296 thoughts on “6 Reasons Why I Gave Up On Libertarianism”

1. There is a happy medium. Social anarchy is not realistic, but neither should government be able to dictate all things from the federal level. How about having our government abiding by the 10th amendment?
   “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
   prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively,
   or to the people.”
   Let people decide on a local level if they want to smoke pot, have brothels, or have gay marriage. A socially conservative individual could move to a socially conservative area, or vice versa. The leftists feel like whatever social experiment they want (outlawing drinking) needs to happen on a national level.
   Teach people correct principles and let them govern themselves.

   1. What difference does it make?
      The leftists infiltrate everything.
      Can’t just keep heading west to escape them…

      1. Ideally, they must be forced out. If each locality has a collective culture and is proud of that culture, the interlopers will not be welcomed unless they assimilate.
         For this reason, Constitutions and Manifestos exist. Hard, unyielding documents that are difficult to change and to which everyone adheres are a strong defense against corruption (insofar as all adhere).
         Note how, in the history of the Christian Church, most teachings and interpretations are consistent if they are derived from the plain text. The primary deviations have occurred when either a council has given itself power to interpret or supersede the text (as I believe the RCC has done) or the text is considered unreliable (as the modern critical theory has propagated). In the first case, the document is rendered meaningless even as adherence remains strong, because it is to easily modified; in the second case, the document remains intact but adherence weakens and disappears altogether.

      2. Yup, we ran out of West in the late 1800’s. When working with leftists, I think the key is to build on common ground. You want freedom? So do I.
         You want to have a government that is tailored to your views? So do I.
         But what happens when those views conflict? Don’t you think the best way to handle that is to have locally controlled law?…….This is when the conversation breaks down.

         1. I don’t know the answer, and neither did Franklin when he said “a republic if they can keep it”…
            Some things should be national though, religion, driving, shooting, speaking, assembling…etc — basically the constitution, BOR…
            Seems people are just too different, Cities versus Countryside especially… And the poor in the city vote(liberal), and wealthy in the Cities control the B52s (or is it B53 now?)

         2. Read Frederick Jackson Turner’s 1893 paper, “Closing of the Frontier”

         3. Sorry, I never learned how to read. What does it say?

         4. Says that the presence of the frontier was instrumental in preserving a sense of freedom and was essential in promoting the American spirit.

         5. that I can agree with. However, without conquering Canada, we have to work with what we have.

         6. I passed through Toronto once. They can keep it.

         7. It’s interesting to look at Hamilton’s theoretical plans. America under him might’ve been almost the entire NA continent.

         8. For any SJWs who might read this thread, we’re talking about the historical Hamilton (the white guy on the $10), not the mediocre musical.

         9. From what I understand, the play is essentially a black-washing.

         10. And not a good one. I listened to three random tracks a while back, and they were all shite.
             I’d rather watch Cats again, and that was previously my #1 most despised musical.

         11. I thought the whole Black-Oscar controversy was amusing. You can get Tonys, Emmys, and Oscars just for having slavery or segregation (or apparently what amounts to black-face now) as a subject in your work. Quality and art isn’t even factored in.

         12. That’s why I am proud to have helped ruin the Hugo Awards. For decades now, absolutely terrible works have been given previously prestigious awards just for their political affiliations.
             Burn ’em down.

         13. hahahaha
             Yeah, I’ll wait for the Netflix series.

         14. You can still go west, you’ll just get all wet!

         15. I hear Hawaii is nice this time of year

         16. I don’t understand, by the way, why some black people want to repeat black versions of white successes — The Wiz, for example. It’s cultural appropriation. Black people have contributed a great deal without simply imitating whites. It’s like someone is indulging the least creative black artists.

   2. Liberty exists best in community. When all share the same values, the law merely exists to punish egregious deviations from the norm. Minor deviations are easily corrected or absorbed through social pressures.
      (For example, the borderline-mythical era of America saw marriage as a sacred vow, so all were more careful in how they chose their mates. Chastity prior to marriage was considered a virtue, so women and men kept each other in line. This was possible and practical because each community was self-contained to a large degree.)
      The idea of American liberty, as I understand it, is that each community is able to choose its own values and norms without undue influence from other communities. This is why the 9th and 10th Amendments exist – to keep California from dictating how Texans must live, and vice versa. Moreover, the principle extended further down the chain – each state should let the counties govern themselves, each county should let the cities govern themselves, and each city should let the families govern themselves (all within reason).
      I think the idea of America is as close to the happy medium as we’ve ever seen, but America itself is not.

      1. We did pretty good until about the time of the Civil War, although the fed was right to stop the usurpation of God given rights of others (slavery), it set a precedent that the federal government trumped states rights to govern themselves on social isues.

         1. You know, the polio vaccine is credited with eliminating the disease, but it was already in steep decline when the drug was introduced. I can’t help but wonder if slavery in the states would have gone the same way.
            When you think about it, slaves were expensive. Only the wealthy really had the ability to keep slaves (and, given the cost of new slaves, it was easier to keep them fed and reasonably happy than to import), and technology was advancing at a remarkable rate. Moreover, even in the South (especially in the South?) there were growing movements that saw slavery as un-Christian trying to abolish the practice.
            The Southern War of Secession was really fought over exactly that – secession. The federal government was imposing their will on the Southern states even when every Senator and Representative south of the Mason-Dixon line voted no. So, it seems to me that the system was already beginning to fail long before the states started to secede from the Union.

         2. I find it interesting how the North was far more prosperous than the south prior to the war. You come to think of it, the slaves would only do the minimum to keep from getting beaten, and the slave owners wouldn’t work hard either. Really, we are having the same with wealth redistribution of today. With a loss of incentive to work, the whole population becomes poor.

         3. My understanding is that this is exactly why slavery was ultimately eliminated in Brazil, where far more slaves were owned than in the US.

         4. It didn’t hurt that all the banking was up north. Memories run long in the South, so we remember how they screwed our ancestors over through trade restrictions, unreasonable interest rates, and the like.
            “Reconstruction” is like “Social Justice” – it means the opposite of what it sounds like it should mean.

         5. Slavery wouldn’t have lasted more than 15 years beyond the War-period.

         6. ‘Reconstruction’ was punishment. Keep the South in line, poor, and agitated with the clutch of new Black competition.

         7. Alabama had all the resources to be the #1 steel production economy of America, but under the laws of Reconstruction they were forced to be uncompetitive with Detroit.
            I hear some of my relatives at that time owned a small family of slaves. After they were freed, they elected to work for my relatives because the job prospects were slim, the family was nice and generous, and they had lived on my relatives’ land all their lives (and that whole 40 acres and a mule thing never panned out – yet another government promise never delivered).

         8. That was something I brought up in a college history class. Technological innovations in farm machinery would have eventually lowered the cost to plant and harvest and once that happened, there would be no economic benefit of owning slaves.

         9. If you ever have time, take a look at who leased out a lot of the bigger plantations when cotton prices were high. You’ll notice the names of a lot of banks based in NYC.

         10. Exactly. People who claim were it not for the Civil War slavery would still exist to this day are morons. Slavery was becoming non-viable economically (the industrial revolution). Slavery would have been gradually phased out over a 10 or 20 year period with far less disruption and loss of life.
             See Harry Turtledove’s Guns of the South, where in the South wins the Civil War and slavery is phased out by 1890s.

         11. So it would’ve been okay to let polio kill and cripple a few more people instead of inoculating against it?
             This isn’t a comment on phasing out slavery instead of killing 700,000 people and burning prosperous cities to the ground, but on anti-vax.

         12. It was a time for the federal government to get a grip on ex-slaves’ hearts and minds, which they have yet to let up on.

         13. That’s true, but it’s progressive blasphemy to speak the truth that Brazil had more slaves and freed them without a vicious war.

         14. Do you not understand what an analogy is?

         15. Some things are red flags.
             Polio was not on the way out here. Every year there were hundreds of cases. The year after us elementary school kids got the vaccine there were few. Anything that looks anti-vax is anathema.

         16. They were never promised 40 acres and a mule. That as a comment in a letter by a northern general after the war.

         17. Back then it was one shot with no mercury. Now its 10 shots with mercury. Plus the polio vaccine worked. Flu vaccines don’t work. Big pharma has turned it into a scam.

         18. Potentially anti-Polio-vax, I’ll grant you, but the stats are clear. If the trend had continued, even slowed, eventually the disease would essentially disappear even without the vaccine. The vaccine just did it more decisively, as near as I can tell.
             The analogy is a good one. Slavery in America was on its way out for both economic and cultural reasons, and it’s not only possible but probable that it would have died in approximately the same time without a war that destroyed the lands they worked and killed not only their masters but their friends and family.

         19. Slavery was an institution that would have died out due to economic and social pressures. It was actually under conscious human control and could’ve left less of a damaging legacy except for Lincoln’s dictatorial behavior.
             Polio is a biological entity that without the vaccine would still be ravaging people even if in smaller numbers. There’s no reason to let a disease persist just because it might diminish in a hundred years. Vaccines are simply an extension of the human immune system that circumvent the suffering biological evolution requires. If you want to be crippled and weakened if not killed that’s your problem — and you would be just as likely to get it as anyone else.

         20. By that logic, if law enforcement is pursuing a serial rapist and discovers he’s very old and probably only has a few years left anyway, should they just leave him alone? I mean… he couldn’t possibly victimize THAT many more women, right? What I’m seeing with this narrative is a clear-cut case of ideology clouded reasoning.

         21. https://marygriggs.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/strawman.jpg

         22. Right.
             “I didn’t get a ‘harump’ out of you. You watch your ass!”.
             – William J Lepetome from Blazing Saddles
             I ditched my facebook because it had become a lefty echo chamber. Some of the threads on ROK are like the righty version of that phenomenon.

         23. Every analogy breaks down at some point. When I said that the vaccine just crushed it more definitively, I meant that it is the reason we’ve had, what, one case in ten years or so, and that was more a fluke than anything. Now, it could be argued that the vaccine is less important now if you live and continue to live in the US, where the disease has been essentially eradicated, but that’s another argument for another day.
             However, the argument you present can be seen to strengthen the analogy, as slavery is still practiced in very small and very quiet pockets of the United States. Much like a biological disease which is almost, but not quite entirely, non-existent, slavery is a social disease (to common American thinking) which is almost, but not quite entirely, non-existent in the US.
             Personally, I’m only somewhat concerned with the vaccines containing Thimerasol. I theorize that the risk of infection is sufficiently low (given the disease rates in the US) to delay innoculation a few months past the standard American schedule to increase the baby’s ability to process mercury, all but eliminating the risks claimed by the anti-vaxxers. Frankly, I’d like to see a clinical trial performed to test my hypothesis, if only to end the debate once and for all.

         24. I don’t know enough to judge modern vaccines and don’t know why the originals were altered. I had most of the so-called childhood diseases and so will never get them; apparently I’m no worse off for having had them.
             I’ve never heard of polio being on the way out. I have known people who had it and they suffered the effects throughout their lives.
             I don’t know where slavery is still practiced in the US except by gangsters who set up sex slave rings, though it is practiced in Africa and the Middle East. Sex slavery could be abated more by making prostitution legal so it can be regulated. That would eliminate most sex slavery but if you recommend it women will begin shrieking in rage, specifically about sex slavery and you can’t prove to them it largely would end. (Except for benevolent leftists like Clinton and friends.) Women’s tantrums are what illegalized it early the last century even though doctors proved that would make STDs harder to control (no effective antibiotics then, either). Eliminated female voting would improve society.

         25. In the antebellum south the fraction of whites (or for that matter blacks and Indians) which owned slaves was on the order of 1 to 2%. The control these few powerful and rich men used to keep factors in their favor was why the south was over all poor, not because slavery led to laziness.

         26. I completely agree. Most southern whites were just poor schmucks trying to make a living. But those in power were quite lazy. Not too different than crony capitalism and the stagnation we see today.

         27. Something that only has a couple hundred cases out of a population of a hundred million is already on its way out. If you consider that just a few years earlier, this was a disease that even affected the president, then you must realize that while a factor of 100 reduction is dramatic, it is only the killing blow against an already vanishing disease. And where are you getting this anti-vax crap, no one said that vaccines didn’t help, just that the disease was already going away because of other measures.

