Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Safe Spaces Aren’t Just for SJWs

Culture, Democrats, Dumbasses and Authoritarians, Election '16, Media, Political Correctness, Politics, Republicans, Theory and Ideas

spAs much as I despise Donald Trump, on some level I understand why he has die hard supporters. The most popular reason for this phenomenon is he seems to be the answer to the political correctness of our time. Trump may be many, many, horrible things, but being politically correct isn’t one of them.

Indeed, political correctness is a significant problem in our culture. Participation trophies, zero tolerance, and the very Orwellian PC language in which the Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) insist we use in our public discourse are doing great harm to the Millennials. The concept of ‘safe spaces’ on college campuses wraps all of the above (and more) in one tidy bow which infantilizes young adults. Not too long ago, college campuses were once considered the place to debate and explore controversial ideas, now have spaces to protect the precious Millennial snowflakes from debate and controversial ideas.

Yes, the SJWs certainly do suck. I’m sure that SJWs who read the above two paragraphs are angry I didn’t include a trigger warning before challenging their world view but here’s the thing: it’s not just SJWs who retreat into safe spaces nor just the generation raised in this very PC culture. As it turns out, some of the very people who are most critical of political correctness, Millennials, and safe spaces don’t want their worldviews challenged either!

I can’t speak for anyone else’s social media feed other than my own but I have seen people leave controversial comments followed by something to the effect of ‘I’m not going to debate this, if you post something that disagrees with me on my wall it will be deleted.’ Or s/he will simply delete the post without explanation (I’ve seen this behavior from conservatives and progressives alike).

Of course, having different opinions and refusing to debate opinions is one thing; being upset that someone shares an inconvenient fact completely destroying the basis of an opinion is another. Around Memorial Day Weekend, someone posted on my FaceBook wall about how awful it was that President Obama went to Hiroshima, Japan on Memorial Day instead of the traditional laying the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. There was just one problem with this person’s complaint: it wasn’t true. All it took to see if this person had a legitimate beef with Obama was a five second Google search (in the age of information, ignorance is a choice). In fact Obama visited Hiroshima on Friday, May 27, 2016 and visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Monday, May 30, 2016 (AKA Memorial Day).

In response to my posting readily available news articles reporting that Obama attended both of these ceremonies, I received a private message asking me: ‘Why are you always defending Obama?’ I don’t remember my exact response but it would have went something like ‘I’m not always defending Obama but the truth matters.’

The same sort of thing happened when someone blamed Obama for pulling the troops out of Iraq too soon and I dutifully pointed out that Obama was carrying out the troop withdrawal signed by President Bush.

These were just two examples off the top of my head; there are certainly other examples I could have used. As we are getting mercifully closer to the end of the 2016 campaign, conservatives, progressives, and yes, even some libertarians are retreating to their safe spaces refusing to be challenged at all.

The worst offenders IMO are the Trump supporters who are oh so critical of safe spaces on college campuses and Trump himself. The Trumpster divers tell us that all of Bill Clinton’s sexual assault accusers are to be believed while Trump’s accusers are all liars. Why did they all wait to come forward until a month before election day? Surely, they are all either opportunists and/or working directly for Hillary!

This is entirely possible. It’s possible that some if not all of them are lying. It’s also possible that because the world has now been exposed to Trump being Trump, these women now feel like the public will listen when prior to the leak the public otherwise would not.

Then there’s the issue of Trump’s poll numbers. As I look at my FaceBook feed, I see several Trump supporters posting articles from Trump friendly sites claiming that Trump is polling at 67% to Hillary’s 19%. In contrast, Real Clear Politics, averaging the leading scientific polls show Hillary leading Trump 44.7% to 39.4%.

