Forbes | Decentralizing The Hollywood Machine With Blockchain Tech And 'Libertarian' Filmmaking Forbes As with many industries that have emerged from a post industrial centralized system where power is held by the few and organizational structures were designed to control the people dividing the work into tasks that needed to be done, the film and ... |
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Decentralizing The Hollywood Machine With Blockchain Tech And 'Libertarian' Filmmaking - Forbes
Its easy to see people as enemies, even when they are on your team. Libertarianism is no different. The movement is torn apart by in-house fighting and bullying, more so than any other movement or party. Some have said the conservatives and liberals are the same way, but those groups are large enough to survive infighting. More importantly, they are united in effort, despite their fighting. They may conflict over certain policies and ideas, but they unite against the common enemy in the end.
Republicans may fight a lot among each other, but they unite against the Democrats at the end of the day. The Democrats fight over themselves as well, but they unite against the Republicans all the same (cue the parties are the same jokes, and moving on). Libertarians? They wont unite for any reason at all. A brick wall stands between each sector of our movement, dividing us.
Its one thing to not give up your own personal beliefs and capitulating to the movement, its another to not unite against the enemy we all agree on. To allow tyranny to rule over us because we dont want to stand beside someone who disagrees with us on a few interpretations of our philosophy is not the same as standing your ground honorably and refusing to give up your beliefs.
The Cause of the Problem
Libertarianism isnt a set of policies or ideals. Its a philosophical stance, built on key principles like the non-aggression principle, or the idea of states rights, a term meaning the states and their citizens have a right to self-governance and autonomy. Not that the state government have rights over its citizens.
Because its a philosophical stance and isnt mutually exclusive, meaning other consistent philosophies can be attached to it it can be interpreted differently. This reality seems to anger many, but refusing to accept this fact can only hurt us. Lets consider the following:
John Doe and Joe Dohn are both Libertarians. They believe that something should be illegal if it aggresses against another. The topic of abortion comes up and John Doe believes the fetus is not a living person. Therefore, abortion aggresses against no one, and so he is pro-choice. Joe Dohn believes that the fetus is a living person with rights, meaning abortion aggresses against the fetus, and therefore he is pro-life. Is one of them not libertarian simply because we disagree with that person? No.
Libertarianism can be interpreted differently, depending on how we view the world. Which studies you read, what theories you trust most, these define how you see the libertarian philosophy. Conservatism is defined as being pro-life, anti-welfare, pro-military, anti-corporate tax, and such. Its defined by a set of policies its members agree on. Libertarianism is purely philosophical, and so has no set opinion or belief.
Why the Problem Matters
Some have said the infighting keeps us safe from internal corruption. I dont buy this. If anything, it stops the movement from facing corruption. Corruption can still show its face in the party and in each individual sector of the movement, regardless of how united the movement is or isnt. Corruption cant be stopped by dividing ourselves. Others have said its important because we should embrace our differences, that our differences benefit our movement. The problem is that fighting, calling each statists, and accusing other libertarians of being fake, is not the same as embracing our different beliefs. A look at any comment section will show it filled with everyone calling out statist and pretender whenever a disagreement occurs.
Tyranny can exist because we arent fighting it. Were in comment sections fighting each other. But consider, somewhere between 19% of the country to 22% of the country identifies as libertarian. With such a large portion of the population being libertarian, why do we see no movement in our movement? Its because we wont work together.
Instead, we push each other out of the movement. We put an end to our ability to bring in new members. Imagine a new member who was of a different party prior. He finds that he agrees with a lot of our philosophy, but hes new, so he isnt 100% for privatizing roads, eliminating publics schools, and ending most welfare yet. To be fair, many long-time libertarians have varying opinions on these. Now, this new member spends the first month being called a statist, a fake, a commie, and so on, just for asking about it or stating his opinion. He leaves and doesnt look back.
Infighting pushes out new and old members, disenfranchises most libertarians (thats why so many libertarians vote Republican), and cause each variant of libertarianism to hate each other when they should see each other as allies.
How to Fix the Problem
The first step to fixing the problem is for us to start remembering these three simple things:
The problem must be fixed. We can stand united while still holding onto and debating our disagreements. There is no libertarian movement if we stand divided. We share a common goal, and we should aim for that goal together.
The beauty of libertarianism is that it encompasses so many different spectrums. We can have so many diverse types of politicians, each with different views and ideas, while still having a completely libertarian Congress. We despise the two-party system, but libertarianisms vast spectrum allows for the equivalent of many, many parties, each being libertarian in nature. Conservatarians, an-caps, left-leaning libertarians, paleolibertarians, each a libertarian equivalent of a separate party.
We should embrace our differences while standing together as 20% of the population, to end tyranny and socialism, and embracing our differences starts by no longer fighting over our differences.
* Donald Keller is the Admin and Head Editor for the Libertarian Coalition. He is a cook, artist, and writer in De Soto, Mo.
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Last fall, the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire reached an important milestone: They managed to get 4 percent of the vote in the governors race, giving them official party status and a place on New Hampshire ballots. But a snag for one candidate seeking to run in the House special election highlights the fact that many of the state election laws were still built for a two-party system.
When a House seat opened up in Grafton, John Babiarz wanted to run as a Libertarian in the upcoming special election.The problem? When he went to register, he says the town clerk blocked him from changing his party registration from undeclared and filing necessary paperwork to be on the ballot.
In a normal election cycle, the law gives voters a chance to change their party affiliation before the filing period for a primary election.
Typically before an election season starts, there is an opportunity for voters to meet with the Supervisors of the Checklist and change their party affiliation before the filing period opens, Deputy Secretary of State Dave Scanlan explained. That gives the voter an opportunity to become a candidate in the party they want, but also any voters party affiliation is locked in from the filing period until after the primary election.
But Babiarzs case highlighted a gap in the state law for special elections: The window of time between when an elections called and when the filing period starts is much narrower and doesnt allow for the same flexibility for candidates like him to change party status.
In this case of the special election, the governor and council set the date of the special election, and its done on a Wednesday. The filing period starts the following Monday. So theres very little opportunity for the Supervisors of the Checklist to call a meeting together and properly advertise it.
And whats new about this process, both Scanlan and Babiarz noted, is the inclusion of another political party that wasnt previously recognized.
I think for too long, the two major parties had everything set. They were comfortable with it. But when you have a new party with special elections They didnt take that into consideration that a new party would just start ramping up new membership, people may have not changed over to have the valid thing to run like everybody else.
On Tuesday, the state ballot law commission sided with Babiarz, ordering election officials to allow him to add his name to the ballot for the July 18 primary.
The commission said the law needs to be updated to fix the gap this case illustrates something Babiarz hopes to have the chance to do, should he win his bid for the seat, as a Libertarian.
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The Libertarian Party of Arkansas submitted over 15,000 signatures on Monday to the Secretary of States office to try and qualify to be a new political party -- for the fourth election cycle in a row. The state has 30 days to certify at least 10,000 of the signatures are from registered Arkansas voters.
This initial hurdle, and the financial cost of signature drives, is often critiqued by Arkansas third parties. In order for a political party to retain Arkansas ballot access through the next election cycle a candidate for either governor or president has to garner at least three percent of the vote. Last year Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson fell just shy with 2.63 percent of the vote.
Despite falling short of that threshold in 2016, state Party Chair Michael Pakko said the Libertarian Party deserves to be thought of as competitive.
Last year the Libertarian Party was the only party to field candidates against incumbents in all four U.S. Congressional states. In state legislative races Libertarians provided the only opposition in nearly a third of all contested races, Pakko said at the Capitol, Moreover people are choosing to vote Libertarian. Across the four Congressional districts last year our candidates earned over 196,000 votes about 18.5 percent of the total.
The once all-powerful Democratic Party of Arkansas only fielded one Congressional candidate in the last election. But this year, bolstered by an impassioned base in the era of Trump, a growing number of Democrats are expressing interest in 2018 races.
Pakko said he expects Libertarians to be in more three-way races next election.
Its always nice to be the only opposition party. When the Democrats werent running in races last year that gave us a little bit bigger piece of the spotlight but we dont expect that to be the case, Pakko said, so well just take it as it comes.
No Arkansas Libertarians hold legislative, statewide, or federal offices. But that lack of experience isnt necessarily a negative to Pakko.
One of the things voters communicated in their election of Donald Trump was their willingness to pick someone for public office that didnt have previous experience, he said.
While certainly having experienced candidates would be helpful I dont think thats necessarily a handicap to have non-professional politicians, regular citizens running for office and I think voters will be receptive, said Pakko.
What matters most to voters, according to the Libertarian chair, is making government work.
The biggest issue that voters think about is the dysfunctional nature of government both at the state and national level, he said. Its a matter of the two political parties at loggerheads, constant gridlock, and wed like the voters in Arkansas to know there is another choice, another option.
For Pakko and most Libertarians making government work often means passing laws that peel back the role of government, If you believe that governments should protect the rights of the individual, that people should be able to live their lives however they see fit with minimal interference from the government, if you believe that freedom and prosperity flourish where markets are allowed to work and the U.S. is at peace with its neighbors in the world, then please consider joining the Libertarian Party.
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Arkansas Libertarians Submit Signatures To Be "New" Political Party - WKNO FM
When oathkeeping patriot Frank Morganthaler suffered a heart attack while protesting Sharia Law this past weekend, leftists laughed at him as his life slipped away. This inspired an Islamic libertarian to start a fundraiser for the deceased man despite their political disagreements. This show of unity was soundly rejected by the intolerant left, who have started a campaign of harassment against the compassionate Muslim.