         28. I don’t know that it had only a couple of hundred cases. We usually had that many here yearly.
             However, we didn’t have more than a couple of hundred after the vaccinations in the entire country.
             Would you like to locate any of those couple of hundred still alive and tell them they don’t matter?

         29. You are completely missing the point. What we are talking about is massive social trends being falsely attributed to single events. The individual cases do not matter when discussing the trend. Now, the Civil War caused so much destruction that if slavery had simply died out 25 years later with no war, the country would have been better off as a whole. No one is saying that the polio vaccine was so cost prohibitive that it shouldn’t have been developed, but at the the same time the false attribution does happen in both cases.

         30. Right about slavery, wrong about polio. Diseases caused by viruses aren’t social trends.
             Sounds like you’re trying to support a nonsense fad.

         31. Social trends are the major cause of the spread of disease. Hygiene does more good than expensive research, and it’s generally cheaper to implement. Vaccines would be useless if they cost us our fresh water supply, because the diseases would spread faster than we could counter them.
             That’s the point the original author was trying to make. We probably didn’t need to develop vaccines as badly as we needed to quarantine people who got it. Having the vaccine helped, but most of the work was done through education and social measures.

         32. Quarantine is a good idea, though it still doesn’t keep insects and smaller vectors from spreading diseases. Hygiene is valuable, and it may have fallen out of strict practice die to effective medical treatments and feminist women rebelling against traditional expectations like keeping their houses clean.
             It appears, however, that you want sick and injured people tossed out to suffer and die.
             This is commonplace among collectivists, who realize that a socialist/communist economy, which demands rigid thought control and behavioral policing, cannot produce the wealth and advances a capitalist one combined with freedom can. That’s why they want to kill disabled and extremely elderly people who can’t do much work and don’t pay taxes to the privileged elite.

      2. In those gone by days women’s sexuality was kept in check by the imperative of marrying them off as soon as they hit puberty. In the late 1800s the age of puberty for women was 18. The average age of marriage was 18 and 1/2. During those six months the family and all of society sat on these women and made every effort to find them a suitable husband (which obviously meant they ignored the stupid bitch’s opinion.) Without all of society, culture, religion, and law absolutely beating these women(often to death) female sexuality goes off the rails and destroys the woman and the nation.

   3. No dude, don’t you see, I should have the right to move somewhere filled with people I hate and then force them to conform to my distorted view of the social contract. /sarc.
      This is the standard response I have when some leftist insists on dragging me into a conversation about how terrible it is that some yokel in bumblefucktucky won’t bake wedding cakes for gays – why the fuck would gays want to live in such a place anyway? There’s plenty of room for them in NYC, LA and DC.

      1. I have never met a person who is both outraged by what some country folk think and is in any way interested in relocating out there. These are usually middle-class city kids unable and unwilling to make even the most minor of sacrifices no matter the potential gain.

         1. Yeah, agreed. It’s like when some coworker bitches about abortion rights in Texas or something. I’m always like, “you don’t live there, why the fuck do you care?” Then there’s something about universal rights, etc.. If harassment laws didn’t exist, I would engage in epic trolling about their desire to seek secret abortions in Texas.

         2. Universal human rights are a Christian concept. They derive from the laws of God and his nature.
            If God is just to the rich and poor alike, then we should be just to the rich and poor alike.
            If God calls none Jew or Gentile in Christ, neither should we turn away a black man or a Latino who embraces our culture and morality.
            The thing is, they reject the origin of the concept of human rights, and thus they reject any bounds on them. The Scriptures do not say that every man is entitled to life regardless of his work (in fact, “he who does not work shall not eat”), or that every man is entitled to a physician and medicines regardless of his ability to pay, or that even Christians must allow every other religion, culture, and philosophical tradition to thrive in his nation (in fact, “thou shalt have no other gods before me”).

         3. A long time ago, there was a great post on ROK about the perversion of the golden rule in modern Christianity that echoes what you have written here. Can’t remember who wrote it, but it was basically this same theme – you can’t have only the half you find pleasant.

         4. Exactly. It is a mighty defense, but every step away from the center takes you closer to the gates, where the barbarian hordes seek to take your very life.

         5. “If God calls none Jew or Gentile in Christ,”
            Key phrase “in Christ”.
            ” neither should we turn away a
            black man or a Latino who embraces our culture and morality.”
            God told the ancient nation of Israel that the same set of rules applied to alien and native-born (and later their kings). However, God excluded certain nations from entering into the assembly to the tenth generation, but allowed others to enter the assembly in the third generation.

      2. Why not force Moslem bakers to bake wedding cakes for gays? I just don’t understand…

         1. Yeah, funny how that never happens.

         2. Or bake a “Fuck Allah” cake

      3. Don’t forget gay central, SF.

         1. I said “plenty of room.” I think SF is full.

   4. One of the article’s problems is it seems to contain bits and parts and how it wouldn’t work because of other non-libertarian systems. Like open borders and a welfare state. It can’t work. I agree with you that the original federalist system is probably the most libertarian-like you might get realistically. And a continual push towards pure libertarianism is needed to keep the sloth of people from increasing government interference where it doesn’t belong.

      1. One thing I wish the framers did is put teeth in the document so people couldn’t just ignore it. Most of the problems in our government come from ignoring the constitution.

         1. That was the idea behind the Second Amendment. If our government chooses to ignore the Constitution, people are its teeth.
            But we got lazy and apathetic, and so we defanged the Constitution.

   5. Letting people govern themselves is libertarianism. And neither of the major parties do that.

      1. Do you really believe most folks are capable of governing themselves? I don’t.
         Most of our struggle against The Elite is simply an attempt to replace them, while they subsequently attempt to push us back into serfdom.
         Lords and Serfs are the natural order. The Middle Class is an illusion, a dream. Unsustainable for any true length of time.

         1. In a more natural state, the Middle Class is not dissimilar to a poor ruler. They have the ability to self-govern and provide for themselves in a rational and reasonable manner, but they lack the drive for conquest that would make them Upper Class.
            I have meditated long on Aristotle’s theory of “Slaves by Nature.” He proposed that there were just some people who were unable to self-govern and think long-term, so they would necessarily destroy whatever they touched if left unregulated. For this reason, they required masters who were capable and gifted in reason to direct their energies in a way that benefits all (including themselves, in the long run).
            I once believed all men could see truth. Now I fear no man can fully grasp truth, and very few have the will or ability to try.

         2. I hate that you’re right… but you’re right.

         3. The majority are probably not. Then they can become the serfs. I’m not really interested in raising up the middle class that are too worthless to do it themselves. I just want us to have a better chance at becoming “The Elites.”

         4. Well said.

         5. The US Founders knew that, thus such institutions as the Electoral College. Every institution and power group should hold every other by the balls so they’ll work together. Although there were unfortunate choices earlier, it was Lincoln who wrecked the foundations of balanced government.

         6. Fraid so.

         7. If you talk to people today, most want a dictatorship.

      2. there’s lots of petty rules but no actual moral leadership

   6. A golden medium is the result of failing to optimize for the right variable.
      In reality, what should be maximized is the long run profit of the state, because that is the only thing the state can be relied on to do. The current state, incase you hadn’t noticed, is not doing that.
      From there, you then get that the state encourages cultural morality because that is what causes long-run profit. Whether the king/owners then sell the state for more due to its long-run potential for profit, or lets their children take it over to run it profitably, is irrelevant. What matters is the value of the state apparatus, and nothing more.

      1. People are inherently selfish. The selfish politicians do what they can to stay in power. They know people are selfish and will vote for them if they are given bread and circus. As long as the country maintains power longer than they live, why should the politician care?

         1. Because the politicians don’t own the state. It’s just the tragedy of the commons, only with the additional caveat that the politicians don’t even fully control the state. That is left to the bureaucrats, who have to sell their power at an even higher discount, and generally have to satisfy themselves by exercising power over other people.

   7. It was strict protestants that were behind the Prohibition. Far from leftists. Also, what they called “progressives” at that time were involved as well, but they were not leftists. Leftists would lean toward allowing people to drink or drug themselves into oblivion. Please… at least stick to assigning credit where it is due.

2. Ayn Rand’s Kool-Aid drinkers don’t get it. Rand came closer to magical thinking and ritualizing than they would willingly admit because she created Objectivism as a form of theater, where you look and act in certain ways for spectators, like that foolish woman who cosplays as Rand and now runs the Atlas Society. Rand did not create her philosophy as a serious project to make our lives better, despite what the cult’s propaganda says. And this makes sense in a way, considering that Rand came from a background in stage and cinema.
   That explains why Rand spent her life attacking safe targets where our elites don’t feel vulnerable: government regulations, fiat money, taxation, central banking and the welfare state. No one in power retaliated against Rand by throwing her in jail, accusing her of “hate speech,” trying to cancel or disrupt her public appearances, causing her to lose jobs, banning her from entering certain countries or pressuring her to humiliate herself publicly by renouncing her beliefs. (By contrast, these kinds of things have happened to Richard Spencer and other personalities in the Alt Right.) In other words, Rand strategized her play-acting at defiance of the powerful in a way which wouldn’t inconvenience her life.
   And yet the Rand cultists have followed her example by sticking to their safe spaces. Meanwhile, our elites continue to enslave us through their damaging and childish utopianism regarding race, immigration, feminism and sexual degeneracy, but the cultists generally avoid addressing those issues, often phobically so, because they know that venturing into that arena can have real consequences for their comfortable lives. They can propagandize Rand’s philosophy for its “courage” all they want, but in practice they have chosen the coward’s way of defying our elites.

   1. hard to tell. real Albionic American or not. Possibly message by (((Kim Kardashian))) and the elites.

      1. Kim Kardashian is Armenian… except if you meant it flipped!

      2. I’m still mentally scarred by this….

   2. “welfare state” well, she loath welfare state until she became very ill, then enjoy the help of the state to pay for her medical care…
      Not very stoïc …

3. Libertarianism is the utopian dream of the right, in the same way that socialism is the utopian dream of the left. They both represent ultimate freedom to their followers (for the right, it is freedom from authority/interference; for the left it is freedom from consequence.)
   Both ideologies hit the same brick wall: humans. Both systems (libertarianism and socialism) can exist IN THEORY but when attempted by actual humans they both fail within a single generation. For socialism, they fail because the organizers of society ultimately are corrupted or use their power poorly. For libertarianism, they fail because they are the victims of conquest. A libertarian society is ill-equipped to defend itself against an army or even a load of immigrants.
   A democratic republic, composed of separate sovereign states, is actually a fantastic system of government. It could use some updates (particularly in how we elect or representatives) but overall it seems to work best FOR HUMANS. Long live the USA!

   1. Can’t help but want to temper one of your assertions:
      A democratic republic, composed of separate sovereign states, is actually a fantastic somewhat reasonable system of government. While not rendering it impossible, shortcomings of American republicanism seem to show up just as much when the same humans that wreck socialism and libertarianism are factored in.

4. A very comprehensive and insightful article. Kudos to the French author. The first point of the article is particularly illuminating. This sets ROK apart from other putrid leftist websites. Where any hint or discussion of Jew ethnic networking will be greeted by wails of anti Semitism. As a friendly jibe to the author, here is something:-
   https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2760dc8412ceeb80c28a0ca7effa752a8ae447dab889f783f1671ac2e3c05ad2.jpg

5. Libertarianism in general has many good economic ideas. But is apolitical so it cannot ever be used to rule a nation. No one can disagree with libertarianist ideas (except lefties, socialists and SJWs) BUT NO ONE should agree with it’s premises. The idea that: the model of the free market will be kept, that the rule of law will be respected, that blind nepotism will not be intrigued and the infiltration of institutions by various groups and (((peoples))), with dark wants will not happen because of… reasons is totally childish.
   Libertarianism and Objectivism are fixated to notions of objective truth (what you cannot say it doesn’t exist) and it cannot comprehend the secretive notion of the human nature. It was a step down from absolute truth (i.e. what is real even if it is not perceived) and it can not even fantasize about universal truth (let’s say ideas that are true). Libertarians have lost nearly ALL their fights against the system and they think that they try hard, even if that is true maybe, I say maybe they are not doing it right.
   Also Libertarians might shun subjectivism but fail to notice it on other people, hence their naive belief that arguments move people and not emotions. Their world is small, unimaginative and… predictable.

