We’ve seen the lawfare against Trump meant to destroy both his candidacy and himself. We’ve seen the party claiming “Democracy is on the ballot” attempt to wipe Donald Trump’s name off that same ballot. We’ve watched as he was convicted of 36 felonies for doing exactly what Hillary Clinton’s campaign paid a mere $8,000 fine for. We watched as Matthew Colangelo resigned from the Biden DOJ so he could prosecute Donald Trump in New York, while the Biden Administration claimed with a straight face that they were not involved in any way.

We have watched two assassination attempts, one where bullets flew and another where they were waiting. The second attempt was prompted by rhetoric from the Democrats that Trump was a fascist and a danger to Democracy. Rhetoric that the Democrats have only ratcheted up since that attempt.

We have watched as the Democrats have installed a different Presidential Nominee without a primary for voters to select their candidate. While this is pretty uncharted territory, I do not believe history will look back favorably on this, and future precedent will likely be written by the Supreme Court in opposition to it.

This is an election unlike any other, and it is indeed consequential.

Trump has courted Libertarians specifically by coming to their convention where he promised to free Ross Ulbricht, protect Bitcoin and place a Libertarian in his cabinet. These are definitely some wins. However there are even bigger wins that Trump did not announce at the Libertarian convention.

One common criticism that Libertarians have of Republicans is that they never actually cut spending or eliminate wasteful departments. This has been true up until now. Trump is tapping Elon Musk to launch a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to address this very thing. Who better than Elon Musk to drastically reduce Federal agencies like he did to the headcount at Twitter? OK OK fine, yes Ron Paul, you got me there.

It’s a good thing Elon Musk agrees with you.

Trump has assembled the likes of Vivek Ramaswamy, Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr, Elon Musk, and yes, Ron Paul now too. It is a team of great people all tapped for specific strengths to be used in Trump’s second cabinet which is shaping up a whole lot better than his first one.

However the most consequential thing may come after the next 4 years are over. If Trump wins this election, then all the establishment Republicans and neocon warmongers who have aligned themselves with the Democrats will be stuck there. They will have no credibility after such a loss. If Trump loses however, they will have credibility to ooze their way back in.

A Trump win creates a vacuum in 4 years when Trump’s 2nd term is over. It’s a vacuum that beaten neocons would not be able to recapture and fill. The Ron Paul conservatives, the Vivek Ramaswamys and JD Vances and those who love liberty should position themselves to fill that vacuum.

This is a consequential election, and getting Trump over the finish line sets us up for even bigger wins in the long term. These are wins we can actually pat ourselves on the back for and take credit for. We’re responsible for freeing Ross. We’re responsible for Republicans cutting spending. Let’s take those wins and own them.

The post The Libertarian Moment Has Arrived—And It’s Riding on Trump’s 2024 Win appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

But if you’re looking for something on libertarian history by a non-libertarian who tries to be fair, but is also relatively critical and who comes from outside of the libertarian echo chamber—it may be worth your time.

The author of this new book, wrote an article this week for The Hill entitled, “The Libertarian Party is Collapsing. Here’s Why.” The short answer he gives, near as I can tell, is “racism”.

In it, he credits Gary Johnson’s 2016 run as the Libertarian Party’s “greatest triumph”, so one would assume that he is referring to a collapse post-Johnson. Although he resists naming names rather than defining crowds, there are only so many new developments to point to during that time. He relies heavily on reporting from places like The Southern Poverty Law Center and The Nation for the generalizations—both of which have been highly critical of the Mises Caucus wing of the party specifically, which is mentioned in the article.

His attacks on libertarianism run from those that seem absurd at first glance (he sees big government response to COVID as a case for big government rather than for libertarianism), to those that are pedestrian (he claims government is necessary to address large challenges like climate change and healthcare), to more interesting fare (comparing arguments common of modern libertarians to great libertarian thinkers of the past).

There’s obviously plenty to disagree with from a libertarian point of view, but to a certain extent politics is just the art of disagreement, best played by engaging with competing ideas. The day his Hill article was published, I talked to him about all this, and let him make his case.

TLR: This is Gary Doan of The Libertarian Republic and I’m talking to Andrew Koppelman. He’s a professor of law and political science at the prestigious Northwestern University, who’s often focused on the intersection of those two disciplines. He hails from University of Chicago and Yale law school, was a fellow at Harvard and Princeton, and to be honest, he has too many educational bonafides to be wasting his time talking to The Libertarian Republic. I’m happy he is all the same. His new book is entitled “Burning Down The House: How The Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted By Delusion And Greed”. Andrew, thanks for talking with me.

AK: Thanks for having me.

TLR: You recently wrote an article in The Hill entitled, “The Libertarian Party Is Collapsing. Here’s Why”, which was critical of the most modern iteration of the Libertarian Party, especially the Mises Caucus wing, which recently took control during the Reno reset. It’s full of charges of racism, selfishness, and greed festering in that institution as well as implications of external manipulation by the alt-right. Seems to have upset the usual suspects. Before getting into the details, what’s a summary of the “why” that’s the general gist of it? And did you reach out to any of the members of the LNC or Mises Caucus leadership before publishing for comment, and if so what was their response to it?

AK: Just relied on publicly available sources that had been pretty thoroughly reported by others. I do political philosophy. I was trying to think about the very narrow question of what are racists doing in the Libertarian Party to begin with, because there’s something puzzling about this. Libertarianism is foundationally concerned with the liberty of everybody. Equality seems to be baked into libertarianism. And so there’s just something very weird about these folks being here at all. It’s like having vegetarians in a butcher shop.

And so you’ve got to have some explanation for what are they doing here. And that’s something that I thought that I could contribute something to, and something that I really hadn’t talked about at all in my book, because while my book is critical of libertarianism and talks about the most prominent libertarian thinkers, none of them are racists. There’s not a single major libertarian theorist, who, as part of their basic philosophy, appeals to racism in any way. And most of them explicitly and vehemently repudiate it. So it’s just puzzling. What are these people doing here?

And my explanation is that there is a certain emotional appeal, first of all, to opposing civil rights laws. Barry Goldwater was not a racist. But once he voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that became an attraction of libertarian ideology for many people who were much less admirable than Goldwater himself. As a general matter, the fantasy of separating yourself out from a population you don’t like, is part of the appeal of this ideology. I am not saying that libertarianism itself is racist. I try to make very clear that that’s not what I’m saying. And I quote Ayn Rand’s repudiation of racism, but there’s something going on here that demands explanation.