Will Coleys idea was to raise funds to show mercy toward their enemies during the Islamic holy season of Ramadan. At a time when political tensions are reaching frightening highs, Coley hoped that this gesture would re-introduce a little bit of human dignity into the political sphere. After encountering vicious hate-filled leftists on social media, Coleys hopes were dashed.
We will not be deterred in our drive to do good for others, even those who see themselves as my enemy, Coley wrote on Facebook in defense of his cause. Despite the heavy flak he is taking, he is hoping to raise $10,000 to pay for the Oathkeepers funeral costs.
A hate campaign was started on social media to derail Coleys gesture, and it has been successful. Terror apologist Linda Sarsour led the way, and the mob mentality took over from there. Coley was derided for the color of his skin, and it was determined by leftists that his skin was just too white for him to deserve a say in Muslim affairs.
Coley was shaken by this news but is not particularly surprised. He and his group, Muslims for Liberty, have been shunned by mainstream Muslim organizations for many years. Because his ideas are libertarian, that has put him on the outside looking in. Now it is Coleys skin color that is causing him problems in the Muslim community.
However, his idea has not been a complete failure. He has raised more than 25 percent of his stated goal at this point, and will be able to offset some of Morganthalers funeral costs at the very least. He also received a favorable television profile on a local news program in his native Tennessee to explain his plans to bridge the massive gap between Muslims and their opposition.
I have my faith, and you have yours, but theres no reason we have to hate each other because we believe differently, Will Coley said in an interview with WVLT news.
Coley has his work cut out for him in this polarizing political climate, but he is intent upon building bridges even in the case of immense pushback. His fundraiser link can be accessed at this link.
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Islamic Libertarian Harassed by Leftists After Starting a Fundraiser ... - The Liberty Conservative
"What we're witnessing," says Nick Gillespie on today's Reason Podcast, "is the end of a bunch of things"the Clinton political dynasty, Brexit, French establishment politics, the collapse of the May government in the United Kingdom"and in that end, there is the possiblity of...a different, 21st-century world...where politics and policy follow all the advances in personalization and individualization and autonomy we see in our cultural and political lives."
Gillespie is joined by Reason magazine Editor in Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward and Reason Editor at Large Matt Welch. Andrew Heaton moderates a discussion that heatdly talks about former FBI director James Comey's controversial testimony about Donald Trump, the results of last week's election in Britain, a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar featuring a titular character who looks a lot like the president, and whether Infowars' host and 9/11 truther Alex Jones is actually the libertarian he self-describes as.
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Politics in plain English
A seven-part guide to the candidates running to be the next governor of Virginia.
Superlative: Most likely to be late to the party"
Cliff Hyra may have been the last candidate to join the Virginia gubernatorial race, but like all cool kids, he has the potential of using this newfound attention to get people talking about what really matters politics.
As you could imagine, running for a statewide election as the third party nominee can set you at a disadvantage from the get-go. Fortunately for Hyra, being an unopposed libertarian candidate means that he can take this time to find his edge and relax while his opponents vie for a space on the general election ballot this week.
Hyra is a patent attorney from Mechanicsville, Virginia, who is married with three young children and is expecting another in Aug. To him, this race is a unique opportunity, and he hopes to build on 2013 candidate Robert Sarvis' momentum.
"Rob Sarvis had one of the most successful campaigns in the history of third parties and libertarian parties, Hyra said. "He got about 150,000 votes which is about a 7 percent turnout. (This) is really within striking distance of 10 percent, which is the threshold where if we hit 10 percent we would have automatic ballot access."
In the past, third party candidates have been required to canvas for 10,000 signatures as a precursor to moving forward with their campaign, a costly measure of resources that is not required of the Republican or Democratic candidates.
Despite Hyra's admittedly brief introduction to state politics, he is unfailingly enthusiastic about his future plans and continues to demonstrate faith in his supporters.
"I think you have to run the race with the goal of winning and being the governor, Hyra said. "You know, we are going to do all the things that we can do to maximize the chances of winning. With that said, I am not a crazy person, so I understand that you know the chances are low. At the same time, last year we had a very unusual election and something happened that I didn't think could happen so you know, I am not ruling it out."
If elected, Hyra has addressed four key issues that he will work to resolve in his four-year term economic growth, education reform, justice reform and health care.
In essence, his strategies to achieve optimal success can be generally attributed to one traditional libertarian solution, deregulation. Most of his campaign hinges on the belief that fewer laws constricting peoples actions can do wonders for the economy, incarceration rates and the booming of businesses.
More specifically, Hyras economic proposal includes eliminating income tax of the first $50,000 and removing specific license requirements that cause businessmen and women to get tripped up on trivial tasks.
Currently Virginians are taxed $11,815.28 on $50,000. This proposed cut would likely benefit the middle class the most, but can still exhibit a positive change in tax returns for people of the state.
Involving improvements with the school system, Hyra boasts small-town research on charter schools in New York as a testament to the power of competition to bring forth greater student and parent satisfaction. He says that elected officials must put forth more effort to close the gap, beginning with the states own research.
I was lucky enough to go to some really great schools in Northern Virginia, but we also have some schools that are not doing as well in some places, Hyra said. There are schools that have been really failing the students for many years and you know to some extent there is only so much good that you can do by just throwing more money at the problem.
According to Hyra, legal punishment for victimless crimes is counterproductive, specifically involving marijuana and alcohol consumption.
Logically speaking, Hyra says that lessening criminal punishments for these kinds of crimes will save Virginia money, which spends on average approximately $25,000 a year to incarcerate a single person. In addition, this plan could help reduce racial profiling. Hyra says studies show that African Americans are equally as likely to commit these kinds of crimes as others, but are being sent to prison at much higher rates.
Finally, Hyra has promised to change the face of healthcare by tossing out laws like Virginias Certificate of Need and is looking for a way to expand the healthcare plan without further involving the government.
Cliff Hyra is an incredible candidate, Libertarian Party of Virginia Chair Bo Brown told Bearing Drift News. Hes brilliant. His wifes incredible. Theyve got this great family. Theyre a great representation of Virginians. Weve got to let a lot of our (voters) understand that there are other candidates out there. You dont have to stay stuck to one of those two old parties.
Because Hyra announced his campaign in late April and received the nomination in May, little has been said about his qualifications for this role by other important political figures or by his opponents who are preoccupied with their respective primaries on Tuesday, June 13.
Hyra is a Virginia Tech alumnus who majored in aerospace engineering before attending law school at George Mason.
Hyra says that most people may not know that he became interested in the art of advantage gambling during his time at Virginia Tech and used his computational prowess at Las Vegas casinos for fun.
Want to learn about more gubernatorial candidates? Click below to learn about Republican front-runner, Ed Gillespie.
Superlative: Most likely to take detailed notes
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The Libertarian Party of Arkansas submitted over 15,000 signatures on Monday to the Secretary of States office to try and qualify to be a new political party -- for the fourth election cycle in a row. The state has 30 days to certify at least 10,000 of the signatures are from registered Arkansas voters.
This initial hurdle, and the financial cost of signature drives, is often critiqued by Arkansas third parties. In order for a political party to retain Arkansas ballot access through the next election cycle a candidate for either governor or president has to garner at least three percent of the vote. Last year Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson fell just shy with 2.63 percent of the vote.
Despite falling short of that threshold in 2016, state Party Chair Michael Pakko said the Libertarian Party deserves to be thought of as competitive.
Last year the Libertarian Party was the only party to field candidates against incumbents in all four U.S. Congressional states. In state legislative races Libertarians provided the only opposition in nearly a third of all contested races, Pakko said at the Capitol, Moreover people are choosing to vote Libertarian. Across the four Congressional districts last year our candidates earned over 196,000 votes about 18.5 percent of the total.
The once all-powerful Democratic Party of Arkansas only fielded one Congressional candidate in the last election. But this year, bolstered by an impassioned base in the era of Trump, a growing number of Democrats are expressing interest in 2018 races.
Pakko said he expects Libertarians to be in more three-way races next election.
Its always nice to be the only opposition party. When the Democrats werent running in races last year that gave us a little bit bigger piece of the spotlight but we dont expect that to be the case, Pakko said, so well just take it as it comes.
No Arkansas Libertarians hold legislative, statewide, or federal offices. But that lack of experience isnt necessarily a negative to Pakko.
One of the things voters communicated in their election of Donald Trump was their willingness to pick someone for public office that didnt have previous experience, he said.
While certainly having experienced candidates would be helpful I dont think thats necessarily a handicap to have non-professional politicians, regular citizens running for office and I think voters will be receptive, said Pakko.
What matters most to voters, according to the Libertarian chair, is making government work.
The biggest issue that voters think about is the dysfunctional nature of government both at the state and national level, he said. Its a matter of the two political parties at loggerheads, constant gridlock, and wed like the voters in Arkansas to know there is another choice, another option.
For Pakko and most Libertarians making government work often means passing laws that peel back the role of government, If you believe that governments should protect the rights of the individual, that people should be able to live their lives however they see fit with minimal interference from the government, if you believe that freedom and prosperity flourish where markets are allowed to work and the U.S. is at peace with its neighbors in the world, then please consider joining the Libertarian Party.
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Arkansas Libertarians Submit Signatures To Be "New" Political Party - KUAR
For the fourth consecutive election cycle, theLibertarian Party of Arkansasplans to deliver petitions to the Arkansas Secretary of States office on Monday to become a new political party for the 2018 election.