6. Whatever the next big movement is, you can bet it will be backed and fomented by the same bastards who promoted libertarianism, and leftism, and Marxism, and feminism, and all the other isms. “Hey! Look over here! Snake oil!”

7. This article is so utterly wrong on so many levels that I believe that my participation in this thread will end up resulting in nothing but pages of patiently explaining the same things over and over again to people who already are for protectionism or some other “You must bend to my will!”-ism, which never goes well.
   The only thing the author got right, on any front, is regarding open borders and immigration. That he even pretends that Gary Johnson represents anything more than 10% libertarian ideology (against the WOD) tells me exactly how ignorant he is of the topic at hand. No offense to the author, that’s not a personal attack, it’s saying that I don’t believe that the author actually understands actual libertarianism and is setting up a myriad of straw men, even if unintentionally.
   And with that, my one and only post on the thread, and I’m out.
   Slainte

   1. Actually the author nearly lost it on libertarianism, nearly because it is a failed POLITICAL idea, because it is APOLITICAL. It’s economical positions though are correct. Also, Libertarianism is, with it’s policy on small flat-tax-rate is ONE OF THE BEST ECONOMICAL SYSTEM FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS AND EVEN THE UPPER WORKING CLASS!!!

      1. A true libertarian economy would be built on savings- not consumption. No central bank interference and a backed currency would mean controlled growth with less volatility. A simple tax code would destroy big corporations’ competitive advantages. That’s why libertarianism will never be realized.

         1. Libertarianism won’t be realized because people are irrational and they want lots of socialism and bullshit.
            You have to educate people vigorously before they can accept a political theory relying and 3rd and 4th level arguments.

         2. If it benefited large corporations it would happen. Americans don’t know WTF they are voting on in the first place. But I do agree that if this country weren’t filled with retards, it would have a much stronger libertarian presence than it has now.

         3. Exaclty-Libertarianism is for a rational person; no nation is ever populated with a majority of rational people. Politics trumps everything just as groups trump individuals, so libertarian ideals die a quick death as politics organizes irrational behavior to overwhelm the few rational-acting people out there. Principled behavior is a luxury for most, very few stand on principle to their own detriment.

         4. “People are irrational” – finding peace with this truth makes you a happier and more successful person.
            Even those who aspire to rationality are irrational. Practicing hypnosis, I came to realize that my mind really was divided into the logical and the subconscious irrational, and the subconscious always won out no matter how hard I fought it.
            The trick is to use logic to govern the irrational mind. If you learn its patterns, you can learn to manipulate your irrationality toward your purposes.

         5. This was a major struggle for me, because I am naturally very rational. I think this is a major reason people become libertarians; you have to be ruthlessly dedicated to dialectic, resist bullshit and conditioning, and spend years of time reading about abstract political concepts for no reason other than a desire for the truth.
            Most people don’t give a fuck.

         6. Populist politics and rhetoric with libertarian policies, on the other hand….

         7. The parts of libertarianism that benefit big corporations already have happened. We have free markets to the extent that they don’t cause much trouble to companies with billions of dollars to absorb the compliance costs of regulations…

      2. You’re not wrong. Here’s the problem (confirmed directly in discussions with a friend who works at a Libertarian think tank last week):
         Libertarianism can’t win elections.

         1. That’s exactly what I said: a good economic system that is APOLITICAL and so it cannot achieve anything in politics!

         2. It’s partly human nature.
            Normal Politician, “I promise to give you a cookie!”
            Libertarian Politician, “I’m going to let you bake your own.”

         3. And this is why Leftism has such easy appeal.

         4. I don’t know if this is ethical, but on a practical level, we should probably promise to give out cookies, then make people bake them when we get into office.

         5. Well, if you use different rhetoric and then implement libertarian policies, you might be able to get somewhere.

         6. Basically anyone can use a primarily libertarian economic policy (for example there should be anti-monopoly and anti-cartel laws) but politically it can give nothing. Politics are not economics and they have only 2 reasons: To provide stability (law) and keep it and to protect from the enemy, especially the enemy within: the traitor (here loosely).
            Libertarianism offers some ideas on policy like rule of law but not how to keep them or how to enact them, specifically it remains apolitical and so it cannot protect its systems or enact policy for itself, problem being that it is all-inclusive, meaning it cannot discriminate between friend and foe.
            The game Bioshock 2 plays upon that in which the leader of an anarcho-capitalistic city in the bottom of the ocean, basically hires a brilliant scientist who… turns out to be also a fervent socialist. Also she helped to destroy that city.

      3. There are no taxes in libertarianism, lol.

         1. that is anarcho-capitalism. In Libertatianism there is a state only for protecting the rule of law, so it is minimal making it suck something between 10% to 20% of the income of it’s citizens through a flat rate only on the income.

   2. He is not informed, hence he doesn’t know what HHH has written about or the final opinion of Rothbard on immigration which can be found here: https://mises.org/system/tdf/11_1_1_0.pdf?file=1&type=document

   3. Hahaha I came to this comments section just to upvote the inevitable GOJ thread-nuking post.

   4. I started to type something up, but then I realized what I had to say would inevitably dissolve into just another internet argument.

      1. No it wouldn’t! You’re so wrong!

         1. No, you’re wrong! You’re a racist, homophobic, transphobic islamaphobe!

         2. HEY! you guys. you really need to stop this. I mean…you are thinking about your own petty problems. But what about the massacres in Sri Lanka? Doesn’t that affect us, too? I mean don’t you know anything about Sri Lanka? About how the Sikhs are killing like tons of Israelis there? Doesn’t THAT affect us?

         3. Dude, we’ve got first world problems here. I mean, my Starbucks pumpkin-spiced latte was only warm, not hot this morning. I don’t have time to worry about Sri Lankans.

         4. It is true. W e have to end apartheid for one. And slow
            down the nuclear arms race, stop terrorism and world
            hunger. But we can’t ignore our social needs. either We
            have to stop people from abusing the welfare system. We
            have to provide food and shelter for the homeless and
            oppose racial discrimination and promote civil rights while
            also promoting equal rights for women but change the
            abortion laws to protect the right to life yet still
            somehow maintain women’s freedom of choice.
            We also have to control the influx of illegal
            immigrants. We have to encourage a return to traditional
            moral values and curb graphic sex and violence on TV, in
            movies, in pop music, everywhere. Most importantly we have
            to promote general social concern and less materialism in
            young people.

         5. You forgot the Russians. We’ve got to stop them.

         6. no time. I have to return some video tapes.

         7. Don’t be a dick. Rewind them first before you return them.

         8. Do you like Huey Lewis and The News? Their early work was a little too new wave for my tastes, but when Sports came out in ’83, I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically. The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the songs a big boost. He’s been compared to Elvis Costello, but I think Huey has a far more bitter, cynical sense of humor.

         9. We need to solve the Pumpkin Spice Problem in our own country, before we can move on to Apartheid and Female Genital Mutilation in other countries.

         10. Why are there copies of the style section all over the place, d-do you have a dog? A little chow or something?

         11. I grew up without MTV so I never saw this video before today.
             
             I’m a fan of songs like this that can be taken on two Shakespearean levels– can be seen as a red pill message and chicks will dig it too thinking its all dreamy and sweet.
             And of course it’s great to see a room of people having fun without a single fat person in it.

         12. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/08b33d77ce79cec1ddbe23d1b632c9f454ebb91ffad613f0dd17ae4c4c570c00.jpg

         13. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d38f2a37e717655722829bc7a688621347a7fed9c96bb153418f5b25141012ad.jpg

         14. And sexist. Don’t forget sexist.

         15. Affect us? IT’S ALL MY FAULT!

         16. The children! Somebody please think of the children!!

         17. We must prioritize equal pay for male and female athletes. Serena Williams told us so.
             http://www.msn.com/en-in/sports/tennis/serena-williams-women-must-continue-to-dream-big/ar-AAkZthq?li=AAggjDC

         18. When she can beat a 500 seed tennis player who has had a few beers we can talk

   5. Bingo. And that open borders thing is naive to the point that it embarrasses me that it is even mentioned as part of libertarianism.

      1. The “open borders thing” is theory, taking into account some assumptions like no welfare state, no publicly owned land, and a few other things.

         1. The trouble is that it does flow logically from the principles of libertarianism.
            A free market of goods necessitates a free market of services. A free market of goods and services necessitates an open exchange route for said goods and services. An open exchange route for services requires that people be able to freely move about offering those services.
            Taken to its extreme (total freedom), it requires open borders so that everyone can freely go anywhere to offer their services.
            The United States Constitution provides a mechanism for this freedom within the confines of the nation. Because the nation is able to regulate immigration, this restrains the good idea to the bounds in which it is most feasible.

         2. Is this serious?

         3. I believe so. It’s a greatly-shortened line of reasoning based on my exposures to libertarians of many stripes.

         4. Yes, without a welfare state and protectionist work/trade rules, I don’t see the merit in wanting to control where people go and what they peacefully do.

         5. The merit would be primarily in preserving a culture, I think. I look to nations like Japan, which had much to gain monetarily from open trade with the rest of the world, but for centuries they guarded against outsiders in order to keep Japan Japanese.

         6. From that point of view, one should view the neocons as the ultimate enemy. Regardless of their views on immigration, they have the idea that American culture is superior and should be exported to the entire world. Hence the wars and meddling and terrorism and all that, that places like Japan don’t have. Whatever the Japanese think of themselves and their racial superiority, you don’t see them exporting Japanese culture at all.

         7. The Japanese are conservationists, where the Neocons are expansionists. Modern day missionaries, if you will.

         8. Obligatory Anime Reference
            But, yeah, I would actually agree on that one. Superior as I think it is, it is our culture and only ours. If you want it, you can copy it, but we have no more business forcing it on anyone else than they do forcing their nonsense on us.

         9. Re: American culture, at some point I do think European culture was supreme; however, I wouldn’t brag much about my modern American culture to anyone.
            And this absurd forcing of democracy on the entire world is really fucking things up.

         10. I think America just got really lucky at the beginning. The absolute perfect storm of men in charge.

         11. I think the problem is that American culture is largely hidden in the woods. We are now a country of many nations and many cultures.
             I think what many would consider modern American culture is ridiculous and not the culture I inherited.

         12. that and a boundless, unprotected frontier to pillage.

         13. WWII laying waste to the rest of the industrialized world really helped too. Gave us a head start that we started doing our best to piss away in the 80’s…

         14. It can’t be exactly the same culture. For one thing it has incorporated self-hatred, as we see…

      2. It’s very self-defeating. Mix in a few million lower-class immigrants who will vote to protect their dole or even middle/upper-class immigrants accustomed to Authoritarian rule and the Libertarian state transforms into a “Social Democracy” overnight.

   6. Yeah, this post is rejecting a straw man of libertarianism.

   7. I saw the article title, and I immediately though, “grab the pop-corn, it’s GO(J)-TIME”

   8. The ‘no true scotsma..heu Libertarian argument ?

   9. Not even the immigration and borders isseus he got right, see Hoppe’s “Free Immigration is forced integration” article.

   10. Agreed. At the time, Ron Paul seemed to have the right idea (on a lot of things, not all) but was considered a clown.

   11. Seriously speaking, why don’t you or any other libertarian here write an article about libertarianism???
       We need more serious political discussion here.
       P.S. Check this:
       https://www.toqonline.com/blog/a-sense-of-life-ayn-rand/

   12. he’s coming from a French perspective, I can imagine they have a different set of daily annoyances that drive their opinions.. Admit that I don’t know myself exactly what libertarianism is save for small government and weed smoking

8. The girl is Libertarianism and the man is the establishment:
   
   …Really I should stop watching anime…

9. It sure has exposed the biggest underlying cyclical problem in society. What to do with hordes of women (and enabling men) who want to invert the power structure, even if it brings about a collapse?

