Category Archives: Libertarian

After a bruising defeat at the Supreme Court, the Biden administration is back to crafting regulatory limits on power plant emissions. A forthcoming rule from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would require that carbon-producing coal and gas power plants slash their greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, reports The New York Times.

These emissions limits would be so strict that coal plants likely have to adopt carbon capture technology to meet them while gas plants would have to switch to burning carbon-free hydrogen gas, say administration officials to the Times.

The yet-to-be-made-public rule is currently being finalized by the White House's Office of Management and Budget.

Since coming into office, President Joe Biden has been working on a rule to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. This has been a liberal priority going back to the Obama administration, which tried and failed to get Congress to enact an emissions cap-and-trade scheme in 2009.

Undeterred, in 2015, Obama's EPA implemented very similar regulations to those that were found in the 2009 legislation, claiming that the Clean Air Act had given it the power to regulate carbon emissions all along.

Those regulations would have required coal power plants to cut their own production of electricity or subsidize renewable energy production to offset their emissions.

That executive-ordered "Clean Power Plan" was met with immediate legal opposition. In 2016, the Supreme Court froze the implementation of these rules until those legal challenges worked themselves out. The Trump administration tried to gut the Obama-era rules but was stopped in 2021 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That ruling said the EPA not only had the power, but the duty, to regulate carbon emissions.

This was all the prelude to the Supreme Court decision in West Virginia v. EPA from last June, in which the court sided with coal companies and Republican state attorneys general, who argued against the EPA's broad authority to regulate climate emissions.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said that the EPA did not already have the power to cap "carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity." Any plan to do that would have to be clearly authorized by Congress.

The Biden administration has been continually pushing back its release of new emissions regulations while the West Virginia case is pending. Whether the forthcoming rule meets this standard remains to be seen. Yet more lawsuits seem inevitable.

"We are eager to review the E.P.A.'s new proposed rule on power plants, and we'll be ready once again to lead the charge in the fight against federal overreach," said West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey to the Times in a statement.

In addition to power plants, the Biden administration has also proposed regulations that would mandate more electric vehicle sales and end the use of gas furnaces in the home.

On Monday, the Biden administration also unveiled an executive order authorizing a "whole-of-government effort to confront longstanding environmental injustices and inequities."

"Biden's new move again goes beyond normalcy and well beyond even [former President Barack] Obama's 'pen and phone' regulating in terms of executive overreach, all in service of aggressive, far-left economic social and societal interventions," said Clyde Wayne Crews and Daren Bakst of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

More details about Tucker Carlson's ouster at Fox News keep rolling in. The reasons for the primetime populist host's departure are still murky at best. NPR reporter David Folkenflik, citing three anonymous sources, said that Carlson's effective firing was related to an ongoing sex discrimination case being brought against him by his former producer. During the discovery process in the separate, now-settled lawsuit brought against it by voting machine company Dominion, Fox is said to have uncovered communications that speak to those allegations, reports Folkenflik.

Fox agreed to pay Dominion for a reported $787.5 million last week as part of a settlement agreement.

Folkenflik's reporting seemingly contradicts a Los Angeles Times report saying that the order came from Rupert Murdoch himself, over the network owner's discomfort with Carlson's January 6 coverage.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that Carlson's disparagement of his bosses at the networkalso uncovered in the Dominion lawsuitwas what got him axed.

Fox News, in a brief statement released yesterday, claimed their parting with Carlson was mutual. No one seems to believe that.

While the details of his departure from Fox are still emerging, pundits are already waxing poetic about Carlson's legacy.

"He provided one of the purest forms of extremism on Fox News, bigotry and racism alleged, and conspiracy theories corrosive to the body [politick]," was Folkenflik's assessment.

"A tribune for populist opponents of endless war and Big Tech-enabled censorship and surveillance, at his best ripping into the GOP's plutocracy caucus as well as mainstream Democrats," was The American Conservative Contributing Editor Sohrab Ahmari's rosier spin.

As Reason's Robby Soave noted yesterday, Carlson was once a libertarian fellow traveler. He took a hard tack to the right leading up to and during the Trump years on issues like crime, tech regulation, and, particularly, immigration.

He remained a hardcore, bipartisan skeptic of American foreign interventionism, from Ukraine to Syria. He'd occasionally come to libertarian policy positions on more niche issues, like when he opposed menthol cigarette bans.

Even on these issues, Carlson rarely justified his libertarian policy positions on a general belief in people's freedom to do as they please without state interference. Politics was not a battle between the individual and the state, but rather between a woke elite and the real Americans they hated and exploited. The exercise of state power could therefore be good or bad, in his eyes, depending on who it was being wielded against.

That's how Carlson could end up being a harsh critic of menthol cigarette bans and marijuana legalization. "Why do they hate nicotine? Because nicotine frees your mind, and THC makes you compliant and passive," he said during one monologue.

If something liberates you from the thought control of woke elites, it's got to be legal. If it makes you a compliant minion of those elites, your choices have to be legally constrained and controlled.

This kind of unvarnished populism is admittedly a lot more interesting to watch than whatever former CNN anchor Don Lemon (who was also fired Monday) was talking about on a given night. But that hardly makes Carlson a hero.

Aubrey Plaza is the latest soldier in the ongoing labeling wars over alt milks. The actress stars in a new satirical ad campaign in which she encourages people to buy disgusting (fictional) "wood milk" instead of the standard dairy variety. At least, that is, until she tastes it.

"Is wood milk real? Absolutely not. Only real milk is real," she says.

The ad, funded by milk processors, is a clear swipe at milks made from almonds, soy, and oats. While funny, it's also part of a broader regulatory campaign by the dairy industry to prevent alternative milk makers from using the word milk on their packaging. The Food and Drug Administration issued new rules in February allowing these non-dairy milk producers to use the word milk while also encouraging them to include nutritional comparisons between their products and the dairy variety.

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Despite SCOTUS Ruling Limiting Its Authority, EPA Tries To ... - Reason

In the final days of the 1964 presidential campaign, a profesional pitch man and public speaker named Ronald Reagan recorded a video on behalf of the Republican nominee for president of the United States, Barry Goldwater. In the pitch, conventionally known as the A Time for Choosing speech, Reagan fixated on one word and theme above all else.

