The American duopoly system is a formula for injustice, war and global suffering. If it keeps chugging along the way it has been, all the proverbial boiling frogs will be boiled and space maggots will lay eggs in your children’s ears. So, why is the American Libertarian Party, (which is the most visible alternative outside of the two-party system), possibly worse?
Well, since the DNC has shut down Bernie The Sheepdog, and President Mango is evidently on a four year bad acid trip, I’ve been watching the Libertarian Party debates. Instead of talking about the incredibly weird things the debaters have done, said or believe, the debates are sleep-inducing policy circle-jerks featuring incredibly dislikeable people such as John McAfee, Adam Kokesh and Arvin Vohra.
To give you an idea of who these people are… McAfee openly professes his love of sex with teenage girls, and refuses to pay a $25 million judgment in a wrongful death case brought forward by the estate of a Belizean man who was allegedly murdered at the behest of McAfee. McAfee campaigns from outside of the US via twitter and Zoom.
Kokesh considers holocaust denier Augustus Invictus “a good friend,” and doesn’t mind his “ethnostate ideals. (Jump to 50:28). He was also one of the featured speakers at the Straight Pride Parade in Boston last August. Call me crazy– but fuck that shit.
Meanwhile, Vohra says that “violent, entirely non-consensual rape with someone screaming no is *less bad* than something that has the appearance of voluntaryism.” (Go to the 46 minute mark.) It cannot be said enough: What the fuck– fuck this shit– what is this shit– are you fucking kidding me– fuck this shit.
Not all of them are deranged disinfectant-injecting lunatics though. Most of them openly state that their candidacies are a protest against the duopoly. So, in that sense, there are similarities to my mock Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself campaign, and I’ve become friends with the good ones in the process of filming “2020: The Pandemic Presidency.” This is why it is doubly perplexing and troubling to see them tarnish their reputations by diving neck deep in this pool of human feces.
But rather than focus on the people, I want to address what’s wrong with the ideas of the party. We’ll start with the Libertarian Party Platform. The Statement of Principles says:
“We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual. We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose. Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle, that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.”
This is all very lovely, and I don’t disagree with the general point they’re trying to make. The US Government was founded on the genocide of one race and the enslavement of another, certainly benefiting from the fruits of their labor. But, what is evident from the start is that the LP are unaware, or unwilling to admit that the merger of big business and big government, as well as corporate personhood has made their talking points irrelevant. They don’t seem to realize that these omissions or misunderstandings will lead to goblins looting their buttholes and is exactly the opposite of the world of liberty which they profess they want to create.
The Party Platform is not without noble goals. The LP believes in life, liberty, freedom of the press, etc, etc. (Keeping in mind the Founding Fathers didn’t actually care about these things.) But, digressions aside– things become murky on what they call Point #3, which states:
“The right to property — accordingly we oppose all government interference with private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminent domain, and support the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud, and misrepresentation.”
This statement is based on the delusion that everything should be owned— the land, the water, the air, even the minerals below the land. It is also predicated upon the assumption that the original claims of ownership are just, and not the result of violence, fraud or coercion. Where does it stop? Does it make sense to start laying claim to asteroids in outer space— or perhaps even the light from the sun itself? If so, I hereby claim the sun, and all light that it emits, and give it freely except to the dastardly bedwetting libertarians, and all others I decide have gotten in the way of my acquisition of wealth. (I’m kidding. You got that, fellers?)
The Party Platform goes on to say:
“People should not be forced to sacrifice their lives and property for the benefit of others. They should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, is the free market.”
The problem here is that the US Government has decided that corporations are people. We all know this is nonsense— but since the Libertarian Party is attempting to work within the framework of the US government, it must be acknowledged that the LP is in effect stating:
“Corporations should not be forced to sacrifice their lives and property for the benefit of others. Corporations should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of corporate rights, is the free market.”
This wholesale endorsement of the corporate power structure makes them virtually indistinguishable from the Republicans and Democrats. Certainly, their positions on education, licensure and sex-workers righths sets them apart. But at the end of the day, when delegates can be bought, and you allow the corporate funding mechanism for injustice to give you a full-on rusty trombone, you are a cheap version of the duopoly dressed up as stoners. Come to terms with that, libertarians.
The big one which may sum up their political philosophy best is called “the non-aggression principle,” (referred to as the “NAP”). In order to join the American Libertarian Party,” you must sign a pledge which states, “I hereby certify that I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals.”
LP co-founder David Nolan created the Pledge in 1971, and gave a more detailed explanation for it in 1993 in response to David Aitken from the Libertarian Party of Colorado:
David Aitken: What does the pledge on the membership form mean? We ask our members to disavow the initiation of force. This does not mean that you cannot defend yourself; you DO have a right to defend your life, liberty, and property. It does mean that you cannot use the coercive power of government to forcibly achieve your personal, ethical, or religious goals. This commitment helps us maintain our principles and provides us with a measuring stick to determine if we have strayed from our common goal: a society where all relationships among persons are based on voluntary cooperation.
David Nolan : Dave, This is a perfectly good explanation of what the “pledge” or “oath” means. Interestingly, most people in the LP do not know why it was originally placed on membership applications. We did it not because we believed that we could keep out “bad” people by asking them to sign–after all, evil people will lie to achieve their ends–but to provide some evidence that the LP was not a group advocating violent overthrow of the gov’t. In the early 70’s, memories of Nixon’s “enemies list” and the McCarthy hearings of the 50’s were still fresh in people’s minds, and we wanted to protect ourselves from future witch-hunts.