TLR: Let me hold on to that racism thing for a little bit there. You’ve described the party as being quote, torn apart by an alt-right insurgency with racist tendencies and that was where you seem to first go to with this. I guess you could call it an extension to your book, hitting libertarianism from another end—or at least some modern libertarianism or a faction of it. When you say ‘alt-right insurgency with racist tendencies’, are you referring to the Mises Caucus specifically? Assuming you are, are you referring to the entire caucus, some of their ranks, or their leader–

AK: There are elements that are concentrated within the caucus. But once again, I have not done original reporting. I’m relying on secondary sources that are already out there and not- you know, reporters who are, I thought, quite reliable. But this is my claim. If you want to interrogate that claim, you need to go to the sources that I was relying on.

TLR: Some more reliable than the others. You know, some of it’s just like, Southern Poverty Law Center, stuff like that, but I’m sure there’s more reputable ones as well, because… I actually don’t disagree that there is a problem to be addressed that you’re alluding to, but–

AK: So the libertarians I’ve talked to- this seems to be common knowledge in the libertarian community. And the tendency has been there ever since the Ron Paul newsletters and some of the stuff that Lew Rockwell and Murray Rothbard wrote. So, I mean, this is our long-standing problem. It’s not something that I was not aware that there was any controversy about the fact that there were such elements.

TLR: Yeah, I mean, part of it, you alluded to with pointing to loaded words like “moocher” from Rand’s writing and so forth that can be taken… Obviously, Lew Rockwell and the Paul newsletters, you know, at most charitable are tone deaf to their whistles. I’m gonna return to the racism critique in just a second, here.

But when I think of the Libertarian Party’s greatest triumphs, I think of things like shifting the conversation in ways that led to ending the draft, lessening the extant prohibition through state-led legalization and decrim efforts, reminding conservatives of their anti-war history, and a respect at least in the rhetoric for free markets and making their promotion acceptable to the right, presenting progressives with concrete proposals in the realm of criminal justice reform, and leading the way early on ending modern forms of discriminatory practices, like bans on gay marriage, offering serious proposals on entitlement reform and foreign policy realism—all through shift in the narrative. They’ve contributed to all this despite remaining on the fringe, both in the direct electoral numbers since it’s pretty low, and while being handicapped by a decent amount of in-house crazies. But they’ve–

AK: All that seems to me to be fair. I’m not sure how much of it is the party and how much of it is a more general shift in the culture. But one of the things that I try to make clear about in my book is that libertarians were right about quite a lot of things. But there is- I have a lot of admiration for Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, and Richard Epstein. And I think that even the more romantic varieties like Rothbard or Rand have some real attractions to what they have to offer. It really is the case that I don’t even need to go through examples because you just gave a lot of them.

The reason why I wrote the book is because there are books out there about libertarianism, which are sort of introductions, to the general reader. And they’re written by very smart people. David Boaz wrote a good book. Jason Brennan has a good book. But they’re not critical. They don’t try to sort out, alright, where did this come from? And what are the different forms? And how does it hold up as a political philosophy? Because that’s what libertarianism is—at its core, it is a political philosophy. It needs to be examined with the tools of political philosophy, which is what I have to offer. I’m a professor.

TLR: In your book. I mean, the title “Burning Down the House”. So you’ve described libertarianism as a philosophy that advocates of state power be absolutely minimized. When I’ve heard you talk about your book- I’m actually a huge fan of the history podcast that you were recently on, even though I know the hosts aren’t all that libertarian. But when I’ve heard you talk about your book, you began with a story about a partially privatized fire department, which looked on, let a house be burned down for non payment of fire insurance.

AK: And, right, the guy had, you know, he was getting old, he forgot to make his payment. The consequence was, the fire department came to his house and watched as it burned down. And the reason why it’s particularly interesting is that there was a debate in the public press about whether this was appropriate behavior on the part of the fire department. And it was happening in the middle of the debate about Obamacare. And so everybody understood that this was really a debate about Obamacare. The question was, should everybody be responsible for dealing for their own misfortunes? Or is it legitimate to have communal institutions to protect people? When unexpected bad things happen? Such as a fire?

TLR: Yeah. However, libertarian runs this spectrum, from anarchism to various degrees of minarchism. I know plenty of libertarians who are moderate (by libertarian standards, of course), including myself who aren’t calling to privatize the police or fire departments who aren’t all regular–

AK: Yeah, the question the book is trying to answer is how did we go from Hayek’s moderate attack on socialism, which was absolutely right, and I think really has carried the day. I don’t think there is anything in the Road to Serfdom that would be rejected by Joseph Biden, or Elizabeth Warren, or Bernie Sanders, or even Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. They all think that we want to have a free market economy. The question is how large a welfare state is appropriate. But none of them want to nationalize the means of production. And yet, the idea of letting a house burn down would have seemed really weird to Hayek.

And so another puzzle is, how did we get from there to what happened in Tennessee? And I think it’s because of the advent of more extreme ideas, such as the ideas of Murray Rothbard, which are increasingly influential. And so then we have to look at the ideas and ask well, so what do we think of Rothbardian ideas? Are they or are they not an improvement on Hayek? Because Rothbard understood that he had deep disagreements with Hayek, and that there was just a fundamentally different philosophy being offered.

TLR: You said that a libertarian focus on individual rights seems flatly inconsistent with racism. Do you believe that combating something as irrational and repugnant as racism is best achieved through a focus on individual rights or a focus on group rights and why?

AK: Well, I’m, myself, not much interested in group rights. Since group rights have not turned up in libertarian thought, which I focused on, except in something that was too esoteric to even get into in the column. There are people like Hans Hermann Hoppe who argued that we should look at national borders as a sort of property right. And illegal aliens as a kind of trespasser. There is a strange notion of property here that has some very odd entailments. So, Hoppe is the only libertarian I can think of that comes anywhere near to thinking about group rights.

But I’m an individualistic liberal. I think that groups are interesting only to the extent that there are people who suffer injustices as a member of a group, and that you can notice these group patterns and try to fight them. And there are questions about reparations and what you do about those, which is just a whole different set of questions. Robert Nozick, in Anarchy, State and Utopia, cites a speaker’s book making a case for black reparations, with approval, saying, ‘Well, you know, maybe that’s possible’. But it’s a whole different set of questions than fundamental questions about what does a just society look like? Remedying past wrongs raises a distinctive set of problems which I haven’t gotten into at all in this book.

