Libertarians are Enemies of GOP -- With Good Reason -- says Sci-Fi Author

Some years ago, I wrote a column that was an open letter to the just- diselected southern California congressman Robert K. "B-1 Bob" Dornan.

Dornan was bitterly complaining that he'd lost the election because there was a Libertarian Party candidate running against him, depriving him of votes -- in his peculiar view -- that were rightfully his. He pointed to other races that year where LP candidates had won more votes than the margin between the winning Democrat and the losing Republican, and chastised libertarians for failing to recognize and act for the "higher good" of helping Republicans defeat Democrats, as if libertarians were somehow the second-string team in the fight for freedom.

For some reason, Dornan never wrote back to me. I wanted to ask him why it was that he imagined libertarians -- many of whom had disgustedly departed Republican circles back in 1968, and others of whom had never been anything but libertarians -- should have any interest whatever in seeing any Republicans elected to any office, anywhere.

An election or two later, Michael Medved, neoconservative movie critic, syndicated radio host, and the most egregious dogwhistle this side of Cal Thomas began calling those who choose to live by the Zero Aggression Principle "Losertarians", whimpering, like Dornan before him, that individuals of that persuasion are essentially vandals who, without genuine reason or purpose, damage Republican electoral hopes by drawing off votes that would otherwise go to GOP candidates.

I trust by now that everyone knows what a dogwhistle is. I started to write an open letter to Medved, too, but selfishly allowed myself to get distracted by the frivolous desire to earn a living and feed my family.

We've heard it all before, anyway. I remember one election in which Patrick J. Buchanan, former Nixon speechwriter and mortal enemy of free trade, open immigration, and a woman's right to sovereignty over her own body, smugly advised libertarians to back his independent presidential campaign because it was "the only train in the station headed in their direction". Clearly Buchanan failed to understand what direction libertarians are actually headed in, but that's all right. Buchanan's presidential hopes (if not his aspirations) are gone with the wind. The Libertarian Party is still here, however battered and bowed.

This year, Medved's at it again, reportedly calling libertarian electoral efforts "masturbatory". Mind you, I haven't heard him say it myself. I used to keep four or five radios running all over the house, every weekday, so I could hear three or four conservative talk shows in a row (none of them Medved's), as my morning took me from room to room. I haven't listened to them since September 11, 2001, when they switched from talking about individual liberty (they were always good at _talking_ about individual liberty) and resistance to socialism, to spewing propaganda in support of the Bush Administration's naked fascism.

Blubberers like Medved and Dornan, however -- and their general ilk -- need to get something straight, for once and all: throughout its long, dismal history, the Republican Party has, time after time, promised to support individual liberty, and promptly betrayed it. There wouldn't _be_ a Libertarian Party if that wasn't true. On that account, if no other, we're not buddies, friends, allies, or fellow travelers. We're enemies, as surely as we're enemies to Democrats. We've always been enemies, but it was on an almost friendly basis until ...

For me, it may have been until then-Senator Robert Dole, with no discernible motivation except his longstanding and utterly Nixonian loathing of freedom, helped the Clinton Administration ram the Brady Bill through, and with it (just as it was becoming clear that armed individuals were reducing crime by double digits) an unconstitutional prohibition on efficient personal weaponry and magazines of adequate capacity.

Or it might have been until "revolutionary" Republicans tucked their tails between their legs and slunk away, instead of seeking truth and justice in the matters of Ruby Ridge, Waco, and Oklahoma City.

Or it may have been until the same "revolutionaries" failed, like the Eisenhower and Reagan Administrations before them, to stamp out every remnant of the New Deal and run government on a constitutional basis.

Or it might have been ... to hell with that. The Republican Party was born for no other purpose than to oppress Americans. It has done nothing but that since the War between the States. The GOP is the party of conscription, the income tax, the loyalty oath, fiat money inflation, political censorship, and the midnight knock on the door. The only reason they got away with it is that Democrats were so much worse.

That's all over now. Doing exactly _opposite_ of what's really needed to ensure "homeland security", Republicans have turned this country's airports into rape zones where, if you protest at what they do to you, you're guaranteed a thorough anal probing as punishment for exercising your First Amendment rights. In the past year, Republicans have trampled the Bill of Rights at home until it's unrecognizable, while bombing, shooting, and otherwise terrorizing helpless peasants all over the planet in a bald attempt to corner the world supply of petroleum.