10. The sexual weirdness in Atlas Shrugged deserves more notice than I’ve seen. Rand’s cultists praise her philosophy for its alleged sex-positivity, but that claim conflicts with what the novel actually shows. Many of the novel’s villains have girlfriends, mistresses and pickups, while most of the heroic male characters live like sexually abstinent Christians. Apparently the main hero, John Galt, lived as a virgin until well into his 30’s, and then as a reward for good behavior he winds up with a sexually experienced, post-Wall Dagny Taggart, also in her 30’s, instead of a much younger woman with little or no mileage on her that he could have formed a family with. I just don’t see the point of this pairing, unless Rand imagined it to show the single career women of the 1950’s, when she wrote and published Atlas Shrugged, that they hadn’t done anything wrong, and that they could stay sexually desirable after their fertility crashed in their late 20’s.
    Thanks a lot, Ayn. We can see the good that message has done for today’s pathetic cat ladies.
    In other words, it looks as if Rand created her philosophy mainly for single, sterile career women, on the one hand, and adult male virgins and sexual rejects on the other, instead of addressing the needs of vigorous men and fertile young women willing and able to marry early and form families.

    1. Thanks a lot, Ayn. We can see the good that message has done for today’s pathetic cat ladies.
       In other words, it looks as if Rand created her philosophy mainly for single, sterile career women, on the one hand, and adult male virgins and sexual rejects on the other, instead of addressing the needs of vigorous men and fertile young women willing and able to marry early and form families.

       You’d have a point…except that Rand’s work influence on economics is marginal, even in the U.S., let alone her pseudo-moralizing. The problem is that Libertarianism more than politics is an economic proposal.
       In the real world, libertarianism would be the best system…in a national economy with boundaries. Worldwide application is impossible.

    2. “Apparently the main hero, John Galt, lived as a virgin until well into his 30’s, and then as a reward for good behavior he winds up with a sexually experienced, post-Wall Dagny Taggart”
       Well it seems Galt wins this one. I mean, poor Dagny Taggart has had to suffer through the physical agony of having sex so often it must have been just terrible. Meanwhile our hero, Galt, has avoided the pain of sex. I understand his position. I have never had nor needed root canal surgery. Now I know the physical pain of oral surgery pales in comparison to the physical pain of sexual intercourse, but I do get some understanding.

    3. I think the point was that sex was a crutch for those that had nothing of real value in their lives. The protagonists weren’t going to participate in sex with individuals that they loathed. One problem with the story writing was that so many of the characters seemed to be identical. The bad guys were all parroting the same lines, as were the good guys parroting their own lines.
       One character I think could have been the cross over would have been Francisco, until he confesses that all the babes he’s been running around with he never slept with because he was pining for Dagny. I think it would have been demonstrably better for the character if he had the attitude that his own pleasure, even in his role as under cover agent, was his personal business.
       I think it was partly the fault of Rand trying to slip in her own version of bodice ripping. Three accomplished men all wanting the main character. Might as well have had Fabio on the cover as Galt.

    4. “Apparently the main hero, John Galt, lived as a virgin until well into his 30’s..”
       I don’t recall that. He was a guy who saw through the BS and made it possible to go off the grid with like minded people, but wasn’t revealed toward the end of the book. Maybe you are thinking of Hank Rearden… the guy married to the old tart who uses his sexual desire to manipulate him and ends up banging Dagny. All that was actually just window dressing as the main points of the book were the path of the socialist dystopia and where it leads and how it happens. I could care less about the inter-personal relationships of the characters in the book.

       1. At the time I was most concerned with how damn long the book was….
          and of course:
          (((ayn rand)))

          1. It was long and she did repeat herself and ramble at times, but as english wasn’t her mother tongue I cut her some slack. Read all her books, but didn’t accept her “objectivism” or moralizing.

          2. Yeah I suppose all men have their fling with Ms. Rosenbaum at some point. I couldn’t get enough of that stuff for a time.

11. As I told my brother in law repeatedly…..the social issues ARE the fiscal issues. Beyond that, for every contentious political matter, there are libertarians who disagree. For abortion, against, for open borders, against, for a standing military, against, etc. The founders/framers were not libertarians. We need a small focused federal government and states’ rights. Period.

12. Excellent article.
    Libertarianism is essentially the same thing as Satanism: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”
    Satanists and Libertarians both hold that so long as no one else is directly affected, one should be free to do what he wants.
    But muh non-aggression principle isn’t going to be a very compelling argument when your head is being beaten in by Somali migrants.

    1. Anton LeVay and Ayn Rand agree on more points than one might think.

13. Rampant unfettered individualism is what allows the tribalistic elites to control society.

14. Libertarianism might have worked in Jeffersonian America where 95% of Americans worked on small farms and American society and economy were agrarian.
    A hands-off approach doesn’t work in the modern world where other nations adopt big government control (China, Korea, etc.).

    1. It can, but that requires some cleverness. What you need to do is put up enough security that you can’t be invaded, then play your enemies off of the other, like the English did.

15. Spirit cooking is a fundamentally libertarian activity: I mean everyone engaging in it is a consenting adult, right? No one’s getting hurt, right? Libertarianism fail.

16. There’s no such thing as a right. Rights don’t exist. Can you go out hunt one, spear it, and drag it back and plop it down on a plate?
    No.
    Does the gazelle bleat about his rights to access the watering hole when a crocodile clamps down on his neck?
    No.

17. Isn’t a laisseze-faire corporatist economy great? I mean what would we do without Fuckbook and Snapchat? The whole modern economy is based on allowing 14 year old girls to send self-deleting nudes lolz

    1. Legions of top computer scientists are busy working on the next dog filter right now …
       ad astra? … not so much

       1. but muh free markets lol

    2. Oh come on. There are a lot more important problems than current laisseze-faire economy and snap chat to worry about out there. There are pressing problems at hand.

18. The college football bowl season is almost upon us, and at that time, I will show you young squires exactly what your old Uncle Bob can do when the big money flows into the betting parlors.
    Until then, I smell an upset tonight on Thursday Night Football. Take Minnesota +3.5 on the spread side for $440 (risk $440 for the chance to get back $840), and take Minnesota +155 on the money line side (bet them to win) for $200 (risk $200 for the chance to get back $510).
    (These lines will probably change between now and kickoff, in which case I may adjust the numbers on the lines listed above – depending on the movement. For example, if I can get Minnesota +4, or even more, I’ll cash out the +3.5 ticket and scoop up the +4 points. Same for the money line wager, if I can get +160 or more shortly before kickoff, I’ll ditch the +155 ticket and scoop up the better-paying odds.)
    If all goes well, this $640 investment will return $1350 (a profit of $710), in the best-case scenario (Minnesota wins the game; they are playing the Dallas Cowboys at home), and $840 (a profit of $200), in the second-best scenario (Minnesota covers the spread, but loses the game). And you can’t get that kind of an ROI in your typical 401K plan.
    If it all goes to shit, and we lose it all…well, I’ll see you in the alley later, behind The Lucky Thong, where we will first chug some white lightning, and then spend some quality time with Sexy Sadie, the $5-a-dance stripper – that is, of course, after one of us sells a kidney.
    Whatever you do tonight, have fun, and remember: scared money never wins. (And your old Uncle Bob isn’t scared of this two-pronged wager. Not one little bit.)
    ***Update: Imagine my shock when the Vikings scored a touchdown with 25 seconds left, and got within two points of the Cowboys, 17-15, covering the spread. They failed on their try for a 2-point conversion,but I still took down $200 on the night. Which was a good thing, because I hate white lightning (and Sexy Sadie’s crotch smells like tuna)…

    1. I know Lucky Thong. He is the local triad boss in charge of the gambling.

       1. http://img.memecdn.com/raughs_fb_329127.jpg

       2. the lucky thong is the one worn by a lovely woman!

    2. For those of us without access to easy, legal gambling, who might just make it to Vegas once a year or so, is there a better or worse time for placing bets? IE start of the season, bowl games, playoffs, etc.

       1. It’s good year-round. It’s great periodically. March Madness, the first four days, is the best. The NBA playoffs is second-best. And the bowl season is third-best. After that it’s college basketball, conference season only (from January through the first weekend in March). Then the NFL, especially from Week 10 forward (through Week 17, end of season, and the playoffs). Baseball is actually a solid play as well, especially in May and/or June. College football is the weakest, but still a good money-maker. When I get burned (which is very rare), it’s college football that bites me.
          I typically take off July and August, and sometimes, September. I wager part-time, the rest of the year. The latter part of the baseball season typically sucks, as football is getting started and all the money starts going to that venue. This year I’m going to wager full-time, beginning in mid- to late-January. My goal is to do this for a living, instead of a hobby, from 2017 all the way through my golden years. Will do my web design thing part-time at that point.
          Can’t…fucking…wait. It is the most exciting thing I have ever attempted to accomplish. And I will keep you posted on how it’s all working out, in 2017, you can bet on that one.

19. Libertarianism is like the childrens’ story “Stone Soup” – everyone voluntarily pitches in and contributes … a fairy tale

    1. I always thought that was a story about how gullible people are. A man swears he can make soup out of a stone, and people are just curious enough about how he can do that they give him a little of this and a little of that until he’s full.
       In the same way, you can leave an unmarked flash drive in a restroom, and I guarantee you some idiot will plug it into his machine.

       1. Stone Soup is where everyone kicks in what they have: one person has carrots, one has potatoes, one has celery. So individually they have nothing but together they can all have soup.

          1. I always heard that no one wanted to feed him, but they did give him a big pot to use. He put a stone and some water in the pot and cooked away merrily while a few looked on mystified.
             “The soup is starting to look good, but it could really use an onion,” so someone cast in an onion.
             “Mmm, that smells nice, but some carrots or celery would really kick it up,” so a few kids brought him carrots and celery.
             “Wow, that’s starting to smell really good! But some potatoes would really stretch it out and balance it,” so some onlookers brought him potatoes. The pot was starting to smell divine, and everyone was curious how this stone soup would taste now.
             “Mmm-mmm, that broth is starting to form up nicely. But, you know, there’s no protein here…” and several villagers brought mutton and rabbit to add.
             When the soup was done, everyone took a portion and agreed that the soup was delicious. When the meal was done and the pot empty, the smirking charlatan took the rock out and remarked, “the best part is, the rock is reusable.”

          2. Only one person in the entire village added nothing to the meal: the man with the stone. Everyone else was duped through idle curiosity and the increasingly pleasant aromas.

          3. But see – you’re both right. His is the blue pill interpretation that’s commonly advanced. Yours is red pill truth.

          4. Every parable can be interpreted several ways. Even the Aesops, which come with morals attached, can be twisted.
             The Frog and the Scorpion was about the Scorpion just not believing in himself.
             The tortoise and the hare was about underestimating the contributions of those you though inferior.
             The fox and the crow was about talking with your mouth full.
             I find that many teachers (mainly female) tend to grab on to the moral that suits their current mindset rather than the moral the tale attempts to impart. While I do not doubt that Pabst’s interpretation is oft-taught, I also cannot accept that this is the intended lesson.

          5. It’s fun to use red pill interpretations on blue pill movies.
             Favorite example: Moulin Rouge (a story about “love overcoming all obstacles” and other such noise) is about the dangers of oneitis and how it hurts everyone around you.

20. Remember, the State is your daddy and you are its bitch. Your status can change from bottom bitch to side hoe to main chick, but the one fact still remains true: you ain’t nothin’ but a hole to fuck. You can be nexted (executed), lose status from main chick to side hoe or even bottom bitch, and if you’re really lucky and born with the right stuff and suck the right dick, you could become queen bee. But you’re still just another bitch.
    You could run off and become an independent woman by building a cabin in the woods and cutting yourself off from society. Hell, you might even catch a mountain lion (i.e. cat) to be your friend. But you’ll still be miserable and alone, having to slave away toiling with the dirt in your struggle to survive.
    This is what deference and reverence of the State gets you.
    Or you could sprout a dick and be a man, build a community with other strong men that check the power of the State before it grows into a monstrous, abusive boyfriend who in turn steals from you to fund his trailer trash side hoes while continually spitting in your face as he fucks you in the ass while telling you it’s all for your own good.
    In the voice of Forrest Gump, “That’s all I’ve got to say about that.”