TLR: You just described yourself as a liberal. What do you believe is the difference between libertarianism and classical liberalism, if any?

AK: Well, the liberalism, as I identify with, does not have the kind of suspicion of the state of classical liberals like Richard Epstein and Milton Friedman. So you know, with what you’re trying to bring about, I want to bring about a world in which people are free to decide for themselves what their lives are going to be. And the fundamental difference between me and the libertarians is that they purport to want that too, but a minimal state will not deliver you that. A minimal state will deliver you conditions in which lots of people find their hopes thwarted at every turn.

One example that I think presents a real problem for a Rothbardian. And I end the book with an argument among old Rothbards about this is how do you deal with large misfortune that violates nobody’s rights, such as the outbreak of deadly disease. Such as COVID. And the way in which we managed to get COVID sufficiently under control that we could go back to our lives was through massive government taxation and spending. The government gave enormous amounts of money to pharmaceutical companies that would not have undertaken the vaccine research on their own because it was too risky. And as a result, we got a vaccine. And as a result, the death rate is far lower than it would have been if we had had an absolutely minimal state, or for a Rothbardian, no state at all. And so that suggests to me that if you want people to be free to conduct their lives as they like, a minimal state is not the way to deliver that.

TLR: Some of the people you seem to have chosen from that book, nobody can really disagree contributed a lot to libertarian thought. I mean, especially the Hayek, Rothbard, the Friedmans, and so forth. Hoppe I’m a little uncomfortable with, but makes sense. But one of the ones who you included was Ayn Rand, who was famously contemptuous of libertarianism. She called us a monstrous, disgusting group of people. She called us amoral plagiarists lower than Marxists.

AK: She was a very difficult person. (laughter) But, libertarians understand that she is enormously influential in the way that libertarians think. Someone once wrote a book about libertarianism, with the title, ‘It Usually Starts With Ayn Rand’. And that’s accurate. And she offered herself as a philosopher with strong affinities with libertarianism. She was extremely friendly for a while with Rothbard. Although, as with everybody else in her life, she eventually drove them away. And so I try to take her seriously as a writer and thinker. But, you know, as the person who was traumatized by living through the Russian Revolution, which involved massive corruption, incompetence, mass murder, and I think all her life, she was traumatized by that. But I try not to get into the biographical details, and I really tried to take her seriously as a thinker, because lots of libertarians take her seriously as a thinker. And so I try to look at her as a philosopher and ask – alright, so how good a philosopher is she? And the answer is not very good. But I think that you’re only entitled to say that if you take her seriously, seriously, look at her arguments.

TLR: There is a lot of overlap with objectivism, even past positions with a certain strain of respect for the kind of more individualistic anti-collectivism thrust of her work compared to what I see libertarian as, myself. Do you believe American libertarianism is right wing, left wing, neither, or something that draws for both?

AK: Well, it’s hard to classify because I mean, the the American right and the American left, both are clusters of the views in a two party system. People are going to have to form coalitions if they want to get anything done. And so each party clusters together all of us that don’t necessarily have anything intrinsically to do with one another? If you are in favor of tax cuts in American politics, you are probably against abortion. But those two really haven’t got anything to do with one another. So I just try to take libertarianism seriously as just the proposition that we’ll be freer if we reduce the state to little or nothing. And that’s a distinctive proposition. And I think it can be taken on its own terms without trying to locate it in a larger political currents.

TLR: One of the things you point out with the racism thing was that one of the changes to the LP platform that the Mises Caucus first made was to replace the words ‘we condemn bigotry as irrational and repugnant’. And it’s presented as evidence of racism—as a reason for party defections of longtime members have been pretty strong since then. However, it was replaced with the words ‘we uphold and defend the rights of every person, regardless of their race, ethnicity, or any other aspect of their identity’. What in your view is a major difference between the two statements from an actual public policy standpoint that makes them significantly enough different to focus on?

AK: I think it was generally understood that the deletion was more important than the addition. And it is, in fact, the reason why there were these mass defections from the party—which, if I’m right, was one of the things that was hoped would occur.

TLR: I mean, I can argue that there’s been some success if that’s an actual strategy rather than outcome. You infer also in your article that the Republican Party donors have been promoting the LPMC as a strategy specifically to destroy the party, which has been draining away Republican votes. You point out that had Trump gotten 100% of the LP vote in 2020, he would have won. However, exit polling has been pretty consistent among presidential elections showing roughly a third of LP voters without the libertarian option would have voted Democrat, a third wouldn’t have voted at all. It tends to be a third, a third, a third in most elections, more or less. How do you square the fear you think the GOP has of the LP with those numbers showing that it takes pretty evenly from both major parties?

AK: I simply note and again, here I’m relying on much more experienced reporters than me, people like The Nation who said, these are the people who have historically been associated with Trump and are financing the effort. They seem to be under the impression that they’re hoping to accomplish by doing that.

TLR: You claim part of the appeal of libertarianism to some Americans is racism. However, libertarians have led the way on plenty of issues that have had disproportionate effects on communities of color. They’ve opposed the drug war, they’ve opposed qualified immunity and the militarization of police and as acting as agents of the state against peaceful people. They’ve opposed zoning policies that segregated cities, and occupational licensing restrictions, and supported school choice, which they believe improves access to quality education for those trapped in low income government schools separated by zip code. They supported increased immigration and oppose Trump’s wall. They’ve described the military industrial complex as rich people sending the poor off to die fighting in countries already at a socioeconomic disadvantage themselves. Are there any issues other than reducing some social welfare programs or adding in work requirements or thinking some portions of the Civil Rights Act in the 60s were antithetical to the freedom of association… in libertarian thought than in the various iterations of the Republican or Democratic parties?

AK: Again, I’m not attacking libertarian thought, which, as I say in the book, you know, I barely talk about racism because it is not a significant part of libertarian thought. But with respect to those issues, like opposing civil rights laws, opposing welfare—or some people, that’s really all they care about. And all of the other aspects of the libertarian platform, which really would benefit African Americans, they don’t care about those one way or the other. By that, I mean, no question, getting rid of occupational licensing with respect to many professions like hairdressing, braiding where it’s just silly to have licensing? That would benefit African Americans, no question about it. But the folks I’m talking about don’t care about that one way or the other.

