlocked, that is, away from anywhere near a mass, consequential movement.
nah, gotta break that motherfucker
Actually, pretty much everyone who gives a rat’s ass about politics at all seems to have heard of Tom’s Life Jacket Warehouse.
At least once a week I see sneering fliers from Bernie’s and The Donald’s claiming that life jackets are useless novelties that will never catch on, while simultaneously worrying that I might cut into their market share.
I also have several would-be advisors hanging around telling me that I should stop fucking around with life jackets because I could become wildly successful by selling deck chair re-upholstery kits that double as bad hairpiece extenders.
I figure it’s better to keep pushing the life jackets as best I can.
I doubt it…
http://praxeology.net/anarchy-is-order.htm
Robert Capozzi. But it’s only a mental block. The padlock is a mirage….
dL,
Roderick Long did the padlocking. I’m sure of it! 🙂
http://reason.com/blog/2017/06/15/dd-creator-gary-gygaxs-fbi-records-make
D&D Creator Gary Gygax’s FBI Records Make Him Sound Like a Badass
“He is known to be a member of the Libertarian Party.”
C.J. Ciaramella|Jun. 15, 2017 10:20 am
More at http://reason.com/blog/2017/06/15/dd-creator-gary-gygaxs-fbi-records-make
No doubt, if you are traveling first class, you probably would not be aware of Tom’s Life Jacket Warehouse. However, those “vastest of minorities” traveling in steerage or working the coal-burning engine room would likely know about it. The question is: who padlocked the thing?
tk, ever, not never.
jp, that’s QUITE a charge. I can’t say I buy it. Hodgkinson was shooting at a lot of people. Maybe he shot Scalise first because he was the highest ranked on the field, or some other reason.
This sort of speculation is why conspiracy theorists are held in low regard.
Here’s a good presentation of the questions:
https://youtu.be/9qLgLQ_l98I
I’ll probably make this an article later today, since Bill Still was one of our presidential candidates in 2012.
tk,
Surely you recognize that the vastest of minorities have never heard of Tom’s Life Jacket Warehouse. It’s stuck somewhere in the bowels of the ship, somewhere behind the coal-burning engine and next to a ballast chamber–and padlocked from the outside.
Jill: ” . . . . .Tony, did I say anything about a pizza store? . . . . ”
Well, I can’t imagine what you would be referring to by the vague “the pedophilia.”
Which assumption of imminent collapse would that be? I’m not saying the Titanic has hit the iceberg and is already riding low in the water, just that the iceberg is out there.
Even though most of the people promenading up and down the deck right now are likely to walk past Tom’s Life Jacket Warehouse kiosk without buying (even if they briefly stop for the “free beer when you try one one” special), when they feel the nose tilting down I’m hoping they’ll remember the sign and come here instead of making yet another stop at Bernie’s Deck Chair Emporium or The Donald’s House of Funny Hairpieces and Noisemakers.
Sure, if it was just about knocking down a quick profit, I guess I could stock whoopee cushions and fake vomit instead. But it isn’t.
tk,
Yes, things change. No, joining other parties appears contra-indicated to me, as I see no evidence that they are lessarchists, and lessarchy is palliative and morearchy is more damaging, in my judgment.
Consider the possibility, though, that your assumption of imminent collapse might be incorrect. And that the abolitionist message has not been bought into by significant enough subsets of the population to be consequential, and that there’s no evidence that THAT’S going to change without very clear signs of actual calamity.
RC,
I don’t understand what you mean.
Things change. Should we join the other parties in pretending things don’t change, or propose solutions for dealing with the coming changes?
It may indeed be that life jackets are harder to sell than deck chairs. Assuming the Titanic, I don’t find the difficulty of sales to be the most important question.
tk and pf, yes, if catastrophic collapse is imminent, then extreme palliatives seem indicated. If it’s not imminent, then more measured palliatives seem indicated and sellable.
My sense is it’s not imminent.
Even if it WERE imminent, it’s a much harder sell to convince significant minorities that the end is nigh unless extreme palliatives are instituted, and even harder to sell those measures. Yours is a 9.9 on a scale of difficulty.
I’m not unconcerned with consequences. Quitting a long term heavy drinking or heroin habit comes with consequences too, with parts of the body and brain reacting violently to the absence of the craved substance. Naturally managing this withdrawal process should be handled carefully, much as our addiction to the state if we ever manage to quit or bring that highly destructive habit under some control. I also tend to agree with Knapp that it’s a matter of when, not if.
Tony, did I say anything about a pizza store?
“NAPsters seem unconcerned with such consequences.”
Au contraire.
The question is not whether or not AFDC and Air Force veterans’ benefits are going to go away. They are going to go away.
The questions are:
1) Do we wait for them to catastrophically collapse and let it be every man for himself, or do we try to get people to end them in favor of something better before that happens?
2) Do we suggest ways to live without them now when civic dialog is possible, or do we just keep our lips zipped, go along to get along, and assume that people will be prepared to listen to us on the day when the paycheck stops arriving, the rent is due and the cupboard is empty?
pf, yes, it does amplify, agreed. I submit that lessarchists and abolitionists should recognize, however, that undoing the State could also lead to incentives and triggers that might lead rent seekers to lash out violently in reaction.
From a NAPster perspective, it might be “moral” to, say, abolish AFDC or the Air Force or veterans benefits, but such abolitions could trigger a violent reaction from some constituents. Actual cuts to specific programs could also serve as triggers and/or negative political consequences.
NAPsters seem unconcerned with such consequences. I think that’s a mistake, as it makes the prospects for enhancing liberty in the short- to intermediate-term less likely. The NAPster seems to be only interested in playing the long game, hoping for a mass consciousness-raising about the abstract correctness of non-aggression with little interest in (or even contempt for) more practical political considerations in the near term.
Tony, sorry if my characterization led you to believe that I was implying that the MSM info was “abundant.” Jones did not, and it was not my intent to suggest otherwise.
Robert – maybe so, but you worded it in a way as to imply that Jones says this information was abundant throughout the made-up mainstream media.
I’d be the last one to ever say that politics is always about economics. In countries where politics has metastasized to a greater extent than here, winning or losing an election can mean becoming subjected to vicious ethnic, national, tribal or religious persecution; mass jailings, beatings, property confiscation and destruction, rape, torture, maiming, even murders/executions on a large scale, whether under the guise of legality or not. Thus, politics easily becomes something to kill over. As a libertarian, I would like to take our politics in the exact opposite direction, one where elections have few consequences – economic or otherwise – and thus offer less incentive for violence.
Yes, crazy people and hateful people always exist regardless of what the politics are. Politics just amplifies that noise and gives it a focus.
Tony,
Just because you never saw it doesn’t mean that Jones fabricated it. I suspect that reporting was accurate, if obscure.
I watch what you refer to as the made up term “mainstream media.” I never once saw or heard any information about where or when the baseball teams practice.
OF course the nefarious and never heard from George Soros would be involved. He’s the go to boogey Man for the right.
Jill: ” . . . .cover up the pedophilia in Washington DC. . . . . ”
“The Pedophilia?” You couldn’t possibly be referring to the non-existent sex dungeon at what is actually a regular every day pizza shop, would you?
It is not obvious that Jim Roger’s former trading partner at the Quantum Fund is as nefarious as he is apparently made to be by some( In the 90s, he was a famed, fearless slayer of central bankers. And made a shit load of money doing it). There are quite a few things I like RE: his philanthropic activities, open society institute. However, I do not particularly like his American Democratic party machinations. Of course, I could say the same RE: the koch brothers vis a vis the Rethugs.
Alex Jones is an inside job!
Alex Jones isn’t completely without merit. There can be good information at InfoWars. Much like FOX News or MSNBC, however, he’s working an angle at it’s fair to not take everything at face value. It’s quite obvious George Soros is a nefarious player on the world stage. On that I definitely agree with Jones.
JP, several people are shot in multiple murder attempts and you have NO opinion?!
There’s a video out from Youtube where Scalise is pledging to go after pedophiles. For this reason, many people think he was targeted by those working hard to cover up the pedophilia in Washington DC.
I haven’t had a chance to look into yesterday’s events, so I have no opinion of this shooting incident.
Tony and Andy, I sometimes watch Infowars, mostly for the (sick) entertainment value. Jones seems to be developing a theory that the MSM was providing the information for the Congressional R baseball team practices as if to offer violent leftists the intel to do this assassination attempt. He’s also claiming that Soros is trying to provoke a race war of some kind.
That would make the Scalise shooting a part of conspiracy, not a false flag, as I understand these things.
pf, me neither. I would say that politics is not always just about economics. Certainly, economics is a big motivating factor in human action, but it’s not the only one. Sometimes, haters are just haters of others who have different opinions, languages, skin color, etc. Sometimes, people are just clinically insane. Etc.
“Tony From Long Island
June 15, 2017 at 07:10
Hey Andy, was this another ‘false flag’ operation?”
I don’t know. I don’t have enough facts yet to make that determination. I would certainly not rule it out, but I can’t say either way without getting more data.
“Tony From Long Island
June 15, 2017 at 11:34
Andy, what about the San Fran UPS shooting. Was that just a drill? What company did they hire the actors from?”
I don’t know. I don’t have enough facts yet to make that determination. I would certainly not rule it out, but I can’t say either way without getting more data.
I think the correlation is pretty high. I’m not motivated to spend a bunch of time to prove it.
pf, yes, narrowly defined, you are correct that there can’t be political violence if there is a place where there is no state. I would think, though, that we might see more political violence where the stakes are highest (i.e., highly statist places). Although, as I indicated, that may not necessarily be true, since the US history indicates we’ve had political violence throughout the arc of history, while the general trend has been a much larger state.
As you have indicated in the past, you are an advocate of a “soft landing,” that is, you recognize that an overnight abolition of the State would be highly dislocative, and perhaps unacceptably so. This implies a lessarchist approach, which I support. However, I could imagine that an undoing of the State could trigger more violence as net-tax-consumers might feel threatened by State’s reduction.
So, unless there were no State overnight, where “political” violence went to zero necessarily, it’s not obvious that more state necessarily leads to more political violence than less political violence.
You previously indicated: “In some other countries where politicians have even more control over people’s lives, political murders are more common than in the US.” Since you said “some other countries,” this is almost certainly a true statement. I’m just not sure that it’s universally true.
Are you?
Excellent rejoinder, Paulie.
A few lone nut assassins don’t disprove the point. Political violence is common around the world, and most common in places where a lot rides on who wins and who loses elections – places where people will starve if they don’t get the patronage jobs that go to the winning party, places with high unemployment and strong socialist and fascist parties, places where winners will form juntas that will beat, jail, torture and “disappear” losers. None of those places are anything like a minimal state. Naturally, it follows logically that when there is not much to win or lose in an election, there is far less incentive to kill anyone over it. And it’s a matter of definition that if there is no monopoly state there is no one to kill over the winners to fill a non-existing government. Case studies would be beside the point there.
Andy, what about the San Fran UPS shooting. Was that just a drill? What company did they hire the actors from?
pf, it would be an interesting exercise to see if there are more political murders (plus attempts, perhaps) in morearchies vs lessarchies. I’m not so sure there would be a correlation. McKinley, Lincoln, Burr/Hamilton spring to mind, when the State was significantly smaller. iirc, Hinckley was not political, but he was from a R family.
Comparing “statist” to “stateless” places might prove difficult, as there are so few of the latter! The murder rate in Antarctica is probably low, but penguins can’t tote! 😉
Hey Andy, was this another “false flag” operation?
Thanks!
Tom, that’s a fine piece of writing and I also agree.
“Is this an issue you’dl like to see Ls run for office on?”