Of course in terms of the election itself, it’s the electoral college map that matters not the popular vote. How are the candidates fairing on the electoral map? The Real Clear Politics Map is showing 262 electoral votes for Clinton, 164 for Trump, and another 112 are considered toss ups. The candidate who receives a minimum of 270 electoral votes becomes the next POTUS. By my math, that means that HRC is within 8 electoral votes of the magic number in this projection. This doesn’t provide much room for error for Mr. Trump. In order for Trump to win based on the above, he would have to win just about every one of the toss up states and not lose a single state projected to be in his column. If he wins all of the toss up states except for Florida, Trump still loses.

Clearly, either Real Clear Politics with its scientific polling or Trump biased Arizona Freedom Alliance will be proven wrong on Election Day, safe spaces be damned. One would think that but with Trump openly saying he won’t necessarily accept the election results (whatever that means!), he and his supporters will remain in their safe spaces for a bit longer.

It’s not too difficult to see how damaging the safe space phenomenon will be to our culture. Verifiable facts are ignored while rumors and provable falsehoods are considered truth when it aligns with an agenda.

As a people, we need to realize that being skeptical isn’t a bad thing. We must be careful of confirmation bias. We should read articles we disagree with and have friends we can argue important issues with (and remain friends at the end of the day).

And if you want to take a short break in your safe space (we all do, don’t kid yourself), then do so. Just don’t make it your permanent address. One can deny reality but cannot escape its consequences.

Stephen Littau
http://fpffressminds.blogspot.com/
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If Trump Is a Pig, Does It Matter If Bill Clinton Is Also a Pig?

Election '16, General

Bill Clinton admitted having extra-marital sexual relationships. One of them was with a much younger intern who was, for all intents and purposes, his employee. The relationship with Monica Lewinsky was icky and troubling due to the assumed power differential between the two parties – but there was nothing illegal about it.

Bill Clinton was accused of raping and sexually assaulting other women. No jury has found him guilty and he is therefore presumed innocent. Some people who feel strongly about due process for other men accused of crimes they deny committing, do not seem to grant the same benefit of the doubt to Bill Clinton.

Donald Trump has also been accused of raping and sexually assaulting women, including a 13-year-old girl. He has never been convicted by a jury and is therefore presumed innocent. Yet, again, some people who feel strongly about due process for other men accused of crimes they deny committing, do not grant the same benefit of the doubt to Donald Trump.

Trump admits the following:

“You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. … Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Cue the moral relativism. Nothing is good or bad except in relation to something else. No time should be wasted discussing one thing if there is something more egregious available to be discussed.

But Bill Clinton!!! Why aren’t we talking about Bill Cliiiintonnn?!

Go ahead and talk about it! No one is stopping you. We’ve been talking about the allegations against Bill Clinton for decades. Talk about them some more if it floats your boat. I know it’s a novel concept, but we can actually talk about more than one thing at a time. And, now bear with me here because I know this one is hard, but they can both be bad.

If we never talked about anything except the absolute worst, most seriously bad thing in the universe, we would only ever talk about war, cancer and entropy.

Oh, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump might be sexual predators who should not be allowed anywhere near public office…but what about serial killers, hmmm? They actually kill people, why aren’t you denouncing them?

What about the fact that the Earth might get hit by an asteroid any moment and we would all cease to exist and you’re just distracting from the real issues by talking about who should be President? Of a country that’s only existed for, like, a couple hundred years? Weighed against the fate of the planet that has existed for more than four billion?

You’re so small….

But while all the partisans enlightened people who know what really matters are discussing the truly important things – like rehashing decades old unproven allegations against a man who is not running for office – let me clarify a couple of things.

First, Bill Clinton was never convicted. He denies the allegations. Donald Trump was accused by his own words. People can decide for themselves if that’s a distinction that matters, but it does exist.

Second, the problem is not that Trump said a bad word or spoke vulgarly or objectified women, as some like Sean Hannity have suggested – attempting to contrast that with Bill Clinton’s (alleged) conduct. Trump’s “words” described “actions” he claims he engaged in. As Robby Soave writes at Reason: “Grabbing an unsuspecting and unwilling person’s genitals is a criminal act of sexual assault under any definition of sexual assault.” I do not find Trump’s phrasing to be as definitive as Soave. But at a minimum, it suggests encounters that are deeply ambiguous on the issue of consent.