Freedom.

The Cold War, in his telling, was about whether we lose this way of freedom of ours. He wondered if Americans still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers. For Reagan, America was apparently the only place with liberty on the entire surface of the Earth: If we lose freedom here, theres no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth. Maybe he hadnt traveled much. He extolled individual freedom consistent with law and order and bemoaned the assault on freedom and worried that freedom has never been so fragile. He derided those who would trade our freedom for security.

The pitch for Goldwater didnt work, but the pitch man outperformed his own product. A decade and a half later, Reagan would be elected president on a similar rhetorical platform of freedom, freedom, freedom, and freedom. And the frame of freedom that he insisted on would become the mantle of the right. Every strand of the rights project from deregulating the economy to busting unions to lowering taxes on the rich and corporations to imperially adventuring in foreign countries all of it could be justified by the freedom pose.

And in those years, the left committed a blunder, largely accepting the rights dubious claim to ownership of the concept of freedom. The left pursued other themes. It pursued justice, equality, solidarity, coming together, hope, change, the future. But it somewhat accepted, often unconsciously, that freedom was the rights thing.

So it was significant that on January 20, 2017, as Donald Trump, in many ways an heir to the Reagan Revolution and in other ways a departure from it, delivered the darkest inaugural address in American history, he used the word freedom once. Even that was boilerplate, not substantive: We all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same, great American flag.

That was it.

If Reagan had conjured the image of thriving, effervescent Americans bursting to do things, build things, raise families, chase dreams, but for the threat of government encroachment, Trump told a different story. Americans in this new story were victims of entropy: "trapped in poverty in our inner cities, surrounded by rusted out factories, scattered like tombstones across the across the landscape of our nation, deprived of all knowledge by a broken education system, threatened by the crime, and the gangs, and the drugs that have stolen too many lives.

The kind of freedom the right had traditionally emphasized negative freedom, the freedom to be left alone wasnt really the solution if this was the problem. If Reagan had emphasized the moral imperative of leaving free and vigorous people alone, Trump spoke of people who needed a powerful protector a.k.a. him.

Of course, many of the actual, underlying policies Trump proposed would be quite similar to those proposed by Reagan, but the departure of the 2017 pitch from the long-reining orthodoxy of the 1964 pitch was revealing: the party that once saw people as full of agency, threatened by government constraint, now saw people as naturally weak and vulnerable, threatened by forces beyond their control which only strong leaders could defeat. The libertarian Republican Party was now the authoritarian one.

The Republican retreat from the frame of freedom is a tectonic, under-appreciated shift in American politics. And it may be the start of a profound political realignment. For the first time in a generation, the idea of freedom is not an especially important animating principle for the right. They use the word still, but they are fundamentally about something else now, fundamentally about protecting people from supposedly menacing forces like demographic change and changes to M&Ms and childrens books and woke corporations. This is the pitch not of freedom but of the strongman.

To quote Miley Cyrus, the libertarian right of previous generations conceived of citizens as having the attitude We run things, things dont run we. Todays Republicans tell their adherents that they live in a world of forces that do run them, and only a powerful ruler can interrupt that.

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The rights desertion of freedom creates a historic opportunity for the left to reclaim what should never have been conceded. In reporting my book The Persuaders, I saw research showing that freedom is the most highly ranked value by people on the far right, far left, center right, and center left. There arent a lot of values like that left.

And its not just rhetoric: the actual program of the diverse camps of the political left is consonant with a freedom-centered pitch. What is the fight for reproductive rights but a fight for the freedom to control ones body and to have sex without fear that you are making a lifelong commitment some Friday night? What is the fight against book bans but a fight for the freedom to read and think? What is the effort to pursue justice for the January 6, 2021, insurrection but a fight to enshrine and defend the freedom to vote? What is the fight against climate change but a fight for the freedom of our children and grandchildren (and us) to drink clean water and breathe clean air and live in the mental peace of not constantly dreading floods and fires? What is the fight for truly universal healthcare but a fight for the freedom from illness and for the freedom to pursue your business ideas and not have to cling to your awful job? What is the quest for free daycare and college but a fight for the freedom to learn and pursue your dreams regardless of whether you happened to be born into wealth?

Today, as President Biden announced his re-election campaign, his choice of approach struck me as a sign that this great political realignment may be upon us. As Politico summed up the campaigns opening pitch: Biden's 2024 choice: More freedom or less freedom. In the campaigns three-minute opening ad, Biden uses the word freedom six times. That is approximately five times the frequency of Reagans 11 uses of the word in his 27-minute speech in 1964. The ad frames all kinds of present-day issues as battles for freedom: protecting Social Security, beating back insurrection, defending democracy, safeguarding the vote, preserving abortion rights, preserving marriage equality, resisting book bans, shoring up civil rights, and more.

As Anat Shenker-Osorio, the progressive messaging guru whom I write about in The Persuaders says, the thing about freedom is that you can feel it. Its corporeal. Its not abstract. People know what it feels like to be free. And not to be free. This is a theme, a concept, a frame, a word that the left can no longer afford to hand to the right, and the good news is it seems like it no longer is.

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Biden's "freedom" pitch and the coming political realignment - The.Ink

In a rough session for local finance, the informal dollar has jumped by 7% during the day, and the currency exchange gap (brecha) exceeded 120%.

The informal dollar exchange rate, known as the blue dollar, peaked at AR$497 before receding slightly following statements from Economy Minister Sergio Massa.

The exchange gap is the difference between the official dollar exchange rate and the financial or informal (blue) dollars. The gap is important because many economic agents use the value of financial dollars as parameters to set their costs and prices.

The run on the parallel rates comes as the country faces acute dollar scarcity: after a drought cut billions of dollars from Argentinas export income and international reserves, Massa announced a third edition of the special exchange rate for agricultural exporters earlier this month with a view to bolstering reserves.

However, amid rumors of an official currency devaluation, exporters have significantly slowed their sales despite the preferential exchange rate last week, and did not liquidate any of their income in the official exchange market last Wednesday, putting pressure on the rate.