Of course not. For one thing, it’s not an “issue.” It’s an incident. A week from now 75% of the public won’t remember it and 23% of the remaining 25% won’t give a shit about it, unless you consider meme-making to be giving a shit. That might change if there are copycat attacks or if Scalise actually croaks, but in the usual course of things it’s impossible to get the public upset about that stuff no matter how hard they try.
And they do try. Every time some mere mundane touches the White House fence and gets tackled lest his peasant feet profane the sacred White House lawn, or the Capitol Police gun down a woman who gets confused by the security theatrics on Pennsylvania Avenue and makes a wrong turn, there are a couple of days of ritual sackcloth-and-ashes yap-fests about the horrors of our poor oppressed public servants having to mingle with the rabble. Then when they realize everyone has clicked off to watch Seinfeld re-runs instead of breaking out a string quartet to accompany weeping on their behalf, they introduce a couple of new measures to hassle the public some more and go back to their normal routine of thieving and whoring.
If it did become an actual issue that candidates have to address, I’d recommend going with Paulie’s line or some other variant of “play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”
jp, no. Some might say it’s redundant, but as an asymptotic anarchist myself, I use the word “abolitionist” to differentiate myself from those more influenced by, say, Rothbard and Long.
abolitionist anarchists
Isn’t that an oxymoron?
In a sense we already do. In some other countries where politicians have even more control over people’s lives, political murders are more common than in the US. Libertarians would like to take us in the opposite direction, one where politicians will end up with much less control over anything, thus removing the incentives for people to become vicious – much less murder each other – over politics.
Thanks for your honesty, TK.
Is this an issue you’dl like to see Ls run for office on?
i dunno, unlike centrists and “the reasonable people, ” I don’t find talking heads squawking about democrats shooting republicans to be must see tv. I wrote some code, closed out some customer cases, wrangled w/ Tom Knapp a bit over bitcoin and watched an old clint eastwood movie on the DVR(the eiger sanction).
http://reason.com/blog/2017/06/10/immigration-raids-are-bad-for-legal-amer
HIT & RUN BLOG
Immigration Raids Are Bad for Legal Americans [Small-Town Pennsylvania Edition]
“My corner of Pennsylvania was thriving again—until immigration agents began carting people away…”
Nick Gillespie|Jun. 10, 2017 3:46 pm
http://reason.com/archives/2017/06/13/more-immigration-does-not-mean-less-econ
More Immigration Does Not Mean Less Economic Freedom
Conservatives who claim that immigrants import anti-liberty attitudes are wrong.
Benjamin Powell | June 13, 2017
My reaction to a murder or murders has little if anything to do with my long term political goals.
I predict the Mainstream Media will make a huge big deal out of the fact that the shooter was a Bernie supporter. The reason for that is that they need to vilify Bernie people because of the lawsuit against the DNC by Bernie supporters claiming they had been defrauded.
My response:
A supporter of one of the two most prominent street gangs in the US took some shots at prominent members of the other one. That’s life in the big city. Can’t say I like it, but when you choose the thug life it comes with potential consequences of that kind. I’m glad no innocent bystanders were killed in the crossfire. But of course all the innocent bystanders will pay in the form of being expected to pay for and put up with additional security theater and police statism.
Silver lining: The House canceled all votes and hearings for the day. That’s not much, but it’s something, I guess.
I’m curious what the reaction the abolitionist anarchists here had to the shooting of Rep. Scalise and others?
For the sake of accuracy, it should be noted Mexico reformed its immigration laws in 2012. Quite a bit of the stuff quoted above is from 2006 and no longer applicable. Mexican immigration reform was motivated quite a bit by the embarrassment of being more authoritarian on paper than the authoritarian US immigration laws.
Exactly.
You may well be right, Alex Jones could be an inside job.
First of all, why did you post this authoritarian nonsense? Second, why did you post that whole thing or long excerpt rather than just a link only, as you should have if you had to post that crap at all?
Since when do libertarians ask the US regime to be more statist because other regimes are more statist in some way or another? Do we need to have a holocaust of drug users and dealers because Duterte is starting one in the Philippines? Do we need a VAT tax because European nations have it? Is the US suffering for lack of a military draft because Russia and Israel have it? Does the Saudi custom of public dismemberment, whippings and beheadings need to be adopted by the US regime as well? Are we going to beg our masters to implement Australia’s gun laws? I would hope not.
So why do we want Mexico’s border thuggery here?
Who has children, how many and when has effects on a lot of things too. Are you going to justify collective decisionmaking about who is allowed to have children and when as well? If not, why not?
Hey Andy, how do you feel about your fellow nutbag Alex Jones getting some national air time on Sunday?
I think the interview is really a false flag since Alex Jones is an actor playing a part.
Andy, do you honestly think anyone read that?
“At some point”…nah, more like long past that point. And they are more than the 3 listed options of stupidity, insanity, or
government troll.lol, you’re quite the statist…
So let’s get this straight, the Mexican government does not want a bunch of foreigners coming into their country, altering their demographics, sucking up their tax money, and impacting their government policies, but they think that it is OK to do this in the USA. Wow, talk about a double standard.
Article about Mexico’s immigration laws from above continued:
“Foreigners who fail to obey the rules will be fined, deported, and/or imprisoned as felons:
Foreigners who fail to obey a deportation order are to be punished. (Article 117)
Foreigners who are deported from Mexico and attempt to re-enter the country without authorization can be imprisoned for up to 10 years. (Article 118)
Foreigners who violate the terms of their visa may be sentenced to up to six years in prison (Articles 119, 120 and 121). Foreigners who misrepresent the terms of their visa while in Mexico — such as working with out a permit — can also be imprisoned.
Under Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony. The General Law on Population says,
“A penalty of up to two years in prison and a fine of three hundred to five thousand pesos will be imposed on the foreigner who enters the country illegally.” (Article 123)
Foreigners with legal immigration problems may be deported from Mexico instead of being imprisoned. (Article 125)
Foreigners who “attempt against national sovereignty or security” will be deported. (Article 126)
Mexicans who help illegal aliens enter the country are themselves considered criminals under the law:
A Mexican who marries a foreigner with the sole objective of helping the foreigner live in the country is subject to up to five years in prison. (Article 127)
Shipping and airline companies that bring undocumented foreigners into Mexico will be fined. (Article 132)
All of the above runs contrary to what Mexican leaders are demanding of the United States. The stark contrast between Mexico’s immigration practices versus its American
immigration preachings is telling. It gives a clear picture of the Mexican government’s agenda: to have a one-way immigration relationship with the United States.
Let’s call Mexico’s bluff on its unwarranted interference in U.S. immigration policy. Let’s propose, just to make a point, that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) member nations standardize their immigration laws by using Mexico’s own law as a model.”
Here’s an interesting article on Mexico’s immigration laws.
Mexico’s Immigration Law: Let’s Try It Here at Home
http://humanevents.com/2006/05/08/mexicos-immigration-law-lets-try-it-here-at-home/
Mexico has a radical idea for a rational immigration policy that most Americans would love. However, Mexican officials haven’t been sharing that idea with us as they press for our Congress to adopt the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill.
That’s too bad, because Mexico, which annually deports more illegal aliens than the United States does, has much to teach us about how it handles the immigration issue. Under Mexican law, it is a felony to be an illegal alien in Mexico.
At a time when the Supreme Court and many politicians seek to bring American law in line with foreign legal norms, it’s noteworthy that nobody has argued that the U.S. look at how Mexico deals with immigration and what it might teach us about how best to solve
our illegal immigration problem. Mexico has a single, streamlined law that ensures that foreign visitors and immigrants are:
in the country legally;
have the means to sustain themselves economically;
not destined to be burdens on society;
of economic and social benefit to society;
of good character and have no criminal records; and
contributors to the general well-being of the nation.
The law also ensures that:
immigration authorities have a record of each foreign visitor;
foreign visitors do not violate their visa status;
foreign visitors are banned from interfering in the country’s internal politics;
foreign visitors who enter under false pretenses are imprisoned or deported;
foreign visitors violating the terms of their entry are imprisoned or deported;
those who aid in illegal immigration will be sent to prison.
Who could disagree with such a law? It makes perfect sense. The Mexican constitution strictly defines the rights of citizens — and the denial of many fundamental rights to non-citizens, illegal and illegal. Under the constitution, the Ley General de Población, or
General Law on Population, spells out specifically the country’s immigration policy.
It is an interesting law — and one that should cause us all to ask, Why is our great southern neighbor pushing us to water down our own immigration laws and policies, when its own immigration restrictions are the toughest on the continent? If a felony is a
crime punishable by more than one year in prison, then Mexican law makes it a felony to be an illegal alien in Mexico.
If the United States adopted such statutes, Mexico no doubt would denounce it as a manifestation of American racism and bigotry.
Mexico welcomes only foreigners who will be useful to Mexican society:
Foreigners are admitted into Mexico “according to their possibilities of contributing to national progress.” (Article 32)
Immigration officials must “ensure” that “immigrants will be useful elements for the country and that they have the necessary funds for their sustenance” and for their dependents. (Article 34)
Foreigners may be barred from the country if their presence upsets “the equilibrium of the national demographics,” when foreigners are deemed detrimental to “economic or national interests,” when they do not behave like good citizens in their own country, when they have broken Mexican laws, and when “they are not found to be physically or mentally healthy.” (Article 37)
The Secretary of Governance may “suspend or prohibit the admission of foreigners when he determines it to be in the national interest.” (Article 38)
Mexican authorities must keep track of every single person in the country:
Federal, local and municipal police must cooperate with federal immigration authorities upon request, i.e., to assist in the arrests of illegal immigrants. (Article 73)
A National Population Registry keeps track of “every single individual who comprises the population of the country,” and verifies each individual’s identity. (Articles 85 and 86)
A national Catalog of Foreigners tracks foreign tourists and immigrants (Article 87), and assigns each individual with a unique tracking number (Article 91).
Foreigners with fake papers, or who enter the country under false pretenses, may be imprisoned:
Foreigners with fake immigration papers may be fined or imprisoned. (Article 116)
Foreigners who sign government documents “with a signature that is false or different from that which he normally uses” are subject to fine and imprisonment. (Article 116)
Quoth Andy,
“So as long as government exists, immigration is going to be a political issue, and that’s all there is to it.”
Yep.
And you can either take the libertarian position (open borders) on that political issue, or one of many anti-libertarian positions on that political issue.
The big problem comes with taking an anti-libertarian position on that political issue while insisting that it’s the libertarian position on that political issue. At some point, libertarians who take the libertarian position on that political issue have to start wondering whether your error is unintentional, e.g. you’re stupid or have gone insane, or whether you are e.g. a government mole who is doing what you are doing for the express purpose of damaging the libertarian movement.
“Pretending that we can apply the ideal libertarian anarcho-capitalist position on immigration when we live in a country that has a coercive government”
And once again, the ideal ancap libertarian position to immigration is that it should be controlled by private property owners.
Don WIlls said: “Collectively” does not mean ‘unanimous’.
The USA collectively elected BHO in 2008 and DJT in 2016 to the office of President. The USA collectively has decided that limitations should be placed on the number and types (various measures) of persons allowed to live in the USA permanently.
COLLECTIVELY does not mean 100% of citizens agree. And COLLECTIVELY does not mean that I agree with the collective decision. It means that we, US citizens, collectively decided. Nothing more, nothing less.”
If we lived in an ideal libertarian world, things would be done on the consent of each individual involved, BUT, WE DO NOT LIVE IN AN IDEAL LIBERTARIAN WORLD.
Who crosses the border effects a lot of things and there is no way to ever get unanimous consent when we live in a country that has over 325 million people.
