Monthly Archives: March 2017

Over the past weekend in Westminster, Colorado there was a gathering of a political party that values your privacy above all else the Libertarians. All political parties are private clubs that hold conventions annually, in every level of government, to determine their platform, the candidates they want to promote or nominate and to rally the support of their base. We caught up with the young third party that is starting to make real waves in the political landscape. After upsetting the 2016 presidential election their foot is in the door and they are not going to back down until they are fully on the national stage. Pulling values from the center left and right politically whileputting full focus on personal freedom andlaissez-faire capitalism the LibertarianParty might be exactly what the framers had in mind.

The Libertarian Party was founded in 1971 in Colorado and had its first national convention one year later in 1972. The 70s were the prime time for a party focused on personal freedoms and non-government interference to spring up. At that time, the mistrust of government spurned by the Vietnam war, the highly active civil rights movement and the oncoming War on Drugs that would cost trillions of dollars would push certain citizens of theUnited States to say back off to the federal level of government and watch it to the local levels. The Libertarian Platform continues to reflect these simple principles today. As of July 2016, 144 Libertarians held elected seats in 34 states including three congressional seats. But many Americans had not heard about the Partyuntil the 2016 presidential election when Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson and running mate Bill Weld swept up 4.4 million votes nationwide 3.3 percent of all votes counted and more than all other third party candidates combined. The Libertarian presence in Colorados 2016 presidential election was even larger than the national average with the Libertarian ticket pulling in 5 percentof the vote five times as much as the next largest third party, the Green Party.We went to the Colorado Libertarian Convention to find out what the party can bring to Coloradans and what a Libertarian country would look like.

Libertarians Are the Largest Third Party in the US Photo by Traci Hanner

Saturday and Sunday morning were given to in-house Party Business at the Westin Hotel in Westminster. Higher ups and those passionate about policy, which in Libertarian terms usually means removing it, set to updating guidelines, giving reports and tallying membership to try and get more delegates to the National Convention. Having additional delegates from Colorado at the national convention raises the say they have in picking a presidential nominee and with the success of the last election there was a renewed urgency to get people officially signed up and counted.

Saturday afternoon is where the real discussions of applying the platform to daily life took place. Many seminars tackled attempting to get a third party onto a ballot, into a national debate or were just about the best way to spread the message of the party. While laws vary depending on where you are running they are set by the two parties already in control (Democrats and Republicans) and often require extensive support or membership and sometimes there is a financial component making it very difficult for third party candidates to break through the bureaucracy and be seen on the national stage. Local elections can be easier but without membership there is no cash flow and without money it can be hard to promote a candidate or get a strong media message across.

Approval Based Voting Was a Huge Discussion In the Effort to Support 3rd Parties Photo by Traci Hanner

Other seminars were related more to what a Libertarian world would look like: The effects of government interference in business, ending the war on drugs and the prohibition of all controlled substances and legalizing prostitution and sex work. Sarah Peterson is a travelingspeaker and sex worker rights advocate. Her seminar on full legalization of prostitution was titledWhen Helping is Hurtingand discussedthe resources that would be freed up by allowing consenting adults to perform sexual acts for money or goods. She opened up about a common belief in the Libertarian community that arresting non-violent offenders is tantamount to putting humans in cages for no reason:

We, [libertarians], offer solutions and care about people. We have been working to decriminalize drugs since 1971 and prostitution since the beginning. We want people to have personal liberty and personal responsibility, they go hand in hand. Liberty, when in place, will create a happier environment, we wont have people in cages for non-violent crimes [] Libertarianism is where were going to end up. It will be a natural progress.

Sarah Stewart is a Sex Worker Rights Advocate and Circuit Speaker Photo by Brittany Werges

In addition to the seminars and party business, Saturday offered an array of Libertarian business, entertainment and related organizations to showcase their goods, platforms and wares. The young men from Major League Libertarians came to promote their podcast and live streamed videos. The MLLs Facebook Pagehas a ton of content and discussions relevant to young libertarians in Colorado, they also posted a ton of content from the convention itself.

The MLL Podcast Crew Discusses their Views Photo by Traci Hanner

Saturday night culminated in a gala style banquet with high profile circuit speakers talking about upcoming legislation and their respective bids to bring Libertarian values to different levels of government across the United States.