The rise also follows weeks of great political and economic uncertainty, sparked by factors such as President Alberto Fernndez announcing he would not run for re-election, the rise of debates around the dollarization of the Argentine economy sparked by libertarian candidate Javier Milei, a 7.7% monthly inflation rate in March and the government missing the fiscal deficit target agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In a press conference following a meeting with his Romanian counterpart this morning, President Alberto Fernndez accused the Argentine right of installing rumors that are affecting the exchange markets, harming Argentines savings.

Its not news, theyve always done this, said Fernndez, who later wrote a Twitter thread to reflect his statements. Weve lived through this already and well overcome it again. [] Sergio Massa and I are working together to face this scenario.

Asistimos a una prctica permanente de la derecha argentina.

Primero instalan rumores a la maana, luego operan durante todo el da y cuando termina la tarde, retiran su rentabilidad del mercado cambiario y lastiman el ahorro de las argentinas y argentinos.

Massa published a thread about the rise of the informal dollar, saying that an atypical situation involving rumors, versions, fake reports had an impact on financial instruments related to the US dollar.

We will use all of the States tools to get this situation together, weve notified the IMF of the restrictions that affected Argentina, and which we will change in the re-negotiation of our agreement,

We will maintain our agreements with multilateral organisms, keep working with exporters by transforming exports into [Chinese] yuan, and the IMF disbursement agreement to strengthen bank reserves that were hindered by the impact of the drought, he ended.

Hace varios dias que vivimos una situacion atpica de rumores, versiones, falsos informes y su consecuente impacto en los instrumentos financieros vinculados al dlar.

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Informal dollar reaches AR$497, Fernndez and Massa blame ... - Buenos Aires Herald

Book of the day

This timely and important study of investment zones exposes the limitations of the experiments favoured by free-market fanatics

Tue 25 Apr 2023 02.00 EDT

Remember Liz Trusss plan last summer to carpet-bomb Britain with investment zones? These were not just freeports these would be zones modelled on the most anarchic capitalist zones in the world. There would be no tiresome planning laws, no irksome regulations, minimal labour laws, little taxation and only the lightest veneer of democracy. For Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, these would be the ultra-libertarian battering rams to ignite the capitalism flame covering almost every city and town in the country.

The idea did not survive their passing: Truss wanted an uncapped number, while even Kwarteng accepted the Treasury argument that the loss of tax revenue estimated to be 12bn if the government went full Truss was unacceptable. There had to be some limit, otherwise there would simply be a mass diversion of economic activity into the investment zones and little extra investment. It was a fools mission. The present chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, laid the whole plan quietly to rest, while persevering with a softer and mildly less mad version of the same idea freeports.

But as Crack-Up Capitalism explains, there is nothing original in any of this. Anarcho-capitalist investment zones, along with a range of less extreme ideas, have been marketed on the wilder shores of the right as the pure milk of capitalism for some decades. And increasingly, in this eye-opening account, made real. Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, free marketeers extolling the Hong Kong model have been trying to create jurisdictions within jurisdictions that maximise economic freedom as they characterise it and downplay all the adjuncts of political freedom, which include trade unions, obligations to the poor, opposition parties and regulation to promote the public good.

As arch-free marketeer Milton Friedman believed, capitalism flourished best where there was as much economic freedom as possible. Political freedom could even get in the way of economic freedom because democracies, giving vent to popular demands, dared to place burdens on free business. The best form of government is therefore a territory run on the same principles as a corporation. Political constitutions, which set out citizens entitlements and rights as part of the process of government, should be dispensed with in these new and widening cracks of economic freedom in the global economy. Instead, the corporation should govern through a network of commercial contracts, even with citizens, in which the only rule is whether the contractual relationship throws up a profit. Within the zone, it is everyone for themselves in an economic jungle in which you formally renounce any rights as the price of entry.

If it began with Hong Kong and Singapore, Londons Canary Wharf is a tribute to the same idea and Quinn Slobodian, professor of the history of ideas at Massachusettss Wellesley College, takes the reader through the panoply of areas around the world that are exponents of crack-up capitalism. Sometimes, its a story of ventures that do not get off the ground, as in Honduras, when a planned charter city was vetoed by a change of government determined to reassert democratic control, but sometimes, as in Dubai, the scale of what is going on in these free economic zones is breathtaking. But then some states, as in authoritarian Singapore and Hong Kong, already have some of the necessary political culture that makes dispensing with political freedoms comparatively easy.

The open question is whether crack-up capitalism has a track record of success, notwithstanding all the claims made on its behalf. As Slobodian observes, for example, it is not obvious that Singapore is quite the poster child for economic freedom that its free market fans portray. The state looms large, taking tactical stakes in companies, offering public housing and its authorities having a strategic plan that sits at odds with the notion that this is an Adam Smith heaven. Friedman was less enamoured of Singapore than he was with Hong Kong for those very reasons, although how much even Hong Kongs success will survive the ice-cold grip of the Chinese Communist partys political control hangs in the balance. The signs are that it is faltering.

And if Dubai boasts the worlds highest buildings and vast amusement parks, along with being governed exactly like a company, its success is more a tribute to oil wealth than anarcho-capitalism. It is true that there is no western concept of citizenship, that the country is a patchwork quilt of varying legal jurisdictions to appease the preferences of inward investors and that it has grown explosively. But for whose benefit? Almost 90% of its inhabitants are foreigners hardly a model for the rest of the world. The worlds population cannot all live in free zones. Without oil revenues and de facto tribal government, Dubai would have been much more like Honduras.

Slobodian has done us a great service, identifying a phenomenon that needs unmasking. But how many great companies have their roots in anarcho-capitalism, free zones and charter cities? None that I can think of. The truth about capitalism is that some risks need socialising, workforces need to be housed, educated and trained and great companies have a purpose beyond avarice, a reality Friedman and his acolytes never took on board. Companies need political and social soil in which to grow; the stronger the society, the stronger the company. Equally, as Singapore demonstrates, success also needs the state and states themselves need accountability processes and the constitutions that go with them. It will irritate Truss, Kwarteng and their followers, along with the rest of the anarcho-capitalist right, but economic and political freedom are handmaidens. Crack-up capitalism, for all its spread and the enthusiasm of its advocates, is ultimately a blind alley.

Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy by Quinn Slobodian is published by Allen Lane (25). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

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Crack-Up Capitalism by Quinn Slobodian review the economic anarchy of Liz Trusss dreams - The Guardian

The 2024 Presidential race is a couple years away. It could be a pivotal election year for Libertarians the moment when we finally make a mark in politics. But, will we? Who are the 2024 Libertarian presidential candidates? Who else will run? Will Trump run again? And what about Joe Biden? Were all wondering what will happen in 2024, but one things for sure: 2024 is going to be an interesting presidential race.

Before I get into who our candidates are, let me explain what a Libertarian is. A lot of people have heard about Libertarians, but dont know what Libertarians believe. So, what is a Libertarian? That often depends on who you ask, but in my opinion, most people are libertarians or agree with much of the libertarian philosophy of live and let live. Libertarianism is a philosophy or belief system, not just a platform for a political party. You can be a libertarian without being in the Libertarian Party.

Libertarians believe in a small, fiscally conservative government. Libertarians are not anarchists (this is not to say that some arent). We believe in having laws and government, but that the scope and size of government should be limited. The role of the government should be limited to protecting people from harm and fraud not arbitrary rules or rules that enforce a groups cultural ideas.

Libertarians are generally conservative on fiscal issues and liberal on social issues. While you can be conservative in your own life, we dont believe in trying to enforce anyones lifestyle, morals, or choices on others. We love diversity and believe that no one group should try to control the choices of others through laws or government.

Theres no doubt the 2024 presidential race is one were all anticipating. But, will the Libertarians have a great candidate this time, or will we have a lack-luster, no-name, or not-so-libertarian candidate? I will be updating this post as time unfolds but these are the candidates that we think might run in 2024.

Right now the Libertarian Party only has two presidential candidates confirmed. There will be more candidates for sure, as this race is definitely one that Libertarians could do well in. So, whos running and who do we think our 2024 Libertarian presidential candidates will be?

Website: MiketerMaat.com

Mike ter Maat is a pro-reform police officer and an economics professor who graduated with a BS in Aeronautical Engineering and an MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He later went on to get his MS and Ph.D. degrees in Economics from George Washington University.

In the 2021-22 election cycle, Mike ran as the Libertarian candidate in a special Congressional election in Floridas District 20. He served as a police officer in Broward County from 2010-2021. Mike has worked in finance, economics, and education for banks, the White House, and other organizations. He started his own consulting business in 2002 where he provided professional education to bank executives. He ran this business until 2009.

Mike pledges to a Gold New Deal. He commits to the decentralization of authority and the power of our government. He has created a plan that includes ending the federal reserve, limiting government spending, and allowing states to have a constitutional option to remain in the Union for purposes of defense only.

Website: https://donate.lars24.com/

Lars Mapstead is a lifetime member of the Libertarian Party and an active Libertarian. Lars grew up on a farm, without electricity or indoor plumbing. Despite these challenges, he was able to found several successful internet companies. Now he spends his time in the Libertarian Party advocating for limited government and taxation.

He supports ranked-choice voting, cutting regulations, and term limits. He has a detailed plan to win an electoral vote for the Libertarian Party. He believes there is no better way for Libertarians to gain power than to be the deciding factor in the presidential vote.

Website: VoteChaseOliver.com

Chase Oliver is the Libertarian candidate who disrupted the Georgia Senate race by forcing a run-off. Hes been called the most influential Libertarian in the US right now byRolling Stones, and hes just announced that hes exploring the possibility of running as the Libertarian Partys presidential nominee.

Ina videohe released on Friday, Oliver announced that he was forming an exploratory committee to seek the Libertarian presidential nomination. He is a likely contender for the Libertarian nomination because of his ability to garner positive publicity and connect with ordinary voters.

Unlike other potential candidates, Chase Oliver is adamantly pro-choice when it comes to bodily autonomy, not just for vaccines, but on the issue of abortion. This could become a deciding factor for many Libertarians and voters in 2024.

He is charismatic, energetic, and speaks in a way that voters resonate with. With a small budget, he was able to garner 2 percent of the vote in Georgia. He was one of the most successful candidates during the 2022 election cycle, which earned him a lot of media attention. Could his appeal translate into the party nomination? Many of his fans think so.

Learn more about Chase Oliver by visiting his website,VoteChaseOliver.com. You can also follow him onTwitterto learn more about him.

There are many potential candidates for the Libertarian nomination in 2024. Several Libertarian candidates have expressed interest in running, and many within the party would like to see them run. However, if they do decide to run they will need support from within the party to win the nomination. These are the three most talked about Libertarians. They hold a lot of promise in leading us to victory in 2024 if they decide to run.

Also Read: Chase Oliver, the Libertarian Who Forced a Run-Off in Georgia, Is Considering Presidential Run

Justin Amash, former congressman from Michigan, is one of the most popular Libertarians in the Libertarian party. In 2020, he formed an exploratory committee to seek the Libertarian Party presidential nomination. However, he decided shortly after launching the committee that 2020 wasnt the right time for him to run. Though many Libertarians want him to run, Amash has repeatedly told party members and the media that this isnt on his radar right now.

In spite of this, many Libertarians are still hopeful he will run in 2024, myself included. I believe he would consider running in the 2024 election if the timing made sense and he was in a position to run in a viable race. He expressed this sentiment to media outlets like USA Today saying, I want to do what I can to work from the outside to change things because Ive tried the inside and right now I cant get much traction.

I dont know if Justin Amash will run in 2024, but he is my ideal candidate. He has a strong sense of integrity and the ability to appeal to all types of people, including Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians. With strong delegate and financial support from the Libertarian Party, I think he would be their best candidate.

Amash does not have a campaign website. He is not officially running, but he hosts a podcast where you get to know him better. You can listen to The Justin Amash Podcast here or follow him on Twitter to learn more about him.

Also read: Will Justin Amash Run for President in 2024?

Dave Smith is a New York stand-up comedian and libertarian commentator. He has appeared on Fox News, CNN, and many other popular media outlets. Hes known for his thought-provoking comedy and says he represents a new generation of pundits. He is a well-liked member of the Mises Caucus and a rising star in the Libertarian Party.