    1. You mean like what David Koresh and the Branch Davidians tried? Didn’t work out so well for them…

21. Solution: libertarian nationalism. The biggest proponent is Vox Day:
    http://voxday.blogspot.com/

22. We are seeing SYNTHESIS.
    In Hegelian Dialectics fashion, we had Marxism and Conservatism. Now we are seeing libertarian economics for the billionaires and cultural marxism for control of the masses.
    Economic, utopical communism was never meant to work, but was only a tool to destroy freedoms and traditional values. Work finished, it can go now. Let’s open Cuba.
    Libertarianism was never meant to help the small guy and small businesses. It is basically Ayn Rand’s satanism, social Darwinism and do what thou will Crowley’s doctrine. If you are a billionaire, it is perfect for you, but it is not Christian or humane.
    Check how think tanks from both sides are funded by the same people, globalist billionaires. Ecumenism, globalism, they have the same goals.
    The libertarian Acton Institute, for example, was founded by a gay marxist pastor turned Catholic priest. What a phony conservative if ever there was one. The globalists are now opening a new libertarian think tank every week. Many of these false conservatives are also occultists and Luciferians.
    What is to profit if Trump help other billionaires to make more money, but does not challenge government controls, oligopolies, immorality, destruction of families?
    I will tell you what we are NOT seeing: market freedom with incentives for small businesses, antitrust laws, and charity and philanthropy for the less fortunate.
    The near future is the new world order system, with China as the model. The Politburo with $ 90 BI in personal wealth, in bed with billionaire compadres, oppressing cheap labor.
    Money flowing freely from Shanghai to Brussels, people with private jets being the only true global citizens, and the common folk poor, enslaved and distracted with their smartphone crap.

    1. I don’t know much about Ayn Rand / Objectivism to be honest, but out of interest why do you consider it satanism?

       1. mostly the horns

          1. there’s a difference between devil-worship and satanism though isn’t there, lulz aside?

          2. I don’t know. The horns thing was just for the lulz. Like all hedonistic Nihilists I worship Pan the Goat God

          3. REAL HEDONISTS WORSHIP BACCHUS!

          4. pan is a nature / fertility god. Pantheism is worship of nature – the all as God – isn’t it? Miley Cyrus is a pan-sexual and so presumably would also worship Pan. Theologically you and Miley are two peas in a pod

          5. Illuminati confirmed!

          6. nature isn’t exactly right. More like God of the wild and companion to nymphs. One nymph who he was particularly intent on raping the shit out of turned herself into some reeds and went into the water. He cut the reeds and made a flute…hence the Pan Flute. Also pan is the etymological root of panic as he was particularly cruel if you woke him from his sleep. He is usually represented by a phallus as he is famed for his sexual prowess and taught shephers how to jerk it while they were alone with the sheep so they would stop buggering the sheep. He also challenged and beat Apollo in a music contest judged by king midas which is why midas wound up being the first Goldfinger. Mostly he is known as the wild god of fucking the shit out of things like a lunatic

          7. Bacchus is a pussy

          8. No true hedonist! No true hedonist!

          9. of all the things I have been accused of on this website and in real life, not being a true hedonist is probably the most ludicrous of all of them.

          10. Let me know if someone tops it. I’m rather proud.

          11. Identity Confirmed
              https://i.ytimg.com/vi/S2kbmUyBaM4/hqdefault.jpg

          12. nice write-up, worthy of Robert Graves. Sounds like Pan was the Eve Ensler of his day – trust greek shepherds to bugger their sheep rather than take them the way God intended.
              Seriously though some do associate pan and pantheism with satanism, precisely on account of the phallic / fertility worship. In fact I’m not quite sure what Pan would have against shepherds buggering sheep – isn’t that part of what pan-sexuality is all about?

          13. more of illuminati tease really.
              …and so is Miley

          14. My friend up state had a goat. Damn thing ate a tube of gasket glue AND a fan belt yet refused to die or even get indigestion!
              Now THAT’s pure Evil!

          15. the pan in pantheism has to do with the prefix pan- for “all” rather than the proper name of the goat god. I don’t know much about Satanism so there are better people to ask about that than me.
              With the sexuality like the -theism they are using the root pan to be all encompassing and not the goat god with the proper name Pan who liked sleeping, playing music and banging bishes

          16. hey! I want a laurel so fucking bad

          17. if it helps they are spelt different in greek btw. Pan the Goat God is Πάν which comes from the greek word πάειν which means pasture (I believe as a verb but not sure) whereas the pan the prefix which means all is πᾶν (same spelling but lower case “P”) is simply the word for all. That said, I believe that the word pantheism (though I could be wrong) with the connotation of a more inclusive worship, doesn’t appear in ancient greek texts at all but it comes around in the 8-10th century as a philosophical context but it was all the rage to write nerdy heretical texts using greek as a form of early geek virtue signaling.

          18. Hey I saw a statue of Pan in Napoli…..
              Best we don’t go into what he was doing, and with whom. 🙂

          19. you make a strong, and for all I know definitive case for separate etymologies for the (two) senses of Pan (in this and the follow-up comment) so I accept that, but I think its also worth considering the syncretic nature of beliefs – it’s possible for concepts to have more than one sense (and genealogy) at the same time and indeed in the tradition we’re referring to one can in a sense pick and choose one or the other. If one is a philospher / theologian – the ‘pan’ in pantheistic will probably mean ‘all’ rather than priapic goat deity but is it necessarily the case that the two separate derivations are mutually exclusive when they can be usefully melded together as required. As you will probably appreciate there may also be an exoteric and an esoteric meaning to such things, where pan = all would be the former and pan = priapic nature god would be the latter. Moreover the two senses may be usefully fused to boot: there is a gnostic neo-platonic sense of ‘the all’ (I’m probably asking for trouble here since that’s you’re area of expertise!) but in the sense that the pantheistic ‘the all’ can in certain occult / theosophic senses be conceived specifically as referring to nature as something ‘generative’ (as in fertility) then the two sense can easily be brought together. A single posited reality can manifest as a dualism, one exoteric, the other hidden and horny.
              Miley may be both pantheistic and pan-super-horny-sexual in other words.

          20. I absolutely appreciate the use of the word esoteric and exoteric understandings and the hermeneutic johnnyrigging. More than appreciate it it is my favorite topic. The problem is that there is nearly 10 centuries between the use of the first and the first use of the second which makes intentional connection pretty hard to swallow. That said, I think a lot could massaged here

          21. that’s why I’m trying to de-stress the significance of the origins of the word, and stressing the fact that sometimes these things emerge as constructive, syncretic projects. 19th century theosophists for instance might well like to think of themselves as taking over the mantle of ancient fertility and mystery cults for instance, and might well have appreciated the possibility that there might be a connexion between some notion of christian era pantheism and earlier mystery religion but that’s like the masonic knights templar trying to base their own practises on the alleged beliefs and practises of the medieval chivalric order. In other words too great a focus on ‘origins’ may conceal the present day meanings of such a concept – I think within the occult etc we are talking about a syncretic form of religion / belief and that there is no need to try to trace that back to a unitary (logocentric?) origin

       2. Well, it aint Christian!
          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/76be7f9f6e4b78f7bd9b075d0029ac977f9633477809cb6fb1ecf4c74f59e8ec.jpg

          1. The jury is still out on the Republican party, but I think we know who the Democrats chose.

          2. case by case on both sides I reckon.

          3. poor mans choice. Dykey McFinklestein and Hippie McGoo?

23. is Trump going to audit the fed as he indicated back in February. Maybe that was just to please the libertarians but he’s still had a few pops at Yellen. If he doesn’t then we might not want to see libertarianism lose too much influence.

24. The intelligent and dominant men rule over the dumb and effeminate ones, this is the way it has always been, it is the way of nature. The best societies are those were everyone finds their place in the pyramid. Women unfortunately have no biological place in in it, they can’t compete without help; trying to integrate them has been the biggest mistake in modern times. They are clearly not happy with their new roles, they don’t know what’s wrong but they know its not what they want.
    When this is realized it will be corrected, and we will go back to doing things the way we have been doing them for 100,000 years.

    1. do you think ‘pyramid’ is the right image here given that it is the pre-eminent symbol of the globalist empire that would disenfranchise both the strong and the weak in the name of the great communist / capitalist collective?

25. Forgive the scientific analogies, but they make the point:
    Gravity is not something we understand. We have had several models of the phenomenon, but they only really work so long as we keep them within certain parameters. The same is true of circuit components – “flops” in computers behave in weird ways, but within certain parameters we can act like they are binary 1’s and 0’s. These models, with their operating ranges, are really how we understand the entire world.
    Libertarianism has an operating range, as do all philosophical constructs. Too little liberty and autonomy takes us toward the many forms of totalitarian oppression, but too much causes chaos and anarchy (which devolves toward totalitarian oppression). The Founding Fathers of America believed that Christianity, with its ethical codes and shared values systems, would provide the bounds on liberty that keep it working correctly. Whether they were right or not is a matter for historians and philosophers.
    In discussions like these, I just want to keep this idea in mind. Some models only work in the extreme; some models never work at all; some models only work under other limitations.

26. I think you paint all of libertarianism with the same broad stroke and the article is full of fallacies.
    What your article really describes is anarcho-capitalism, a subset of libertarianism which I actually agree with you is not realistic.
    However, minarchist libertarianism, another subset which roughly speaking, is a minimal government with limited power to maintain law, order, mortality and ethics with no central bank is similar to what the US is founded upon and actually works very well.
    Just to counter some of your points:
    1. Group synergy greatly helps with resource allocation, regardless of how that group is related (family, religion, race, etc.) whether you’re going out with your tribe to hunt a woolly mammoth or build a corporation. My problem isn’t that the Rothschild’s are very rich: my problem is their lack of ethics.
    2. I see the situation entirely differently. There’s no such thing as a middle class.
    You’re either a sovereign (business owner) or you’re living your life on someone else’s terms. The “middle class” are just relatively well paid dependents with greater disposable income than the “low class”. From my anecdotal observation, the middle class is full of relatively more insecure people who buy expensive, useless junk to give their otherwise empty lives some meaning compared to some sovereigns that I know of who are financially very well off but very stoic.

27. I gave up on libertarianism when they moved from Rugged Individualism and Survival of the Fittest to be basically Liberals I mean there are some Libertarians who are Socially Liberal and Economic Free Marketeers but most come across as either Anarchists or basically Liberals both Socially and Everywhere else indeed one can only look at the pair they ran against Trump who well if they were Liberal One Day and then Libertarian the Next it would be hard to tell the difference. Society is based on Community but in order for there to be a strong community the Individual while being Personally Responsible must also follow the path of Virtue and the Community to preserve itself and persevere must be able to not just Promote Virtue but also suppress Vice in its ranks.

28. The only reason I “gave up” on libertarianism is that it’s not a valid option in our elections. If some third party, or even a candidate from one of the other 2 parties, became popular with some libertarian ideals, I’d become interested, but until then politics is mostly a waste of time if you are not running for public office.
    The philosophy itself, while imperfect, is better than most of the other choices (Keynesianism, Marxism, totalitarianism, etc.).

29. Wow. This article is really dumb. Either the author hasn’t actually read anything about libertarianism, or is knowingly not mentioning or skewing the facts.
    6 reasons why this article is shit:
    1. Homo Sapiens is a tribal species. Period.
    2. Jobs are shipped of largely because it’s cheaper to have them overseas, thank to government taxes, regulations, etc.
    3. Families and tribes were/are here for a reason, to teach women, children, and men how to act. Thanks to government policies and incentives like state education, we have what we have now.
    4. Wealthy individuals manage to concentrate enormous wealth using the power of government.
    5. If people are so weak that they can’t handle a bunch of pussified lefties, then fuck them. Maybe the West is destined for decline, if the people can’t even handle that. With only private property immigrants can go fuck themselves — private property is the border, of every family and/or tribe.
    6. Many Christians are poor examples of virtue. Your point is?
    Conclusion: Please put more time in, and rewrite this steaming pile of shit you call an article.