TLR: One of the things that separates libertarians from libertines is they’re focused on concepts like responsibility and self reliance, right? However, I think most libertarians would agree that reducing the government as radically as they’d like would require communities, societies, voluntary organizations to replace that government intervention—that excessive government interventions have stunted those types of institutions, right? I mean, some libertarians may be overly optimistic about human nature being strong enough to drive charity and mutual aid that’s adequate enough to take over those government functions. But doesn’t this expectation they have of community over central control sort of speak against libertarianism being exclusively individualistic or selfish pursuit?

I think you used the word autarky. But an expectation that communities and societies are stronger and more resilient than governments, if left to thrive, doesn’t seem to be something at peace with the kind of view of libertarianism as solitary, lonely, uncaring. So I guess my final question is, if you could make your pitch, that placing stuff like communities and social organizations and families above or at least separate from government realms—is that something that is delusional or greedy or attracts people who are delusional or greedy?

AK: Well, the place where I think that the alignment of delusion, greed is most clear, is in the area of regulation. And the book concludes by talking about the climate catastrophe that is occurring, that has been abetted by petroleum industry led by Charles Koch, who’s the most important libertarian in the United States today. In which, simultaneously, rests on a philosophy that really doesn’t do a very good job of thinking about pollution, and industries that will benefit financially by the absence of regulation—and who aren’t particularly principled at all. And they work in tandem together. So that’s the alignment of delusion and greed.

But with respect to the capacity of communities to step up and help one another, and you know, quite a lot of libertarians do hope that if you were able to reduce the footprint of the national government that people would step up. I think that it is a bigger ask than you’ve ever given to voluntary associations. Well, first of all, it’s not clear how voluntary associations could possibly deal with pollution. It’s very hard- I mean, how do you sue somebody in tort for warming up the planet? It is not something that can be done with anything but regulation.

And then some of the redistribution involved health care for poor people who get really bad diseases is far more expensive than the charity care that existed in the early 20th century. Some illnesses cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat, and either there is communal insurance for it, or the private charity system will be overwhelmed. This is matter of prediction, and different people have different predictions. Richard Epstein is very smart guy and he thinks that private charity would step up and do it. I just don’t believe it.

TLR: I was going to have that be my last question. But now that you say that, I did want to touch on one thing with the climate concerns. Near as I can tell, at least in 2022—it seems like most people from the side of Republicans, Democrats and libertarians, although they might not agree with the degree, I think most people are generally on board with believing climate change is real, impactful and impacted by human activity. I think that’s pretty well understood by most serious people on all three sides.

And the way I see it, all three sides are are giving some kind of solutions about it, right? Like the libertarians would say, ‘Oh, well, one of the problems with carbon emissions is the federal government’s failure to timely give out anything for new nuclear permitting for fear of the science of nuclear power. Or they might say, Well, what about carbon credits that can be bought and sold on the open market as a way to have market input and trading done on pollution to impose external costs that exist, which, there might be some problems with how you quantify that or whatever. But it’s been one idea that’s been put forth. And one of the things you mentioned was property rights claims, which might be easy to do if you’re actively polluting a river that then goes downstream somewhere, but it’s harder to do if you’re releasing carbon into the atmosphere.

And then you have, you know, the left, which is- just throw money at a whole bunch of different alternate fuel sources, which may or may not turn out to be efficient ones. Shutting down drilling before we’re ready. Until gas prices started getting higher. They did sometimes talk about making gas more expensive to incentivize that. But they didn’t seem to like, hold to that when it actually came because it was unpopular. And then you have Republicans who are just like, ‘yes, we know, it’s a problem. But we think the technology will just advance on its own. And we don’t think there’s much to do worth doing’.

My point is, why are the solutions that libertarians have put up there to address climate change better or worse than the solutions put up by people who are more left of center trying to address the same problems that libertarians are by supporting nuclear power and things like that?

AK: Well, the solutions that are most promising that are going to work? Well, the classic Hayekian solution is a tax on carbon, which actually was seriously proposed in the first Bush administration, and had Koch and Cato not worked so hard to spread fake science denying that anything was happening, that might have gone through.

And that really is the best solution. You just get people to incorporate the real costs of what they’re doing. And then the market creates incentives for people to come up with better technologies, what actually seems likely to do some good… because you know, all over the world, people don’t want to stay poor, they want to raise their standard of living, and they’re going to burn coal if they have to, in order to achieve that. And so the only way to stop them from warming the planet themselves is to come up with better technologies, and hand them to them on a platter and say here, don’t burn coal, do this instead.

And that’s the kind of research supported by government that gave us the COVID vaccine. And you’ve quite a lot of that kind of research funded in the climate bill that Biden just pushed through. And I think that that’s our only hope. You are not going to build massive nuclear plants in countries that are too poor to afford them.

TLR: Could you remind anyone reading this of the title of your book and where they can find it?

AK: The book is Burning Down The House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted By Delusion And Greed. I’m Andrew Koppelman. If you go looking on the internet, you’ll find copies of the book, very affordably priced, I’m happy to say 28.99. And if you read it, and you’re not persuaded by it, I want to hear from you and I want to hear why.

The post Koppelman’s Critiques of Libertarianism: Racism, Delusion, and Corruption appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Abe would also become famous for his ‘Abenomics’ economic policies which lifted the Japanese economy from an unhealthy level of deflation. 

The Left’s go-to narrative of gun control couldn’t play out here as Japan has the strictest gun control in the world, and the gun used to assassinate Abe was a crudely constructed Zip Gun made from hardware store parts.

In lieu of a working gun control narrative, leftwing media resorted to their next best narrative. Abe and Trump were pals.

Trump wanted America to have a smaller footprint in Japan’s national defense, whereas Abe wanted Japan to have a larger footprint in Japan’s national defense. Abe was able to read Trump. When Trump visited Japan for the first time in his Presidency, Abe largely skipped the traditions and took Trump to the best burger restaurant in Tokyo.

An alliance hat was made on this trip, which was signed by both Trump and Abe.

Get your own replica of this iconic friendship hat at the AP4Liberty store.

But the left just can’t help themselves. They can’t not piss on something or dance on a grave where they think they’re going to score a point.

Take NPR for example, a supposedly neutral American media outlet which is [wrongfully] funded through American tax dollars.