Pretending that we can apply the ideal libertarian anarcho-capitalist position on immigration when we live in a country that has a coercive government, where government owns much of the land/infrastructure, the government regulates the land it does not flat out own, there are forced association laws, there are numerous government welfare programs, and there is a path to citizenship that is clearly granted to people who have no understanding of the Constitution, and, who after gaining citizenship, vote in super-majority numbers to expand the welfare state and to enact more gun control laws.
So, under the current context under which we live, announcing “open borders” is a DISASTROUS anti-liberty policy, because what you are doing, is inviting in hordes of people with hostile ideologies (obviously not all of them fit this description, but enough of them do to where it is a problem), and you are FORCED integrating them into society, AGAINST THE WILL OF A LARGE PERCENTAGE OF THE PEOPLE WHO ARE ALREADY HERE (most of whom have families that have been here for multiple generations, some going back to the pioneer days), and you are allowing these foreign people to suck up tax payer funds (at super-majority rates according to the statistics), and to gain political influence (which means that you are altering the elections, and therefore changing government policies, and these policy changes are in the direction of more socialist programs and more gun control laws).
So as long as government exists, immigration is going to be a political issue, and that’s all there is to it.
Don’t like it? Fine, go out and create an anarcho-capitalist society. Buy up some land and form your own private city somewhere. I’ve got some ideas on how this could be accomplished (which can be found here: https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2014/07/andy-jacobs-the-libertarian-zone/ ). Perhaps you have some better ideas on how to create an anarcho-capitalist enclave/settlement. Let me know when you get it going. I will be curious to see how immigration works in the ancap society you create.
Don,
The fact that you and your fellow gang-bangers have decided to try to enforce the world’s most vicious street gang’s turf claims doesn’t make those turf claims valid or binding on anyone else.
While some of us will argue or fight over those turf claims, most people will simply ignore them — as they should, and because they can.
It’s amusing to read ignorance paired with a hypocritical pretension.
(1) political science establishes through things like Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem, the disciplines of social and public choice, that democratic elections are not a rule for constructing social, collective preferences from individual preferences. In practice, this means that same people who chirp “the election of blah,blah means the United States has collectively chosen the policies of blah,blah when their side wins will yell America is under occupation by communists and fascists when their side loses.
(2) The United States is not a dictatorship or an elected monarchy. Well, at least not in principle.
(3) Neither liberalism nor libertarianism recognizes democratic collection action as a trump against core liberties like association, travel, speech, labor and self-defense. This holds even if democratic elections were a rational mechanism for ordering individual preferences into social preferences. In other words, you can’t vote away the right to free speech, association, etc. And any and all arguments that invoke the common good as a pretext for abridging these liberties are immediately dismissed out of hand.
“Realistic libertarianism” is a dog whistle for race-realistic libertarianism. Bigotry, white cultural politics and the warped expropriation of libertarianism as means that justify that nonsense as some type of necessary self-defense mechanism. When it has served its purpose, the libertarian pretense invariably will be dropped by the “realists.” The “anti-realists” have control of the libertarian narrative because libertarianism has no roots in that sort of garbage.
Alarmist nonsense, easily addressed. Only a small fraction have any interest in moving to the US and many of those lack the means. If the first few million moving to the US made the US considerably worse, why would the rest want to keep coming?
Yes, and those collective decisions – given the powers of the presidency as exhibited in the real world now – were not legitimate under libertarian principles either. So, we can see that your need to justify collectivist decisionmaking in one instance is leading you to justify other instances of collectivism. Shameful, but predictable.
It means collectivism, which is not at all libertarian, unless is 100% mutually voluntary.
The idiocy lies in mainstream and not-so-mainstream collectivist thought.
Another canard. My interest in libertarian theory does not hamper my involvement in short term political activity, including all the compromises that entails.
It’s really hard to have a conversation with folks who don’t know the meaning of simple English words. Or maybe they’ve decided to ignore the meaning because it suits their arguments and worldview.
“Collectively” does not mean “unanimous”.
The USA collectively elected BHO in 2008 and DJT in 2016 to the office of President. The USA collectively has decided that limitations should be placed on the number and types (various measures) of persons allowed to live in the USA permanently.
COLLECTIVELY does not mean 100% of citizens agree. And COLLECTIVELY does not mean that I agree with the collective decision. It means that we, US citizens, collectively decided. Nothing more, nothing less.
I come back to IPR every so often to see if the idiocy of mainstream(?) libertarian thought still holds sway with those who write in the ether about libertarianism here at IPR. As I always find out, the anti-realists still seem to have control of the libertarian narrative. Maybe I’ll check back in 2018 to see if you’ve managed to attract folks who have their feet planted firmly in political reality. This is, after all, Independent POLITICAL Report, not Independent FantasyLand Report.
Actually, the US occupies the bottom half percentile in terms of population density at 84/sq mile. If your argument begins w/ the premise (1) that the earth is overpopulated (2) overpopulated migration is harmful, the proper conclusion then is that no one in the United States–due to its absolute population numbers– should be able migrate or emigrate.
that’s easy….just have don willis try and write the dL bot…fail
According to the link below, world population is over 7.5 billion. How many of these people have a “right” to come to the USA, which already has a population of over 325 million, and is the third most populated country in the world?
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
you haven’t collectively decided jackshit…lol, statist.
100% of some collective decided? I did not know. Since when is it a libertarian idea that the majority of some collective decides for everyone else?
Knappy proclaims “You and Pedro from Juarez have a lot in common. Both of you want to run his life.”
For the very few folks reading this, do you actually believe this drivel?
I have no interest in running Pedro’s or anybody else’s life. I just want Pedro to stay in his own country. He can come visit, but he can’t stay in the USA without meeting certain criteria that, I, along with my fellow countrymen, have collectively decided must be met for Pedro to live and work in the USA. Knappy reminds me of the snowflakes who just want free shit – wanting to be given something of value stolen from others by the gummint. In this case, it’s US citizenship for the 7 billion humans on our planet.
Quoth Andy,
“I just think”
The jury is definitely still out on that claim.
There is no authoritarian “brand” of libertarianism. Authoritarianism is the opposite of libertarianism.
Also, it should be pointed out that what any “brand” of libertarians say about immigration (or just about anything else) is pretty much irrelevant, since libertarians’ don’t have any political power. I just think that libertarians sound like fools when they side with Marxists and New World Order globalists and pretend like everyone crossing a border is a “peaceful person” when this is NOT reality, and that a purist libertarian society would have an open borders policy, when this is COMPLETELY false, as the purist libertarian society would have PRIVATE PROPERTY borders. The REAL libertarian position on borders/migration is that control and ownership over land should be ceded from government to private property owners, and that private property owners would set their own migration policies, some of which could be more strict than what we see today with most governments. It is disingenuous, and outright ignorant, for anyone calling themselves a libertarian to act as though what we see today with immigration has anything to do with how immigration would work in a libertarian society. What we see today is mass welfare statist migration, NOT free market immigration into a voluntary, private property, contract based society. People proclaiming themselves as libertarians sound like doofuses when they side with Marxists and New World Order globalists who are trying to take down what is left of having any semblance of a free society.
To the extent that the Iron Curtain style controls you want “worked” they didn’t “work” at the border. They worked as the kind of internal passport / work permit police state control freaks like you have been trying to implement in American for the last few decades in imitation of East Germany.
One of my first girlfriends left Hungary in her father’s backpack. They had no problem at all getting across the border — but since he was considered a high-value worker by the regime (he was an engineer) he had to drop an I-beam on his foot so that he would be in the hospital and not under surveillance so that he could get out of Budapest and TO the border. Of course, your preferred regime would presumably track his cell phone, car, etc. automatically, making things somewhat more difficult.
Furthermore, you just reversed yourself — citing a system that kinda sorta sometimes “worked” at keeping people in, not out as proof of concept.
Another friend periodically snuck in and out of Communist Czechoslovakia as part of a group distributing Trotskyist propaganda.
Other than a few high-profile incidents along a very concentrated “border” — the wall dividing Berlin — if you wanted to go in or out of the Warsaw Pact countries you could generally do so with minimal precautions and without asking anyone’s permission.
You and Pedro from Juarez have a lot in common. Both of you want to run his life.
It does not matter if the government can’t keep all of the immigrants/migrants out. Most of us here aren’t naive enough to believe this.
The real issue is not so much to “beef up security” to keep immigrants out (and once again, I differentiate between an immigrant and an invader, and a disturbingly high percentage of modern day immigrants should be more accurately labeled as being invaders), but rather to STOP INVITING THEM TO COME HERE BY ENTICING THEM WITH WELFARE HANDOUTS AND A RELATIVELY EASY PATH TO CITIZENSHIP. Eliminate all government benefits to immigrants, AND to their offspring. End birthright citizenship. People who sneak into the country won’t be eligible for citizenship at all (therefore, they can never gain any political power, since they won’t be able to vote). Make the naturalization process more difficult. Design a test that requires a thorough understanding of the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and free market economics, and include a test on the right to keep and bear arms, which includes trips to a firing range.
Knappy with more anecdotes and proclamations of fact. The Iron Curtain worked. If you were a citizen of a the west, of course you could “wander back and forth”. However, if you were unlucky enough to be a citizen of the USSR, not so much. The fact that a few escaped and that the US-Mexican and US-Canadian borders will never be 100% effectively closed to undesirables does not equate to a blanket, unequivocal statement like “You’re going to have open borders…”. Readers here can judge for themselves. Which brings a question to my mind – is IPR nothing more than a not-very-big circle jerk?
Quoth Don Wills:
“I don’t think”
Thanks for confirmation of the obvious.
“Borders do work. The USSR’s iron curtain is proof positive.”
I personally know people who wandered in and out of eastern Europe (including the Soviet Union itself) for decades without permission. So yes, it “worked” in exactly the way I stated: They had open borders and a police state partially dedicated to pretending otherwise.
It’s possible that Andorra or Lichtenstein could manage something resembling closed borders, I guess, but no sizable state ever has or ever will.
dL – I don’t think you could pass the Turing Test.
Knappy wrote “You’re going to have open borders either way.”
Bzzt. False. Borders do work. The USSR’s iron curtain is proof positive.
And wrt Andy’s latest longish post, IMO, this group of words sums up his premise pretty well –
“Since we do not live in anything resembling the hypothetical anarcho-capitalist society above, and since we have enemies of liberty who live among us who are using immigration (or more accurately, an invasion) as a weapon to alter the voting demographics of the country in order to further socialism and usher in a globalist New World Order…”
Opportunity costs! I could deploy an AndyBot in c# or python that would save him the effort. Pretty straight forward to write.
(1) brief hymnal on AncapiStan
(2) Foreign heathens are marxist, theocratic leeches migrating long distances to stand in line at the medicaid office
(3) Disney World
(4) Globalist new world order
(5) Firefighters putting out fires demonstrates the legitimacy of government control of borders
(6) Taxpayers control access to private property except when it comes to Disney World
(7) A brief discourse on the enforcement of alligator-moated private property borders in AncapiStan
(8) Disney World again
(9) libertarianism is a delusional philosophy until that day when the Ayatollah of Property raptures the faithful to AncapiStan
(10) Youtube link to M8st3r Funk-T smack down of leftists
That would pass the IPR Turing test…
Tony,
I do hope that Andy copies and pastes. It would be a shame if he wasted time manually typing the same failed arguments, lame insults and authoritarian collectivist rants over and over and over.
Then again, maybe if he did have to manually type it instead of just copying/pasting, he’d be bothered to look for some better arguments for his position and, once he discovered that there aren’t any, decide to adopt the libertarian position on the issue instead.
Hey TK, did you get all of that? I’m sure you read . . . . . the first 3 words, just like everyone else.
What does his race have to do with anything?