Because the party failed to win 3% of the electoral vote in the 2016 presidential race that swept Republican nominee Donald Trump into the White House, Arkansas law requires a new political party to collect 10,000 valid voter signatures during a 90-day period.
Party chairman Michael Pakko, an economist at the University of Arkansas at Little Rocks Institute for Economic Advancement, said the party finds itself in the position again of having to register as a new party when it has participated in the last four presidential elections. Pakko said the performance of the candidate at the top of the ticket should not be the only measuring stick for ballot access. Despite being considered a new party under the law, Libertarians fielded a candidate in all four congressional races, while the Democrats only contested the 2nd District. The party was also the only competition in eight of the 34 contested state House races.
Our performance was definitely improved, Pakko said. We are giving voters a choice and voters are making that choice and voting Libertarian.
According to Pakko, party officials collected more than 15,000 signatures for the 2018 ballot after former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson fell short in the 2016 presidential race with only with 2.63% of the Arkansas vote. Thats an improvement from 2012, when Johnson won 1.52% of the vote. His vote total rose from 16,276 that year to 29,611 this year. If the partys gubernatorial candidate wins 3% in 2018, it wont have to collect signatures in 2020.
By not winning 3% of the vote, the party will again have to qualify for the ballot in 2018, a process Pakko has said required six months of work as well as about $33,000 in costs in the 2016 cycle. Because the primary was moved up to March 1, a state law required the party to select its candidates at the end of 2015. Pakko said the party will try to change the states law defining a political party in the 2017 legislative session while working toward the 2018 election.
During the recent legislative session, the party did not get enough support to change the states law defining a political party ahead of the 2018 election.
And as the nation is riveted with former FBI Director James Comeys testimony before Congress and an obstruction of justice investigation of President Donald Trump by independent counsel Robert Mueller, Pakko said there is a high level of mistrust between American voters and Republican and Democratic parties.
There remains a low-level of trust in government and the two-party system, Pakko said. We see the constant bickering between the two major parties and I think one thing that Libertarians would like voters to know is there is another choice and another option out there.
Pakko said Arkansas voters should take a closer look at the Libertarian Party in 2018 at all levels.
We have a specific set of principles that we believe and we put emphasis on the rights of individuals, and that individuals should be free to live their lives as they see fit without as little interference from the government as possible, said the Libertarian leader and economic forecaster. Keep the government out of peoples lives and out of their pocketbooks.
After party leaders deliver petitions to the Secretary of States office next week and the signatures are validated within 30 days, Pakko said the party will immediately begin to recruit new candidates for the next major election that is now less than two years away.
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Libertarian Party To File Petitions As 'New Political Party' For Fourth Time - KASU
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ByDarrell England
Columbus, Ind Libertarians made cold beer a hot topic at the Rickers Gas Station Convenience Store Sunday afternoon. Indiana Laws have been restrictive withalcohol sales on Sundaysin contrast to a recent poll being published that around 71% of Hoosiers support expanded cold beer sales and 65% favor Sunday carry-out sales.
Rodney Benker, Vice-Chair of the Libertarian Party in Indiana, told FOX 59 in theirreport of the drink-in,They need to loosen their grip. It is time to allow fair and safe competition in the marketplace.
It was an overall success as Libertarian Party members from several counties attended to support the cause. One anonymous local member mentioned to have made 65 new contacts over the weekend. It was a great opportunity to support a wonderful business wanting to provide manyservices while being able to discuss the importance of the Free-Market at the same time.
The Libertarian Party of Bartholomew County provided live video of Jay Ricker,Chairman of Rickers Oil Company, addressing those in attendance before leaving the event.
#LegalizeSunday#LegalizeSundays#LPINbreaking newsfree marketheadline newsIndiana alcohol SalesIndiana NewsJay RickerJim Lucaslibertarian partyLibertarian Party of IndianaRicker Oil CompanyRicker'sRodney BenkerSunday Alcohol SalesTop Story
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Indiana Libertarians Unite To Promote #LegalizeSundays - The Libertarian Republic
Fox 59 | Indiana's Libertarian Party 'drinking-in' to put lawmakers on tap for ... Fox 59 COLUMBUS, Ind. Indiana's Libertarian Party helped served a cold one Sunday afternoon. The day and location - purposeful. The message unequivocal. Hoosier hoist a cold one for liberty | News | tribstar.com |
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Indiana's Libertarian Party 'drinking-in' to put lawmakers on tap for ... - Fox 59
The Liberty Conservative | Trump's Libertarian Budget Director: I Don't Care What You Do In The Privacy Of Your Own Home The Liberty Conservative OMB Director Mick Mulvaney strongly stressed his libertarian leanings in a recent interview with the Washington Examiner. According to the Examiner's Alex Pappas, Mulvaney 'said he considers himself in the libertarian wing of the party'. Mulvaney went ... |
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The US Libertarian Party sharply criticizedthe sentencing of a bitcoin trader on an unlawful money transmission charge this week.
In a statement, Nicholas Sarwark, who serves as chairman of the Libertarian National Committee, blasted the government's case against Randall Lord, who, along with his son Michael, was sentenced to a prison term late last month following an investigation into their alleged exchange activities.
As CoinDesk reported on 30th May, Randall and Michael Lord were sentenced to prison terms of 46 and 106 months, respectively. Both were charged with running an unlawful money transmission, while Michael Lord was also charged with conspiracy to distribute narcotics.
Sawark said the Libertarian Party "vigorously condemns" the case against Randall Lord, who previously ran as a Libertarian for a House of Representatives seat in Louisiana during elections in 2012 and 2014.
He argued:
"Trading bitcoins is perfectly legal. Major retailers such as Microsoft, Expedia, Dell, Overstock, and Whole Foods accept bitcoins. Prosecutors targeted Lord for not being registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the US Treasury, and for not being licensed to operate as a money service business in his home state of Louisiana."
Sawark, in his statement, later took aim at the broader political system.
"The problem is overspending by federal politicians, their manipulation and regulation of currencies, and grandstanding prosecutors who get rewarded for convicting people rather than for achieving justice," he said.
He called for the sentencing to be overturned, asking supporters to add your voice to ours in demanding freedom for Randall Lord.
Lord's sentencing was a recent example of a trend of cases against bitcoin traders in the US. Similar cases have been pursued against traders in Michigan, New York and Arizona, among other states.
Image via Shutterstock
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Libertarian Party Blasts Government Case Against Bitcoin Trader - CoinDesk
By now most of us have read the articles and laughed, and some of us have watched the videos and guffawed. A drunken strumpet having a bad hair day gets booted from a comedy club, then arrested, and then lays into the cops in slurring, vitriolic invective. She [it was a woman] attempts to parlay her status as a television reporter into some kind of Get Out Of Jail Free card it doesnt work. Another comedian at the club records her performance art on his phone and posts it to the internet. The following day she claims, though her family attorney, to have been drugged. She was fired from her television reporting job anyway.
It was a classic object lesson in the negative aspects of self-important, anti-social tantrum. She was charged with disorderly conduct, criminal mischief [whatever that is], and resisting arrest. Resisting arrest is the pile-on feel-good charge offered up when cops dont really have anything substantive. We never see murderers or armed robbers charged with murder or armed robbery and resisting arrest. Whenever resisting arrest is announced, its fairly prima facie that the major issue is that the cops ego was bruised, the poor dears.
The essential sequence of events is this: * Drunken strumpet heckles performer * Performer cant handle heckler * Club employees escort drunken strumpet from venue to public sidewalk where cops were waiting * Cops confront drunken strumpet about her actions inside venue * Drunken strumpet lambastes cops for being, well, cops * Cops cuff drunken strumpet * Drunken strumpet continues to berate cops * Cops eventually haul her away
What happened next, though, is Grade-A statist apologism and rationalization. People the nation over cheered and huzzahed. Many manly he-men volunteered assorted fisticuffs to punctuate their disapproval of her actions. It would be one thing and completely understandable, if still distasteful were these statist apologists the standard democrats and republicans who celebrate hyper-reactive government involvement in nearly every aspect of human interaction. But they werent.
They claimed to be libertarians, which makes it inexcusable.
The worst part about it, none of those professing to possess libertarian sensibilities could understand why their hairy chest-pounding was putrid statism.
The first and most common excuse offered up is that the woman at the center of the nothingness assaulted someone by spitting. First there was nothing in any of the written accounts that asserts she definitively spit on anyone. Second were supposed to be libertarians here. Spitting is, under the worst of circumstances, little more than a second graders preferred method of making the girls in class run screeching, next to eating bugs and turning eyelids inside out. Big-girl panties, guys; pull em up.
To be fair, there were multiple accounts stating that the cop-denouncing woman and I will quote from one of those accounts appeared to attempt to spit, but the target of her expectoration changed from version to version, rendering the accusation suspect at best and contrived at worst. I have no doubt, though, from what I remember about my, and observed in others, bouts of pronounced drunkenness that more than a few people in her vicinity were hit with spittle from the volume and relentlessness of her tirading. But spray is not the same thing as hocking a loogie.
Yet it was over this assault-by-saliva claim that most of the ahem libertarians offered to deconstruct the orthodontics her parents had paid for. Self-defense, more than one suggested.
Sorry, no. Self-defense, under law, permits only those actions which are necessary to prevent another similar assault, while using the minimum force available. Someone spitting at you is not justifiably met with a punch to the teeth any more than it is justifiably met with a folding chair across the shoulders or a gunshot to the torso. Minimum necessary force to prevent being spat upon a second time by a woman handcuffed by police consists of moving out of loogie-range, and not a lot else.