Smith has name recognition that is on par with Amash and is a first choice for many Mises Caucus members. Like many other Mises Caucus members, he became a Libertarian because of the Ron Paul movement. He likes Ron Paul because he challenged him to think differently about the government. He inspired him to read and learn more about liberty through authors like Rothbard, Mises, and Friedman.

He believes the Libertarian Party must fight harder against the tyranny of big tech monopolies which limit free speech and promote political correctness. Hes called overregulation of misinformation the biggest threat to liberty. He has also been an outspoken critic of Covid lockdowns and mask mandates.

Smith is appealing for a few reasons. One of them is that he attracts millennials with his charisma and humor. The millennial voter block may prove to be the deciding factor in the 2024 election. Although he has not stated publicly that he will seek the Libertarian nomination, he has said that its a possibility. To learn more about Dave Smith, you can follow his podcast Part of the Problem, where he discusses current events, government and foreign policy.

Also read: Dave Smith 2024 Will He Be the Next Libertarian Presidential Candidate?

Spike Cohen is a Libertarian activist and entrepreneur. In 2020, Spike Cohen was the running mate of Jo Jorgensen. He has a large social media following and is enthusiastically supported by nearly all Libertarians. He has not expressed an interest in running for president yet, but many in the party believe he would be the best choice.

There is a strong case for Spike Cohen as the Libertarian presidential candidate if he chooses to run. He is well-liked. He has an active presence in the media and can commit to campaigning full-time. He also has a background in web design and marketing.

Cohen started his web design company when he was still a teenager and retired from it in 2017. He now travels the country training Libertarians on how to run their campaigns and promotes a positive and principled message of libertarianism on social media, YouTube, and media appearances. He is what we Libertarians call a home-grown Libertarian, without the baggage of coming from the Republican or Democrat party.

Although its not clear if Cohen would even consider the nomination, he would be supported by most Libertarians if he was selected. Spike currently co-owns a news and entertainment company called Muddied Waters Media. You can also find him on YouTube at You Are the Power. Like most Libertarians, Spike is committed to working towards the partys goal of a world set free in our lifetime.

Larry Sharpe is a former marine and popular Libertarian from New York. He has not publicly stated any intention to run as a Libertarian presidential candidate in 2024. However, he has a lot of supporters in the Libertarian community who would support him if he decided to run as our Libertarian presidential nominee.

Sharpe is a successful entrepreneur who started and sold a trucking and distribution business. Hes also been a leadership coach who has helped other entrepreneurs, executives, and companies to develop stronger leadership and team-building skills. Hes been a guest instructor at universities including Yale and Columbia University.

He is highly respected in the Libertarian community for his grassroots campaigning and activism. As a Libertarian,he ran for governor of New York in 2018 and 2022. He was also a candidate for the Libertarian Vice Presidential nomination in 2022.

At this point, he hasnt mentioned anything about running as a presidential candidate in 2024. While it seems unlikely to me that he is interested in this role right now, I think anything is possible between now and our 2024 convention.

You can learn more about Larry Sharpe atLarrySharpe.com.

Former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard appears to be preparing for a run for president. She hasnt announced anything, but her recent departure from the Democrat party and subsequentcampaigning for MAGA Republicanscertainly hinted at a presidential run in 2024.

Shes also launched her own YouTube channel,The Tulsi Gabbard Show, which already has thousands of subscribers. As I mentioned in my video about her, YouTube is the largest social media platform for young voters.

I think she is keenly aware of the demographics she needs to win an election. This is also why I believe shes targeted MAGA Republicans. She and Trump may both appeal to the same group of voters voters who are fed up with politics as usual. Even with Trump announcing his own run for president, aligning with his base may help her if she decides to run herself.

She is well-liked by many Libertarians. On her show, she spoke with Ron Paul, a prominent figure in the Libertarian community. The two discussed civil liberties and how they are under attack in the U.S. She also changed her views on the second amendment. It looks like she is realigning her political views to attract a wider base of voters, including Libertarians.

At this point, it is unlikely that she will run as a Libertarian. It appears she is trying to win over Republican voters. Still, she isnt a Republican and has views that dont fit into any of the major parties. This is why some think she will run as an independent or third-party candidate and possibly as a Libertarian.

Historically, the Libertarian Party has not performed well in presidential races. In 2016, the party had its best showing ever with candidate Gary Johnson. Although he only received 3.3 percent of the vote nationally, this was a record-setting campaign for the party.

In the United States, many people are unhappy with the two-party system. Pew reports that almost half of younger adults wish they had more parties to choose from. This is most felt by millennials, who will have the biggest impact on the next election. With many young adults unhappy with how Biden has handled the economy, this could be the right time for a strong Libertarian presidential candidate to enter the race as an alternative.

We know that many in the U.S. are dissatisfied with the two-party system. Pew Research reports that nearly half of younger adults wish they had more parties to choose from. This discontent is most felt by millennials, who will have the biggest impact on the next election. With many young adults unhappy with how Biden is handling the economy, this could be the right time for a third party to shake up the presidential race.

Libertarians have reason to be optimistic in 2024. But, with the events currently taking place in the Libertarian Party, its hard to say if any candidate will have the funding or ballot access needed to win. It is now more important than ever for Libertarians to be engaged and active in their state parties.

In 2024, Libertarians will hold a convention to select the presidential and vice presidential candidates. The convention will be held in Washington, DC. To serve as a delegate at the national convention, you must be selected by your state party to represent your state as a delegate at National.

If you are not involved in the Libertarian Party, I hope you will get involved. If you are new to politics, I strongly encourage you to join my Facebook group, Pattys American Integrity and Liberty Group. We are a group of friendly people from all over the country. My goal is to help you learn about libertarianism and connect with like-minded, principled, positive people.

Help me spread the message of liberty to more people. Take a second to support Patty for Liberty on Patreon!

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2024 Libertarian Presidential Candidates - Who's Running in 2024?

Billionaire reality TV star Mark Cuban was asked last Sunday if he would run for president as a Libertarian. And like a majority of Americans, he admitted he didnt really know where the party stands on issues.

Thanks to how unpopular the likely Democratic and Republican nominees are, top Libertarians hope that the increased focus on their party as an alternative will help shed light on the Libertarian message.