Brian Rogers summed up two very important parts of Libertarian doctrine in his seminar titled Government Interference in Business, What then is business if government is going to interfere in it? This question drives the majority of Libertarian Principle the idea that a free and unregulated market will regulate itself. Libertarians believe that the majority of restrictions that the government places on the free market are designed to eliminate competition of existing special interests or to gross extra funds for the government in the form of fees, dues and fines. They believe this to be a violation of the fourth amendment, an example of unlawful search and seizure.

The Presidential Ticket in 2016 from the Libertarian Party Photo by Brittany Werges

Rogers also commented on prohibition, which in its various forms is another sticking point for the party, Prohibition almost always ends up more dangerous and more expensive to society. This theme plays large rolls in the Libertarian arguments to legalize drugs and prostitution. The idea that attempting toprevent something that will happen anyway (as is documented in both these realms) simply costs taxpayers limitless funds and creates unsafe environments and back alley dealings.

While Libertarians differ on the amount of government that is actually necessary (on a scale of none to severely limited), they do agree that given the opportunity many of the services provided by the government with tax dollars would be provided through volunteering of funds and charitable workers on a community to community basis based on need. John Keil is running for City Council in Lovelands Third District and we asked him what Libertarianism can bring to a city council. Im running to oppose subsidies [] we need new ideas for generating funding, Keil said. We want to encourage volunteer funds, not wait for votes and taxes. If a lot of people believe in something its easy to get it going

John Keil is Running for City Council in Loveland District 3 Photo By Brittany Werges

Kim Tavendale is running for State Representative in House District 33, in the Broomfield area, we asked her what Libertarian principle she wanted to bring with her to office, Libertarianism embodies the spirit of Colorado,Tavendale said. The sense of independence and self-reliance that permeates throughout the state.

Kim Tavendale is Running for State Representative in House District 33 Out of Broomfield Photo by Brittany Werges

Austin Peterson, who debated Gary Johnson for the 2016 Presidential nomination had a grander picture of what the party offered, More freedoms, all the freedoms! Coloradans dont know how often Libertarians are fighting for your freedoms. We are present for all ballot access issues, when recreational marijuana was legalized we helped. We are trying to restore the gun rights that were recently lost in congressional bills.

Austin Peterson ran for President of the United States in 2016 Photo by Brittany Werges

It is unclear what the future will hold for the Libertarian party but the growing (in numbers and votes) third option is certainly here to stay andtheir consistency in message and platform helps to set them apart.

Photography by Brittany Werges andTraci Hanner

303 Magazine303 PoliticsApproval Based VotingAustin PetersonBrittany WergesBrittany Werges PhotographyJohn KeilKim TavendaleLibertarianLibertarian ConventionLibertarian Convention ColoradoLibertarians DenverLocal politicsMajor League LibertariansMLLsarah heathSarah StewartTraci Hanner

Continued here:
What You Missed at the Colorado Libertarian Convention - 303 Magazine

It is hardly surprising that the phrase Taxation is theft has become a popular slogan in libertarian circles. After all, the closest thing to a universal tenet of the movement is the desire for the elevation of individual liberty over the collective, which usually translates to the minimization of the states intrusion on citizens affairs that, almost of a necessity, means less taxes. It probably also helps that libertarians skew young and have a deeper-than-mainstream relationship with meme culture. So the slogan has both a receptive audience and an ecosystem in which to propagate.

And the idea is hardly new. The economist Murray Rothbard did a great deal to propagate the concept in libertarian circles. Rothbard argued that taxation was fundamentally appropriation without consent, and thus theft by definition. He even encouraged the view that there is no moral requirement to tell the tax collector the truth about ones assets or income; just as no one is morally required to answer a robber truthfully when he asks if there are any valuables in ones house, so no one can be morally required to honestly answer similar questions asked by the State, e.g., when filling out income tax returns. So, the idea is that the government is doing something to you (i.e. taking your property without your expressed permission) that no private citizen could do without being imprisoned for theft.

The eminent philosopher Robert Nozick even did Rothbard one better he argued that taxation was, since it resulted in individuals effectively working without compensation part of the time, tantamount to slavery (it is somewhat unfortunate that Nozick has gone unloved by the current generation of libertarians; his influence on libertarianism as a serious branch of philosophy cannot be overstated).