That Guy T, aka- Taleed Brown, a black American ananarcho-capitalist libertarian, DESTROYS leftists and left-libertarians.
Open vs Closed Borders | What’s the Libertarian Position?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qWaJKAQfek
Well, someone is playing at erecting strawman arguments. No, I did not suggest that if you oppose the libertarian position on immigration (open borders), you are “a lousy rotten no good statist who wants a police state.”
I merely pointed out that the choice IS to have a police state or to not have a police state. You’re going to have open borders either way. You don’t have to like it. That’s how it is whether you like it or not.
“and a hire propensity for welfare consumption and crime, ”
Should read, “and a higher propensity for welfare consumption and crime…”
“Thomas L. Knapp
June 11, 2017 at 19:45
Vis a vis the “wall” nonsense, the choices are:
1) Open borders; or
2) Open borders with an expensive, intrusive police state empowered by the idiotic notion that it is possible to close the borders.
Those are the only two choices. ”
Tom Knapp erects another strawman argument.
Either support the large influx of foreigners with hostile political ideologies and a high propensity for welfare consumption and crime, and force integrate them into society against the will of much of the population, or you are a lousy rotten no good statist who wants a police state, never mind the statism that is being promoted by those who support the large influx of foreigners with hostile (ie-anti-libertarian) political ideologies, and a hire propensity for welfare consumption and crime, and who favor forced integrating these people into society against the will of a large percentage of the existing population.
What a load of horseshit.
The current situation with immigration is NOT what would happen if we lived in an anarcho-capitalist society that had full private property rights, full freedom of association (which means that discrimination would be legal), no welfare state, and no democratic elections (unless the democratic election was a part of a voluntary association, where the outcome of the election only impacted those who consented to the election). If a society like this existed, there would not likely be any problems associated with immigration.
Since we do not live in anything resembling the hypothetical anarcho-capitalist society above, and since we have enemies of liberty who live among us who are using immigration (or more accurately, an invasion) as a weapon to alter the voting demographics of the country in order to further socialism and usher in a globalist New World Order, then yes, there are major problems associated with immigration as it exists today, which stems from lots of NON-peaceful people crossing borders, and being added to the welfare rolls, and being fraudulently declared as “American citizens” (which requires swearing an oath to protect and defend US Constitution, something which most of these people do not believe in or even understand, because if they did, they would not support Marxist wealth redistribution and gun control in super-majority numbers).
Foreigners have no claims to the property or infrastructure (which was built and paid for by the American tax payers) of the land territory known as the United States of America, just as Americans have no claims to the property or infrastructure of other nation states. If government ceased to exist, there’d still be a market demand to keep some people out of various places (see my Disney World Security example from other threads here on IPR), based on a variety of factors. So it is false to assert that everyone on the planet has a “right” to the land, infrastructure, and other resources in the present day USA, just as no American as a “right” to the land, infrastructure, and other resources in any other nation state on this planet,
It is also false to assert that the level of aggression (and aggression in the name of self defense does not violate any libertarian principles, and funny how the aggression committed by the mass influx of foreigners is conveniently ignored) to be increased in order to curtail the number of foreigners entering a nation state. Simply CUTTING OFF THE WELFARE SPIGOT TO FOREIGNERS and MAKING IT MORE DIFFICULT TO OBTAIN CITIZENSHIP would do much to curtail the problem.
Going back to my Disney World Security example, is Disney World initiating force by putting up a fence, and saying that people have to go through a ticket desk before they can enter the Magic Kingdom, and that they must purchase a ticket to enter, and that they have to abide by Disney World rules while inside Disney World? Is Disney World Security initiating force if they throw people out who snuk in, or if they round people up and “deport” people who over-staid the time allotted on their tickets (much like over-staying a VISA)? Is Disney World initiating force if they throw people out who are breaking Disney World’s rules, say they are jumping in front of people to get on rides, or shoplifting from the gift shops, or trying to unmask the people who are wearing the Mickey Mouse and Goofy costumes? I would answer no to all of these questions.
Considering that the world is organized into nation states, with much of the property owned or controlled by governments (and even property that it not outright owned by government, is regulated by government), migration across national property lines (known as borders) is controlled by the institutions known as governments. Just because the government is performing a function, it does not mean that the function is necessarily illegitimate. Fire fighting and road construction and maintenance are also functions that are controlled by governments, but there’d still be a demand for them if government does not exist. There’d still be a demand to deal with people who engage in coercive acts of violence, theft/fraud, and destruction of property if government ceased to exist. There’d also still be a demand to enforce property lines, and to regulate migration across property lines if government ceased to exist, and the absences of a coercive government would NOT mean that anyone goes wherever they feel like going, as who can visit or settle where would be up to various property owners, or groups of property owners. Some property owners may set very lax standards, while others may set up standards that are more strict than what we have with most nation states.
Peaceful people crossing borders does NOT mean that any Marxist and/or theocrat and/or welfare leech and/or criminal on the planet has a “right” to come here, and trying to apply some purist libertarian standard that says that the state should not regulate migration when we live in a state that regulates land use, owns most of the infrastructure and common spaces, has forced association laws, has a welfare state, and has democratic elections with loose standards for citizenship required to participate in said elections (and demographics changes DOES impact elections, as many people mindlessly engage in ethnic block voting), is NOT a valid application of said purist libertarian principle, because said purist libertarian principle can only work in anarcho-capitalist society, which is not the reality in which we live, so trying to apply this principle in isolation is actually INCREASING the amount of force and fraud present in society instead of decreasing it (look at the welfare statistics, crime statistics, and voting demographic statistics for evidence of this).
Vis a vis the “wall” nonsense, the choices are:
1) Open borders; or
2) Open borders with an expensive, intrusive police state empowered by the idiotic notion that it is possible to close the borders.
Those are the only two choices. No matter how many tightly you screw your eyes shut, no matter how hard you click your heels together, and no matter how fervently you proclaim “there’s no place like East Germany” over and over, they will remain the only two choices. Everything else is utopian (or dystopian) fantasy bullshit.
Well, I fall into the 3-sigma rule when it comes to number of sexual partners… all w/o spending a dime. Anecdotally, well, at least from my vantage point, it is safe to ignore his rule.
One caveat: if you are shopping the meat market at Root’s age, perhaps the Root rule might apply.
I expected my first post to trap in moderation, but only after I had posted it.
It seems that soon there will be three!
https://71republic.com/2017/06/11/71r-exclusive-new-libertarian-expected-in-new-hampshire-legislature/
https://71republic.com/2017/06/11/71r-exclusive-new-libertarian-expected-in-new-hampshire-legislature/
No other details yet. Apparently there is a segment of the Republicans in the NH Legislature that is voting with the Democrats against the Republican budget.
In November of 2008 I gladly voted for Bob Barr and Wayne Allyn Root. The printed ballot alternatives were Barack Obama or John McCain or Cynthia McKinney (here in Arizona).
Arizona being Arizona chose to give its electoral vote to John “Bomb Iran” McCain (he obtained 53% of the votes cast in Arizona).
http://apps.azsos.gov/results/2008/general/GEN-100.htm
I do not regret voting for the Libertarian Party electors for President and Vice President in 2008 (or any other year).
You, I and my neighbor can consider or ignore Root’s advice on women at their own risk. I rather think it is good advice but as colorful advice goes it is pretty par for the course for Mr. Root.
Given that Wayne Allyn Root is married and has produced four children I think he has done pretty well in the game of life and that one should be careful when shaking one’s head at it.
I read several of Root’s books and found them to be worth the time and money I invested in them.
Chemical weapons finally found in Iraq
[US Forces Using White Phosphorus in Populated Areas of Iraq and Syria]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/06/09/u-s-led-forces-appear-to-be-using-white-phosphorous-in-populated-areas-in-iraq-and-syria/#comments
yeah, and I recall the Georgia delegation on CSPAN thanking Root for “saving the party.” lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aBzYh1urRU&feature=youtu.be&t=71
WAR’s latest….smh
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/wayne-allyn-root-tells-men-never-to-date-a-liberal-woman-who-hates-trump-because-shell-cut-your-pee-pee-off/
And to think I actually voted for this guy…..please forgive me
If recall correctly, having a clean unambiguous election result was an emotional issue back in 2000 as was the hackability of computerized voting machines. Even if it merely symbolic, the ballot has emotional power for many voters. Of course, it doesn’t for many people who don’t vote anyway, but it has emotional power for some who deliberately don’t vote because of disgust.
I content Libertarians have neglected the emotional issue of a clean, unbiased, uncensored ballot with voters. Silence wins few votes.
George, it still needs funding. It will not be forthcoming. There will be no wall. If one DOES want to talk metaphors, then the wall debacle is a metaphor for Trump’s presidency.
Ballotpedia recently emailed me: “Kevin Cavanaugh defeated Jim Normand in the Democratic primary for New Hampshire Senate District 16. The seat became vacant on March 21, 2017, following the death of Scott McGilvray (D). Cavanaugh will face former state Sen. David Boutin (R) and Jason Dubrow (L) in the special election on July 25. District 16 is one of 710 state legislative districts that intersect with one or more Pivot Counties. These 206 Pivot Counties voted for Trump in 2016 after voting for Barack Obama (D) in 2008 and 2012. ”
“A special election to fill a vacancy in the state Senate will take on July 25, 2017.”
https://ballotpedia.org/Jason_Dubrow (which identifies him as a Libertarian)
For better or worse, the wall is into the Stage II bidding process. It is proceeding at the full speed of government. The legal difficulty with building on the Rio Grande has been “solved”. It will be a treaty-allowed “flood control structure”. You may not like it, but do not be surprised if it gets built.
The Wyoming Country Party only existed for one election. The Libertarian Party has been around for over 46 years. Not a valid comparison.
At least unlike the Wyoming Country Party -the L.P. does have state legislators that are not under the ‘independent’ label and even have their own caucus in New Hampshire :3
A ‘metaphor’?! Lol!
Don must be a comedian here; the evidence and rhetoric that it’s not, is quite overwhelming.
For a guy who’s previous minor party got kicked off the ballot in Wyoming years ago that yet attacks and dismisses third parties, including the L.P.; he sure seems to give a lot of his attention to doing such when he needs to just move on.
I guess the L.P. is a serious threat to him in his home state after all.
Don Wills:
I honestly don’t think Trump is capable of conceiving of a metaphor. He truly believes he will get an actual wall built. If someone asked him if it was a metaphor he would say “What is a META and what is it FOR?” He has stated emphatically on multiple occasions that he wants an actual wall and has already solicited bids for his fallacy.
Yes, but that’s still only a piece of what we are talking about here.
Small planes can get from the Southern US to Colombia. Boats can hop around the Caribbean islands. You are correct, getting shot down or intercepted is the greater problem, not the technical ability to get there.
Not a metaphor…quite a bit bit of it would be supplemented w/ surveillance tech
http://www.pcgamer.com/oculus-founder-palmer-luckey-sets-sights-on-border-surveillance-technology/
The unhelpful screaming aside, I’d handle it the same as any other issue, ie push for as little US (or any other) regime involvement as possible except when one individual aggresses against the life, liberty or legitimate property of another. Being a member of a racial, ethnic, religious or “born on turf claimed by regime X” group is not in itself an act of initiating force. Crossing regime turf lines is not trespass, as regimes are not legitimate owners of whole countries and all property therein. So, in the meantime I would push for as little regime border control as we can realistically achieve, and in the long term I strive to spread the idea that regime border controls are in general counterproductive to the liberty of all and prosperity of most people.