They simply cannot help themselves. A very non-divisive leader like Abe, is painted as divisive to American audiences because NPR simply cannot stand that Abe had a good relationship with Trump, and that the strong alliance between Japan and America was further strengthened under the Trump Administration. So instead of objective journalism, they choose to lie to you for clicks.

Why are we funding them?

The post Why is Leftwing Media Pissing on Shinzo Abe’s Grave? appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

After an impressive campaign that excited the youth with his libertarian minarchist message, Javier Milei was elected to Congress in Argentina. His party’s totals in the populous Autonomous City of Buenos Aires also sent his running mate to Congress, giving his party two representatives in Congress. 

As if that wasn’t enough, libertarian economist José Luis Espert was also elected to Congress representing the province of Buenos Aires, along with two others from his party.

Although gains were made by both the far right and the far left on November 14th, “…it was the sudden rise of the far-right libertarian Liberty Advances party that dominated local coverage of the results.”

Overall, that gives libertarians in Argentina a 5 seat block in the 257 member lower chamber of Congress, as well as multiple representatives in local legislatures.

Considering the success after forming parties barely in time for the elections and running in only a few races, the already impressive showing leaves the door open to more victories in 2023 and perhaps even a shot at the presidency. 

“Viva la libertad, carajo!” indeed.

Read more about Milei’s movement and the rise of libertarianism in Argentina here:

Argentina’s Libertarian Hope and Inspiration For America

Alejandro Canosa is an American entrepreneur and engineer. He was born and raised in Buenos Aires until he came to the U.S. for college in the early 2000s. 

The post “Viva la Libertad, Carajo!” Libertarians Elected to Congress in Argentina appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

The homeland of my youth is a warning, yet also a promise of what could be in the “land of liberty” I now call home. For decades Argentina’s government has grown by regulating the economy and increasing social spending. As the economy suffered, Argentina’s government attempted to “stimulate” it  by spending, printing money, spending more money, and printing more money—sound familiar? 

As nearly 50% of Argentina’s people live below the poverty line, the inflation rate soared to over 50% this past summer. Increases to the minimum wage can’t keep up with the loss of purchasing power, tight capital controls simply lead to blackmarket currency exchange and government fixing of prices to shortages.

However, as Argentina approaches its mid-term elections, a new hope for liberty emerged from the primaries. Much like the United States, Argentina is dominated by two major parties, with smaller parties having little hope of gaining any significant traction. Unlike the U.S., that appears to be changing in the Argentine Republic.

Javier Milei is a successful Austrian school economist and charismatic figure taking Argentina by surprise.  Philosophically an anarcho-capitalist but in practice a minarchist, he and his young liberty party, La Libertad Avanza, look to establish themselves as an influential third force in local politics. And they are doing so with an unapologetically pro liberty message. Last month, they celebrated a significant victory in Argentina’s legislative open primaries. “Twenty-five percent of porteños are aligned with the ideas of freedom,” said Milei. “It is necessary to convince a part [of them] that behind a social democratic structure, the ideas of freedom are not going to be respected, but dominated.” 

In Argentina, Milei can often be seen joining popular programs and being interviewed wearing his trademark suit and tie, but he’s no mild-mannered professor. He is an authentic and fiery straight talker, if sometimes displaying a vulgar flair characteristic of porteños (natives of the city of Buenos Aires). For his political rallies, he evokes a rock star image more than that of a politician, wearing a black leather jacket and black shirt.

Milei quotes Mises, Rothbard and Hayek and asserts taxation is theft. He discusses the idea of free banking and wants to “dynamite the central bank.”  He mixes his anti-establishment and intense anti-socialist rhetoric with education on liberty topics—from how inflation creates poverty to how the state is force and how the political class is parasitical. 

However, Milei doesn’t only look abroad and to the Anglo-Saxon world for liberal ideas. He reaches back to Argentina’s own past of liberal thinkers while reminding some and teaching others how Argentina’s Constitution of 1853 emphasized economic liberty, property rights and led to prosperity that put the South American nation at the top wealthiest countries of the world by the early 1900s. 

Milei singles out the “political caste” that entrenched itself in government and lives at the expense of Argentineans while creating rules for the public that they themselves ignore. However, though the movement was born in part from this anti-establishment drive, unlike Bolsonaro in Brazil or Trump in the United States, Milei criticizes populist policies while sticking always to his libertarian philosophy—or ‘liberalism’ as it is still known in Argentina and much of the world.

With his uncompromising libertarianism and openly calling himself an anarcho-capitalist, it is understandable that many did not anticipate his rising popularity. Yet perhaps the most surprising part of Milei’s electoral showing is how his strongest support came from the poorest neighborhoods in his populous district and how his most ardent supporters can be found among a disenfranchised youth, who cheer him on as he campaigns in person in ways that the ruling party and main opposition don’t dare. There, many who are tired of socialist and progressive policies that took Argentina from that top spot among world nations to a present where nearly 50% of the country fall below the poverty line, begin to warm up to the ideas of liberty.

Of course, Milei’s rise did not happen as an accident or only by chance. Now in his early 50s, he became successful in the private sector first. He then spent years writing about liberalism and Argentina’s economy, providing prescient commentary, educating, and passionately debating socialists and leftists in local TV and radio. Though his move into electoral politics happened only recently, he already leads a young movement reminiscent of Ron Paul’s revolution, making use of the internet and social media against established political parties that often rely on taxpayer money to promote their campaigns more blatantly than most in the U.S. are accustomed to.

Unlike Ron Paul’s revolution, Milei goes further attempting to make the movement about more than himself or a single election. He discusses the need for changes over more than a decade and how these policies cannot be linked exclusively to a single figure, but rather need to be attached to the ideas of liberty. He also rejects the idea of working within the existing parties, labeling the main opposition as complicit with the disastrous policies that Argentina has faced. And remarkably, Milei often appears with younger figures of the movement, trying to elevate them while listening to advice that has helped reach more with libertarian ideas than seemed possible.  

Milei’s rise is also the culmination of years of work and unsuccessful campaigns by fellow liberal economist José Luis Espert, a person Milei credits for starting the movement and who is now also running to become a member of the lower chamber of Congress. Going as far back as the late 1990s, Espert predicted many of the problems that Argentina would face from progressive policies that intensified in the early 2000s and have continued since then. The combination of Espert’s, perhaps milder, liberal message and Milei’s charismatic and radical liberalism seems to have been what the movement needed to reach near mainstream status in Argentina.