People can decide for themselves how important that is to his fitness for office. Don’t expect everyone else to ignore it.

 

Sarah Baker
Sarah Baker is a libertarian, attorney and writer. She lives in Montana with her daughter and a house full of pets.
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Why Trump’s Message Resonates With Working-Class Voters

Cronyism, Economics, Government Regulation, Strategies For Advancing Liberty

This is the tl;dr version of my contribution to the TLP Round Table on Donald Trump’s rise to the status of presumptive Republican nominee.

Various motivations for Trump’s popularity have been posited over the course of the election cycle. Tribalism and xenophobia. Social order authoritarianism. Anger at the establishment. Anti-PC backlash. A yen for creative destruction.

I even have some sympathy for that last one. What is the point of preserving a GOP that has failed so resoundingly to deliver on the promise of limited government? Why not blow on the tiny orange flame of a Trump-match and see if it catches fire? Some wildfires make the ecosystem stronger.

But that is not my point here. There is another faction of Trump support, which has been overlooked amid all the self-righteous indictment of his surprising success. That faction consists of working class voters who spend their lives on the financial brink, who could not come up with $400 to face an emergency, but who, as a result of the statist, two-party-dominated system, cannot escape the inevitability of big government.

We advocates of free markets too often fail to explain, cogently, why free trade and voluntary exchanges deliver the best outcomes for the most people. We fail to explain why it is not just big corporations, businesses and entrepreneurs that get hurt by government interventions into the free market—but also the workers. And when those workers complain about the various ways in which they struggle to make ends meet, we too often dismiss it as a deficiency of effort, rather than a legitimate complaint against the system.

This makes no sense. We know better. We know that over-regulation, barriers to entry, excessive government spending, crony capitalism, and welfare for the rich are all bad for the economy and particularly bad for workers. We know these policies cause work to be less remunerative and hit poor people the hardest.

Why then, when they complain, do so many of us respond by dismissing them as lazy, unmotivated, unproductive and entitled? We should be capitalizing on their complaints. They are incontrovertibly legitimate.

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University recently published a study estimating that regulatory drag has stunted the size of the U.S. economy and made Americans significantly poorer than they would otherwise be. Their numbers, while shocking, seem woefully inadequate to reflect the true costs working people pay for intrusive government.

Through “subsidies,” regulations and entitlements, government intervention into the market drives up prices-relative-to-incomes on most of the things consumers need most. Housing, education, and healthcare all far outpace inflation. Meanwhile, government consumes 36% of GDP, and on everything from contact lenses to gasoline to occupational licensing, Americans must pay more while struggling to participate in a system that is rigged against their efforts.

It is simply not possible to sell people on the wealth potential of a free market while castigating them for failing to succeed in a system that requires hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars to get the mandatory license for a job washing hair.

In that regard, the Democrats have a point (incomplete and poorly made, to be sure) when they say, “you didn’t build that” or, “you’ve also been lucky.” Would-be business owners pay their extorted dues to the government-backed bureaucracy. In return, they are protected from competition by various barriers to entry, government-enforced monopolies, tax-payer funded subsidies, and other massive transfers of wealth from taxpayers to the favored recipients of government largesse. It makes a certain twisted sense to demand more compensation in proportion to their success.

One of these men understands how money and economies function. He led a grassroots movement that motivated millions of young voters. In response, the GOP changed its rules to keep him from gaining traction. The other one is the new face of the Republican Party.

One of these men understands how money and economies function. He led a grassroots movement that motivated millions of young voters. In response, the GOP changed its rules to keep him from gaining traction. The other one is the new face of the Republican Party.