I’ve probably read it, but whether I did or not, how is it relevant to whether he is correct about the Belizean regime?
from where? that’s like a 1600 mile journey from Miami. Small boat? Obviously, you can try to take a small plane and fly across the border to Mexico…but good luck not getting shot down/intercepted
You are confusing categories completely. Building an invasive regime apparatus and the enforcement power to go with it is nothing like guns in private hands. It’s more like the “war on (some) drugs” or the “war on terror” – a “war on (some) immigrants” is just an excuse to expand a police state and stop, question and detain people. When taken further it becomes a way to use exile or the threat of exile as a way to control large numbers of people and use this control over them as a way to manipulate the economy. It sustains the police-prison-industrial complex and to some extent the military-industrial complex. As things progress further, it becomes a way to keep the US population in check as well by limiting their ability to leave for and stay somewhere else. After that, the whole planet becomes one giant prison with increasing surveillance and limitation on the right to move freely.
Your opinion is incorrect.
Not to millions of Trump voters, but you are correct. It is mostly, and most importantly, a metaphor. Which is why it doesn’t matter that much if people continue to have small boats and planes.
I used to get all over the Caribbean and as far as Colombia that way. Physically getting there is one thing, being able to stay and especially settle and make a life is a different question entirely.
The same is true of people leaving Mexico, or entering the US. All of those same modes of transport are available to leave Mexico, or to enter the US. By wall we don’t just mean physical wall here, although that is one of the potential components. It can also mean things like detaining and hassling people at airports, e-verify, deportation forces, snitches, cameras with facial recognition, stepped up air and sea patrols, implanted tracking chips, penalties for employers and landlords, and so on. And nations which have this done to people leaving their country are likely to retaliate in turn, especially if and when the direction of flow of refugees, economic migrants and those fleeing police state oppression and violence is ever reversed.
where in the hell are you going to flee to in a small boat or plane? And the US government is not the Soviet Union. If you escaped the USSR, you were more or less home free. The jurisdictional reach of the US, however, is global. Very few places to run to…
What, the Republican Mafia vs a Mexican immigrant in terms of who is a bigger threat to liberty? That’s an essay question. Indeed, even a moron could make the right call. NOTE: if you are dumber than a moron, you possibly could answer that question incorrectly.
I wish Andy would open a Facebook page. There are lots of people who will gladly converse with him, plus he can rant as often as he likes.
dL – if you seriously believe that “the greatest threat to my liberty are people like [me]…”, then you are a moron. Have a nice day.
Well, there is only one kind of libertarian. However, I do agree there are people living in a fantasy world…people like you.Libertarianims is a positive, empirical science of the real world. Just as Bastiat defined the study of political economy…it is the science of legalized plunder. The people who are the greatest threat to my liberty are people like you and the politicians you support who advocate the evisceration of my liberty based on the fear mongering of existential threats that I don’t consider to be all that much of a threat.
I wrote –
“I’m pretty sure nobody ever got shot trying to climb over the barbed wire to escape from West Germany into East Germany…”
And paulie responded –
“This point was addressed earlier, but you keep repeating it. What makes you think the wall will only be used to keep people out? That’s only true as long as the US is the less terrible place…”
I repeat my assertion because I’m dumbfounded that anyone would seriously use this argument as one reason to allow unfettered immigration. That same logic is used by anti-gunners – that guns should be banned because some people will use them to do bad things. I do understand the libertarian moral argument about free immigration. But, IMO, the “gun turnaround” argument is ridiculous.
The US gummint would have to confiscate all small airplanes and boats, and disallow all family vacations abroad as a check on fleeing (just like the USSR did) before they could hope to stop emigration by “turning the guns around”.
And FWIW, Andy is correct, Trump’s “wall” is just a metaphor for reducing illegal immigration. If you’ve ever driven the road from El Paso through Big Bend National Park from Presido to Lahitas, you know that there is never going to be a “wall” built there. You can walk across the Rio Grande almost anywhere, and which is ten to a hundred yards from the road for most of that trip. Nary a fence in sight.
Actually I skim Andy’s posts to get the main idea. Here’s what I got from this one –
There are two kinds of libertarians. Those that live in a fantasy world and those that live in reality. To wit, he wrote –
“The difference of opinion here is HOW DO YOU HANDLE THE SITUATION RIGHT NOW, IN THE REAL WORLD, AS IT CURRENTLY EXISTS, NOT IN SOME FAR OFF LIBERTARIAN FANTASY LAND OF HOW YOU’D LIKE SOCIETY TO OPERATE? :
My comments about John McAfee are based on this 2012 Wired Magazine article.
https://www.wired.com/2012/12/ff-john-mcafees-last-stand/
I’ve seen people make longer tweets into images or a link to a blog post etc.
Indeed.
Btw, it is trivial to use an external service to embed an arbitrary length rant in a single tweet….
Actually, “freedom from”(negative liberty) and government provision of public goods are two separate arguments, and its a fallacy to analogize the two. Freedom from abridgment of travel, self-defense, speech and association are core negative liberties of both liberalism and libertarianism. Libertarianism, however, extends the core liberal negative liberties to include freedom from prior restraint on supply and demand.
Libertarian arguments RE: provision of public goods is that it is fallacious that the state is the only possible provider of such things and that monopoly provision of such things usually entails the consequence of artificial rent extractions==plunder. So the libertarian argument RE: something like roads is not so much “libertarians don’t recognize the authority of the state to build roads.” A road is not a negative liberty(libertarianism does not promise freedom from roads), and after all, they are there. You might as well use them. Instead, it’s more like libertarians don’t recognize the fact just because the state built the road it therefore has the authority to use them as rent extraction schemes(traffic laws, speed limits, DWI laws, licenses, etc). Just b/c the State digs a ditch doesn’t thusly confer it the authority to intervene in your sex life, spy on your bank account, impeded your right to travel, strip of your right to self-defense, etc.
Frankly, it’s a bit confounding that people who claim to have two decades in the libertarian movement do not have even a basic understanding of libertarianism 101 principles.
As far as I know there is no limit to how many separate tweets one run-on sentence can be broken up into.
True. You can say “False Flag” and “Paid Government Actors” in 140 characters or less. it would be no less disgusting than when he said it on here, though.
I skip Andy’s long posts with run on sentences, all caps, and no point. I’ll gladly follow him on Twitter though, as it would be quite entertaining seeing him comfine rants to 140 characters.
Should read, “reading or replying to it yet again…” 🙂 <--- Andyism. Anyway, it's a good thing Andy does not have anything else to do to write yet another of these cookie cutter overly long rants yet again, like get out to work. Oh wait, he does. Good thing I know better than to actually wait on a ride from him. If I really wanted to work today I would have taken the bus a while ago. I also need to remember to turn my phone off before I go to sleep. Wonder what the point of calling me to wake up this morning was to then sit around for hours and hours not going anywhere yet again?
I skip the ones that are too long, have overly long sentences and a bunch of all-caps SHOUTING. It’s all the same nonsense that we have replied too far too many times, and replying to it yet again would be a waste of time. I don’t know why Andy thinks it’s a good use of his time to keep writing the same overly long and ridiculous rants either, but he can’t help himself and I’ve long since given up trying to understand or change this pernicious behavior.
Andy . . . like many of your posts, it’s difficult to know what YOU are saying and what you are responding to.
However, if you are saying that Libertarians do not accept the authority of the government to do “X” you might want to put “many libertarians” or simply “I.” I know of libertarians who believe differently.
Also, no Andy post would be complete without some good ‘ol xenophobic rants of nonsense.
Whether he is or not is independent of whether he is correct about the government of Belize.
I have no idea whether that is true and it’s highly unlikely that you do either. Regardless of whether it’s true or not, what does that have to do with whether the regime there is a gangster shakedown operation as McAfee alleges?
I’ve been to all of the countries you mentioned, but it’s been a bit over 30 years since then. At that time Belize was the least dangerous of them as far as I could tell, and that may still be true. However, I was not a known megawealthy person who had moved and settled down there. McAfee’s experience may thus be quite different than mine. Also, a lot can change in 30 years. The US and Russia are both very different now than they were then. The same could easily be true of Belize.
Thanks for the update. I still live on the road, in Arkansas at the moment and headed back to Ohio in the next few days.
dL covered this point well. Normal incentives, without state interference, would facilitate largely unencumbered travel, compared to what we have now. The organized banditry of states/regimes is far more disruptive of travel than any unorganized banditry is ever likely to be.
“and I bet that expect the government to maintain the roads.”
Should read, “and I bet that you expect the government to maintain the roads..”
“and there’s have to be a transitional period,”
Should read, “and there’d have to be a transitional period…”
““[libertarians do] not recognize the authority of the state to regulate/prohibit human movement/travel.”
Libertarians also do not recognize the authority of government to put out fires, but I bet if your house is on fire, being that there is a lack of free market fire departments, you will likely call the government fire department to put the fire out.
Libertarians also do not recognize the authority of government to arrest and prosecute criminals who murder, rape, or steal, but I bet if somebody murders one of your family members, rapes your wife or daughter, or steal your car, you will call the government’s police, and you will expect the government’s courts to convict this person, and to place them in a government prison.
Libertarians also do not recognize the authority of government to build and maintain the roads, but I bet you drive on the government’s roads, and I bet that expect the government to maintain the roads.
Libertarians also do not recognize the authority of government to deliver the mail, but I bet that you use, or have used, the government’s US Postal Service.
Libertarians also do not recognize the authority of government to run libraries, but I bet you’ve used public libraries in your life, and I know that there are at least a few Libertarian Party affiliates around this country who use rooms at public libraries for their local meetings.
Libertarians also do not recognize the authority of government to hold elections, but unless you are a non-voting libertarian, you participate in electoral politics, even if you just see it as an act of self defense, and/or as a means of getting your message out, and even those libertarians who do not take part in electoral politics, still have to deal with the results of what happens in elections.
REALITY is that even libertarians have to OPERATE IN THE REAL WORLD, AS IT EXISTS RIGHT NOW, NOT SOME FANTASY OF HOW THEY’D LIKE THE WORLD TO BE.
Should our present reality be changed? Yes, but making those changes is not an easy thing to do, and there’s have to be a transitional period, as change does not happen overnight. The transitions could either be smooth, or relatively smooth, or they could be chaotic, which would mean rioting in the streets, economic collapse, mass bloodshed, shootouts with agents of the state, food shortages, power blackouts, etc…
I’d prefer the smooth, or relatively smooth, transition route, if possible. We may be past the point where a smooth transition to a free, or more free than we are now, society is possible without going through a period of chaos. IF you are participating in electoral politics, or even if you are not participating in electoral politics, IF you want change, I don’t think you are going to have much success winning many people over to your side by selling them on the chaos, bloodshed, rioting in the streets, economic collapse, food shortages, power blackouts, and other bad stuff happening, and THEN will build a free society in the aftermath, route to freedom. The smooth transition route is preferable, and more appealing, to most people, including most libertarians. I prefer the smooth transition route myself, I just question whether or not this country is past the point where this is possible (hopefully, it is not).