Argentina now moves to the general election in November, where it is likely Milei will become a member of the lower chamber of Congress, and his party and linked liberty parties have a chance of securing a significant minority of seats. There, they could have the unique opportunity to steer Argentina into a more libertarian future while leading Argentineans to embrace the ideas of liberty.

Already, the effects of Milei’s rising popularity can be seen in the country and ibero-America. After the open primaries, Argentina’s ruling party began to move away from the deeply unpopular pandemic mandates that, while being among those in place the longest in the world, were unable to keep Argentina from the highest per capita deaths in the world. Of course, the ruling party’s concern is also leading to the shenanigans characteristic of Argentina—more fiscal stimulus and politicians giving away of goods and food paid for by government funds.

While it’s still early in this movement and in politics, anything can happen. Javier Milei already shows that instead of sacrificing liberty for populism, liberty can be made a popular idea. A message, that if carried by the right person and in the right way, appeals to those most hurt by big government, authoritarianism, and a disdain for liberty—the working class and the poor.

When I left Argentina there wasn’t a single person who agreed with my classical liberal views. Now, I see them quoting Thomas Paine. If someone had told me five years ago that crowds this large would be waving libertarian “don’t tread on me” flags in Argentina while at a rally for a Libertarian candidate, I would have told them to lay off the drugs.

As anyone familiar with the South American nation can attest, if liberty can succeed in Argentina, it can succeed anywhere in the world. And if things go well, we may all be saying Milei’s trademark slogan this November, “Viva la libertad, carajo!”.

Alejandro Canosa is an American entrepreneur and engineer. He was born and raised in Buenos Aires until he came to the U.S. for college in the early 2000s. 

The post Argentina’s Libertarian Hope and Inspiration For America appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

The Cuban people have been engaged in a series of unprecedented anti-communist protests in the wake of months of severe shortages. Common chants by the protestors include “We Are No Longer Afraid,” a reference to the fact that the people will no longer tolerate the communist government’s efforts to quell uprisings, and “Homeland and Life,” a play on the phrase “Homeland or Death” popularized during the Cuban communist ‘revolution’ of 1959.

Libertarians are compelled to sympathize with the Cuban protestors’ struggle against the cruel, totalitarian and collectivist regime, which has done nothing but suppress their people’s ambitions and squander their nation’s resources. This regime also publishes dubious statistics which have been utilized by a wide range of left-wing American state expansionists to ‘discredit capitalism’.

As libertarians, however, we must also come to recognize that the efforts by some individuals within our government to actively support these protestors—most notably the efforts of Florida Republicans Ron DeSantis, Marco Rubio, and Francis Suarez—is wholly inappropriate and runs contrary to our values and principles as freedom-loving individualists.

To provide the government with a mandate to intervene in the affairs of a foreign nation in order to establish a regime that is in line with our foreign policy interests would require the extortion of Americans who may deem such an intrusion to be immoral at best and unconstitutional at worst. Furthermore, it reinforces the already existing precedent set by institutions, such as the CIA, of the United States being willing to meddle in the affairs of foreign nations so long as our ‘strategic interests’ are served.

Given that this precedent has been used by administrations of the past to justify our involvement in conflicts such as the Vietnam War, the War on Terror, and the Iraq War, it is difficult to comprehend why certain ‘libertarians’ would aim to reinforce it and implore the current Biden administration to adopt it in order to justify an intervention in the ongoing Cuban crisis. It is neither pragmatic nor libertarian to place pressure on the American government to meddle in the affairs of the Cuban nation through the usage of resources that belong to American citizens and that were seized through state coercion.

When all is said and done, we as libertarians must recognize the realities of the situation. We should actively call out those that seek to have our government take an official stance in a conflict that does not involve us. But we should also support the Cuban people in their struggle against tyranny through our engagement in protests, boycotts, and other voluntary and non-coercive actions that may pressure and weaken the current Communist regime and bolster the position of the Cuban opposition. 

Ali Motamedi is a high school senior who has been involved in the liberty movement for the past two years. He has an interest in a wide range of issues, but his influences especially include Murray Rothbard, F.A. Hayek, Ludwig Von Mises, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

The post The Libertarian Response to the Cuban Crisis appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Nigeria, the largest economy in Africa with a federal system of government, has a mixed economic system that includes personal freedom combined with centralized economic planning and government regulation. Nigeria has had its challenges as a developing country, but these have worsened since the coronavirus pandemic hit the nation. 

Presently, the nation faces a rapid increase in inflation reported to be 18.17% in the first quarter of 2021 compared with 15.75% in the last quarter of 2020. The inflation rate currently stands at 17.93%, with food inflation at 22.28%, crude oil price at $71.98, and Naira to Dollar exchange rate of ₦410.14 (CBN rate) and ₦502 in the parallel market. 

This inflation has resulted in a decline in the purchasing power of the nation’s currency drastically. As a result, the value of the naira is falling, and citizens can no longer save money, hold huge cash, or keep funds in current or savings accounts. In addition, the price of food is increasing as importation has become more expensive, the unemployment rate and the national debt continue to increase as oil prices crash. 

The government has tried to solve this problem by implementing a policy to close the country’s borders to the movement of goods. This policy hopes to reduce smuggling, position the country for better exports in West Africa, and encourage in-house production of goods and services. The CBN also devalued the country’s currency to reduce the country’s debt and maintain good monetary policies in Nigeria. 

Citizens have questioned the move of the government to devalue the naira and close importation borders because Nigeria has a high dependency on importation and barely exports anything except oil. Other sectors such as Agriculture and Tourism are also barely improving. Recently, the government issued new policies prohibiting the facilitation of cryptocurrencies by commercial banks and other financial institutions, a ban of Twitter, compulsory Sim card–NIN registration, and other similar policies. The implication of these policies on the economy is discouraging in terms of revenue. 

The Nigerian economy has suffered significant losses in various sectors due to the bans and suspensions. The telecommunication sector has suffered huge losses because of the suspension of Sim registration for several months. Other recent policies of the government could discourage prospective foreign investors from investing in Nigeria. Previous and current investors may start reconsidering their decisions of investing in Nigeria and therefore reduce the country’s Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), leading to more inflation and unemployment in the country. 

Before now, Nigeria was a country that had encouraged investments from other countries, and it had helped the economy of the country by boosting its Foreign Direct Investments (FDI). Still, to continue to enjoy this boost and its effect on the economy, the government must improve the state of the economy by making it freer.