Don’t like it? Great. I don’t either. Let’s repeal the barriers to entry, the legal monopolies, the government grants and below-market loans. Let’s get rid of the regulations and the occupational licensing, the mandated dues and the bureaucratic red tape and all the other bullshit.

This is, in fact, what we put Republicans in the House and Senate to do.

Yet over and over and over again, with a few principled exceptions (e.g., Rand Paul, Justin Amash, Thomas Massie, and, yes, Ted Cruz), Republicans have broken their word, expanded government, and asked us to be patient while they focus on getting reelected.

Revealing the true direction of their priorities, the GOP establishment acted to keep Ron Paul supporters from gaining traction in their ranks. The liberty movement has not died as a result, but it may have left the party. Inside the GOP, it has been replaced by an orange-faced baboon leading an army of alt-righters shouting “cuck” repetitively as they rock back and forth in fear of outside stimulation.

I will not deny a certain satisfying schadenfreude at that turn of events. And there is value in knowing such a cancer festers on the right. But there is equal value in understanding that Trump would not be succeeding on their support alone. He is also propelled by a significant faction of working-class voters desperate for better jobs, a stronger economy, and higher purchasing power.

Sanders is right about a lot of problems, wrong about the solutions. Sanders supporters who can understand the distinction may be an untapped area of future liberty votes.

Sanders supporters may be an untapped area of future liberty votes.

In that regard, Trump’s message resonates with voters on the right for some of the same reasons Bernie Sanders’ message resonates on the left. If big government, high taxes, and crony capitalism are inevitable – because neither of the viable parties intends to do much about them – why not use one’s vote to fight for a bigger piece of the stunted pie? Trump at least pays lip service to the struggle. He promises jobs and protectionism, a reprieve from debt and stagnation.

Of course I know he will not deliver. Trump’s “solutions” will further hurt working class people, by driving up prices and contracting the size of the economy.

Trump is Sanders in orange-face.

The point is, if a liberty-movement aims to rise from the ashes of the Trump-fire, it must speak to the struggles motivating voter support for these two surprise candidates. It must explain why no amount of further tinkering will alleviate the real pain that government intrusions into the economy cause to real people, why the only solution is to unwind those intrusions in the first instance.

Then it needs to actually deliver.

Sarah Baker
Sarah Baker is a libertarian, attorney and writer. She lives in Montana with her daughter and a house full of pets.
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Yes, Donald Trump Would Be A Disaster On Foreign Policy, Too

Dumbasses and Authoritarians, Election '16, Freedom

Trump makes me sad, so instead, I'm posting a kitty. Kitty-witty!

Trump makes me sad, so instead, I’m posting a kitty. Kitty-witty!

We’ve spilled a lot of pixels in this space talking about Donald Trump’s horrific policies, even more horrific character, and how his views are antiethical to America or how we are as a country. Much of that is correct, but what many people – here and in other places, both on the left and the right – focus on his impact on domestic policy. It makes sense when you consider that the whole point of populist policies centres around “more for me, less for them”.

But as much damage as a Donald Trump presidency would cause us internally, it would be just as bad abroad as well. Much to the consternation of the isolationists on both sides, that’s important; we are so intertwined with the rest of the world, for better or worse, that a large-scale shift away from America and our interests would have a devastating impact on our short and long term effectiveness as a country.

Here, I will point out the ways that President Donald Trump would obliterate our standing worldwide, centring around three things: economics, military, and trust.

Economic Policy: A Businessman Who Seemingly Doesn’t Get Business

Much has been made about Donald Trump’s four bankruptcies, but it is truly educative of how he views debt, not as an obligation but as a leveraging tool of its own. Simply put, when Donald Trump deals with debt, his answer is to walk away, and “negotiate” a settlement with the aggrieved party that is tolerable.

It’s an interesting way of doing business: Trump basically has a history of telling debtors “you’re gonna pay to make me go away, not vice versa”. Frankly, it’s worked because people get tired of the litigation and the headaches that brings.