    1. “…and rewrite this steaming pile of shit you call an article”
       “Well now, that’s just nit-picking, idn’t it?”
       -Nigel Tufnell, Spinal Tap

30. André, the libertarian examples you looked up are crap and your European examples don’t work for me. The American Founding Fathers were the most extreme group of libertarians to ever seize actual power. The U.S. Constitution, if read literally, is a libertarian manifesto. Some of your points are glaringly wrong when viewed through the lens of 18th and 19th century American society insead of Europe.
    1. Tribalistic groups are not that dangerous to free men. Americans dealt just fine with actual tribes of wild savages who tried to drive them off – since they were able to arm and defend themselves and freely associated with like-minded men. (Libertarians are very pro-2nd Amendment)
    2. The Middle Class thrived in the early American system – because they were free and taxed very lightly.
    3. Libertarians don’t believe in zero government, but in a government that forcefully protects property, people, and contracts. Riots and looting were not tolerated.
    4. In a government prohibited from exercising much power, there isn’t much to concentrate in the hands of the wealthy and connected. Which is why the Democrats have spent the last century trying to give DC more power. Read about some of the early scandals in U.S. politics and they seem quaint and minor.
    5. I’m not sure what you are getting at. Read Reason.com and you’ll see heated debated over immigration. As for society – small government has little power to change it. SJWs all want big government so they can impose their bullshit on us. The solution isn’t conservative government, it is a government too small to force anything upon us.
    6. It is hard to find good leaders who don’t want power. I like Rand Paul but he’s not flamboyant enough to win a national election.

31. I get that this is written from a European perspective, but it’s still thought provoking. Specifically because it touches on some of the reasons I stopped referring to myself as a libertarian. My biggest reasons are as follows:
    1. It can only work in a virtuous, homogenous society: if the idea behind libertarianism is to give individuals as much autonomy as possible (which I support), it can only work if everybody has a similar moral compass and actually respect each other.
    2. Related to #1, libertarianism depends on a society that values border security and nationalism, lest we have to deal with people’s from the 3rd world with differing ideas of morality
    3. It tolerates SJWs, and because they are an enemy that seeks to deprive us of everything we have, any belief set the would give them equal say in society is not worth buying into

32. Unrelated: Hollande just bowed out of the coming election. Not sure if this is a good thing or not, though. Guy was a dead-man walking.

    1. From Hollande’s point of view it’s a good thing, since he gets to avoid basically being officially certified as the Most Unpopular Person on Earth.

33. Main reason I gave up on Libertarianism – it is racially blind

    1. why is that a bad thing?

       1. Because then there’s no one telling him he’s a special snowflake.

       2. Race differences denial goes hand in hand with gender fluidity agenda, multicultural utopia, push for open borders, speech control, whites and straight males vilification and all other Progressive ideas.
          If you you believe there’s no differences in races, I invite you to go and live in Sierra-Leone, Haiti, Pakistan or India for a year and then we’ll talk again.

          1. I have no problem believing there is a difference which is why I don’t think we need to acknowledge it politically. I will take my chances in a fair and open race where the best win. No advantages and no disadvantages given to anyone. It’s like all men are created equal. Yes, in the eyes of the law. Rich and poor black and white let us all compete. Why should we politicize it unless we are afraid to compete. I have no qualm with a black trying to out perform me. But black or white or Asian you better be on your fucking a game because I’m bringing it. If you are right and whites are genetically superior why would you worry about the competition?

          2. Acknowledging racial differences means bringing back selective, discriminative immigration policies that actually benefit the country, it means putting your own group first. When you say you’re Ok with competition – what do you mean by it? Free world trade without tariffs or protectionism or you mean open borders and let the strongest survive?

          3. I’m fine with selective immigration policies but think setting them up by race is a mistake. When I talk about competition i meant internally. I simply don’t think that national, foreign or immigration policy should be judged by race. Find a More meaningful metric and if you happen to be right about race you will get what you want all the same.

34. The NAP is a nice rule of thumb, as far as it goes.

    1. tell that to the dirka dirka as he’s bashing your head in with a rock … and if that doesn’t work, perhaps you can talk to him about Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations lolz

       1. No, pretty sure that is where the rule of thumb fails.
          “As far as it goes” = “whites”.

35. Libertarians = New Right = Cucked Right

36. This is a joke, right?

37. There’s too much jargon in here to fully understand, and maybe the problem is that the arguments don’t really hang together. But the short of it is that you’re wrong. Free market capitalism and competition will limit the ability of any firm to exploit consumers, because consumers will vote with their feet. When corporations are in a position to abuse consumers, it is almost always because they enjoy some kind of cronyistic relationship with the government or a de facto monpoly created for them by the government. Increasing the government’s authority to deal with a problem that started with the government will often not solve the problem and merely makes the government bigger, resulting in more private actors seeking favors from that government. The only solution is to weaken government so that it cannot provide favors or benefits to private actors, whether individual or corporate. You cannot increase the state in a way that only accomplishes “good things,” the bad things are an inherent feature of government.
    Plus, Gary Johnson is no standard bearer for libertarianism. He’s a goofball who supported things deeply offensive to individual freedom — like so-called “civil rights” laws that force private actors to associate or transact with those they otherwise would not. Smoking pot does not make you a libertarian. He was looking for a party to support his run and that was the one he could find.
    Now, libertarianism may indeed lack relevance because it is so opposed to everything that keeps Washington DC going — it is so fundamentally a threat to the entire bureaucracy — that the incumbents and Beltway insiders will never let it live. But as a political principal and a goal, a lodestar, there is nothing wrong with it and everything right with it. Once it is understood that the biggest problem faced by Americans today is a big central government — it dwarfs everything else out there in terms of how it impacts their standard of living and the prospects for their children.

    1. Yes, government intervention is the problem, but that stems from a single failure. Namely, that the government is not interested in making a profit.
       If you wanted a profit-seeking government to intervene in your favor, all they would say is “why the hell should I do that?”
       Instead, politicians sell influence for much less than it’s worth, and bureaucrats work for their own insane political interests because they have no incentive to do their jobs properly. It’s all a matter of incentives.

       1. Much of that is true. But the problem you note cannot be solved by structuring incentives inside of government differently, as one might read into your comments. The problem is inherent in government — some people having the power to use the laws and the government to compel and coerce others. That’s the critical distinction from a free market, where you can’t force anyone to do anything – you have to earn their trade and business with the quality and price of your services or product. And I’d say that if you think politicians or gov’t officials are selling influence for “much less than it’s worth,” I suspect you have not completely catalogued the benefits accruing to the politicians or bureaucrats.

          1. While I mostly agree, I have only one objection: there is nothing wrong with having the power of coercion, only with actually using it for any reason other than to preserve it.
             Attempting to intervene in the economy is almost always a terrible idea, because it screws with the incentives outside of government, but some form of coercion is either necessary or natural, depending on how you want to look at it, to secure a monopoly on violence and thus minimize its occurrence. Without that, it becomes more profitable for more people to rob others instead of doing honest work, and that destroys the free market more than any reasonable government interference.
             And no, politicians don’t get anywhere near their money’s worth. It has been estimated that lobbying provides a return of 1000 times the cost. So most corporations pay far below the 40% or so tax rate, because they are willing to pay off politicians. If the government just paid politicians a share of the tax revenue, they would have a much bigger interest in making sure that the economy was running properly. We might even see a decrease in official tax rates because small business would be more effective than large corporations.

38. Come on now, you know that the best form of government is really libertarianism where the state is the private property of the king, right? So essentially a system of city-states, with no rights but the ability to choose which system to live under.

39. There are too many differing views of libertarians. There’s the Ron Paul sorts (of which I rather like for the most part) and then there’s whatever the hell kind of THING that would support that idiot Johnson.
    But hey, Johnson was at least good for a laugh. I loved the one where he stuck his tongue out at the reporter. Was Johnson perhaps getting paid to be a complete moron? 🙂

    1. I don’t get the idolatry of Ron Paul. He makes a big deal out of criticizing the Federal Reserve System, for example, which obviously has a lot of power in our society. Has anyone retaliated against Paul by putting him in jail? Has anyone denounced him for “hate speech”? Has anyone tried to cancel or disrupt his speaking engagements? Have some countries banned him from entering?
       No, on the whole Paul has had an easy life because he picked a safe target to attack; he knows that the people who run the Fed don’t take him seriously, and they wouldn’t bother to inconvenience his life.
       By contrast, Richard Spencer and other personalities in the Alt Right have faced all kinds of harassment. Just from looking at how our elites respond to Alt Right figures versus libertarians, whom they ignore, which group has a better claim as the real dissidents in this country?

       1. I’m not sure the ‘fed’ used to be a safe target. In fact the central banking system as a whole used to be one of things that were pretty verboten to talk about – at least that’s the impression I used to get. Ron Paul, the book Jeckyll Island, and a load of youtube videos changed all that

       2. Well, -I- don’t worship the guy. I rather like him but he had a really bad habit: saying the right thing at the absolute worst time.
          A lot of his stances were similar to mine. Low taxes, no IRS, stop the idiotic wars, abortion is evil, TSA and DHS need to be abolished, NSA needs to be reigned in, etc etc.
          We did part ways on the wall. But even his objection was interesting. He was worried that the wall might eventually be used to keep Americans in. Sounded silly at the time, but with Obama and Hillary’s penchant for fascism perhaps it wasn’t.
          And actually, he was lied about quite often. Even on Brietbart of all places. I had always thought the guy was a kook because that’s what everybody said. An article over at BB was so outrageous, for once I decided to look into it more closely. Turns out the article was a flat out lie.
          So yeah, he’s had a little bit of the smack down from the powers that be. I think what we’re seeing now is so bad because they’re getting desperate.
          I hope. 🙂

40. The city state ran by a laissez faire quasi-autocratic body is the best form of government. Current examples include: Dubai, Macau, Monacco, Singapore. All have superior standard of living, incredibly low debt, and are amongst the safest places in the world.

    1. Dubai? Really?

    2. They live off the protection of stronger countries. With no Israel, China, US and the like, city-states would be overran and plundered quickly.

       1. Touche. I suppose a nation state can only survive so long as it has the funds to buy off invaders, like the Byzantines did in their 1,000 year run.

41. Even Libertarians say Gary Johnson isn’t Libertarian enough LOL.
    You know Phil LaBonte is one and a lot of what he thinks I will sign off on, but I am not one to align w/ a side outside of my own side.

42. Libertarianism fails because its core philosophy is liberalsim. No matter how much individual libertarians may detest liberalism their philosophy and ergo themselves are caught up in the event horizon which is liberalsim. Liberalism will always warp its client movements towards its nihilistic abyss.

    1. there was a time when liberal referenced liberty. The concept has been hijacked

       1. Liberty in its absolute form is liberalism and is what is wrong. What we view as leftwingers today are just orthodox liberals who take liberalism to its natural destination, which is the absolute right to define ones own reality.

          1. there’s a certain logic to the latter idea, but you’re effectively making a case for authoritarianism – or presumably a kind of authoritarianism that meshes with your politics. The point I and I think others here have made is that liberalism isn’t about liberty at all, except when it is convenient to its wider political project – which as we are discovering is an authoritarian one. By your view we would have one form of authoritarianism (your type) ranged against another disfavoured one. The current authoritarian character of liberalism (at least in its progressive form) means that the “absolute right to define one’s own reality” is constrained by the (selective) universalisation of this right to infringe the rights of everybody else. That is fundamentally anti-liberty

          2. I don’t believe in authoritarianism either authoritarianism comes from liberalism too, which is why all the great despots of the last 200 years from Napoleon to Pol Pot all came from the left. Authoritarianism means defining your reality just as much as transgenderism only that you define it to be that you must dominate others. I believe in the divine right of kings, which is to say that authority, which does not have to be a monarchy, comes from God. In operation this is a government in which virtue is the “absolute.” virtue being which is good between two extremes. So on many things I am extremely pro- liberty such as taxes, regulations, property ECT. Other things I lean more authoritarian such as religious liberty, mental illness, and libel.