A freer economy would encourage more foreign investments, increase economic liberation, promote public private partnerships, reduce strict government policies, and create a strategic alliance with foreign companies. Furthermore, as the global economy is now embracing the new changes in the digital world, the government of Nigeria should seek to do the same. It should accept the innovations and opportunities digital changes will create for the country and its citizens regarding job creation and investment opportunities. 

This period is a critical time for the nation, as it struggles out of the hands of the pandemic. Therefore, the leaders need to focus on improving the country and bringing in more revenue by keeping an open mind and creating a safe environment for foreign investors. In addition, the government should be adopting other relative fiscal and monetary policies that will attract new investors to the country, improve the country’s current state, improve the country’s employment rate, and drastically reduce inflation in the country. 

Focusing on issues and policies that do not bring positive long-term improvement and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth to the country should be discouraged. These moves have done more harm than good, especially in this pandemic era. Creating a freer economy where the government is not controlling the economy and the laws of demand and supply operate freely can help the economy boom and return to its flourishing state. The government should also seek to understand the influences of new opportunities in the global economy rather than control it, allowing for growth and development. As new investments flood into the country, Nigeria can get to the place of reducing dependence on importation and oil as other sectors develop with new investments. 

Nathaniel Luz is a Nigeria-based author and expert on African economic and political affairs. You can follow the author on Twitter @nathaniel_luz 

Image: Wikimedia

The post The Libertarian Solution to Nigeria’s Skyrocketing Inflation and Currency Devaluation appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Nick has uttered some pretty interesting statements about his political views, but what really sets the scene is the abrupt end of Jess’s relationship with Spencer, the catalyst of New Girl’s living situation. In Season One, Jess explains, “My ex-boyfriend [Spencer] failed to send it to me before the court date because he doesn’t believe in mail, which has to do with his thoughts on government spending.” Nick and Spencer demonstrate one thing: Jess has a type—libertarians. 

Nick, like Spencer, is skeptical of government spending. An argument they have in “Mars Landing” reveals that Jess, a teacher and registered Green Party voter, believes in compulsory education, while Nick does not. 

“Education is very important to me,” Nick tells Jess “I really want my kids to beg for it… ‘cause if you force a kid into school, he’s gonna hate it…If you make a kid work and sit in the yard and grind and grind and grind…eventually, that little kid is gonna beg for education. Then, you hand it to them like the gift that it should be…That’s why public school’s a joke.” 

This may sound contrarian, but Nick’s educational philosophy is actually within a mainstream, libertarian line of thinking. Data in Austrian economics supports Nick’s claim. Economist Bryan Caplan argues that children would be better off if they had apprenticeships instead of going to school. 

Nick also believes in civil liberties and limited government. In “Box,” after Jess accuses Nick of never doing jury duty nor paying his taxes, Nick replies with, “Not until gay marriage is legal everywhere. I stand by that and I don’t want to do jury duty or pay taxes.” The show often attributes Nick’s financial planning to a lack of organization and ambition, but this particular case is emblematic of the fact that he sticks to his principles. Perhaps the depiction of him as a lazy bartender is merely a strawman. 

Having attended law school, Nick has a level of political fluency. Sure, he is not like his roommate, Schmidt, who dated a politician and is an outspoken Republican. But Nick, in his own eccentric way, understands civics. Given this, he recognizes the way the two party system slights voters whose views exist outside the binary and the statistical insignificance a single vote makes. “You’re a Democrat. I never vote,” He tells Jess in “Double Date” when Schmidt devises a plan to break them up. 

There are many reasons, both political and apolitical, a person might choose not to vote, but for Nick, it is definitely political. With a heavy skepticism of compulsory public education, jury duty, and paying taxes, how could it not be? Nick’s decision not to vote could also be an endorsement of an anarcho-capitalist society, in which voting for public officials is unnecessary, as the free market allows citizens to enact policy based on what they voluntarily choose to spend money towards. Anarcho-capitalism is not the only libertarian form of government, but a valid form of libertarian government nonetheless. 

Even in Nick’s fantasies, he’s a libertarian. In “Fancyman (Part 1),” Nick and Jess get invited to the house of the wealthy benefactor of Jess’s school, Russell, for a party. Completely enamored with Russell’s lavish lifestyle, Nick sits in his chair, grabs Russell’s phone and declares, “I’m President Miller. You’re all fired. Bring our boys home.” The implications of Nick’s statement are clearly non-interventionism and cutting government spending—both libertarian principles. 

Nick may not have the beliefs Schmidt or Jess have, but he is liberal and fair, a proponent of civil rights and limited government. He is definitely not a socialist, he reveals, “I’m no commie” in Season Seven. His wariness of government could be a facet of him “aging into” his personality.

Take a closer look at Nick Miller and you will see him as a libertarian, not a law school drop-out with a half-finished zombie novel. You can watch all seven seasons on Netflix.

Samara Karow is majoring in English at UConn. She enjoys reading, watching sitcoms, and playing ukulele. You can find her on Twitter @SamaraKarow.

The post Move Over, Ron Swanson – You’re Not the Only Sitcom Libertarian. appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Lowe lives in a cul-de-sac of 17 homes.

Neighbors were enthusiastic about electing Stephen Lowe to the HOA board. Cynthia Meyer who lives two houses down from Lowe told The Libertarian Republic, “He keeps to himself. His beer bottles stay in his own yard, and he’s promised to greatly reduce our HOA fees. Maybe the richer neighbors can pick up the tab.”

However, Lowe has different plans for the HOA.

He told the Libertarian Republic that his goal isn’t to reduce the HOA fees for some and redistribute them to others. He wants to eliminate them entirely. “I’m going to dissolve the entire damn HOA,” Lowe told us.

He continued, “We pay nearly $80 a month, and for what? To remind us to mow our lawns? To tell me what color my house can be? If I want to paint my house plaid with a mural of Thomas Sowell on my garage door, then I’m going to do just that.”

Libertarians across the country praised his historic election as a monumental step forward for the party.

The post ELECTION VICTORY: Libertarian Wins Spot On Neighborhood HOA Board appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

While I love my aloha shirts and Gadsden flags, I’m also a Libertarian who loathes the current Republican Party and its de facto conspiracy theorist-in-chief, former President Donald J. Trump. (It feels good to say “former President.”) I’m philosophically boogaloo-friendly, but the boogaloo needs at least a little context.