So having said this, as it relates to immigration/migration, no hardcore ancap libertarian really believes that coercive government should even exist, much less control immigration/migration, as this would be a function of private property owners in an anarcho-capitalist society. The difference of opinion here is HOW DO YOU HANDLE THE SITUATION RIGHT NOW, IN THE REAL WORLD, AS IT CURRENTLY EXISTS, NOT IN SOME FAR OFF LIBERTARIAN FANTASY LAND OF HOW YOU’D LIKE SOCIETY TO OPERATE? We live in a land territory that has a government, and this government has a welfare state, forced association laws, and democratic elections, where people can vote rights away, and where people can vote themselves money out of the public treasury, and where much of the land and infrastructure is owned and operated by the government, and even property that is not directly owned by government, is regulated by government. Being that this is the world in which we live, the government is going to have control over immigration/migration, whether you or anyone else likes this or not, and they can either set a policies that most of the people who live in the country and pay the taxes and fees that support the common spaces and infrastructure want, and they can try to only attract the best and brightest people to immigrate here, and once here they can set polices that prevent these people from becoming a burden to the taxpayers, and they can not allow these people to become American citizens, which gives them the ability to become REGISTERED VOTERS, and to GAIN POLITICAL INFLUENCE, on the condition that they demonstrate a thorough grasp of the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and free market economics, OR, the government can implement immigration/migration policies that most Americans do not want, and instead of only attracting the best and the brightest immigrants who actually understand and want freedom, they can just bring in anyone without any standards, regardless of their abilities, or their political ideology, and regardless of whether or not these people become a burden to the taxpayers, or end up causing crime rates to increase, or end up voting and lobbying government to expand government beyond its constitutional bounds.
Being that THERE IS NO FREE MARKET, PRIVATE PROPERTY BASED MANNER IN WHICH TO REGULATE IMMIGRATION/MIGRATION IN OUR PRESENT SOCIETY, SINCE WE ARE FAR FROM LIVING IN AN ANARCHO-CAPITALIST SOCIETY, THE ONLY MECHANISM IN EXISTENCE TO DO THIS IS VIA GOVERNMENT, JUST LIKE GOVERNMENT HAS A MONOPOLY ON THE ROADS, FIRE FIGHTING, CRIMINAL JUSTICE, AND A LOT OF OTHER THINGS. There are certain functions of government which there’d still be a demand and a need for even if coercive government ceased to exist. If government did not exist, there’d still be a need for fire departments, roads, and a bunch of other stuff that government is doing now, they just would not be run via taxation and there’d be no monopoly (even with roads, there could be some competition between roads construction and/or maintenance companies). There would also be a free market demand to “regulate immigration,” as this would be something that would be done by PRIVATE PROPERTY OWNERS, and it would be done in the context of a society that had NO WELFARE STATE, NO FORCED ASSOCIATION LAWS (SO DISCRIMINATION WOULD BE LEGAL), and NO DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS (UNLESS DONE THROUGH VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS, WHERE THE OUTCOMES ONLY EFFECT THOSE WHO VOLUNTARILY CONSENTED TO THE DEMOCRATIC ELECTION). This would be a RADICALLY DIFFERENT society than what we live in today.
Immigration as it exists today WOULD NOT EXIST IN A FREE MARKET, PRIVATE PROPERTY, ANARCHO-CAPITALIST SOCIETY. Sure, there’d be people moving from place to place, but IT WOULD NOT RESEMBLE, OR BE UNDER THE SAME CONTEXT, as to how it occurs today, because there’d be NO WELFARE PROGRAMS, NO FORCED ASSOCIATION, and NO MASS DEMOCRACY.
So saying that government should not control immigration, because coercive government should not exist, is really a straw man argument, because this is a given with any hardcore ancap libertarian. The problem comes with how do you handle the situation now, IN THE REAL WORLD, AS IT PRESENTLY EXISTS, WHERE IMMIGRATION IS A GOVERNMENT PROGRAM, which is currently being used to INCREASE THE SIZE OF THE STATE, by importing large numbers of people with hostile, anti-libertarian ideologies into land territories, AGAINST THE WILL of most of the existing populations.
I’d prefer it if we had a free market, private property based alternatives to keep hostile, destructive people out, but GIVEN THAT WE HAVE NO SUCH FREE MARKET BASED ALTERNATIVES, then I’d prefer it if the government CEASED engaging in a human being importation program which is SUICIDAL to my interests.
Yes, your last few comments have consistently been winning that lottery. I’m a bit surprised to see you admit it, but I guess when you are that good it’s hard to be humble.
This point was addressed earlier, but you keep repeating it. What makes you think the wall will only be used to keep people out? That’s only true as long as the US is the less terrible place to live, but that and the police state needed to round up and deport millions of people – along with the massive economic damage that will cause – may very well make the US a place people will want to escape in large numbers. At that point, it will become quite trivial to turn the guns around. You yourself foresee the US empire collapsing, with massive economic damage and loss of life, yet somehow fail to foresee that this could turn what is now the US into a place that many people may want to get out of in the possibly not so distant future. That failure of imagination is entirely on your part. You should know better.
Actually, they would shoot you whether you were coming or going.
Actually,
is the historical libertarian position. Indeed, it was also the historical liberal position. The passport had by and large been abolished by liberal states until the advent of the two 20th century global wars.
Hmmm, the modern internet is a collection of privately owned networks that exhibits an emergent property of a public network. The medium you are using to communicate your claim effectively functions as the very thing you assert cannot exist. The fact that you are able to post it w/o explicit permission from the various private networks that the TCP/IP packets encapsulating your post hopped across(and rest assured, bandwidth consumption is an economic resource) serves as a sufficient empirical refutation of your position.
Technically, this behavior in part is referred to as internet peering. Internet peering is not state mandated nor a by-product of regulatory statute. Instead it is a rational consequence predicted by non-cooperative game theory. After all, what value is your network if people can’t go anywhere? The same behavior would be expected when it comes to private roads exhibiting a de facto emergent property of “public roads.” Again, what would the economic value of a road that people couldn’t use to go from A to B?
Indeed, the only thing guilty of “crackpot delusion” is Hoppe’s “invited-contractual” property rights basis for movement which at best would describe a primitive Amish–like agrarian community. The intellectual unsophistication of people of who accept that argument at face value is galling. You likely haven’t even read that crank’s actual argument. It is not only invitation by contract, but the inviter bears the liability of any of the future actions by the invitee. Not only would there not be any roads in HoppeTopia, there is wouldn’t be any capitalism either.This is by design b/c Hoppe views human travel as an existential threat to western(read: white christian) civilization. Now, given that Hoppe has now emigrated to Turkey(of course, having originally emigrated to the United States from Germany), I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to ascertain whether Hoppe is a first-order crackpot/hypocrite or a mere crafty con man selling elixir to the rubes.
Wow. It’s like I hit the lottery of idiocy in the last few posts.
“[Trump’s wall is] Soviet-like control of the border…”
I’m pretty sure nobody ever got shot trying to climb over the barbed wire to escape from West Germany into East Germany. Or on the Finland/Russia border to escape from Helsinki to St. Petersburg. I think dL et al are quite confused about the difference between a prison and a fence to keep folks out.
“[libertarians do] not recognize the authority of the state to regulate/prohibit human movement/travel.”
That sentence exposes a significant fallacy of contemporary libertarian thought. The sentence requires that there is a “commons”, that is, that there are many parcels of real estate that are not privately owned, and therefore there are no owners to put up fences to keep you out. And that such commons are sufficiently interconnected with other commons to facilitate travel. So who owns the “commons”? If you really believe that humans can thrive in our world with the answer to that question being “no one”, you are truly delusional. Some group (mafia, gummint, tribe, whoever) will assume ownership of those lands. To travel you will need to negotiate with the defacto owners of those lands if you wish to move across their lands. One of best aspects of the US Constitution was the recognition of the commons (post roads), and the prohibition against states enacting border taxes.
“McAfee says [Belize] is an ultra-corrupt gangster state that brazenly shakes down American expats and disappears and kills people in third world dungeons. I would not be surprised if he is telling the truth about that.”
John McAfee is most likely a murderer. His drug of choice while living in Belize was injections of testosterone so he could keep (it) up with his 21 year old girlfriend/whore. Mexico, Honduras and several other central American countries are far more dangerous than Belize is to US tourists. Have you ever been to Belize? I have. Check out the history of the Mennonites in Belize here – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mennonites_in_Belize
With respect to me, I detest the Republican establishment. But they are the mafia with which I agree the most (maybe 20%). I was chairman of the Wyoming LP. I ran away from the LP as fast as I could after serving one term – the LPers I ran into were mostly wack jobs. I tried a new third party (a complete failure), then next election ran for Governor as an independent. I got 6% of the vote, more than the LP and Constitution Party candidates combined. I now support candidates at the state level who are mostly libertarian who run as Republicans – I helped Senator Bouchard get elected – he finished #1 in the Wyoming Liberty Index of Senators this last session. I live in Wyoming in summers and someplace warm (not Texas) in the winter.
Yep.
Part of it, yeah.
Exactly.
He left the LP, started the Country Party of Wyoming, then ran as an independent, and iirc subsequently moved to Texas. As of now I think he is wavering between being back in the NSGOP and being a nonpartisan.
“Floodgates”? LOL… please!
One of the many reasons to oppose border totalitarianism is that walls that are supposedly built to keep people out can also be used to keep people in. Call it more like a virtual certainty rather than a second order probability.
I wouldn’t say that at all.
McAfee says it’s an ultra-corrupt gangster state that brazenly shakes down American expats and disappears and kills people in third world dungeons. I would not be surprised if he is telling the truth about that.
And in that process you see it as unlikely that the walls will be used to keep Americans in? Come on.
Really? I find that hard to believe. What happened?
Of course…and that probably explains your “paradox” of why a lot of libertarians don’t simply pick up their bags and leave.
A peculiar cognitive dissonance to hold the US to be an evil empire and yet advocate this evil empire exercise Soviet-like control of the border…
No, the primary, first and foremost reason is b/c libertarianism(and liberalism for that matter) does not recognize the authority of the state to regulate/prohibit human movement/travel. Period. The “secondary” effects is what the study of political economy is: the science of legalized plunder. A huge political economy of plunder is built around the prohibition and detention of human movement/travel.
“Belize is very much in partnership w/ the US security organs”. FWIW, almost every country in world is in the same situation as Belize (which quite frankly has no choice). The only exceptions to US hegemony are Iran, Russia, China and North Korea. And the Deep State essentially wants to start WW III with those countries so our empire will control the entire globe. The only thing holding back the spooks is that the Ruskies have too many nukes with a space program superior to ours, and the Chinese have a lot of our money and a standing army almost twice the size of the USA’s. The US empire is dying. Let’s just hope it doesn’t cause the deaths of a few billion people as it disintegrates.
So the reason to open the floodgates of immigration is the second order possibility that a wall to keep them out could be used to keep Americans from leaving our lands? It’s no wonder nobody pays any attention to libertarian ‘thinkers’.
Precisely…very naive to think that American border control lockdown doesn’t get internationalized. All the American security organs operate w/ an international scope. Locking down the ability of others to emigrate here absolutely will have a negative impact on your ability to emigrate elsewhere. Libertarianism 101 RE: the easy predictable consequences of increased statism. And, btw, Belize is very much in partnership w/ the US security organs. You are not escaping the reach of the US government by moving there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belize#/media/File:Belize_Coast_Guard_and_U.S._Navy_Working_Together.jpg
Just saw the 100 most influential libertarians list. How does the commentariat react to seeing Nick Sarwark excluded from the list? One would think the two term head of the Libertarian Party would have easily beaten out some of the “influentials” who made the list.
You do not necessarily have to build walls to keep people out. You can do things like stop enticing people to come in with welfare, stop letting them became American “citizens” (or at least make the citizenship process more difficult), etc…
I absolutely concur there is no comparison or analogy between between building a wall around a country and building a fence around a lawn. That nonsensical comparison/analogy belongs to the HoppeBots. However, building a wall for whatever ostensible reason is a mass violation of private property rights. And only a commie would approve of such a thing…
[Trump’s Great Wall of Eminent Domain]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/04/01/donald-trumps-great-wall-of-eminent-domain/
It should not be surprising that it’s not easy to find people to move to some foreign country or some boonie town in the middle of nowhere to live with other libertarians. People have extended families, friends, jobs and lives outside of the ideology. Additionally, all or almost all past efforts along such lines have been scams that defrauded people, failures, or both.