{mosads}But many Americans remain in the darka 2014 Pew Research survey also showed that 44 percent of Americans didnt know the correct definition of the party. So the challenge the party faces as it holds its national convention this weekend is familiarizing Americans with its platform.

Here are five major pieces of the Libertarian Party platform, as well as some issues its platform committee on Saturday is looking to change for this year:

Individual freedom

The idea of individual freedom defines the libertarian movementits the party of limited government, in all forms.

We are the only political party that stands for your right to pursue happiness in any way you choose as long as you dont hurt anyone else and as long as you dont take their stuff, party chairman Nicholas Sarwark told The Hill.

This year, the partys platform committee is looking to highlight how that differs with the two main parties with a new addition to the platform preamble: Our aim is to keep the Republicans out of your bedroom and the Democrats out of your pockets, so that you can make your own choices and live your life as you choose.

That push for individual freedom colors the views of the party on just about every issueincluding drug legalization, free trade, and free-market health care, as well as the elimination of campaign finance and gun control laws.

Social liberals

The push for individual freedom puts libertarians toward the left side of the political spectrum on many of the major social issues.

The 2014 platform argues that government does not have the authority to define, license or restrict personal relationships, adding that consenting adults should have freedom to chose what makes them happy.

The same goes for drug legalizationthe party considers drug use and possession as victimless crimes that should be fair game unless the user hurts someone else in the process.

The platform does not currently address the death penalty, but the platform committee has proposed an indefinite suspension of the practice, noting the number of exonerations since 1973 and the disproportional use of the death penalty based on race.

Economic conservatives

Libertarians have faith in the free market and believe that theres little the government can do to pressure businesses or individuals that would be better than the power of the Invisible Hand.

That means unrestricted competition among financial institutions as well as the elimination of the Internal Revenue Service, Social Security and income taxes.

The main argument is that social pressure and the free market will convince individuals and companies to donate to charity to help the less fortunate replacing the need for the government-run social safety-net or make business decisions to protect the environment in the hopes of being rewarded by the market for those efforts.

And in the free market, companies live and die without the help of the government, so no bailouts.

But that doesnt mean taking the government entirely out of the equationthe platform committee has proposed clarifying that victims of a companys disregard for the environment should be given restitution when damages can be proven and quantified in a court of law.

Abortion

Despite the socially liberal bent, this is an issue where libertarians disagree.

The 2014 platform echoed an effectively pro-abortion rights position, arguing government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.

But this year, a potentially contentious change recommended by the partys platform committee includes a complete retool of that platform, shifting the rhetoric back toward the center.

If adopted, the plank will declare that Libertarians believe that taxpayers should not forced to pay for other peoples abortions. Thats a dramatic shift from the previous assertion that the issue should be left solely to the individual.

A proposal would add to that new wording that Libertarians respectfully disagree on abortion and where life begins, while another proposal would simply note that Libertarians along the spectrum present logical arguments in support of their principled positions on abortion.

A fourth proposal by the platform committee calls to eliminate regulations on over-the-counter contraceptives to help prevent unwanted pregnancies.

Non-interventionist foreign policy

Libertarians want America to abandon its attempts to act as a policeman for a world, and its platform on defense reads like a criticism of Americas foreign policy direction. The partys goal is to maintain a military devoted only to national defense, while shutting down foreign military and economic aid.

Along with that de-emphasis on the offensive, the platform repudiates the tradeoff between liberty and security by declaring that national defense must not take priority over maintaining the civil liberties of our citizens.

That means vigilant oversight on national security programs to ensure no rights are infringed upon as well as getting rid of any security classification that could keep information out of the hands of the public.

See the article here:

5 things the Libertarian Party stands for | The Hill

The Libertarian Party (LP) in the United States is a political party promoting the aspects of libertarianism, such as laissez-faire capitalism, civil liberties, non-interventionism, and limiting the size and involvement of government. The slogan of the U.S. Libertarian Party is Minimum government, maximum freedom. The LP was conceived in August 1971 in Westminster, Colorado, and was officially formed on December 11, 1971, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The party is currently the third-largest political party in the United States by Voter Registration. There are about 609,000 voters registered as Libertarians in 31 states and Washington, D.C. The Libertarian Party has one seat in the House of Representatives, Representative Justin Amash of Michigan.

Under the United States Constitution, each U.S. state has control over many of its own laws, causing laws to vary greatly among states. Because of this, some states are considered to be more free or libertarian than other states. Freedom in the 50 States is a report that ranks each state based on a combination of personal and economic freedoms. The report defines individual freedom as the ability to dispose of ones own life, liberty, and justly acquired property however ones sees fit, so long as one does not coercively infringe on another individuals ability to do the same. The reports rankings include fiscal policy, regulatory policy, and personal freedom.

Fiscal policy includes: state taxation, local taxation, government consumption and investment, government debt, and cash and security assets. Regulatory policy includes: land-use freedom, health insurance freedom, labor-market freedom, lawsuit freedom, occupational freedom, miscellaneous regulatory freedom, and cable and telecommunications. Personal freedom includes: incarceration and arrests, guns, gambling, marriage, education, alcohol, asset forfeiture, marijuana, tobacco, mala prohibita and civil liberties, travel freedom, and campaign finance.

The report scored each state on over 200 policies involving fiscal policy, regulatory policy, and personal freedom. Policies were weighted according to the estimated costs that government restrictions on freedom impose on their victims. Fiscal policy was weighted at 30.4%, regulatory policy at 34.0%, and personal freedom at 34.1% (percentages do not equal 100% because of rounding). Based on these findings, the most libertarian states are:

Based on the rankings, Florida is the freest state in the United States. Florida is ranked first for fiscal policy, 11th for personal freedom, and 22nd for regulatory policy. Florida is one of seven states that do not levy a state income tax. Floridas overall state-level tax collections are more than a standard deviation and a half below the national average.

New Hampshire is the second-most free state in the country. New Hampshire ranks second for fiscal policy, with the government taxing less than any other state but Alaska. New Hampshire also ranks fifth for personal freedom, with low incarceration rates and drug arrest rates.

Indiana ranks 10th for fiscal policy, 10th for personal freedom, and fifth for regulatory policy. Indiana has built itself as the freest state in the Great Lakes region by a wide margin. State taxes have fallen while government debt has also declined. Educational freedom is excellent in Indiana. Legal gambling is extensive; victimless crime arrests are low, and alcohol freedom has improved consistently over the past few years.