Self-defense against projectile saliva under libertarians holy Non-Aggression Principle, however, would be a different matter. Does the NAP justify disproportionate response? Dunno. A quick straw poll of libertarians on US self-defense against terrorists knocking down some really tall buildings in 2001 and the 16-year war waged since then might prove illuminating.
The relevant question is: what would the NAP allow as self-defense against the appearance of an attempt to perform juvenile micro-aggression? Would it allow more than the appearance of an attempt at self-defense?
The follow-on statist argument made by non-libertarian libertarians is, Yabbut spitting is assault, and attempting to spit is attempted assault. Both are crimes!
The State defines many things as crimes, including not buckling up, not buying health insurance, and smoking herbage. The State does these things because it can and because not enough people call them on it. Courts certainly arent about to do their duty and nullify laws made in excess of the governments defined power to make law. Not without a revolution waiting in the wings. Were supposed to be libertarians here; we understand that just because The State calls it a crime doesnt mean squat to libertarian political philosophy.
Assault-by-saliva is one of those crimes. It is childish and repulsive; nothing more.
Other excuses made for the arrest of this drunken strumpet over her outburst are that she was drunk in public, which is a crime. Again, just because The State calls it a crime
She was a possible danger to herself. But were still libertarians; The State is not defined to be our Mommy.
The government has an obligation to provide public safety. Apart from providing public safety being impossible without locking everyone up because theyre suspicious, it is only actually attempted by a police-state. A free country housing free citizens requires that the government only pester those who have actually committed crimes falling within the legitimate authority of that government to define crime, and then only when there is enough evidence to support pestering them over it. This drunken strumpet had done nothing that reached that lofty elevation; at most the police should have shooed her to a cab, or taken her home themselves.
She was asked to leave the comedy club; she was therefore trespassing. No, crime cannot retroactive, and trespassing is no different. She was escorted out of the comedy club to the sidewalk. where she stayed. partly because she was almost immediately handcuffed, but still. Among the crimes that she had not committed was especially trespassing.
Its real simple, here: were libertarians. We do not advise or condone the involvement of The State merely because of a squabble between self-interested private parties. In this case, the self-interests were a drunken strumpet who couldnt hold her liquor and a comedy club whose comedian couldnt handle a heckler. Liberty requires the freedom to squabble and the freedom to handle those squabbles privately, without The State.
If you want police in the vicinity just to make sure nothing gets out of hand fine. Hey, there mightve been a few barrel-chested libertarians wanting to take the opportunity to slug a drunken strumpet appearing to attempt to hock a loogie. But unless things do get out of hand, the cops are there, just like everyone else, to eat popcorn and watch the squabble.
Nor does being libertarian and reducing the involvement of The State to observer status mean that we condone anti-social behavior and immature outbursts. Even if those outbursts are First Amendment-protected and when directed at the cops largely accurate and deserved. It means we take videos on our smart phones and post them on the internet to serve as an object lesson in knowing ones upper limit on alcohol.
Non-state social sanction is, in the long run, a far better deterrent to these tantrums than heavy-handed police-statism if only because it deters a state becoming a police-state. Again: were libertarians; were supposed to live and breathe this philosophy. So live it and breathe it; own your philosophy. I shouldnt have to keep reminding everyone what they claim to stand for.
Link:
Diogenes, the Libertarian - The Libertarian Republic - The Libertarian Republic
When it comes to making libertarianism more marketable to people, Ive always tried to advocate realistic ideas. I looked at the issue of Medicare and Social Security and changed my tune from saying Abolish it! to Lets make it better and cheaper. I changed my tune on welfare and Medicaid from Oh hell no! to a more human stance of Hey, lets make it so everyone gets some coverage and food while still saving money. I also looked at a lot of issues from a budgetary standpoint, as well as the current tax code to realize how we can do things such as recovering existing student loans, better handle public schools, properly conduct defense, and more while having a small and efficient government which can be operated on a lean tax code and budget. I have worked to become the libertarian trying to equate policy into real policy which everyone from Ted Cruz to Bernie Sanders can vote for. That said: The minimum wage is fucking stupid.
When it comes to the minimum wage, I see it as the ultimate talk of government giving people fantasyland candy. Its just this magic thing to certain voters be it Democrats, independents and even Republicans where someone such as Bernie Sanders becomes this working man hero advocating such a God-awful idea as a $15 minimum wage. They actually gain votes spreading this lie that they could randomly in one signing of a pen to paper make someones wage double and have no consequences on that. It is a lie and its an issue where in no form, theres any real compromise which is going to be economically very viable.
From that, lets look at five ways you can change your friends minds and not come off like a complete prick.
Before we start, lets look at the top three ways people should absolutely not approach being against the minimum wage.
3. Why not $100 an hour?
This one is the most common way conservatives and libertarians currently do it and its not really getting them anywhere. The reason its so commonly used is its a truth. Why is $15 good, but why not $50 an hour? Why are you so greedy to stop at $15? It makes perfect sense and is a perfectly valid point.
Problem? From experience, its just an easy attack to walk off. Most people in the left will look at that and say I drink water to live, but too much and Im drowning. Its just something which makes them think an extreme was met over a real discussion and enters realms of over simplicity. For that reason, it doesnt work.
2. America Isnt Competitive With $15 An Hour!
This was a Donald Trump reason in one of the Republican debates. The problem, however, is it just doesnt make much sense. Go to a factory in America which is making hats, food products, or electronics, and everyone is making over $15 an hour. Go to a big plant such as Ford, GM, Apples American plants, or hundreds of others, and find workforces in factories making $20-50 an hour. Its just an argument that doesnt make much sense and only helps the left make the case that $15 is okay.
1. People need to work harder.
Do not go tell some barista at Starbucks making $10 an hour working 16 hour days that they just arent working hard enough. They probably are just a leftist loser, but just dont do it!
Okay, now on to the five ways to make people hate the minimum wage.
5. Cost of Living
This is just a basic one, but it relies on being more of a counter instead of a method of convincing people. The way it works is that a lot of pro-$15 minimum wage people say that Other countries have $15 minimum wages! The simplest counter is just pointing out that $15 in Australia or Denmark isnt $15 in Oklahoma. Americas cost of living is about 25-40% less than countries like Australia; making $15 there is more in tune with making $9-11 here. And thats just averaging the cost of living in America as a whole. If we factor in a state such as South Carolina, Oklahoma, or Louisiana, the cost of living there results in them having about the same minimum wage as Australia or Denmark.
Also, $15 in America would mean that, in about half of the states, the cost of living gets people what would be about $23 in Australia, which is quite insane.
4. Age
This one is sort of a compromise and not one Im a big fan of, but it is a decent one. Point out how other countries such as Australia and certain European nations have lower minimum wages for younger workers and it seems to help low skilled workers. After they agree, its a good gotcha and moves someone supporting the minimum wage to admitting Okay, the minimum wage can actually hurt some workers.
3. Make Things Cheaper
This approach is basically a method of just moving on from the minimum wage debate and getting people to focus on other issues. When someone says I want a $15 minimum wage!, it is sometimes a better counter to just change the topic by addressing the problem and creating a new solution. A very clean and nice way to counter a higher minimum wage would be to say I have researched the minimum wage and think raising the minimum wage is just too much of a risk; when I look at data, I see that it could cost the market jobs. Instead, I think we should focus on making reforms to lower the cost of energy, housing, food, healthcare, and education..
This just falls into a bit of a distraction method, but could just work to create a happier environment where they might still be pro-minimum wage, but wont be so whiny about it.
2. Helping the Underprivileged
Every time the minimum wage has been hiked in American history, theres been a hike in black unemployment. According to economist Antony Davies, raising the minimum wage just 20% would double unemployment for those without a high school degree.
A study on the $15 minimum wage found that the idea would result in a loss of five million low income jobs and that only 10% of people getting wage increases were from low income backgrounds.
These points help to show that the minimum wage is a tool which hurts the poor instead of helping it.
1. Reality
I dont really love always using economic examples, because Ive just noticed people dont normally get it. So this is an example I use and Id hope others can use it.
Lets look at a business founded by a colonel, that serves something they try to pass off as chicken: KFC.
The average KFC pays $9 an hour. Currently KFC runs a labor cost of 25% for the business. The average profit margin on a KFC is about 10% for the business. The average checkout average per person at KFC is $10. This means if prices went from $9 to $15 by force on the minimum wage labor cost on a KFC is now about 40% for the business. So, if KFC randomly became a nonprofit, theyd still run a loss on the $15 minimum wage hike. KFC is now left with really no situation where they dont just lay people off, cut other costs which likely cost jobs, cut profits which hurts jobs due to profit loss, or just raise prices hurting the consumers.
Conclusion
The simplest case to make is this: the minimum wage sucks, but keep it simple. Dont be angry, sound fixated on hating the poor, and acting rude to the left. This is a pretty easy issue to counter at the end of the day, and it should be an easy fix for a liberal.
This post was written by Charles Peralo.
The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.
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Five Ways to Get Friends to Hate Minimum Wage Laws - Being Libertarian
Paleolibertarian economist Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and progressive lawyer and internet troll Matt Bruenig, would appear to have little in common; yet they both have the same idea of what a libertarian world would look like.