Yet these titans of libertarian thought spent virtually the entirety of their careers within the academic milieu. They were concerned with theories of justice that did not necessarily take into account their applicability within the context of society as it is. The problem of that disconnect between the theoretic and real becomes glaringly obvious when it is moved from the safe harbors of academic cloisters and libertarian web groups.

The problem is that ordinary people going about their daily lives do not believe taxation is theft. Neither do the many so-called economically conservative and socially liberal cohorts who are obvious candidates for conversion to a libertarian view of the world. The claim that taxation is theft is not intuitive to those of us (read: virtually everyone) who spend our lives within the bands of what might be called mainstream political discourse. Because it is so alien a concept, it can cause knee-jerk rejection by prospective libertarians.

When you are trying to convince people to change their ideology and to adopt a new way of looking at the world, and the proper relationship of state and citizen, you need to engage with them on a level that will bring them in, not push them away or alienate them. A big statement like calling taxation theft demands a defensive posture from the start, and that is hardly a position of strength from which to change hearts and minds. Instead, we need to focus our attacks on the failures of statist ideologies in practice and offer an alternative to those on the fence that they will find palatable. People are naturally conservative in the sense that they fear radical change. Taxes are such a fundamental part of life that trying to build a case around their total rejection will meet with failure. No one likes paying taxes. But there is a default belief in our society that they are a necessary evil, if not a positive good. When we open with taxation is theft we have to defend a big proposition, and we have to do it in the face of intuitive cognitive opposition. That is just bad argumentation strategy. Successful arguments have to play to peoples intuitions and gradually shift their thinking. Beginning in an adversarial posture guarantees that the people we approach are on mental defense, when we need them to be open to change.

There is also the simple fact that not all (likely a wide majority, in fact) libertarians actually believe that all taxation is truly theft. in practice, many libertarians are willing to accept taxes as a legitimate mechanism for funding certain frontline services, such as the military and courts. These libertarians may differ as to what sort of tax would be most legitimate (or least invasive), but they do not waste the energy to question the idea of taxes qua taxes. Whether the minimal state is funded by a flat-rate (or just flat) income tax, or through a sales tax or value-added tax, or even a broader-based economic transaction tax, there is still the perceived need for some kind of tax regime. The debate is about changing taxes to maximize freedom and limit the imposition of such taxes on individuals while retaining a sufficient tax-base to furnish the necessary basic services of a state apparatus. Yet even for these libertarians, the refrain of taxation is theft is still an easy fallback phrase; it is now something of a shibboleth of the movement. It is also sometimes just fun to say and it can spark a debate, something we fractious libertarian types relish.

None of this is to say that no one actually believes that taxation is theft. Many do, to be sure. How else could the phrase have gained such traction within libertarian circles? And those true believers are frequently the most active and vociferous voices in many libertarian communities. Unfortunately, that is a problem for libertarianism if it is going to be a movement for change.

Of course, the idea of an organized libertarian movement as a change agent is not viewed credibly by some libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, and other fellow travelers. Instead, many favor purity of ideology and the echo-chamber of those already initiated, to the harder task of engaging with the world as it is rather than it ought to be.

In all this I do not mean to argue that libertarians who are of the uncompromising persuasion are bad libertarians. Far from it! Libertarianism can ill afford factionalism and in-fighting. Rather, what I contend is that we should all reevaluate how we present our arguments to the outside world, and to the significant mass of citizens who might well be won over by our arguments if we are given a fair chance to explain ourselves. The way we get that chance is by positioning our outward persona, and our internal discourse, in such a way as to give us the widest chance to make those first vital inroads.

So lets try to think of something better than taxation is theft to lead off discussions. We can do better. The country and the world need us to do better.

This post was written by John Engle.

The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.

John Engle is a merchant banker and author living in the Chicago area. His company, Almington Capital, invests in both early-stage venture capital and in public equities. His writing has been featured in a number of academic journals, as well as the blogs of the Heartland Institute, Grassroot Institute, and Tenth Amendment Center. A graduate of Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and the University of Oxford, Johns first book, Trinity Student Pranks: A History of Mischief and Mayhem, was published in September 2013.

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The Problem with Saying Taxation is Theft - Being Libertarian