          3. To answer your point about liberals being anti liberty: you’re right Liberalism at its synthesis is an incoherent philosophy. It inevitably leads people to believe they can do whatever they want and ultimately they start taking away the rights of others who don’t do whatever they want them to do. Libertarianism tries to erect a barrier of non-imposotion, but it is futile because the base philosophy of such barrier is Liberalism.

          4. I get where you’re coming from, but the problem I have is that what we know as liberalism today isn’t really the same thing IMO as the liberalism of say the 19th century – JS Mill etc. – classical liberalism. You’re arguing for continuity – and I’d agree there may be points of continuity – but for the most part I’d say modern liberalism is a different animal. A focus on liberty isn’t necessarily to affirm all kinds of license – i.e. to do whatever you feel like, but it does require freedom to make decisions for oneself rather than to have things forced upon you

          5. OK, so we can distinguish between authority and authoritarianism. I think the divine right of kings is problematic in today’s order, although the theological origin of this idea is a longstanding one. I get where you’re coming from – if you’re catholic for instance the pope is God’s vicar general etc., there can be authority, and perhaps it can be genuine, but having liberty means having the right to act according to conscience, and to make choices for yourself when you are the best positioned to make such choices. That doesn’t necessarily meaning subverting the order of things

          6. Right the divine right of kings doesn’t mean we have to have a monarchy, it means that those who wield the sword do so with the authority from God. Otherwise its just men leading men and you get all these absurdities that we are experiencing in this atheistic day and age.

          7. I agree it is not the same flavor as today’s liberalism, but the premises are all the same which is basically humanism. For a long time our culture and Christian heritage kept liberty in check, whereas people would not act in the extreme deranged ways we see today. But every subsequitial generation those things eroded away more and more till we come to today and the damn has broke and now the dark torrents of liberalism are upon us.
             For the record I am not against liberty per se, only the adoption of absolute liberty. I think it is healthy for there to be a lot of liberty and that it is a good thing for society to tolerate it even in cases where it may be immoral. I do not believe there is an absolute right to it however for that would contradict the divine right principle because God who is the author of temporal authority himself does not grant us the right to absolute liberty, in fact we can end up going to Hell if we abuse liberty.

          8. I’m not sure but I imagine it might relate to the ‘give caesar what is due unto ceasar’ notion in the new testament but also theological notions of divine hierarchy / great chain of being, which derive from classical greek thought. It’s always been contested though (e.g. with respect to the legitimacy of tyranny) just look at the French wars of religion and the english civil war

          9. I don’t think we’re completely at variance on this issue. I recognise that with liberty ‘anything [potentially] is permitted’. There is also though a religious argument for liberty, not so much in the sense that it has developed within western society, as property like rights over oneself, but as the minimum condition of free choice. Is there a tension between freedom / liberty and authority (divine or otherwise)? Of course, but that may not necessarily mean that the issue need be resolved in the favour of the latter. Indeed as the history of revolt against tyranny (both aristocratic / monarchical and even divine) might suggest authority may suffer to the extent that it is affirmed only through coercion i.e. in the absence of freedom / liberty. Suffering stupidity, wrong actions, sin and even evil, may actually be the price of affirming (divine) authority

          10. Being unable to distinguish between authority and authoritarianism is a big problem today, especially on the left.

43. Libertarianism is best carried out by the individual, independent of government, if that makes any sense at all. Live life on your terms, use government where convenient. If you’re running for office or voting for office-seekers, you’re doing it wrong.

44. Libertarians lose me on their “no border” stance. I was listening to some libertarian confab with John Stossell and the experts were actually advocating NO BORDERS that it is wrong to ” impede the movement of people in any way”. I’m thinking do you think these folks coming in to the USA are carrying copies of Atlas Shrugged or Road to Serfdom…..

45. OP speaking here. As I can see, this piece generated some non-negligible criticism, so I would like to precise some of the points in the article or push them further.
    – A key argument for libertarianism lies in the idea of a “spontaneous order.” The point was clearly made by Hayek in the first chapter of his magnum opus (Law, Legislation and Liberty) where he distinguishes between the “cosmos” of free market and the “taxis” of stuff made by the State. Well, said order is far from spontaneous: just like Hobbes, Locke and other modern philosophers, the individuals supposed by Hayek are not true or “basic” individuals but abstract ones, fully adult though without history, and pursuing their interests. They aren’t “natural”, they are at best part of a rather mutilated anthropology. Plus, the “spontaneous” order must be constrained by a lot of self-discipline or a State, which is why I joked about how a truly natural spontaneous order looks like – violence. Such an order is an abstract ideal, not something that spontaneous, and it stems from modernists who did their best to erase all tradition and landmarks, hence their insistence on abstract, rootless homo economicus.
    Actually, decisions from a traditional and enlightened State can be more “cosmic” (to use Hayek’s own vocabulary) than the will of greedy people let loose.
    – Libertarianism can be singled out and thought of without reference to history, but as several have pointed out here, libertarianism won’t last forever if implemented, even with the utmost “orthodoxy.” Greedy men will conquer so much monopoly that they will be able to constitute private empires and monopolies, just look at the global companies. They are private, they aren’t less oppressive than a State is. The greedy could also abandon libertarianism once they are wealthy enough and start pushing for a bigger State that will secure their position. This is human nature – unless it is restrained by a vivid tradition/spirituality. Hence, by the very game of economics and human nature, libertarianism is ultimately self-defeating as it allows for companies lawfully devouring everything, either through privatization or the help of the State.
    – IMO, a healthy order of priorities entails defeating the lobbies, the hostile “minority” apologists and the tribalistic people who have been thrown upon us. I won’t secure their rights because muh liberty muh libertarianism. Nope. If it takes an authoritarian government to secure the independance of the average middle class guy, save the traditional family and take back every institution and culture from the Left, then I wish it. TBH I feel closer from someone like Lothrop Stoddard than to Charles Murray’s “libertarian” conclusions in The Bell Curve. This is a death struggle between us and the evil Left, supporting the latter’s “rights” is cucking.
    – As Ted Kaczynski put it (his manifesto has been quoted earlier on ROK): it is contradictory to support social conservative and unbrindled technological evolution at the same time. For the latter tends to destroy the former. Feminism and transgender madness tend to rely a lot on tech, from overwatching to sex change surgery, not to forget how men have been replaced by machines.
    – A lot of us have been isolated or pushed into further isolation by a hostile Leftist culture. Our isolation isn’t something to defend or take for granted – it is something akin to “primordial chaos”, to the dawn of new possibilities and a new era. I don’t dream about having a white picket fence house with libertarian laws protecting my property, especially if said laws also protect the capitalists’ right to destroy my position into society: I want the enemy crushed, period.

46. Overall: Your knowledge is impressively shallow. You don’t even seem to recognize the difference between libertarianism and the LP. You certainly don’t recognize the finer schisms.
    6. You’d find that Gary Johnson is the result of the LP trying to be popular. As to risk of persecution you’ll find that is something often discussed. There are the hard core who drive without license plates all the way to people like the French you discuss. I didn’t know there were any french libertarians left. Anyway I counter your example with the Rutherford Institute which has successfully gotten at least one person out of US thought-crime prison. https://www.rutherford.org/issues/free_speech/brandon_raub
    5: This is something I take argument with some libertarians about. It’s an issue of deep divides. Some people believe any facet of libertarianism should be grabbed on to whenever it can be. They want open boarders now. Some libertarians believe that boarders are necessary. I put forth the argument that open boarders are the last item to implement on building a libertarian world. Until then they are required.
    4. Makes no sense. You’ve described the status quo, not stateless private property society.
    3. The Light Switch argument as I call it. I haven’t seen that one for a long time. It’s the idea that libertarianism is unworkable because if hundreds to thousands of years of developing the state and dependency on it were turned off in an instant libertarianism wouldn’t work. _Nothing_ would work under that condition.
    When the US military rolled into Iraq under Bush the younger they turned off the light switch. How did that turn out? Military occupation is nothing even close to libertarianism. The problem is turning off the switch. If the desire wasn’t to plunge Iraq into chaos the US fedgov would have used a different approach. They used the same approach in Libya because the desire is to wreck the country.
    2. Pure assertion. Lacks argument and support. Government exists for the purpose of protecting the revenue streams of those who run it and are connected to it. That’s what it is first and foremost. That’s why they have no time to find out who robbed the house of the guy down the block and recover his stuff but there’s a cop right there to ticket you for rolling through a stop sign on an empty road or bureaucrat to fine you for a violation at your business or make sure you can’t start one. So your assertion really means that if we try a libertarian world, we end up with a government. Ok… A better argument would be questioning if the population at large would have the spine not to let someone else institute a new government over them. Remember Rothbard on what government is? Oh never mind, you probably haven’t read Rothbard.
    1. Sounds a lot like government and its true believers. Government is tribal. Government is violent. Government uses thugs. Your argument would be better if you formed it along the lines of it being human nature to form oppressive governments to enslave productive people. What does the SJW crowd do? What does the military industrial complex do? The prison complex? So on and so forth. Government is the tool to enslave the productive. There’s just a flaw with your theory based on French experience. There’s still a French government which means those shop owners couldn’t use an AR-15 to defend their property.
    People behave very differently when there is a government that restricts their victims and when their would be victims can just kill them in self defense.

47. Step back and consider how were a biologically and physiology designed to function has a species. Humans require and thrive under a well established hierarchy.
    Most political ideologies are doomed to fail, they are an attempt to engineer an unnatural outcome.

48. A lot of libertarian ideas are just stupid and only people who have not seen the ugliness and chaos of the real world would believe in them. The most obvious one is the drug issue. Sure, maybe we shouldn’t be wasting trillions of dollars locking up pot dealers. But if Libertarians had their way, we would have legalized speed, crack, heroin, etc. Opium brought down the Chinese Empire. And speed does crazy shit to people. People have been hopped up on speed and in their state of pure insanity they have cooked their own babies in ovens and shit like that. And heroin- could you imagine the toll it would take on our society if, say, 5-10% of the population was made up of heroin junkies? Think of how much burglary there would be, how many junkies would be pimping out their own kids so they can get money to score, and how many dead bodies in alleys we would have from overdoses. There are certain freedoms that people just shouldn’t have. And if our society was made up of the high IQ nerdy libertarian types who read Reason magazine, libertarian policies might work. But we live in a country where 50 million people have an IQ under 85.

49. Personally I hate the evils of cornball corporatism being shifted on capitalism. I’m sure anyone here that produces / sales / trades knows, no one gets fucked. Supply and demand is real. If you are substandard and grifting you reap what sow. Government intervention should only be related from protecting consumers from corporatism. No true capitalist society has ever really existed…yet that mythical idea gets blamed for the ills of a reality that’s the absolute opposite.

50. “…“minority” identities based on anti-“white male” resentment must be crushed so they cannot devour sociability from the inside again…”
    Start with feminism and my guess is that a stunning amount of other, seemingly unrelated problems will take care of themselves.

51. I met someone who was a self-professed libertarian and weed smoker and also, despite certain politically conservative commonalities, concluded that something in their philosophy was amiss. Like Ayn Rand it’s sort of the economic aspects of conservatism without the religious and moral aspects that seem to go with neo-masculinity and nationalism. No, the author is right, and has expressed it in more detail than what I could think up after talking to this guy. In particular, it has a sense of naivity about human nature, and puts too much faith in capitalism. We need harder governments imposing some amount of moral code not just minimal governments that just manage the economy etc. And race realism. Well who cares so much about weed, it’s just a plant, but it’s a bit worryingly conspicuous that the libertarians should care so much.
    Man I’m sad to hear but can fully believe that French shopkeepers are chased out of their businesses by North African migrants. It’s a clash of cultures, these groups with loyalty to their clans and the more individualistic and guilt-ridden white Europeans. Despite being relatively fluent in French, I also could barely stand the amount of failed multiculturalism going on there and the left which inspired it. As the author mentioned, also the country has a cancer of leftism among its fonctionnaires, school teachers etc, this “everything is a construct” rubbish was born there. I wonder what the author thinks about Le Pen and if something new is going to emerge over there..