Colorado takes the number four spot for the freest states. Colorado ranks eighth for fiscal policy and fourth for personal freedom. The state has led the way in recreational cannabis regulation and has above average legal gambling and gun rights. Colorado is ranked first on the report for freedom from cronyism (the appointment of friends and associates to positions of authority without proper regard to their qualifications).

Nevada is the fifth freest state in the U.S. The state ranks second for personal freedom, scoring first for legal gambling, and is the only state with legal prostitution (in certain jurisdictions). Incarceration in Nevada is about average, and non-drug victimless crime arrests have fallen in recent yearsWhile personal freedom is Nevada's biggest strength, it does not perform well for fiscal or regulatory policy, which ranks 22nd and 17th, respectively.

North Dakota is the sixth-most free state in the U.S., ranking fifth for fiscal policy, 29 for personal freedom, and 19 for regulatory policy. The states debts are down, and its financial assets are up. The states tax burden is about 4.5% of adjusted income. North Dakota lacks a state minimum wage, land use is lightly regulated, and the state has a right-to-work-law.

Tennessee has the third-freest regulatory policies, being one of seven states with no individual state income tax. Additionally, Tennessees state and local taxes and debt have decreased in recent years. Tennessee also ranks tenth in the country for regulatory policies. Unfortunately, Tennessee ranks 45 for personal freedom due to its above-average incarceration rates and criminal justice policies.

At the eighth spot is South Dakota, which ranks sixth for fiscal policy and eight for regulatory policy. South Dakotas tax burden is very low, and state and local debt are both below the national average. South Dakota ranks a little lower for personal freedom at 37 due to its strongest criminal justice policies and incarceration rates.

Arizona is the ninth-most free state in the U.S. The state has made significant progress in the last 20 years, especially in personal freedom, where it is currently ranked 14th. This is because of Arizonas growing gun rights, declining victimless crime arrest, abolishing its sodomy law, and liberalizing its wine shipment laws. Arizona also ranks 18th for fiscal policy and 16 for regulatory policy.

Kansas is the tenth-freest state in the country and ranks first for regulatory policy. Both land-use and occupational freedom are high in Kansas, and the state is one of the freest from cronyism. Unfortunately, Kansass ranks for fiscal policy and personal freedom are not as great, ranking 31st and 21st, respectively. The states incarceration rate has been slowly increasing in recent years

Looking at voting patterns in each state, the states that have the highest numbers of libertarian voters are Montana, New Hampshire, Alaska, New Mexico, Idaho, Nevada, Texas, Washington, Oregon, and Arizona.

Read the original post:

Most Libertarian States 2022 - worldpopulationreview.com

Libertarians believe that every person has the right to arm themselvesin self-defense.

The right to self defense is one of our most fundamental rights. Few people will argue against that. However, some believe that people should not be allowed to arm themselves. Libertarians strongly disagree.

Imagine a small person, walking home after a late shift at work. Imagine that person is attacked by someone twice theirsize. The victim fights back but is unable to defend themselves against the much larger attacker.

Now imagine if the victim was armed. With the help of a gun, the victim hasa chance at self defense against the much larger attacker.

Gun rights are important for everyone, but especially those that are physically weaker.

Banning guns would not curb violence or deathsit will just change the nature of violence and deaths. It would result in violent criminals having more power to perpetrate violence against innocent people. Violent criminals will be emboldened if they know that average Americans are unable to defend themselves.

And banning guns would mean people who should be free to go about their business, for example traveling home from work after dark, will live in greater fear. It will mean that people who live in more dangerous areas (and who are typically poorer) have fewer options to defend themselves and their families.

Libertarians support peoplesrights to defend themselves and to arm themselves. We see it as immoral for government to try to prevent someone from doing so.

Continued here:

Gun Ownership | Libertarian Party

Libertarian Party, U.S. political party devoted to the principles of libertarianism. It supports the rights of individuals to exercise virtual sole authority over their lives and sets itself against the traditional services and regulatory and coercive powers of federal, state, and local governments.

The Libertarian Party was established in Westminster, Colorado, in 1971 and fielded its first candidate for the presidency in the next years elections. In 1980 it achieved its height of success when it was on the ballot in all 50 states, and its presidential candidate, Edward E. Clark, a California lawyer, received 921,199 votes. Although this vote represented only about 1 percent of the national total, it was enough to make the Libertarian Party the third largest political party in the United States. Libertarian candidates ran in every subsequent presidential election, and several of its members were elected to local and state office, particularly in the West. Though subsequently the party failed to match its 1980 total, its presidential candidates consistently attracted hundreds of thousands of votes, and from 1992 the party consistently secured ballot access in all 50 states. In 2000 the party contested a majority of seats in the House of Representatives, and though it captured no seats, its candidates combined to win 1.7 million votes. The party maintains a national office in Washington, D.C., and has affiliates in every state. The Cato Institute, a public-policy research organization, was founded in 1977 in part by prominent members of the Libertarian Party.

In opposing the purported right of the state to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labour, the Libertarian Party contends that a completely free market is a necessary economic condition for prosperity and liberty. To this end most Libertarians call for the repeal of personal and corporate income taxes; the replacement of most government-provided services, including Social Security and the post office, with private and voluntary arrangements; the repeal of regulations, including minimum wage and gun-control laws; and the dismantling of all regulatory bodies that do not promote freely contracted trade. In supporting an individuals right to liberty of speech and action, the Libertarian Party opposes all forms of censorship, insists on the right to keep and bear firearms, and defends the choice of abortion. Noting that the initiation of force against others constitutes a violation of fundamental rights, the Libertarian Party supports the prosecution of criminal violence and fraud but also advocates the repeal of laws against such victimless crimes as gambling, drug use, and prostitution.

Libertarian Party principles are incorporated into its platforms, which are established at semiannual conventions of national party officers and delegates from state affiliates. To direct the ongoing functions of the party, convention delegates elect an 18-member Libertarian National Committee, composed of a chairperson and 3 other officers, 5 at-large members, and 9 regional representatives. Presidential candidates are elected by a simple majority of convention delegates. The party publishes a number of pamphlets and newsletters, including the Libertarian Party News (monthly).