Also, that there is no right to leave if there is no right to enter anywhere else, and that it’s illogical to expect for there to be a right to enter anywhere else if such a right isn’t provided here.
Once the walls are built turning the guns around is the most trivial part, and with the police state needed to go along with the wall to round up and deport everyone who exists without government permission and tracking, plus the damage done to the economy by such policies, it most likely would not be long at all before the guns have to be turned around to keep people in. Of course, East Germany falsely claimed its walls were to keep people out too.
There aren’t enough faceplants that could exist in the universe to explain how absurd it is that it has to be explained to former LP leaders like Don and 20 year plus LP activists like Andy that the whole country is not the private property of the regime and never should be.
WRT Andy’s suggestion for moving outside the USA to find more liberty – it’s been done many times in the past. One that fascinates me is the Mennonites moving to Belize sixty years ago. Just a few thousand moved and it has worked out very well. The religious freedom is a big deal for them. Belize (then British Honduras) is an English speaking country with less than half the population of Wyoming. It’s not landlocked by other countries. It’s mostly self-sufficient in food. It’s legal system is based on English common law (just like Canada). It has zero income tax and zero sales tax (import tariffs are as much as 100% though). Education is provided by religious charities, not the government. It’s really close to the USA. It really is ideal in many respects.
That said, I bet you couldn’t get 500 USA-based libertarians to move there in the next decade, even with a FSP-level of effort. My thinking about why libertarians don’t do something like that is really cynical – I won’t bother to expound upon it.
“those who advocate for East German style walls are marxist commies and not libertarians…”
There is no comparison whatsoever between building walls to keep people in versus keeping people out. One is called protecting private property. The other is called a jail.
Indeed, it is…and those who advocate for East German style walls are marxist commies and not libertarians…
So Andy wants international-level border controls and travel/migration quotas between states. Between counties and cities as well? Neighborhoods? Blocks? Streets?
Don Will said: “By any objective measure, the FSP has been a moderate failure. Yes, a few thousand folks have moved to NH who would not otherwise have moved there. A few FSP folks have been elected to the NH legislature (which isn’t that impressive as the NH lower house has 400 members). But other than that, the overriding theme of what has happened to New Hampshire in the last 15 years is that many more big-government lovering statists from Massachusetts and other progressive states in New England have flooded into NH, swamping the far fewer numbers of newly arrived FSP folks.”
I agree that there are flaws with the Free State Project in New Hampshire, but even so, it is really the only movement for libertarians to gain critical mass anywhere that is actually doing anything, and that has anything resembling any real organization behind it.
I really like the Liberstad project in Norway (which is a plan to build a libertarian private city), and I also like the idea of Liberland, which is to create a libertarian country on a small piece of unclaimed land in Europe, but so far, neither project has really gone anywhere, to my knowledge.
Don Wills said: “But other than that, the overriding theme of what has happened to New Hampshire in the last 15 years is that many more big-government loveing statists from Massachusetts and other progressive states in New England have flooded into NH, swamping the far fewer numbers of newly arrived FSP folks.”
This right here illustrates the folly of the “open borders” position as espoused by some (fortunately not all) people who proclaim themselves to be libertarians. The true, purist libertarian position on borders is NOT to open up government common spaces to everyone on the planet, particularly in the context of a society that has a welfare state, forced association laws, and mass democracy, where people can vote rights away. The true, purist libertarian position is to transfer government held common spaces and infrastructure over to private property owners, in as fair an equitable a manner as possible, and to allow private property owners to decided who can immigrate/migrate to what land, and this would be done under the context of no welfare state, no forced association, and no democracy (unless of course a voluntary association used democratic procedures, so I mean no coercive government holding democratic elections where the results are imposed on everyone).
Advocating in favor of “open borders” and mass migration under the context of a welfare state, forced association, and mass democracy, is not only a suicidal policy, it is not really pro-liberty either. The fact that Marxists push for “open borders” and mass migration under the context of a welfare state, forced association, and mass democracy, is not an accident. It is rather odd to witness any self described libertarians pushing for the same thing that Marxists want.
Don Wills said: “By any objective measure, the FSP has been a moderate failure. Yes, a few thousand folks have moved to NH who would not otherwise have moved there. A few FSP folks have been elected to the NH legislature (which isn’t that impressive as the NH lower house has 400 members). But other than that, the overriding theme of what has happened to New Hampshire in the last 15 years is that many more big-government lovering statists from Massachusetts and other progressive states in New England have flooded into NH, swamping the far fewer numbers of newly arrived FSP folks.
Unfortunately, Andy’s suggesting of libertarians moving to a single city or county won’t work in the USA. Essentially cities and counties are vassals of the sovereign state in which they are contained, and thus are essentially powerless to implement almost all libertarian ideas, across the entire spectrum of ideas from licensing to taxing to land use to drug policy. So libertarians really do need to take over a state. IMO, that can’t and won’t happen until one or more states secede from the union, or until the USA breaks apart. That’s really the only (quite slim) hope for real freedom in our lands.”
This is what led me to a more radical idea, and that is the concept of libertarian private cities/land territories. My concept (which has some original ideas, but which also borrows ideas from other people) is for the creation of one more more Libertarian Zones, that is contract based, private property communities, consisting of libertarians only.
Could this be done in the USA? Maybe, but it may be better to do it outside the USA, perhaps by purchasing land in some poor country, and working out a deal with that country’s government, which would likely have to entail paying them off, or offering them some other benefits, in order to get them to agree to the terms. The members of the Libertarian Zone would have to be well armed, in order to stave off the threat of invasion.
Read more about the concept here:
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2014/07/andy-jacobs-the-libertarian-zone/
Andy wrote “What about the prospect of a bunch of liberty minded people moving into the same geographic territory, say a low population city/town, and/or county, and gaining critical mass in said area, to where they become the majority of the population, and can therefore win all of the elections without having to water down their message/pander to those who don’t really believe in freedom?”
For those who are new to the battle for liberty, here’s some background on just such an effort. In 2001, the Free State Project founders decided to do essentially what Andy suggested. But they decided to do it at the state level. So they took a vote (boo) and New Hampshire beat Wyoming as the place where folks should move to (most agree it was rigged for NH). Never mind that New Hampshire’s population is more than double that of Wyoming. Several other factors favored Wyoming, but that didn’t matter, NH was chosen. See the FSP Wikipedia page for more info.
By any objective measure, the FSP has been a moderate failure. Yes, a few thousand folks have moved to NH who would not otherwise have moved there. A few FSP folks have been elected to the NH legislature (which isn’t that impressive as the NH lower house has 400 members). But other than that, the overriding theme of what has happened to New Hampshire in the last 15 years is that many more big-government lovering statists from Massachusetts and other progressive states in New England have flooded into NH, swamping the far fewer numbers of newly arrived FSP folks.
Unfortunately, Andy’s suggesting of libertarians moving to a single city or county won’t work in the USA. Essentially cities and counties are vassals of the sovereign state in which they are contained, and thus are essentially powerless to implement almost all libertarian ideas, across the entire spectrum of ideas from licensing to taxing to land use to drug policy. So libertarians really do need to take over a state. IMO, that can’t and won’t happen until one or more states secede from the union, or until the USA breaks apart. That’s really the only (quite slim) hope for real freedom in our lands.
Cypherpunk/cyberanarchism certainly is a subset of libertarianism. Both Satoshi and Assange obviously fall under that category and additionally both have made public comments in support of libertarianism. Should recall: Satoshi just did not author a white paper on the matter; he/she was active on the bitcoin forums until ~ 2010.
[Quotable Satoshi]
http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/quotes/
Snowden: while his actions were heroic, his public statements would not quite place him in the category of libertarian. Civil libertarian, yes…a necessary condition but not a sufficient one to be libertarian.
QUALIFIER NOTE: Snowden better qualifies than a bunch of people on the list that fail the civil libertarian test. If you are going to put statist cons like Thomas Sowell, Steve Forbes, Rick Santelli, Steve Moore, Richard Epstein on that list, you certainly likewise can add Snowden. Of course, we could then put Glenn Greenwald on that list, too.
I’m not sure how much of the seasteading thing is really Patri Friedman’s brainchild as opposed to an idea lots of people have been thinking about in various forms for a while; he may simply be the most famous name currently associated with the project. But it’s certainly a promising front in the struggle for freedom.
I also agree that Assange and Nakamoto seem like oversights on Newsmax’s list. Although if you’re going to count them as libertarians, there may be just as strong a case to count Edward Snowden, who I’d put in that same game-changer league. The potential of Bitcoin may be the most revolutionary, but given the mystery of Nakamoto’s identity, how libertarian he may be, or how libertarian his aims were in creating the blockchain, seem like open questions. With Assange and Snowden there’s a public comment record of them taking pro-freedom stances (e.g. Snowden donating to support Ron Paul).
I do think revolutionaries can be involved with democratic politics without sacrificing their revolutionary ideas. We just have to be willing to engage in outside-the-box thinking when it comes to what a political party can be and what kinds of things it should be involved with. I like the idea of being strategically principled, but tactically flexible – advance the cause of freedom via whatever ethical means seem most efficacious.
Don Will said: “Getting elected is about motivating those who agree with you on many issues to vote for you, and to not piss off those who don’t agree with you so they won’t bother to vote. That takes A LOT OF MONEY. Mostly for advertising – direct mail and radio. Also important are an IT operation that does micro-demographic targeting, a real get out the vote effort, and message that doesn’t scare anybody. For every 1000 voters in your election, you should have at least 2 volunteers willing to make phone calls and walk the neighborhoods.”
What about the prospect of a bunch of liberty minded people moving into the same geographic territory, say a low population city/town, and/or county, and gaining critical mass in said area, to where they become the majority of the population, and can therefore win all of the elections without having to water down their message/pander to those who don’t really believe in freedom?
Well, you are describing the modus operandi of Cyber-libertarian/Cypherpunk. Of course, I will also note that when Julian Assange tried to dip his toe in (Australian) electoral politics, it was a freakin disaster. Revolutionaries and electoral politics are not bedfellows…
NewsMax “100 Most Influential Libertarians” List:
http://www.newsmax.com/BestLists/libertarians-newsmax-freedomfest/2017/06/01/id/793510/
Besides the questionable libertarian credentials of some of the people included in that list, it glaringly omits the two most influential, game changing libertarians today.
(1) Satoshi Nakamoto [Bitcoin]
(2) Julian Assange [Wikileaks]
It’s those two, and then it’s everyone else. It’s not even debatable. Those two are game changers. And the game changer list is very short. A possible third to add that list in the future might be Patri Friedman(Seasteading, autonomous legal jurisdictions detached from territorial monopoly). Of course, he was omitted, too.
Well, let us pray that you don’t find the wikipedia entry for Sleep Inertia 🙂
Competency is seriously lacking in the United States, so I don’t foresee anything fruitful coming from any existing third party. I don’t think I’ve met a single human being that can actually explain how they can get themselves out of bed in the morning… Americans are fucking retarded knuckle-draggers.
Whatever…. like I’ve said before done with the libs. Hopefully you fall apart like the Reform Party did after their only decent showing.
“Lin Zhao was executed by gunshot in 1968. Lin’s family was made not aware of her death until a Communist Party official approached her mother to collect a five-cent fee for the bullet used to kill her.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQIGjzj1-vc
Thane Eichenaur writes (June 3, 2017 at 09:01), in part,
“…to win the election game that libertarians (of whatever capitalization) need to learn more about persuasion…”
“White papers” (by which I take it we are basically talking about in-depth, well-reasoned arguments) are persuasive to some people. Politicians or leaders who view politics as a game, or a sales competition, and make winning it their goal, are also persuasive to some people.