In this two-part article (Part I is here), I argue that(1) the very idea of libertarianism that Bruenig claimslibertarians should be following (2) is not only compatible with, but looks like it would result in,Hoppes theorized libertarian society of the future; furthermore, while (3) Hoppes account of that societysuffers from serious flaws and errors, (4) Bruenigs account of that future society, being almost identical to Hoppes, has the same flaws and errors.
Hoppes vision of what a libertarian world of proprietary communities would look like seemsriddled with false assumptions. Let us examine a few:
(1) the restoration of private property rights and laissez-faire economics implies a sharp and drastic increase in social discrimination and will swiftly eliminate most if not all of the multi-cultural-egalitarian life style experiments.[1]
No; there is no reason discrimination would increase sharply or drastically. Some property owners might discriminate on this or that grounds, but there is no reason to think that everyone would: no reason to think that any original community would stop people of different races, religions, or sexual orientations, from living together in it. Nor is there any reason for a community to prohibit life style experiments, from same-sex marriage to rock n roll or hip-hop to marijuana use. Proprietary communities would be established for one reason only to protect the residents property rights, and with it the division of labor not for any of this other stuff.
(2) towns and villages could and would do what they did as a matter of course until well into the nineteenth century in Europe and the United States: to post signs regarding entrance requirements to the town, and once in town for entering specific pieces of property (no beggars,bums, or homeless, but also no Moslems, Hindus, Jews, Catholics, etc.); to expel as trespassersthose who do not fulfill these requirements.[1]
Yes, they could; but no, they probably would not. Why would any town or village in 21st-century America do, or even care about, what towns and villages did in 19th-century Europe? In todays America, Moslems, Hindus, Jews (both Sephardic and Ashkenazi), and Catholics (both Hispanic andHibernian) live and own property in existing small towns and villages all over the country. Whyin the world would they agree to a community covenant whereby they immediately had their realproperty seized and were expelled?
If Hoppe wanted to live in a community with such rules, he would be free to join with other grumpy old white men, leave, and found his own community somewhere; but he would have no power in any existing community to impose such rules on others.
(3) They [these confused libertarians] fantasized of a society where every one would be free to choose and cultivate whatever nonaggressive lifestyle, career, or character he wanted, and where, as a result of free-market economics, everyone could do so on an elevated level of generalprosperity.[1]
Why not? The only necessary criterion, for allowing someone to live in a libertarian proprietary community, would be whether or not his behavior was nonaggressive (in the standard libertarian sense). Communities might also require residents to be productive to support themselves by labor and exchange but even this would not be a necessity: communities could well have consensual welfare arrangements to take care of the old, the sick, the orphaned, et al. There is no reason for anyone to care about other citizens lifestyle, career, or even character, beyond the requirements of standard libertariannonaggression.
(4) every neighborhood would be described, and its risk assessed, in terms of a multitude of crime indicators, such as the composition of the inhabitants sexes, age groups, races,nationalities, ethnicities, religions, languages, professions, and incomes. [] insurers would be interested in excluding those whose presence leads to a higher risk and lower property values.. That is, rather than eliminating discrimination, insurers would rationalize and perfect its practice.[1]
No. First, there is no reason nationwide or even statewide insurance companies would exist without the state. Second, even if they did, there is no reason to think they would want to replace their present-day actuarial methods with the ones Hoppe imagines. Third, even if somedid that, there is no reason to think community residents would want to deal with them. Theriskiest group is young people 16-24, who consistently have the highest violent crime rates; buthow many communities would agree to expel everyone in that age group?
(5) There can be no tolerance towards democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centered lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism will have to bephysically removed from society too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order.[1]
No. The idea of expelling not just communists and parasites, but gays, hedonists, environmentalists, and even advocates of democracy is as silly as that of expelling all of the Hispanics and Irish. Would Hoppe be in favor of expelling someone who said things like the following?
For the sake of domestic peace, liberalism aims at democratic government. Democracy is therefore not a revolutionary institution. On the contrary it is the very means of preventing revolutions and civil wars. It provides a peaceful adjustment of government to the will of the majority.[11]
If so, Hoppe would be in favor of expelling Ludwig von Mises.
How does Hoppe reach such strange and erroneous conclusions? Only by imagining that what he would do, if free of government coercion, to be the same as what everyone would do if freed from government coercion. How he manages to conflate those two different things seems to rest on onemore error that he makes:
(6) In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists, not even to unlimited speech on ones own tenant-property.[1]
No, again. While communities with only one proprietor could conceivably exist, why would they? The first proprietary communities would be already existing communities with prior private property ownership, and they would be established specifically to defend that property. Why would their first act be to give up all their real property, along with their privacy and all otherownership rights, to someone else, even someone so eminent as a professor of economics from Nevada?
Rousseau believed that a social contract requires the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights,to the whole community.[12] Hoppe thinks they should be alienated to some sort of feudal lord instead. But there is no reason for the members of a proprietarycommunity to alienate any of their rights. Since, as Hoppe notes, the very purpose of the covenant [is]preserving and protecting private property, one would expect them to hang onto not only theirown real property, but as many rights to it as they could.
Since Bruenigs account of the libertarian future follows that of Hoppe, one would expect it to reflect all of Hoppes faults and errors. And indeed one would be correct.
One point needs emphasis. Bruenig considers Hoppe one of my favorite thinkers,[13] not because he has learned anything from Hoppe, but solely because of confirmation bias; because Hoppes views of libertarianism match Bruenigs own, already set views:
Whats interesting about Hoppe to me is that he sees exactly the things every critic of libertarianism sees. He sees that, in fact, totally unfettered private control over the resources of the world would be a brutal existence (if an existence at all) for the vast majorty ofpeople. Instead of denying these things are true (as many try to), he says they are absolutelytrue, and that constructing this private tyranny is precisely the point of libertarianism.[1]
So, while sometimes Bruenig hides his opinions of libertarianism behind phrases like according to Hoppe, those instances can be dismissed as mere semantic games. Bruenig is not merely describing Hoppes opinions, but also claiming that those opinions are fact and truth (or, in other words, Bruenigs opinions).
With that out of the way, one can turn to evaluating Bruenigs opinion of the libertarian future:
(1) a libertarian world is one in which we all basically live in these private gated communities that are generally managed by big landowners and their insurance companies (the insurance company is also the private police, by the way). The whole world will get chopped into what amount to gated communities, and insurance companies will decide who can live in them and who cant by looking at things like race, gender, class, age, and so on.[1]
No. While gated communities would probably exist in a libertarian world (and almost certainly would exist in Bruenigs Grab World), there is no reason to think the whole world will be chopped into them and that everyone would live in them. Neither is there any reason, or much likelihood,that insurance companies would be the ones to decide who lives in them. There is none at all tothink those companieswould become the police. Insurance companies are based on a profitable business model. An insurance company could see further opportunities for profit by getting into the police business; but so could any other company or entrepreneur.
Not only are most of Bruenigs assumptions here unlikely; two of them that we all will live in his gated communities, and that simultaneously his insurance companies will be deciding that a huge number of people cant live in them are also contradictory.
(2) [Insurance companies] biggest function will be to discriminate against people, and keep people of color, poor people, religious minorities, and so on from the good and civilized people.[1]
As noted, it is impossible both that everyone will live in Bruenigs gated communities and that many if not most people will be kept from living in them. To be charitable, Bruenig might be interpreted to mean (even though he doesnt say) that there will be separate gated communities catering to people of one color, one economic group, one religious minority, and so on. Theremight, but that would depend both on the strength of peoples prejudices, and on how much they value their prejudices over other things. One would expect both to be low in most communities, simply due to the fact that people with strong prejudices could go off and live in communities of their own.
(3) you cant be gay, polyamorous, a bum, or Jewish in this libertarian utopia.[1]
Why not? A person building and selling homes in a community would likely sell none to bums (if by that Bruenig means people with no money to buy them), but why would they refuse to sell them to the rest of Bruenigs list? How would they even know a persons religion or sexual partners without extensive and expensive background checks; and why would they take on that expense just to limit their customers? As noted, people who did care about those things could ghettoize into non-gay or non-Jewish communities, but that would simply lower anti-gay and anti-Jewish prejudice in thecommunities they left.
Besides, as Walter Block points out, suppose that the town or village passed a law prohibiting the entry of a bum, a Jew, or a Christian into the town, but that one of the local property owners wanted to invite such a person into his house or store. Then, for the town council to forbid this access would be a violation of private property rights.[15] Similarly, if a builderwanted to sell to a gay or a Jew, for a community government to forbid that would actuallyviolate property rights. Remember that the purpose of these communities would be defend property rights, not to violate them.
(4) in a world of a true lock down on private property, with no regulation on how such property might be used, there would be unbelievable amounts of social coercion to prevent people fromliving the lives theyd like.[1]
This claim of Bruenigs looks positively bizarre. In standard libertarian theory, private property in homes is important precisely because it allows people to live the lives theyd like on their own property. But not in Bruenigs version; as he sees it, the government in the future libertarian world will not and cannot tolerate people chattering about democratic governance and other evil things[1] in their own homes, any more than it will tolerate their having sex with whom they like in their own homes. And that is by no means all that a government will forbid; government intolerance would extend to vulgarity, obscenity, profanity, drug use, promiscuity, pornography, prostitution, homosexuality, polygamy, pedophilia or any other conceivable perversity or abnormality.[1]
It is bad enough that Bruenig sees this sort of government regulation of private property as no regulation, and worse that he calls it libertarian. But it gets even worse when one considers how such regulations could possibly be enforced. How could a community government knowwhether property owners are entertaining forbidden guests, taking forbidden drugs, having forbidden sex, practicing forbidden religions, listening to forbidden music, reading forbidden books, or saying forbidden things in their homes? Only by having the power to enter and search their homes at any time, and the power to monitor all their conversations.