Again, the NAP on it’s surface seems harmless, even noble– except that it’s creator admits that it was a public relations gimmick to make sure people didn’t think they were dirt-bags. And while it is mostly a good idea not to initiate violence against others, the requirement to sign a pledge is a psychological control mechanism, creating a cultish and absolutist framework to the party. It doesn’t rise to the level of MK Ultra, but dogmatizing the concept means to right no wrongs, to see injustice and do nothing and fetishize material wealth above all else.
The rallying cry is, “We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.” They see government itself as the greatest form of tyranny which can be leveled against the individual. However, when cross-pollinated with the LP stance on property, and the the US government’s position on corporations, it is a toxic formula for privatized tyranny, and the pledge largely exists to protect what is termed “free market capitalism,” which cannot exist so long as mega-corporations have effectively merged with the State, making way for wild hogs to chew the flesh from your face.
In requiring new recruits to adhere to this philosophy, the pledge works as a shield for this privatizing of empire– which is better termed corporate capitalism, (or what some call global capitalism). The most shining example, (in recent memory), was Dakota Access Pipeline (a private company) using thousands of public police officers to stage a hostile takeover of the Standing Rock Reservation, using eminent domain. Eminent domain is an issue which the LP claims to care about in their Statement of Principles– yet, when you ask your average libertarian what they know about Standing Rock, you are likely to be met with blank stares. My guess is that since Standing Rock was tied in with environmental issues, your average libertarian doesn’t want to hear about that “lefty commie propaganda.” Corporate capitalism depends on cheap labor abroad, so those third world slave laborers can create more and more things for consumers in First World nations to purchase. The executives from these corporations use their vast wealth to bribe politicians, who in turn give massive bailouts to the corporations when their gutless ponzi schemes fall apart.
In these times of crisis, (such as Covid-19), these mega-corporations wait for the Mom and Pop businesses to fail– then buy them up, continuing their expansion and dominance of the un-free market. It is an environment where no one can do business but the Walmart/ Uncle Sam Voltron sent to smash everything you ever knew or loved. Free money for the rich and bootstraps for everyone else. Since all people under corporate capitalism must engage in this oppressive system to survive, the libertarian goes to blame shifting, rather than focus on the abuse, they say, “if you complain, you’re just no good at capitalism.” However, this is a lie of omission, and a coercive fraud.
Section 2.8 of the Libertarian Party platform tries to get some things right— stating, “We oppose all forms of government subsidies and bailouts to business, labor, or any other special interest. Government should not compete with private enterprise.” Again, it seems like no one sent them the memo about the merger. In the very same paragraph they defend the right to form corporations. Sure– there are small business which are forced to set up an LLC– but that’s not what I’m talking about. Why would the LP even bring it up in such a manner? If you are against the bubonic plague, you don’t say you are in favor of releasing the bubonic plague in your charter.
If you’re totally new to politics, or have had your head under a rock, let’s go back in time to 1886 and the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. It is the case which imbued corporations personhood. It was opined by Chief Justice Morrison Waite that:
“The Court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which forbids a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.”
Imbuing a corporation with human rights is effectively granting private governments (called corporations) the legal right to drill a hole in your head and fill it with worms. That should be a disqualification for the LP platform. American Libertarianism fails to recognize that those who do best under this system tend to have the advantage of having popped out of “the right vagina,” receiving all the benefits of accumulated generational wealth, which in most cases has been obtained through direct violations of the non-aggression principle.
Those who can see this logical inconsistency might reasonably ask themselves, why shouldn’t I just steal from those people with everything, then convert to libertarianism shouting to all new aggressors, “keep your dirty paws off of me, you’re violating the non aggression principle.”
Let’s take it back to this ridiculous notion that everything can or should be owned. Section 2.2 of the LP platform states, “Private landowners and conservation groups have a vested interest in maintaining natural resources.” This is categorically bullshit. If the LP believes that big business cares about doing what’s right, then I’ve got a lovely bridge to sell them, and I call dibs on the air. The platform goes on to state, “Governments are unaccountable for damage done to our environment and have a terrible track record when it comes to environmental protection.” While government has done an abysmal job, at least government can be petitioned by the people for the time being. Corporations have a much worse track record, and are totally unaccountable.
Even Murray Rothbard, heralded as the philosophical prophet of right-libertarianism acknowledges in Chapter 13 of his book “For a New Liberty,”
“The vital fact about air pollution is that the polluter sends unwanted and unbidden pollutants—from smoke to nuclear fallout to sulfur oxides—through the air and into the lungs of innocent victims, as well as onto their material property. All such emanations which injure person or property constitute aggression against the private property of the victims. Air pollution, after all, is just as much aggression as committing arson against another’s property or injuring him physically. Air pollution that injures others is aggression pure and simple.”
Rothbard would agree that the LP stance on the environment will lead to violations of the NAP.
On the surface, the NAP seems like common sense. Any child knows that it’s wrong to steal, and you shouldn’t hit other kids in the schoolyard. If it’s wrong to do this as individuals, it’s wrong to do it as a group, gang or a government. Conversely, any child knows that it’s wrong to dump poison in someone’s drink, which is what these mega-corporations do when they pollute. Any child knows that slavery was wrong. But again, corporate personhood allows for it.
Until American Libertarians come to acknowledge the stratified system of thefts and aggressions underpinning their so-called “free market” cult, their positions will continue to do immeasurable harm to the environment and people around the world.
Vermin is playing you.
Thanks for debating!
Rod Webber 