But my sense is that what tends to transform hearts and minds far more than either of these things is something along these lines:
Having role models, living or deceased, who have deeply held beliefs which they have pursued or advocated passionately and in a spirit of authenticity, often at great personal sacrifice or cost to themselves, and whose qualities such as courage, clarity of vision, perseverance, nobility of purpose, benevolence toward others, and similarly admirable traits, shine forth in their lives and/or their speeches, writing, and artistic or innovative achievements.
Sometimes not just individuals, but organizations or groups of people fighting for particular causes can take on such a character. Consider some of the movements and groups associated with world-changing historical causes that in hindsight can be seen – as I am confident libertarianism will be – as vitally important struggles waged first as lonely fights against seemingly impossible odds to advance the human condition and make the world a better place: Science and the pursuit of knowledge escaping the shackles of religion and tradition; the triumph of democracy over the ancien regime with its social castes and principle of rule by divine right; the abolition of chattel slavery; the sexual revolution; the struggles of women, darker-skinned people, and people at odds with traditional sexual and gender identities, for legal and social equality.
I believe the conditions under which the libertarian movement will spread and flourish most rapidly are those in which we as libertarians become more conscious of our identity and destiny as being that kind of movement, and elevate among us as leaders, heroes/heroines, and martyrs, those individuals whose lives and efforts in the struggle for freedom are most reflective of the spirits embodied by the historical figures of past movements who are looked back on today as inspirational, righteous, and worthy of admiration.
“it would be shame if it did go away…”
Exactly. It’s a convenient and worthwhile resource. AMcCarrick was told on the talk page that he brought forward no sources to back up his position, just personal opinions. He responded by making personal attacks against editors, blanking pages, and now, ranting against Wikipedia. The Wikipedia editors and administrators, in this case, acted appropriately. It was right to remove unsourced additions and to ban a page blanker.
Don’t bet on it..and it would be shame if it did go away…
You sound like the social anarchists bitching about the American expropriation of the term “libertarian,” which historically outside the US has generally meant social property anarchism.
But, whatever… with any luck wikipedia will be gone soon. They’re hemorrhaging money because they can’t seem to find a competent executive director. I give’em 3 years before they’re forced to fold due to lack of funding.
Social liberal, under proper understanding used by the rest of the world, not under the retarded misinformed American understanding, means the exact something as cultural liberalism. Social in this sense means society…. thus a liberal society is the exact samething as a liberal culture. It also means the exact samething as civil libertarianism. The Social Liberalism page on Wikipedia describes egalitarianism NOT social liberalism/cultural liberalism/civil libertarianism.
If social liberal means what the current wiki page says it does, how is it “liberal”? You can’t guarantee centrally planned out comes nor legislate social positions and still have a liberal society. The word liberal in and of itself means liberty/freedom . Government control and liberalism are diametrically opposed to one another. It’s like saying you’re an authoritarian -libertarian.
Now I understand why people In other countries laugh at Americans… they’re too fucking stupid to even understand the basic definitions of words and political ideologies
No, getting elected isn’t about white papers.
No, getting elected isn’t about emotional connection.
And, no getting elected isn’t about persuasion.
Getting elected is about motivating those who agree with you on many issues to vote for you, and to not piss off those who don’t agree with you so they won’t bother to vote. That takes A LOT OF MONEY. Mostly for advertising – direct mail and radio. Also important are an IT operation that does micro-demographic targeting, a real get out the vote effort, and message that doesn’t scare anybody. For every 1000 voters in your election, you should have at least 2 volunteers willing to make phone calls and walk the neighborhoods.
*** I’ve never seen a Libertarian candidate do hardly any of those things, but I sure have seen a lot of LP candidates scare the shit out of voters – retired folks, gummint workers, welfare recipients, stay at home parents, folks afraid of Muslims and many other categories of voters.
Ignore the LP. Run as a Republican or as an independent. You have a better chance if you’ve lived in one area for a few decades. Plan on losing at least two or three times. Then, AND ONLY THEN, you might get elected. If you do run as a Republican, don’t scare away the GOP faithful, but DO NOT cozy up to TPTB. Remain independent. A few voters will notice and will appreciate it.
If you aren’t willing to do what is necessary to get elected, you have two other choices:
1. Go hide in your shell and hope things don’t get much worse.
2. Recognize that voting never changes things anyway — join the revolution to overthrow TPTB in our lands (peacefully of course).
RE: Social Security Recipients. Appears they are flocking across the border for greener pastures.
[Retirees flock to Latin America to live an upper-class lifestyle on $1,500 a month]
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/nation-world/world/article154209369.html
The differentials in the health care prices are staggering…three orders of magnitude
Socially liberal vs Culturally Liberal?
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Libertarian_Party_(United_States)&diff=783601510&oldid=783382763
FYI: A lot of people today define social liberal==government in the bedroom in the name of social progress. Whereas culturally liberal unmistakably means “live and let live.”
Personally, not a fan of the “economically conservative, socially liberal” moniker. GOP/Conservatism has never supported free markets or balanced budgets. Dems/Progressivism has never been “live and let live.” That moniker is an attempt to position libertarianism as some “centrist mix” of the two.
AMcCarrick,
Is this your account? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/AJinNYC2112
If so, it is understandable why you were blocked since you kept blanking the Libertarian Party page.
well that’s a strawman…who is saying that?
ATBAFT,
I want libertarian policies to be adopted. I think that for them to be adopted one must be able to persuade voters. I am not advocating that libertarians eschew libertarian policies. I am pointing out that well researched position papers persuade at most 10% of voters. I don’t see the purpose in spending time, money or energy on more papers and books (we have *plenty*). I do assert that to win the election game that libertarians (of whatever capitalization) need to learn more about persuasion rather than spend 10 minutes or 10 dollars on white papers.
https://www.theadvocates.org/index.php/category/communication-liberty/
OK. I’m convinced. Let’s just find a charismatic, heart string pulling, great speaker and hire her or him to be our candidate in 2020. It is all about emotion; who cares if the facts are wrong or if they aren’t even libertarian, because we can win elections by having a pretty face and soaring words.
I just have to say, that I’ve found that the people that edit the LP’s wikipedia page are incompetent morons. Don’t bother trying to change anything there… it’ll just be reverted to frivolous information in about 15 second. I got into a reverting war for about 5 minutes and ended up getting banned because some moron doesn’t understand what social liberalism means.
Not a dilemma b/c ending it shouldn’t be the #1 priority. Hence, burn the white papers. Fixes that problem. It is the mistake of the conservative-deviationism of American libertarianism to put the initial bullseye on reforming the “entitlements” component of the welfare state. Of course, you are going to be rebuffed by the public, and rationally so.
From Bastiat’s The Law, “The Fatal Idea of Legal Plunder”
Bastiat himself makes the argument for the logic of the poor man’s plunder that he admittedly has no rejoinder for.
“And what can you say to answer that argument!” Um, excuse me, I think I have a Cato position white paper lying around somewhere that can answer that…lol
The ability to win elections hinges on emotional persuasion. Scott Adams has written about this on his blog.
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/144816352346/battle-of-the-campaign-slogans
There are libertarian people that put out info on persuasion, Michael Cloud for instance, but the ability to persuade isn’t to be exclusively found in papers that prove X to be true or Y to be false.
“There are plenty of white papers on the problems of and solutions to the Social Security system. I believe that 99% of them are useless and irrelevant to LP candidates because the advocates of the status quote have programmed the 62+ crowd into reflexively voting against anybody that advocates changes to that system.”
You are probably right, so where is the useful and relevant LP paper? Do we just go around saying “what candidate X says is crap and I will eliminate social security tomorrow if I’m elected?” Of course not.
This, and other issues, should be solidly researched by an expert and made, available to all candidates.
Tony, most of your posts are attacking me, and the few that are not, are not very interesting.
You are the least interesting person out of the regular IPR commenters.
As far as I can tell Tony is not posting from any kind of IP anonymizer. Andy frequently says that everyone who attacks him uses an IP anonymizer even though that is not the case.
Andy, you just ignore any post I make that aren’t about you. You love being attacked. Plus, you make it so easy to do.
Also late 90s/early 2000s. Not too much since.
“Tony From Long Island
June 2, 2017 at 12:19
Too quiet in here today. Where’s Andy to spew some conspiracy theories and rile everyone up?”
Where is Tony From Long Island to ever say anything interesting? Oh yeah, that never happens. I am not the only person here to point out that Tony adds little to the discussions that take place here. His main reason for coming here is to attack me.
Too quiet in here today. Where’s Andy to spew some conspiracy theories and rile everyone up?
ATBAFT,
Thank you for your response.
Johnson being zingered because he doesn’t know each and every city torn by warfare in the Middle East is not the issue of more white papers or less white papers. There are plenty of white papers on the problems of and solutions to the Social Security system. I believe that 99% of them are useless and irrelevant to LP candidates because the advocates of the status quote have programmed the 62+ crowd into reflexively voting against anybody that advocates changes to that system.
I assert that Libertarian candidates cannot venture into politics armed with (only or mostly) white paper solutions. The modern status quo orthodox media cares not about facts, solutions or white papers. They don’t care about Aleppo, they care about torpedoing anybody that they determine are evil (in their personal and emotional estimation). The vast majority of the US Congress don’t believe in the US Constitution being anything but a symbol of religious political devotion no matter how many white papers or US Supreme Court cases tell them what its original intent was.
I believe that Joe Buchman’s web site for his campaign for UT-3 US House special election has what is needed to make a good run come election day because it has two facets that most Libertarian candidate web sites lack. One, a prominent link page of photos of the candidate (many of them with a smile on his face). Two a decent enough motto prominently displayed, “LIFE – LIBERTY – LEGALIZATION AND LET US ALONE!”. What is doesn’t have is any issues link on the home page (though it does have a “What the L is this about?” page that explains Libertarianism in a Ruwartian general manner [with text being less than 50% of the page]).
http://gotol.vote
I was so impressed I even signed up for his campaign email list (signup is a section on the home page).
Good to know, Thane. So not knowing what Aleppo was only cost GJ the votes of Libertarians?? I believe it would be very effective – emotionally and persuasively – for a Libertarian candidate to demolish with facts his or her debate opponent who claims, say, that social security is not bankrupt or that his party stands for lower spending or that she upholds the Constitution. We can’t venture into politics unarmed against the fake solutions and rhetorical nonsense spewed by our opponents.
ATBAFT,
Items such as white papers are needed for candidates to earn votes from Libertarians. 89% of the population vote based on emotion and persuasion. There is nothing wrong with having both but white papers do not win elections. Don’t get me wrong I like white papers but I am a Libertarian.
There used to be such things but that was back in the late 70’s and early 80’s.
I see the LPHQ call for candidates got 250 posts. So if someone wanted to run for Congress in 2018, where would they turn for issues information? Let’s say said candidate identified five major issues that were “hot” in his district and that the incumbent and major challenger were running on. Let’s say the five issues were: disentangling from the middle east, lowering taxes, cutting spending, doing something about the deficit, and the administration of justice. Does said candidate have to do all his own research (seeing as how the Platform is short on substance) or does the LNC have “white papers” and experts standing by to help the candidate sound intelligent (not to mention sounding like a real libertarian) on these issues that his or her opponents are sure to be ignorant about? Wouldn’t it be productive if every LP candidate could to turn to an expert,? Maybe then the candidate could speak with authority on the crisis with social security, the bi-partisan deficit, the mess in Syria, and what,if anything, the Constitution permits the federal government to do about out of control local police. Absent this, expect candidates to be a) fewer, b) less credible, and c)to draw fire from other libertarians upset because said candidate “doesn’t understand the libertarian principles involved.”