52. Literally every problem that libertarianism wouldn’t be able to solve according to the author here is caused by the state in some way.
    Women can be cunts because the state steals men’s money and gives it to women. Offshore competition is a problem because governments tax and regulate local production so much that it’s literally cheaper to fly stuff to China and back than to just produce it here. Monopolies exist for the very same reason. Taxation and regulation keep small competitors from competing with established market players.
    Without the welfare state, mass economic migration wouldn’t happen in the first place. Without gun laws, us Europeans could just shoot any invaders who come here to make trouble. The fact that we were all armed and not taking crap from anyone kept the Romans AND the Muslims away for centuries, until our governments disarmed us after World War 2.
    This whole “a society without a state wouldn’t work, because of all these problems the state creates” argument is just not very convincing.

    1. Exactly – to all of it!
       I’m not an open borders guy. But if we were more libertarian and didn’t have an enormous welfare state, there wouldn’t be hordes trying to break in and get their free shit.
       Migrant scum can rally, loot, and bully in Europe because the European states disarmed their populations and favor the immigrants.

53. The underlying theme/s I get from this article, and website in general, are that Natural Selection can be good… until its bad for you.
    “Atlas Shrugged was wrong. Loners get wrecked by groups. Packs of hyenas corner and eat the lone dog.”
    I agree with that observation. We are weaker alone, stronger together. That applies to ‘tribes’ as the author so eloquently puts it, but more importantly, it applies to the entire human race. The lack of a superior predator, and human ignorance, has left us fighting among ourselves for what we perceive as diminishing resources. I personally believe we are overpopulating this planet, and therefore that perception is valid, but the solution isn’t global civil war due to a return to competition between wannabe Alphas, its birth control, education, and social awareness of the consequences of excessive breeding. Promoting Alpha male behavior and natural selection only serves to drive us apart at best, and nuclear extinction at worst. We no longer live in primitive enough times that afford us the luxury of population control by small scale war with the superior winners taking the spoils and breeding the superior future generations. Promoting any philosophy based on similarly antiquated romantic notions is self destructive and dangerous to the social experiment we call humanity. We need to find any and every compromise that allows humanity to unite, because the Universe itself is the greatest, most unforgiving Alpha there has been and always will be, and if we want to survive its inevitable onslaught, we’re going to need to become the strongest, largest group we can be.

    1. “Atlas Shrugged was wrong. Loners get wrecked by groups. Packs of hyenas corner and eat the lone dog.”
       That’s why survivalist are idiots. Like stashing canned food and guns will get you anywhere. It’s basically the ultimate expression of ruthless capitalism.

54. Good write up. I agree with you. Libertarianism… like Communism; is predicated on the sorely mistaken notion that human nature will suddenly be better than it’s ever been “this time”. It’s a fool’s errand. It’s amazing how many middle class supporters of Libertarianism don’t understand that they and most certainly their children have at least a 90% chance of being eaten alive under a Libertarian “system”.

55. This is a hit piece.
    Nothing more.

56. OP is going to be looked at (as some of the commenters below) as another French poseur– in this case with no idea what formal Libertarianism is, its goals, or who is a formal L/libertarian. One thing is for sure: he wasn’t one, and confuses like a good Euro-pseudo-intellectual his ignorance with sophistication.

57. Libertarianism bases itself on its tenants believing they can create a utopia where all their problems can be solved and they’ll have absolute freedom. Like marxism does. All such ideologies are doomed to fail.

58. Good article, but some of these points seem to be arguing more against Anarchism rather than Libertarianism. I myself don’t really affiliate with any political party. However, I would say that on the broad spectrum of politics, I would be somewhat of a Libertarian mixed with a Nationalist.
    With something like BLM causing riots, I would easily prevent this by allowing responsible and law abiding citizens to carry guns, take out cultural Marxism from the media and education, and stop keeping black communities dependent on welfare.
    Free or fair market would be fine without allowing Zionist bankers to exploit nepotism and global corporatism.
    As a Nationalist, I would only allow a limited amount of immigration to those who legally enter the country and integrate with the dominant culture, instead of this balkanization the elites are setting up for us.

59. This article is such bullshit that I had to make a disqus account and reply…
    1. What is bad about nepotism? Am I not allowed to pass my business to my son? If my nepotistic actions are not economically viable, then sooner or later I will be driven out of the market by competition and if they are economically viable, then again, what’s the problem?
    “Libertarianism is not good for individuals on the long run—it turns them into asocial weaklings, soon to be legally enslaved by global companies or beaten by groups, be they made of nepotistic family members or thugs.”
    Replace “Libertarianism” with “Socialism” and “global companies” with “governments” and read the sentence again.
    2. Why would libertarianism lead to mafias? Things like murder, theft or extortion are just as wrong and illegal in a libertarian state like in any other. If anything libertarianism gives people more ways to protect themselves(essentialy gun rights).
    Why would it lead to monopolies? If a monopoly was created on a free market, then it means it was providing better and or cheaper goods and services than other companies. You realize that mostf of monopolies that currently exist are there because of lobbying and corruption(only possible with a government)?
    “unemployment caused by mechanization” I can’t believe someone seriously means this… Do you realize that the whole history of human evolution is “unemployment caused by mechanization” in other words technological advancement? Do you really want to go back to living in a wooden hut with straw roof, taking care of farms and animals 12 hours a day? Do you realize that you can write this article only because some people in the past had more free time to think about things such as electricity or computers, because they no longer had to work on a field or factory 12+ hours a day?
    3. “So today we have libertarianism? Yes! Now I can murder, steal and riot on the street without any consequences!!!” This is how you sound right now. Libertarianism knows that people are selfish, that’s why it implies existence of a state that will protect lives, property and business agreements. Do you think that in libertarianism people would instantly go crazy and the next time I go to a hairdresser I will point a gun at her, because she could cut my throat with her scissors at any time and steal my money?
    4. You just perfectly described socialism and contradicted whole point of your article. A libertarian state cannot be corrupt(at least no more than a socialist one) because it has no power that will benefit those who want to corrupt it. It only protects order freedom and property.
    5. A libertarian state may or may not allow uncontrolled immigration just as a socialist one.
    6. “Many libertarians are poor examples of virtue” Many muslims are poor examples of virtue. Many christians are poor examples of virtue. Many hockey players are poor examples of virtue. Many(almost all tbh) communists are poor examples of virtue. Many potatoes are poor examples of a good tasty potato. Are you serious…

60. People on the right need to STFU and stop whining like bitches about the left. The perpetually whining of the left has infected the right which never misses a good opportunity to have a moan fest about the left. Guess what? They lost. You can shut up now.
    As for libertarianism…it’s really quite simple. Neo-liberalism aka global capitalism IS libertarianism, or as close as we’re likely to get and not have a revolution. Libertarians market fetishizers…every problem can be solved by privatization and profit. Humanity’s character can be summed up by buying and selling on a free and unregulated market with the government providing the army and police and nothing else. Gee, that’s what neo-liberalism strives for (in theory).
    Yet libertarians and many other American conservatives (and a learning disabled Frenchman or two) think we live in a neo-Marxist communist hellhole. Only a politically illiterate dumbfuck thinks the American economy is anything but capitalist.
    PUA “cultutre” has become a marketing scam that hoovers up losers like the chump who wrote this “article”. “Long live the State and protectionism as long as they defend the backbone of society and healthy relationships between the sexes…”
    Yeah, the state will regulate “healthy relations between the sexes”. Good luck with that, comrade, and be careful what you wish for….lmao

61. I am no longer a Libertarian. It has many good points but it denies the reality of human nature and loyalties. We are not hyper rational pure individuals with no bonds to those around us or our communities. Too often Libertarianism seems to be advocating preemptive surrender, letting in the migrants who hate your values and way of life because it is the ‘right’ thing to do, despite its results.

62. I wonder what made the Author to call Immigrants as “parasites” !? Is he not educated or knowledgeable to differentiate between “Immigrants” and “Illegal Immigrants” !?
    Before you write something, you need have clear idea of what you want to express. By the way, who are the people you are referring as “Immigrants” !? If they are “Illegal Immigrants” and/or “Refugees” (by the way, do you have a “Somalia” Refugee Camp near your place !?) and/or “Asylum seekers”, then what you said “probably” makes sense.
    But if you are referring to “International Students, Professionals/H1B, Researchers, Scholars, Scientists, Business Visitors & Entrepreneurs”, then either you are terribly mistaken or you are venting out Jealousy, Envy and Inferiority Complex.
    None of the categories I mentioned in the above paragraph falls under “Immigration” or “Immigrants” !! The only exception is Entrepreneur (“Prospective Immigrant”) and that too they MUST “Establish a Business and create Employment for LOCAL People/Citizens”. How do you call these categories as Parasites !?
    People coming into this Country in the above categories are:
    =NOT living on EBT cards or Welfare System
    =NOT leeching out the Tax Payers Money
    =NOT getting any Freebies, Handouts and/or Subsidies
    (we don’t need any ! we join with local people who are sincere & hardworking and actually FEED the parasites & leeches !!)
    =Considerably contributing by paying Taxes, Insurances etc.
    =Establishing Businesses that help & improve the local economy and providing/creating employment opportunities
    =Contributing positively in major fields and in every possible way
    =Generally friendly, considerate, easy going and doesn’t pose any threat (Drug Trafficking !?, Looting Shops/Malls !?, Mass Shootings !?, University Shootings !?, Gang wars !? … !!!)
    How come you call them “parasites” !? What made you to call them “parasites” !? If you are afraid of the Competition (Spelling Bee !?),
    If you feel grudged by the Recognition they are getting, their Accomplishments and Achievements, then there is something wrong with you !
    Policy makers of this Country are not fools / morons / retards (unlike few people, who always blame and cry on others when they couldn’t make it big !). They know very well that who ever is coming in those Categories, Contribute MORE and Consume LESS.
    I really feel pity for local people when they make it a habit of using the term “immigrants”, whenever they are grudged and are (seriously) suffering with Jealousy, Envy and Inferiority Complex !!!

63. all political ideologies fail because they are all ran by humans who are by nature corrupt. Jesus taught the only truth there is about politics-
    Tribulation is coming one day and theres nothing we can do to stop it,Christ will return in a final judgement,and establish a permanent reign with himself as king in the new heaven and new earth therefore rendering all that secular politics shit completely irrelevant, so we should ignore it and focus on spiritually preparing ourselves for the apocalypse.
    in layman terms- pay your taxes,dont break the law(unless it requires you to sin),do good deeds,pray. when Christ returns,you will be ready to meet him.
    IX|XC
    NI|KA

64. Spot on analysis. I never really liked libertarians. Too wishy washy. Well written, and succinct.

65. You keep talking about Ayn as an example of libertarianism. She isn’t. She was an objectivist. There are some differences it would do you well to understand. As an example, in the objectivist society hiding in the mountains in Atlas Shrugged, charity is forbidden. In a libertarian society, you’d be allowed to donate as much of your time and wealth to charity cases as you chose; but you wouldn’t be able to compel others to do the same.

66. “Long live the state”. I don’t think you ever fully had a grasp of libertarianism making such a pathetic statement such as that. Doug Casey, who is one of the more prominent libertarians makes the distinction against internationalists, which he considers himself, and globalists whom he is against.
    You make a lot of assumptive generalizations on libertarianism by conflating the works of people such as Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard. These people do not have the same ideology, even though many libertarians are influenced by the works of these people. Rand was an objectivist , while Rothbard was an Anarcho-capitalist and then you have people like Ron Paul who did a phenomenal job as a libertarian, while others such as the Koch brothers, are a different breed of libertarianism.

67. Keep telling yourself the “leaders” will eventually be on your side.

68. Real solutions are hard work. Libertarians HOPE things will go well despite the obvious lack of human virtue. Leftists exploit the lack of human virtue. RoK emphasizes a return to manly virtue (as well as the feminine), but that takes hard work.

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