Year: 2016

Articles, videos and social media posts  on the internet have called out certain people as not Libertarians. I am sure even a causal user of the internet has seem some of these. Many are directed at Gary Johnson and Bill Weld, but others seem to be used against anyone who has made statements with which the poster does not agree.

In rebuttal, I reintroduce the Freedom Train concept that I first heard from David Bergland, the 1984 presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party.

I searched for a reference about Bergland’s Freedom Train with little success, but did find an article by my friend Brian Wright that mentions it.

Excerpt from Brian Wright Article

The Freedom Train

David Bergland during his Libertarian Campaign for president in 1984 popularized the metaphor of the ‘Freedom Train’ as a marketing tool: “Freedom is one thing you cannot have unless you’re willing to share with others. We all want to be free to do something in life. So climb aboard the Freedom Trail and we’ll take you as far as you want to go. Others may want to proceed to subsequent stops, and we can all live and let live about that”.

end of excerpt.

Lets encourage everyone to get on our Freedom Train. If they want to get off at a earlier stop than you, then don’t denounce them, but rather thank them for sharing part of the ride.

I am willing to call everyone a Libertarian who agrees they are on the Freedom Train, until they decide government is small enough and moral enough that they get off.

One problem with the Freedom Train metaphor is that it makes it seems there is only one way to get to Freedom, so lets broaden the concept to a multi-path system, where there is not just one way to get to the destination. Anybody got a suggestion what to call the multi-path paradigm?

Ben Bachrach

 

 

Jacob Hornberger explains why two wrongs do not make one of them right.

Click here for full article

Excerpt:

“The best way for libertarians to fight tyranny is not by supporting more tyranny…”

 

 

			Nominal Dollars not Inflation Adjusted	Nominal
Election	Candidate	Popular Votes	Individual Donations	Dollars/Vote
1996	Harry Browne	485,759	$1,248,198	$2.57
2000	Harry Browne	384,431	$1,217,198	$3.17
2004	Michael Badnarik	397,265	$1,093,013	$2.75
2008	Bob Barr	523,713	$1,372,110	$2.62
2012	Gary Johnson	1,275,821	$1,984,244	$1.56
2016	Gary Johnson	4,167,740	$12,794,165 includes Super PACs	$3.07

2016 Reference
 

At the FEE site, Professor Van Colt presents the essay “‘Creating Jobs’ Will Hurt the Economy”

full text

Excerpts:
“Gaining jobs” to achieve a given objective is synonymous with worsening your situation, not improving it.

The value of work is easy to grasp at the most domestic level: your own home.

Being a homeowner isn’t easy. Among other things, you always seem to have more chores to do than time to do them. The chores are not ends in themselves. Rather, they are means to an end — in this case, making a home and yard more livable or aesthetically pleasing.

Opting to do a chore yourself — “insourcing” in current parlance — isn’t costless. You lose the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of your other labors. For example, you could tackle different chores, spend more time with your family, or work extra hours in the marketplace, increasing your income. Hiring someone else to do the chore — that is, “outsourcing” — isn’t costless, either. It means you can’t buy other things. Costs represent sacrificed alternatives.

The minority of crazies chase off people only because the sane expect everyone to be perfect. The sane give up when they find someone they think is unreasonable.

Ignore the crazies.

Don’t waste your time trying to convince them, just work to have a majority and out vote them.

When you find someone unreasonable, just tell yourself, I need to find another sane person.

If the sane out vote the crazies enough, it will be the crazies who leave.

When crazies stops getting attention, they generally leave to find another audience to annoy.

(orginally published May 26, 2016)

At my request, my friend, Brian Wright, found an old favorite speech/article from Michael Cloud.  You can find Brian’s blog  at http://brianrwright.com/CoffeeCoasterBlog/

The Late, Great Libertarian Macho Flash

by Michael Cloud

It was a large and expensive home. The architecture radiated impeccable taste. Seated around the dining table were five people: three moderates, a conservative and a libertarian. The conservative was a multimillionaire — and a generous political contributor. After dinner she turned to the libertarian and said, “Our hosts tell me you’re a libertarian. Maybe I’m a little naive, but I don’t know what that word means. Could you tell me about your beliefs?”
Continue reading Michael Cloud’s Blast from the Past

Chelsea German writes at FEE

Poverty Dropping

Jeffery Tucker writes to Ross Ulbricht on the occasion of his 32nd birthday.
full text at Fee

Excerpt:
Isn’t it ironic? It is increasingly difficult to distinguish the intentions of cyber criminals from that of the government itself. They are both on the same side in lining up against the interests of the human right to liberty and property.

Advice from Matt Zwolinski
full article at Fee

Excerpts:
There are at two main reasons why reasonable disagreement is so common.

1) The moral values that underlie our political debates are plural and conflicting.
….
2) Many of our moral disagreement are ultimately rooted in complicated empirical questions.
…
So be humble — don’t be so confident that the beliefs you’ve formed are the single correct way of thinking about political morality. And be tolerant. Recognize that people who disagree with you might have good reasons for doing so.

Of course, I think that being tolerant of reasonable disagreement means that we should be reluctant to impose our moral views on others by force, or to ask the state to do so on our behalf.

But then again, I’m a libertarian, so I would think that, wouldn’t I?

Jeffrey Tucker discusses recently departed philosopher Tiber Mahan.
article at FEE