But as President, Trump wouldn’t be working with some small-time official or his lawyers. You can’t get away with “we’ll negotiate” with Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin.

Another of Trump’s recent statements – and let me tell you, writing about Trump is hard because he says something dumb every other hour – is that he could get around the debt by simply printing more money. It’s hard to know what he’s trying to do here; this statement would get laughed out of a ninth grade Western Civ class. Is it a cynical ploy to bring over some of the dumber Bernie Sanders supporters? An attempt to crash the stock market? What is his end game with something so blatantly wrong? Does he have an ongoing bet with Lewandowski to see what he can get away with? And how does one address such a dumb statement, other than pointing out the obvious fact that printing money the likes of what Trump is talking about would seriously devalue our currency, possibly to the point where it would no longer be the world’s base currency?

Speaking of the Bernie Bros and those like them on the right, unarguably, one of the things that draw people to Trump the most are his protectionist take on trade and labour. Notwithstanding the well-established fact that his clothing line is manufactured with cheap Asian labour, this is something he’s been consistent in with his internal dealings: he wants the government to protect his best interests, much like he did when he tried to evict Vera Coking. Unsurprisingly, Trump was a huge fan of the horrific ruling in Kelo v. New London that gave full rights to local governments to seize private property for the benefit of private developers, a stance so noxious that even a Breitbart hack called him out on it.

Trump is also in favour of heavy tariffs on trade exports, particularly those with China and Mexico because… uh, honestly, I can’t think of a rational reason why those two countries have to be singled out. Like everything else, this is a bad idea, mainly because of the threat of a trade war with China that would make goods more expensive. The irony that the people supporting Trump the hardest – poor white people in rural areas – would be hit the hardest by the resulting rise in prices across the board on consumer goods is not lost on this writer.

So let’s see: he wants to severely dis-incentivize free trade, annoying a bordered neighbour and the largest competiting economy in the world in the process, print US currency to the point where it would devalue and possibly crash the dollar, and do the exact opposite of what he says he’ll do. What’s sad is that I probably missed something.

They say when goods cross borders, soldiers don’t. Speaking of that…

Military Policy: With Friends Like This…

Trump’s policy on the military is mostly vague; he was moderately in favour of the Iraq War before he was against it, for one. But if there’s one thing he’s got a fetish for, it’s negotiation, and its impact on people. I already talked about how this would likely impact our economic situation, but militarily, it’s the same thing: we would “negotiate” better deals to keep military bases in countries, most notably South Korea and Japan. It amounts to a simple equation: we protect you, so pay up.

“Nice country you got there. Be a shame if something happened to it”. Only the most hardcore Ron Paul drone would think that a good idea.

First, the only thing it would do is sow discontent in areas we’re already not popular. This is something I can actually speak on with some authority: in places where we have bases, we are HATED by the locals. All-caps-and-italics HATED. My memories of Souda Bay in 2002 involve not being allowed to leave the base because of constant protests at our presence. Ever see 5,000 frustrated squids on a tiny base meant for like 1/10 of that? The same goes for our bases in Japan, which I sadly have not had the chance to visit, but local disgust with our presence – not the least because of misbehaving servicepeople – is legendary. To add a shakedown on top of that would give many local politicians in countries affected by highly unpopular bases the leverage they need to remove them, negatively impacting their own local economies and hurting our military reach. This is a dangerous proposition in the modern world. Those who would argue for total isolation ignore the diplomatic – and yes, the resulting economic – damage this would do. Careful what you wish for, because you might get it.

Add in Trump’s stated respect for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Notwithstanding the horrors Putin has wrought on his own country, from both a humanitarian and an economic standpoint, a softer tone towards Russia threatens NATO as a whole, and could cause a worsening humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and whereever else Putin decides to annex. What would he do differently to prevent the recent spate of Russian jet fighters buzzing American ships? He’s on record as saying he’d tell Putin not to do that. I’m sure that will get through to the man who gave the order to poison Alexander Litvinenko in London.

