this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2024
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American libertarianism got co-opted by white nationalism way back in the 1930s, under Ludwig Von Mises and Murray Rothbard.
Kathy Glass won the Texas Libertarian Gubernatorial nomination in 2010 and 2014. She's an outspoken white supremacist with deep Trump sympathies. She abandoned the party in 2016 to go follow Trump, and she took a large chunk of the party base with her.
They espouse it. But when you get into what qualifies as "aggression", everything from migration to miscegenation can qualify. Thomas Sowell, a staunch libertarian economist, was a full throated supporter of the Iraq War on the grounds that Saddam helped perpetrate 9/11, evidence to the contrary be damned. Notorious Libertarian-Republican Ron Paul claimed that individuals infected with AIDS “victimizes innocent citizens by forcing them to pay for care", in a newsletter that argued for the criminalization of gay sex.
That's by design. The LP is shot-through with the worst strains of American bigotry and xenophobia intentionally. They're a common injection point for far-right conspiracies and a testing ground for ultra-nationalist ideology. Once you wrap an idea under the cover of free markets and individual liberties, you can smuggle it into the mainstream GOP and then on to "centrist" American politics.
Everything from Trump's Big Beautiful Wall to Lynne Cheney's trade war with China to JD Vance's Project 2025 can trace their roots back to libertarian academia.
Good riddance.
The issue with libertarians is that they can never agree on anything. Chase Oliver, for example, won the presidential nomination, yet the Colorado Libertarian Party nominated RFK instead. The Mises Caucus took over the party, their preferred candidate lost, and some "libertarians" across the country are butthurt about that.
It's an exciting third party to watch, and their platform doesn't even align with my own ideals. I'm registered with my state's Libertarian Party, but that's because they're the biggest third party nationally, and I care more about third parties getting recognition than about the specific platform they espouse (and I'm probably closer to my state's LP platform than any other party, so that helps).
That's why people talk about the difference between big-l Libertarians (i.e. members of the party) and small-l libertarians (those who consider themselves ideologically libertarian). White supremacy is absolutely anti-libertarian, as is any other form of hate, and I think pretty much all small-l libertarians and most big-l Libertarians would agree with that statement.
Pfft, he's not libertarian. I respect him, but he's a conservative through and through. My conservative grandfather (lifelong GOP member) would send us grandkids snippets from his columns. He's somewhat libertarian on economics, but conservative on everything else.
IMO, anyone who supported the Iraq war cannot call themselves libertarian. Libertarians do not support wars of aggression, full stop. Libertarians should absolutely be against supporting Israel in Gaza, for example. Saddam had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, and even if he did, invading Iraq would not be justifiable. There's a reason the Libertarian Party uses the porcupine as its mascot, and it's because they're not aggressive at all and instead have very strong defenses (quills).
Ron Paul is a lot closer, but only on foreign policy and fiscal matters, not on social issues. I can absolutely understand his premise (people with AIDS may use more medical resources than those without), but the conclusion is anti-libertarian. The libertarian answer here would be to allow care providers and insurance companies to adjust their prices based on things like sexual orientation if it adds a significant financial risk. Libertarians will never consider "the ends justifies the means" as a valid argument because civil liberties always come first.
Ron Paul got me excited about libertarianism because he was the only one with a national media presence saying things I agreed with, namely that we should close foreign bases and stop bombing people. I then found Penn Jillette, and his brand of libertarianism sat much better with me.
I don't think that's fair. I think it's more fair to say that those on the far-right have gotten booted from everywhere else and the Libertarian Party is radically inclusive. If you want to run for President, all you need to do is join a Libertarian Party somewhere or make a donation, and convince a delegate to submit your name. That's why RFK was nominated at the National Convention (someone entered his name, with his permission), but he lost in the first round. And IMO, that's how it should be.
Look at Trump speaking at the LP, he was essentially laughed out, especially when he tried to use the "if you want to win, vote for me" card, and his follow up of "good luck with your 3% of the vote." Trump has no roots in libertarianism, he just has a vocal fanbase, and some claim to be libertarian. It's like the hacker group Anonymous, anyone can claim to be them, but that doesn't mean actions by one member are condoned by another.
Here's a leftist interviewing Larry Sharpe, a prominent libertarian who ran for governor of NY. In it, he goes through and details a lot of misconceptions people have about libertarianism, one of my favorite was when he called out Reason magazine as being "Republicans who hate Trump," which IMO is pretty accurate.