Not only would Bruenigs libertarianism dispense with freedom of speech and religion, but also the security of person or property against unwarranted searches, surveillance, and seizures
(5) But thats not all. What happens if Bruenig-style libertarian governments find a property owner doing any of those forbidden things? Why, then They will violently exile such people.[1] And again: If you make statements against Hoppes politics, are a nature lover, or are gay [oranything else on Bruenigs lists] you will be expelled from society. [1; stress inoriginal].
Not only do Bruenigs libertarian governments have the power to regulate what people do on their own property; not only do they have the power to search and surveil property owners without the owners consent; they also have the power to throw property owners out of their own homes and expropriate the homes.
To sum up: In Hoppes account of the libertarian world (and also Bruenigs, as he calls Hoppes the true account), individuals would have few if any rights, including few if any property rights. How did the two of them come to reach such bizarre conclusions? Why do they think that an ideology based on individual rights would turn around and practise the exact opposite? There seem to be two reasons, both based on confusion.
The first confusion seems to lie in Bruenigs use of the term the libertarian utopia to describe Hoppes preferred community organization. Both Hoppe and Bruenig assume that, in their postulated libertarian world, all the communities will be the same: that members will have the same beliefs, tastes, and preferences, and those norms will be what every community government enforces. Perhaps it is understandable that Hoppe conflates his own preferred norms with those of every libertarian, indeed of every property owner. It is less understandable that Bruenig does the same thing, considering that those do not seem to be his preferred norms; his motive appears to be only to caricature libertarian ideas. In any case, this looks like simple confusion.
Robert Nozick (whom Bruenig claims to have read) points out that, in a libertarian society individual communities can have any character compatible with the operation of the framework.[15, 325] Byframwork he means the background law governing relations between communities, protectingpeoples right to leave communities, and the like. As Nozick sees it, the framework isequivalent to the minimal state.[15, 333] In contrast, within that framework, individual communities will not correspond to any one form of organization or set of rules: There will notbe one kind of community existing and one kind of life led in utopia. Utopia will consist ofutopias, of many different and divergent communities in which people lead different kinds oflives under different institutions.[15, 311-312]
The second confusion seems to lie in their account of private property. While both describe thesituation in these communities as being based on private property, both assume a state ofaffairs in which private property does not exist. In Hoppean communities, all property is owned by its ruler(whom Hoppe actually calls the proprietor). He may assign property to individuals, and even tell them that hiscommunity covenant is for the protection of their privateproperty, but this is merely a bait-and-switch. In fact they remain mere tenants, and theirhomes and land merely tenant-property.[1] Real ownership is always held by the ruler.
In this case, Bruenigs confusion (given his ideological prefrence for state property) is themore understandable; he appears to sincerely believe that all property is given (or should begiven) by the government, and is (or should be) owned only by permission of the government. Hoppe , on the other hand, seems motivated only by narcissism; since he wants property owners to dowhat and only what he would do, he imagines himself the sole proprietor. But whatever the reason, the idea of a government that lets people alone to live the way they would like to live is incomprehensible to both of them. Both seem unable to imagine that rational people might have different preferences from them.
As strange as their beliefs are, a free society could still accommodate both of them: it would leave Hoppe free to set up his racist community and Bruenig to set up his socialist community. However, it would also leave others free to reject their two communties, and limit their communities success to their ability to persuade others rather than forcing them. Which explains why both, in their own way, reject theidea of a free society.
[1] Matt Bruenig, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Libertarian Extraordinaire, Demos, September 11, 2013.http://www.demos.org/blog/9/11/13/hans-hermann-hoppe-libertarian-extraordinaire
[11] Ludwig von Mises, Human Action. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1949, 150. Print.
[12] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (translated by Jonathan Bennett), Early ModernTexts, December, 2010. Web, Jan. 12, 2017.http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/rousseau1762.pdf
[13] Matt Bruenig, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Libertarian Theoretical Historian, Demos, December 31,2014. http://www.demos.org/blog/12/31/14/hans-hermann-hoppe-libertarian-theoretical-historian
[14] Walter Block, Plumbline Libertarianism: A critique of Hoppe, Reason Papers 29, 161.https://reasonpapers.com/pdf/29/rp_29_10.pdf
[15] Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books, 1974. Print.
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On Thursday, ex-FBI Director James Comey took to Capitol Hill to testify before Congress about the ongoing Trump-Russia scandal.
Over 19 million people tuned in as mainstream news outlets such as CNN and NBC streamed it live. It was anticipated to be the moment of confirmation for the lefts allegations that have been swirling around Trump the past six months. On the right, though, it was supposed to be the vindication the Republicans have long been waiting for. Which side ended up being the winner, you ask? Unfortunately, yet unsurprisingly, after all was said and done, both sides came away still clinging to their preconceived biases, regardless of what was said in the testimony. Although tiresome to those of us impartial on the matter, it did provide several notable insights, both good and bad.
Thursdays charade helped solidify the notion from libertarians that the right and left are one in the same. As if watching both parties trip over themselves as they quietly teeter-tottered with their love-hate relationship for Comey during the past few months wasnt enough. Try as they might to deny this sobering reality, though, Comeys testimony provided more than enough evidence.
Unfortunately, the bad comes as the realization that the past is repeating itself. We were forced to endure Republicans mindlessly yammering about Obamas birth certificate and Muslim background for eight years while the left venerated itself as the party of truth, incessantly pointing out the total lack of any shred of evidence. Yet, as of Thursday, we now see the exact same grandstanding from the right as Comeys testimony showed the Russia allegations contain precisely the same amount of evidence as the Obama birther stories. Simultaneously, Democrats are needlessly clinging to a story so baseless and idiotic, its on its way to make the birther movement look mundane. Meanwhile, anyone not caught up in the denigration could have honestly concluded this to be the end of the story, but as history and politics have shown us, no matter how inane an accusation turns out to be, it can be kept alive with repetitive propaganda. We should expect this case to be no different.
With Republicans and Democrats drowning themselves out in a sea of lunacy, however, we can focus on the positive takeaway of the event, which is that, sooner or later, regardless of what either party does, people will wake up to the fact that they are opposite sides of the same, incompetent coin. Both parties cant help but prop up fools time and again, and then shoot themselves in the foot as they attempt to save face for their inadequacies. Whether that be an eloquent speaker whose omnibus healthcare plan sunk faster than the Titanic, or a real-estate mogul who is showing an ability to single-handedly ruin international relations through itchy Twitter-fingers.
For those of us with the ability to objectively deduce the truth in these matters, we see that fact with each new revelation. Obama, as it turns out, was not a foreign-born Muslim bent on selling out Americas interests. Rather, he was simply a dishonest, bungling stooge, who continued the trend of a failing foreign policy, a broken healthcare system, and carelessly added to our overwhelming debt. Likewise, Trump is not a Manchurian candidate for Putin. Rather, he is simply an ill-mannered, inexperienced narcissist, who will further antagonize our broken foreign policy, fail to fix our healthcare system, and continue turning a blind-eye towards our insurmountable debt.
In the end, as much as either side tries to hide it, each time an event like this occurs it further reveals the frail, inefficient characters behind the curtain, fumbling to keep the sham in Oz I mean D.C. alive. And although the testimony failed to materialize as the perceived second coming, as neither the rapture nor salvation for either party, it did prove to be a tiny glimmer of hope for those of us looking for evidence as to why a change independent of the two-party system is not only indispensable, but inevitable, which makes us the real winners in this calamity.
This post was written by Thomas J. Eckert.
The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.
Thomas J. Eckert is college grad with an interest in politics. He studies economics and history and writes in his spare time on political and economic current events.
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Democrats Commit Suicide by Testimony The Lowdown On Liberty - Being Libertarian (satire)
Progressive lawyer, online pundit, and internet troll Matt Bruenig has a question forlibertarians: My first question for Cato and libertarians more generally is this: What is upwith Hans-Hermann Hoppe?[1]
I wish I could respond, Who? Alas, I am well aware of Hoppe. Many libertarians and other readers, though, may have just that response. Fortunately, Bruenig hasprovide an introduction:
For the unacquainted, Hoppe is a very prominent libertarian academic, certainly well knownwithin intellectual libertarian circles. He ironically works at the University of Nevada as aneconomics professor, making him a public employee. He publishes frequently in libertarianacademic journals, is a Distinguished Fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, founded theProperty & Freedom Society, is frequently referenced by other libertarians as one of them, and[authored a] 2001 book Democracy: The God That Failed. It is a tad on the long side, but itsreally good, the [following] quotes especially.[1]
We will look at Bruenigs quotes later. For now it is enough to say that, while Hoppe does have followers who self-identify as libertarians, many if not most libertarians who know of him want nothing to do with him.