There is an argument to be made that Trump’s stated positions on war, and his history, are more positive than Hillary Clinton’s. Single issue voters that care about that could be seen as voting for Trump on those grounds. But here’s the question: are his stated positions worth the oxygen used to broadcast them?

Trust: Trump Is A Serial Liar

Just in the scope of this one piece, it’s been demonstrated that Donald Trump has no respect for any kind of established precedent or deal, and will walk away at any time if it suits him. There are countless other examples of his untrustworthiness *just in the past week*, including his backtracking on key issues such as the Muslim lockdowns. I don’t expect this to calm his hardcore supporters, who are basically GamerGate morphed into a political movement. They’re cool so long as they feel they have license to hate whatever group of people they hate today. But it’s not going to impress other countries, who are already (rightly) sceptical on America and our word.

The hardcore isolationist sees this as a feature and not a bug. After all, if no one wants to deal with us, we can remove all of our bases across the globe, start developing more American products, and stop using drones to bomb brown people. Win/win!

Not so. In fact, there’s a strong line of thought that American isolationism from the 20s and 30s helped cause World War II. Further, there has been a rise of right-wing populist government – particularly in Turkey, a NATO ally – that can prove extremely dangerous if allowed to spread. We saw the costs of this in World War II, when we were attacked by a Japanese governemnt that had gone fully over to right-wing, nationalist policies that have currently taken hold in Poland, Turkey, and which threaten America. These policies led to genocide, from the Holocaust to the Rape of Nanking.

Donald Trump’s constant insistence on both negotiation and being unpredictable is, in the most charitable view, a feint intended to sow just enough doubt to cause people to vote for him over a known (and heavily disliked) commodity in Hillary Clinton; it did work on other known quantities like Jeb Bush. It can be assumed that his belief in negotiation stems from a notion that America is so stong, so powerful, that people will deal with us regardless just to avoid our wrath. That is the mindset that led to the fall of the Roman Empire. When you start to believe that you have a God given right to rule, God has a habit of proving otherwise.

In the modern world, we have to play nice with everyone in our sandbox; we can’t just take the proverbial pail and sit in the corner. The damage of a Trump presidency on our foreign relations would not just hurt us in the eyes of the world; it would bear a devastating human and economic cost as well, both home and abroad.

Christopher Bowen
Christopher Bowen covered the video games industry for eight years before moving onto politics and general interest. He is the Editor in Chief of Gaming Bus, and has worked for Diehard GameFan, Daily Games News, TalkingAboutGames.com and has freelanced elsewhere. He is a “liberaltarian” – a liberal libertarian. A network engineer by trade, he lives in Derby CT.
http://www.superbusnet.com

Should Libertarians Worry About Political Refugees Seeking Asylum in the LP?

Democrats, Election '16, Libertarians, Politics, Republicans, Theory and Ideas

With the primary phase of the 2016 campaign coming to an end, there’s little doubt that many rank and file Republicans and Democrats are not very pleased with their party’s presumptive nominee. For Republicans who actually care about principle, Donald Trump is a non-starter. Many if not most will ultimately decide to vote for him anyway because of the idea that Donald Trump is the lesser evil when compared to Hillary Clinton. Other primary voters who were serious when they said #NeverTrump meant it before May 3rd and mean it now after May 3rd. They have reached the conclusion that Hillary is actually the lesser evil when compared to Trump or at best see them as equally evil.

What are the anti-Trump Republicans to do? Join a third party? Register as independent?

Die hard supporters of Bernie Sanders find themselves in a similar situation. While I haven’t followed the Democrat race for the White House as closely, there does seem to be some angst about Hillary Clinton. Will they decide that from their point-of-view that Hillary is the lesser evil compared to Trump? I’m thinking most will but at least a fraction of the Bernie Sanders voters will make a different choice.

What are pro-Sanders, anti-Hillary Democrats to do? Join a third party? Register as independent?