More here:

Libertarian Party | History, Beliefs, & Facts | Britannica

I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myselflibertarian.

But I must confess that over the last two decades, I have changed radically on the question of how to achieve these goals. Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible. By tracing out the development of my thinking, I hope to frame some of the challenges faced by all classical liberalstoday.

As a Stanford undergraduate studying philosophy in the late 1980s, I naturally was drawn to the give-and-take of debate and the desire to bring about freedom through political means. I started a student newspaper to challenge the prevailing campus orthodoxies; we scored some limited victories, most notably in undoing speech codes instituted by the university. But in a broader sense we did not achieve all that much for all the effort expended. Much of it felt like trench warfare on the Western Front in World War I; there was a lot of carnage, but we did not move the center of the debate. In hindsight, we were preaching mainly to the choir even if this had the important side benefit of convincing the choirs members to continue singing for the rest of theirlives.

As a young lawyer and trader in Manhattan in the 1990s, I began to understand why so many become disillusioned after college. The world appears too big a place. Rather than fight the relentless indifference of the universe, many of my saner peers retreated to tending their small gardens. The higher ones IQ, the more pessimistic one became about free-market politics capitalism simply is not that popular with the crowd. Among the smartest conservatives, this pessimism often manifested in heroic drinking; the smartest libertarians, by contrast, had fewer hang-ups about positive law and escaped not only to alcohol but beyondit.

As one fast-forwards to 2009, the prospects for a libertarian politics appear grim indeed. Exhibit A is a financial crisis caused by too much debt and leverage, facilitated by a government that insured against all sorts of moral hazards and we know that the response to this crisis involves way more debt and leverage, and way more government. Those who have argued for free markets have been screaming into a hurricane. The events of recent months shatter any remaining hopes of politically minded libertarians. For those of us who are libertarian in 2009, our education culminates with the knowledge that the broader education of the body politic has become a foolserrand.

Indeed, even more pessimistically, the trend has been going the wrong way for a long time. To return to finance, the last economic depression in the United States that did not result in massive government intervention was the collapse of 192021. It was sharp but short, and entailed the sort of Schumpeterian creative destruction that could lead to a real boom. The decade that followed the roaring 1920s was so strong that historians have forgotten the depression that started it. The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians have rendered the notion of capitalist democracy into anoxymoron.

In the face of these realities, one would despair if one limited ones horizon to the world of politics. I do not despair because I no longer believe that politics encompasses all possible futures of our world. In our time, the great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms from the totalitarian and fundamentalist catastrophes to the unthinking demos that guides so-called socialdemocracy.

The critical question then becomes one of means, of how to escape not via politics but beyond it. Because there are no truly free places left in our world, I suspect that the mode for escape must involve some sort of new and hitherto untried process that leads us to some undiscovered country; and for this reason I have focused my efforts on new technologies that may create a new space for freedom. Let me briefly speak to three such technologicalfrontiers:

(1) Cyberspace. As an entrepreneur and investor, I have focused my efforts on the Internet. In the late 1990s, the founding vision of PayPal centered on the creation of a new world currency, free from all government control and dilution the end of monetary sovereignty, as it were. In the 2000s, companies like Facebook create the space for new modes of dissent and new ways to form communities not bounded by historical nation-states. By starting a new Internet business, an entrepreneur may create a new world. The hope of the Internet is that these new worlds will impact and force change on the existing social and political order. The limitation of the Internet is that these new worlds are virtual and that any escape may be more imaginary than real. The open question, which will not be resolved for many years, centers on which of these accounts of the Internet provestrue.

(2) Outer space. Because the vast reaches of outer space represent a limitless frontier, they also represent a limitless possibility for escape from world politics. But the final frontier still has a barrier to entry: Rocket technologies have seen only modest advances since the 1960s, so that outer space still remains almost impossibly far away. We must redouble the efforts to commercialize space, but we also must be realistic about the time horizons involved. The libertarian future of classic science fiction, la Heinlein, will not happen before the second half of the 21stcentury.

(3) Seasteading. Between cyberspace and outer space lies the possibility of settling the oceans. To my mind, the questions about whether people will live there (answer: enough will) are secondary to the questions about whether seasteading technology is imminent. From my vantage point, the technology involved is more tentative than the Internet, but much more realistic than space travel. We may have reached the stage at which it is economically feasible, or where it soon will be feasible. It is a realistic risk, and for this reason I eagerly support thisinitiative.

The future of technology is not pre-determined, and we must resist the temptation of technological utopianism the notion that technology has a momentum or will of its own, that it will guarantee a more free future, and therefore that we can ignore the terrible arc of the political in ourworld.

A better metaphor is that we are in a deadly race between politics and technology. The future will be much better or much worse, but the question of the future remains very open indeed. We do not know exactly how close this race is, but I suspect that it may be very close, even down to the wire. Unlike the world of politics, in the world of technology the choices of individuals may still be paramount. The fate of our world may depend on the effort of a single person who builds or propagates the machinery of freedom that makes the world safe forcapitalism.

For this reason, all of us must wish Patri Friedman the very best in his extraordinaryexperiment.

Editors Note:Mr. Thiel has further elaborated on the question of suffrage here. We copy these remarks below aswell:

I had hoped my essay on the limits of politics would provoke reactions, and I was not disappointed. But the most intense response has been aimed not at cyberspace, seasteading, or libertarian politics, but at a commonplace statistical observation about voting patterns that is often called the gendergap.

It would be absurd to suggest that womens votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us. While I dont think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make thingsbetter.

Voting is not under siege in America, but many other rights are. In America, people are imprisoned for using even very mild drugs, tortured by our own government, and forced to bail out reckless financialcompanies.

I believe that politics is way too intense. Thats why Im a libertarian. Politics gets people angry, destroys relationships, and polarizes peoples vision: the world is us versus them; good people versus the other. Politics is about interfering with other peoples lives without their consent. Thats probably why, in the past, libertarians have made little progress in the political sphere. Thus, I advocate focusing energy elsewhere, onto peaceful projects that some considerutopian.

Read more here:

The Education of a Libertarian | Cato Unbound