Here is an assessment of Hoppe that I suspect many libertarians who have read him or his admirerswould accept:
The errors of Hans-Hermann Hoppe are regrettable for two reasons: Firstly, Hoppe is a highlyintelligent and well-educated economist who for whatever reasons fails to notice when he doesdamage to the values of freedom and property, which he claims to support. This is the tragicpersonal side of Hans-Hermann Hoppe. But it is also tragic for academic discussions: At a timewhen we are surrounded by ever growing welfare states we badly need thinkers like Hoppe to showus how to tackle todays problems. But instead of doing that, Hoppe prefers to take refuge in hispipe dreams of a so-called natural order, which rather resembles the abyss of a variation ofright-wing totalitarianism. For all these reasons, for all his errors and mistakes and for hiswrong-headed methodology we may expect Hoppes ideas to remain a footnote in the history ofpolitical thought. And it may well be better this way. An effective strategy of liberation wouldlook very different. If Hoppe continues to use the terms liberalism and freedom for hisauthoritarian and pseudo-liberal agenda, it is time for the true liberals to claim back theseterms from him.[2]
It is only necessary to add that (1) the very idea of libertarianism that Bruenig claimslibertarians should be following (2) is not only compatible with, but looks like it would result in,Hoppes theorized libertarian society of the future; furthermore, while (3) Hoppes account of that societysuffers from serious flaws and errors, (4) Bruenigs account of that future society, being based on his reading of Hoppe, has the same flaws and errors. Making those four points is easy enough, but demonstrating them requires a bit more work.
Bruenig believes that libertarians should advocate for an ideal state of affairs that he calls Grab-what-you-can world or Grab World. He claims that this is the only possible world compatible with thelibertarian core belief (or set of beliefs) that are referred to under the label of the Non-Aggression Principle or NAP:
The world which follows the non-aggression principle is the one Roderick Long calls the grab-what-you-can world' this quote [from Long] clearly describes the only world that followsthenon-aggression principle the grab-what-you-can world satisfies the non-aggressionprinciple andno other world does almost everyone opposes following the non-aggressionprinciple as itrequires the grab-what-you-can world the grab-what-you-can world is theworld that follows thenon-aggression principle.[3]
This claim follows from Bruenigs definition of force, which is not the standard libertarianone. By his definition, theft, embezzlement, fraud, looting, and other property offensesshould not be considered uses of force: a property offense involves no force (strictly defined) becauseno body has been attacked.[4] By this definition that force is just attacking other peoplesbodies Bruenig reasons his way to Grab World:
Its simple: 1) grabbing pieces of the world does not, by itself, involve initiating forceagainst other people (if it did, then all resource use would be considered aggression), and 2)attacking someone for grabbing up a piece of the world does involve initiating force againstother people.[3]
In Grab World, there is only one law, the Basic Rule: You may not act upon the bodies of otherswithout their consent.[4] Everything else, including the property crimes listed above, wouldbe legal.From this Rule follows the idea of Grab World, as envisioned by its creator, Roderick Long (thelibertarian philosopher from whom Bruenig grabbed the idea):
Imagine a world in which people freely expropriate other peoples possessions; nobody initiatesforce directly against another persons body, but subject to that constraint, people regularlygrab any external resource they can get their hands on, regardless of who has made or been usingthe resource. Any conception of aggression according to which the world so described is free ofaggression is not a plausible one.[5]
Plausibly or not, Grab World is free from aggression (the initiation of force) as Bruenig definesit: in the libertarian set, there seems to be severe difficulties with distinguishing betweenwhat we might call Actual Initiation (defined as who touched who first) and IdeologicalInitiation[6]. What [libertarians] actually mean by initiation of force is not some neutral notionof hauling off and physically attacking someone.[7]
David S. Amato points out that Bruenigs criterion of Actual Initiation as touching would not includepointing a gun at someone else: even the mugger doesnt, underBruenigs Actual Initiation standard, initiate force against his victim, at least notnecessarily. Pointing a gun at someone, with the desired goal of taking his money or possessions,doesnt require the mugger to touch the victim, to make any actual, physical contact.[5] Nor, for that matter, would pulling the trigger. But to be charitable,that conclusion should probably be chalked up to Bruenigs sloppy writing rather than his actualbeliefs; it is reasonable to think that he includes shooting and threatening people with guns,bows and arrows, and bombs as examples of the use of force as well as mere touching.
What seems less reasonable is to imagine the Grab World state of affairs obtaining in reality.Grab World would require a society of pacifists (as, by stipulation, nobody initiates forcedirectly against another persons body). But while difficult to conceive, it is not logicallyimpossible. As a youth I read a speculative fiction novel by Damon Knight, Rule Golden, in whichthe galactic overlords unleashed a gas upon earth which caused everyone who physically hurt another personto experience the victims pain; those who killed others would die.[8] Anyone with enoughimagination could probably think of other ways for Grab World to be instantiated.
So far, so good. But Bruenig makes assumptions about Grab World that do not look so reasonable.Among them:
(1) It is more or less communism, yes.[9] No, it is not. It may resemble the ultimate communistsociety that Karl Marx envisioned; but it rules out any chance to establish the dictatorship of theproletariat that Marx saw as being necessary to get there. In the dictatorship stage, which isall that every self-proclaimed Communist regime has ever reached, there is plenty of property; itjust all belongs to the state. Property rules against trespass, theft, and the like have alwaysbeen enforced by the states violence and bloodshed (as Bruenig likes to call it) under thoseregimes just as strongly as in states with private property; even more violently and bloodily, in many cases.
(2) there is a state that is preventing people from assaulting and battering and the like.[9]Wrong again. States require a division of labor society which in turn requires an exchangeeconomy: since those enforcing the Basic Rule are losing the opportunity to grab or produce goodsand resources or themselves, they must be supported by those who are doing the latter. ButBruenig forecasts that, on grab world, exchange would initially break down completely:
there is no such thing as a non-coercive trade. All trades rely upon violent coercion. I onlytrade with someone because they have a violence voucher that they will redeem [from the state] if I decide to actupon the piece of the world without doing so. They only trade with me for the same reason. If yougot rid of the coercion, which is to say you got rid of violence vouchers, no trading wouldoccur.[6]
Without the possibility of exchange, production of consumer goods would grind to a halt; whowould buy them, when one could just loot for them? But with nothing being produced, at a certainpoint people would start running out of stores to loot; then where would a state get its tools ofviolence, its guns, handcuffs, police cars, prisons, tanks, fighter planes, and all the rest?Given Grab Worlds universal pacifism, those are not things they could go around and grabfrom just anyone.
Even if the state did get manage to get supplied with its tools of violence, it could not usethem, as that would be acting on the bodies of others without their consent, just as it is today.No one could be physically detained, arrested, or held at gunpoint (much less shot) in Grab World. No one couldbe jailed or placed under house arrest awaiting trial, physically compelled to attend a trial(including witnesses or jurors as well as defendants), or punished physically, including byimprisonment, if convicted.
Since Bruenigs Basic Rule forbids anyone to act on the bodies of others, it forbids its ownenforcement. All a state could do to anyone violating Bruenigs Rule, without itself violating the Rule, would be to grab things from him; in other words, the Basic Rule would forbid anyone fromtreating those who violate it any differently from non-violators. That would mean the end of thestate as we know it, and as we have known it for all of recorded history.
(3) It is a propertyless society.[9] There is no reason to think so. As Bruenig admits, there is nothing in Grab World stopping people from developing their own rules and conventions, which could include rules against taking each others property, invading each others homes,killing each others pets, and the like. Those rules could of course include standard libertarianrules respecting property rights, as they would be consensual, and therefore could include allowing others to useforce in response to cases of theft and so on.[11]
Since in communities with such rules, and those communities only, people would be able to produce and tradegoods, it is reasonable to imagine them as coming into immediate being in actual communities;villages and small towns where people know and trust each other. Only such communities could givepeople the property security, and the division of labor, necessary to maintain a more-thanstarvation existence after the cities were looted. However, they could do so only byinstantiating property rights through voluntary community covenants.
It is easy to imagine these proprietary communities expanding to the size of whole counties,walled or fenced off and guarded against outsiders. It would be easy enough (and not necessarilyinvolve any touching) to restrict admission only to those who consented to the community rules onforce. One can even imagine a flood of refugees to them from the cities, all of whom were admitted would haveconsented to the standard libertarian view of defensive force.
Outsiders like Bruenig would still have the negative liberty to invade and loot communities, andsome might do just that; but there is no reason communities would have to merely let them do it.Non-consenters could climb fences, or cut holes in them, to get in to do their looting; but toget out again they would have to let go of their loot; at which point a community police or possecould simply grab it all back. Would-be looters could also tunnel under fences; but communitydefenders could simply destroy the tunnels. (Question for any Bruenig Bros reading: woulddestroying a tunnel with looters in it count as attacking them?)
I have written elsewhere on this evolution.[10] To sum up:rather than a propertyless society, Grab World looks like it would evolve into thestateless world of proprietary communities envisioned by Hoppe, where political power isstripped from the hands of the central government and reassigned to the states, provinces,cities, towns, villages, residential districts, and ultimately to private property owners andtheir voluntary associations.[1]
However, the vision of those libertarian communities imagined by Hoppe looks completely flawed,riddled with conceptual errors. Those errors in turn inspire Bruenig to adopt a similarly flawedaccount filled with the same errors. Documenting that assessment, though, must wait for now.