Less than a month ago, a press release was posted on the Libertarian Party home page inviting political refugees from the Republican and Democrat parties to join the LP. Here’s an excerpt:

Here in the Libertarian Party, we are friends of refugees…those fleeing war torn countries, those fleeing desperate poverty, and also those fleeing despotic candidates such as Mr. Trump and Sec. Clinton.

We welcome former Republicans and Democrats who value “liberty and justice for all” to find a new home in the Libertarian Party.

Libertarianism is the idea that you should be free to make your own decisions in all aspects of your life as long as you don’t infringe upon the rights of others.

I find the idea of a flood of political asylum seekers coming to the LP both exciting and terrifying.

If the LP were a nation, it would be a small nation of immigrants. Sure, there are indigenous Libertarians but they are surely the minority. Most Americans grew up in Republican and Democrat households – to the extent Americans are politically active at all. Most Libertarians came to either the party or the philosophy over time and after realizing the party they thought represented them didn’t. I too am a political refugee. The leading candidate for the LP presidential nomination and 2012 nominee, Gary Johnson was a refugee and he’s hardly the first.

The real question is, what do these refugees want?

If they simply want a temporary visa and support the LP nominee for president, even if simply as a “protest vote” most native Libertarians would welcome and encourage that. For those who want citizenship, more would be expected.

What specifically am I talking about? Allow me to address any would-be asylum seekers:

Chris Byrne explains this in some detail in his post that there’s more to libertarians than conservatives who want to legalize pot. If everything you have learned about libertarian philosophy comes from Salon, Slate,The Young Turks or other left wing outlets (and some right wing outlets as well) which deliberately misrepresent what libertarians stand for…you need to forget all of that. Familiarize yourself with actual libertarian institutions/projects such as The CATO Institute, The Reason Foundation, The Mises Institute, The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, The Free State Project, The Tenth Amendment Center, The Institute for Justice and of course the Libertarian Party (especially the party platform). I should point out that among these groups, there are disagreements.

Some of these groups don’t even like each other. Its also quite possible that some of my fellow Liberty Papers contributors might object to listing some of these groups and/or failing to mention another. The point is there is a great deal of philosophical diversity within the broader libertarian movement and, therefore; cannot be pigeonholed into the caricature of libertarians Salon wants you to believe. One thing libertarians of all stripes believe (whether its called the Non Aggression Principle or something else is a debate in and of itself) are the individual rights of life, liberty, and property. Explained another way: Don’t hurt people and don’t take their stuff.

As Tom Petty likes to say, you don't have to live like a refugee.

As Tom Petty likes to say, you don’t have to live like a refugee.

Refugees who actually value the individual rights as described above – having them join the LP would be a great help. For those who want to come in yet hold on to the customs of the party they just left, they need to find asylum elsewhere.

Pivoting back to the original question, should libertarians worry about a bunch of posers coming in and transforming the LP into another Republican Party?*

I believe this would only be a problem if the LP actually started achieving significant electoral success. The reason the LP has been able to stay true (for the most part) to its founding principles since 1971 is because LP candidates haven’t been elected and, therefore; haven’t had to govern. For 45 years, voting/running for the LP has meant never having to say you’re sorry. “Don’t blame me, I voted Libertarian!” Once Libertarians are elected, then we find out how principled they really are.

Until that time comes, I’m very confident that libertarians will expose the frauds. In the LP and/or the greater liberty movement there’s no such thing as “The 11th Commandment.” If you have called yourself a libertarian and another person who calls himself/herself libertarian hasn’t questioned your street cred, you haven’t been a libertarian very long. The intramural battles between Team Cruz and Team Trump or Team Sanders and Team Hillary are mere child’s play by comparison.

In the final analysis, its my belief that the LP will continue to be the LP as we know it only larger. The refugees who want to bring Sharia Law** to the party platform will lose patience dealing with people who actually have principles and self deport.
suck

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Stephen Littau
http://fpffressminds.blogspot.com/
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