In other words, not all boogaloos are created equal. I could conceivably support storming the Capitol for any number of reasons. Storming it because the worst president of my lifetime (and maybe every lifetime) lost an election…well, that’s a bridge too far.

How did tacky Hawaiian shirts become associated with right wing lunatics in the first place? The Associated Press did a piece about this a few weeks ago that a friend (and follower of this column) forwarded to me. It largely focuses on the disdain native Hawaiians have for all this. Well, I identify as an Ozarkian-Polynesian-American, and I feel their pain.

Long story short, “boogaloo” represents a very broad right wing movement advocating an overthrow of the United States government via a Second Civil War or perhaps a Second American Revolution. Wikipedia has some thoughts on the boogaloo and its nomenclature here. As with many things on the right (and on Wikipedia), it’s convoluted and confusing.

If I understand it correctly, the coining of this “boogaloo” goes a little something like this:

A desire for Civil War II + a really shitty eighties breakdancing movie = boogaloo, which roughly translates to big igloo, which translates to big luau, and big luau translates to Hawaiian shirts…or some such thing. I don’t know. It’s exhausting. Regardless, the end result is window lickers and wankers co-opting my favorite articles of clothing and my favorite flags, and I’m not having it.

Why are Hawaiian shirts so close to my heart? Allow me to explain.

I have always been somewhat fashion-impaired. In my school days, I would occasionally try to be “cool”, but I was seemingly always a year or two behind the hippest trends. I wore all of the really embarrassing shit in the eighties at some point or another: parachute pants, jean jackets, white “Miami Vice” jackets with the rolled up sleeves, penny loafers with no socks, cuffed pant legs, etc. I always had the sweetest British Knights sneakers and usually managed to wear Levis instead of Wranglers or other allegedly inferior jeans. None if it made me feel like I belonged, and it didn’t get me many chicks either. (I’m sure my sparkling personality was totally not a factor in any of this.)

In college and adulthood, I completely stopped trying to be cool and just started doing my own thing. As military folks might say, I decided to embrace the suck. As I staggered into my late thirties, my beleaguered wardrobe consisted almost completely of:

• Hawaiian shirts
• various sports jerseys (I have some real obscure stuff)
• ironic t-shirts (sometimes the more offensive, the better)
• hoodies (usually also sports-related)
• Wranglers or cargo shorts
• baseball caps (many of which are red, as I am a St. Louis Cardinals fan; you can probably see where this part is going)

(What would one even call this aesthetic? “Hoosier Hawaiian?”)

Hawaiian shirts in particular became a big thing for me for several reasons:

• They’re lowbrow and tacky, just like me
• As a longtime Jimmy Buffett fan, well, enough said
• They’re kind of an anti-fashion fashion statement
• They’re cheap, especially if you cruise thrift stores
• They button down, which is kind of important when you’re super fussy about your hair, as I was for a good portion of my life
• They tend to run large and thus help conceal your beer belly/food baby/Buddha/spare tire (or whatever you wanna call that protuberance, Fatty McFatterson)

At some point I ended up with over sixty Hawaiian shirts. And I wear them. Almost daily. If you’ve ever uttered the words “I collect Hawaiian shirts” on a first date, as I have, maybe it’s no small wonder that you didn’t get married until you were in your forties.

And as far as rattlesnake flags go, suffice to say, I’ve always been a big fan. They represent a big middle finger to government and authority, without getting tangled up in all the negative stuff associated with the Confederate battle flag. The Civil War is and was (by definition) divisive; the Revolutionary War, hopefully not so much. Plus, they just look cool as hell.

I even have the “Don’t Tread On Me” Missouri specialty license plates. (I know, paying government to protest the government is rather silly. But our liberal friends in D.C. do it too.)

(Our Editor-in-Chief is also succumbing to this apostasy, having recently ordered her own such license plates.)

In early 2005, I commissioned a cartoonist acquaintance to make a superhero-style avatar for me. The instructions were as follows:

His costume would include:

1) A super dark pair of Wayfarer sunglasses (a la “The Blues Brothers”)
2) A really tacky Hawaiian shirt
3) Knee length blue jean shorts
4) Sandals
5) And some sort of long flowing cape, made out of either a First Navy Jack flag (“Don’t Tread on Me”) or perhaps a Confederate battle flag, if I’m feeling frisky.
6) And a bottle of Stag beer hanging from his utility belt, lightsaber style. (I can send a picture of this particular longneck so you’d know what it looked like.)
7) A cheap cigar hanging out of his mouth.

(No, I wasn’t on drugs when I thought of this, but I couldn’t have made it much more weird if I had been.)

We ended up going with the Gadsden Flag for a cape instead. The result was amazing:

The softball bat was because this particular character, who was totally not me but also kinda was, fancied himself a Jedi but was too clumsy to be entrusted with a functioning lightsaber. (Christ, I even gave him a back story.)

I offer this as proof that I am not a Johnny-come-lately to the Hawaiian shirt/Gadsden flag thing. I was doing them before they were cool, or at least, before they were notorious.

After the events of January 6, I felt ashamed to be a right winger, or at least right wing-adjacent. I paused to consider my options. I thought about getting rid of my “Don’t Tread On Me” plates, not wanting to get lumped in with barbarians. I thought about my Libertarian Party membership (over twenty years now.) I even, for a few seconds, reconsidered my fashion choices.

But then I decided to channel my inner Jordan Belfort: “I’m not leavin’. I’m not leavin’. I’m not fuckin’ leavin’!“ I’ve been doing this Hawaiian shirt/rattlesnake flag/liberty thing since before some of these tossers were a tingle in their daddy’s ballsack. They don’t represent the libertarian movement or the Libertarian Party, much less me.

Assuming (in spite of this) that I am still on all the proper government watch lists, I want my personal FBI agent to know, for the record, that I had nothing to do with any of that Capitol nonsense. You may see me wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a red hat while flying a rattlesnake flag and assume that you know who I am.

But you know what they say when you assume. It makes an “ass” out of “u” and “me.” (Super sky point to Mr. Aldrich, our junior high science teacher, for introducing that saying to us. In the middle eighties, we thought it was titillating for a teacher to say “ass.”)

I don’t want to live in a world where you can take one look at a person and know everything about them. Dare to be unpredictable, and thus perhaps a bit closer to ungovernable.

The post Hands Off My Hawaiian Shirts, That’s Not My Boogaloo appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.