[1] Matt Bruenig, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Libertarian Extraordinaire, Demos, September 11, 2013. http://www.demos.org/blog/9/11/13/hans-hermann-hoppe-libertarian-extraordinaire
[2] Oliver Hartwich, The Errors of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Open Republic Magazine (Dublin) 1:2 (October 2005). Web, June 9, 2017. https://oliverhartwich.com/2005/10/10/the-errors-of-hans-hermann-hoppe/
[3] Matt Bruenig, What a World Following the Non-Aggression Principle Looks Like, Demos, January 29, 2014. http://www.demos.org/blog/1/29/14/what-world-following-non-aggression-principle-looks
[4] Matt Bruenig, The Lesson of Grab What You Can, Demos, June 3, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140606193500/http://www.demos.org/blog/6/3/14/lesson-grab-what-you-can
[5] David S. Amato, Against Grab World, Libertarianism.org, October 15, 2015. https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/against-grab-world
[6] Matt Bruenig, Violence Vouchers: A descriptive account of property, Matt Bruenig Politics, March 28, 2014. http://mattbruenig.com/2014/03/28/violence-vouchers-a-descriptive-account-of-property/
[7] Matt Bruenig, Can you sustain an economic philosophy solely by begging the question?. Matt Bruenig Politics, October 7,2015. http://mattbruenig.com/2015/10/02/can-you-sustain-an-economic-philosophy-solely-by-begging-the-question/
[8] Damon Knight, Rule Golden, Three Novels. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Print.
[9] Matt Bruenig, Comment, June 23, 2014, to Bruenig, Pick-up basketball and grab what you can. Matt Bruenig Politics, June 22, 2014. http://mattbruenig.com/2014/06/22/pick-up-basketball-and-grab-what-you-can/
[10] George J. Dance, Grab World, Nolan Chart, May 26, 2017. https://www.nolanchart.com/grab-world
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A few weeks back, the Mohave County Libertarian Party was meeting on a Thursday night at Kingmans Black Bridge Brewery, and we were talking about the array of misconceptions about the Libertarian Party.
We decided that theres a lot of misinformation out there, so I took it upon myself as the Treasurer of the Mohave County Libertarian Party to write this to get a few things straight.
I believe that theres a lot of misinformation. It has been suggested that we Libertarians are in the same realm as the resistance, also known as the indivisible group. Two groups that, from my understanding, decided the Democratic National Committee was too conservative, and theyre a fringe sect to the left of conventional DNC thinking.
Often people see the word libertarian and think liberal the word libertarian actually derives from the word liberty; not so coincidentally, one of the symbols often used by the Libertarian Party is the Statue of Liberty.
Generally the Libertarian party has a platform of the following: Small or almost nonexistent government; limited, if no taxes whatsoever; unfettered individual rights; people taking individual responsibility; noninterference with foreign nations issues; and open and free markets. This is to name a few of the basic principles of the Libertarian Party. It can be boiled down even further to the following notion: We leave you alone, you leave us alone. The Libertarian Party has also been described as socially liberal, fiscally conservative, which I suppose is fair. Our party is relatively new, formed in 1971, but were growing. The 2016 election saw many new registered Libertarians and although we didnt have any federal wins our win was the fact that we received 4.5 million votes, or in other terms, 3.2 million more votes than our last go during the 2012 general election. That speaks volumes 3.2 million fed-up voters.
We simply want this great Republic to once again be for the people not the select few elected to office. If you want to hear more about what were all about, please come join us for a beer at 6 p.m. on the second Thursday of every month at Black Bridge Brewery in Kingman.
Treasurer, Mohave County Libertarian Party
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Jacob Story: Mohave County Libertarians clear up some misconceptions - Today's News-Herald
By now most of us have read the articles and laughed, and some of us have watched the videos and guffawed. A drunken strumpet having a bad hair day gets booted from a comedy club, then arrested, and then lays into the cops in slurring, vitriolic invective. She [it was a woman] attempts to parlay her status as a television reporter into some kind of Get Out Of Jail Free card it doesnt work. Another comedian at the club records her performance art on his phone and posts it to the internet. The following day she claims, though her family attorney, to have been drugged. She was fired from her television reporting job anyway.
It was a classic object lesson in the negative aspects of self-important, anti-social tantrum. She was charged with disorderly conduct, criminal mischief [whatever that is], and resisting arrest. Resisting arrest is the pile-on feel-good charge offered up when cops dont really have anything substantive. We never see murderers or armed robbers charged with murder or armed robbery and resisting arrest. Whenever resisting arrest is announced, its fairly prima facie that the major issue is that the cops ego was bruised, the poor dears.
The essential sequence of events is this: * Drunken strumpet heckles performer * Performer cant handle heckler * Club employees escort drunken strumpet from venue to public sidewalk where cops were waiting * Cops confront drunken strumpet about her actions inside venue * Drunken strumpet lambastes cops for being, well, cops * Cops cuff drunken strumpet * Drunken strumpet continues to berate cops * Cops eventually haul her away
What happened next, though, is Grade-A statist apologism and rationalization. People the nation over cheered and huzzahed. Many manly he-men volunteered assorted fisticuffs to punctuate their disapproval of her actions. It would be one thing and completely understandable, if still distasteful were these statist apologists the standard democrats and republicans who celebrate hyper-reactive government involvement in nearly every aspect of human interaction. But they werent.
They claimed to be libertarians, which makes it inexcusable.
The worst part about it, none of those professing to possess libertarian sensibilities could understand why their hairy chest-pounding was putrid statism.
The first and most common excuse offered up is that the woman at the center of the nothingness assaulted someone by spitting. First there was nothing in any of the written accounts that asserts she definitively spit on anyone. Second were supposed to be libertarians here. Spitting is, under the worst of circumstances, little more than a second graders preferred method of making the girls in class run screeching, next to eating bugs and turning eyelids inside out. Big-girl panties, guys; pull em up.
To be fair, there were multiple accounts stating that the cop-denouncing woman and I will quote from one of those accounts appeared to attempt to spit, but the target of her expectoration changed from version to version, rendering the accusation suspect at best and contrived at worst. I have no doubt, though, from what I remember about my, and observed in others, bouts of pronounced drunkenness that more than a few people in her vicinity were hit with spittle from the volume and relentlessness of her tirading. But spray is not the same thing as hocking a loogie.
Yet it was over this assault-by-saliva claim that most of the ahem libertarians offered to deconstruct the orthodontics her parents had paid for. Self-defense, more than one suggested.
Sorry, no. Self-defense, under law, permits only those actions which are necessary to prevent another similar assault, while using the minimum force available. Someone spitting at you is not justifiably met with a punch to the teeth any more than it is justifiably met with a folding chair across the shoulders or a gunshot to the torso. Minimum necessary force to prevent being spat upon a second time by a woman handcuffed by police consists of moving out of loogie-range, and not a lot else.
Self-defense against projectile saliva under libertarians holy Non-Aggression Principle, however, would be a different matter. Does the NAP justify disproportionate response? Dunno. A quick straw poll of libertarians on US self-defense against terrorists knocking down some really tall buildings in 2001 and the 16-year war waged since then might prove illuminating.
The relevant question is: what would the NAP allow as self-defense against the appearance of an attempt to perform juvenile micro-aggression? Would it allow more than the appearance of an attempt at self-defense?
The follow-on statist argument made by non-libertarian libertarians is, Yabbut spitting is assault, and attempting to spit is attempted assault. Both are crimes!
The State defines many things as crimes, including not buckling up, not buying health insurance, and smoking herbage. The State does these things because it can and because not enough people call them on it. Courts certainly arent about to do their duty and nullify laws made in excess of the governments defined power to make law. Not without a revolution waiting in the wings. Were supposed to be libertarians here; we understand that just because The State calls it a crime doesnt mean squat to libertarian political philosophy.
Assault-by-saliva is one of those crimes. It is childish and repulsive; nothing more.
Other excuses made for the arrest of this drunken strumpet over her outburst are that she was drunk in public, which is a crime. Again, just because The State calls it a crime
She was a possible danger to herself. But were still libertarians; The State is not defined to be our Mommy.
The government has an obligation to provide public safety. Apart from providing public safety being impossible without locking everyone up because theyre suspicious, it is only actually attempted by a police-state. A free country housing free citizens requires that the government only pester those who have actually committed crimes falling within the legitimate authority of that government to define crime, and then only when there is enough evidence to support pestering them over it. This drunken strumpet had done nothing that reached that lofty elevation; at most the police should have shooed her to a cab, or taken her home themselves.
She was asked to leave the comedy club; she was therefore trespassing. No, crime cannot retroactive, and trespassing is no different. She was escorted out of the comedy club to the sidewalk. where she stayed. partly because she was almost immediately handcuffed, but still. Among the crimes that she had not committed was especially trespassing.
Its real simple, here: were libertarians. We do not advise or condone the involvement of The State merely because of a squabble between self-interested private parties. In this case, the self-interests were a drunken strumpet who couldnt hold her liquor and a comedy club whose comedian couldnt handle a heckler. Liberty requires the freedom to squabble and the freedom to handle those squabbles privately, without The State.
If you want police in the vicinity just to make sure nothing gets out of hand fine. Hey, there mightve been a few barrel-chested libertarians wanting to take the opportunity to slug a drunken strumpet appearing to attempt to hock a loogie. But unless things do get out of hand, the cops are there, just like everyone else, to eat popcorn and watch the squabble.
Nor does being libertarian and reducing the involvement of The State to observer status mean that we condone anti-social behavior and immature outbursts. Even if those outbursts are First Amendment-protected and when directed at the cops largely accurate and deserved. It means we take videos on our smart phones and post them on the internet to serve as an object lesson in knowing ones upper limit on alcohol.
Non-state social sanction is, in the long run, a far better deterrent to these tantrums than heavy-handed police-statism if only because it deters a state becoming a police-state. Again: were libertarians; were supposed to live and breathe this philosophy. So live it and breathe it; own your philosophy. I shouldnt have to keep reminding everyone what they claim to stand for.
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