As hard as it may once have been to conceive, from the standpoint of individual liberty, Republicans are vastly worse than Democrats. George Junior has managed to make Bill Clinton look like a statesman. The only strategy libertarians ought to follow -- the only one that works for us, apparently -- is to prevent the election of as many of these goose-stepping imbeciles as possible. If it were up to me, I'd dedicate all of the Libertarian Party's resources to that and nothing else.

The truly silly thing is that all the Republicans have to do to eliminate the terrible threat that we libertarians represent is to be better than we are on the issues that count. Put a stop to the current War on Everything. Call the troops home for good. End the evil War on Drugs. Outlaw "civil forfeiture". Repeal 25,000 gun laws. Seriously reconsider taxation -- extortion and theft -- as a means of funding government.

Why should anyone vote for candidates from a political party that not only failed to protect this nation from the attack on the World Trade Center (whose foreign policy, along with that of the Democrats, made the attack inevitable, and whose domestic policies made it easy) but cynically use it as an excuse to obliterate every remaining trace of the Founding Fathers' America? Something that we all need to get straight is that it doesn't advance the cause of liberty to elect Republicans, it hasn't for a long time, and it probably never really did.

So I would ask Medved and his fellow freedom frauds, given the choice between those who stand up publicly for what's right by voting libertarian -- in a venue where, in terms of swaying the public, one vote for a third party candidate is easily worth 100 votes for anybody -- and those who vote for Republicans in the demonstrably false hope of achieving freedom in our lifetimes, who's really masturbating, here?

Three-time Prometheus Award-winner L. Neil Smith is the author of 23 books, including _The American Zone_, _Forge of the Elders_, _Pallas_, _The Probability Broach_, _Hope_ (with Aaron Zelman), and his collection of articles and speeches, _Lever Action_, all of which may be purchased through his website "The Webley Page" at . Autographed copies may be had from the author at .

L. Neil Smith writes regular columns for _The Libertarian Enterprise_ , _Sierra Times_ RoadHouse , and for _Rational Review_ .

I have libertarian sympathies, to say the least, but Smith is a bit hyperbolic here.

I agree. But I also think he made a number of very valid points at the same tmie (along with some invalid ones).

Republicans are deluding themselves if we think that Libertarian votes are "rightly ours", or that we're the "party of freedom" without fault.

I think Smith is entirely wrong-headed on foreign policy, but when it comes to his list of domestic Republican failures, he scores some excellent bullseyes.

And then he wonders why Medved calls their efforst "masturbatory." In this whole article he managed to say --- nothing.

Then you need to read it again.

But, if I say that they are against everything and are not for anything, the libertarians will become indignant and offended.

Of course they will -- people do tend to become indignant and offended when you say ridiculously simplistic things about them which are not true.

You may not agree with libertarians, but it's ludicrous to claim that they're "not for anything".

Try raising the level of your analysis and maybe people won't find your comments as offensive.

This is what I've never gotten about some of the Kool-Aid Republicans here (I'm a Republican myself). Why do they think Libertarian votes are somehow rightfully GOP votes that somehow have been hijacked? Libertarians BY DEFINITION are not Republicans. Libertarian voters BY DEFINITION are not Republican voters.

I don't get it either.

What a lot of folks also miss is that many libertarian voters are disaffected *Democrats* (i.e., people who could no longer stomach voting for a Democrat, but who still wouldn't vote Republican in a million years). For all we know the Libertarian candidate might have siphoned more votes away from the Democratic candidate than from the Republican candidate, *raising* the Republican odds of winning.

Excuse me, but where the HELL do you get the idea that libertarians are pacifists?? The libertarian position is non-aggression, not pacifism, and typically non-agression in the sense that they won't ever START a fight, but once one was started, they would do their damnedest to finish it in their favor.

Since this thread started with an essay by L. Neil Smith, it's worth pointing out that some of his novels depict varying visions of a libertarian society. In both "The Probability Broach", and "Pallas", the citizens are peaceful, respectful of each other's rights, and ARMED TO THE TEETH against anyone who doesn't treat them likewise.

There are several gun battles in The Probability Broach, all enthusiastically participated in by the libertarian citizens in response to unprovoked attempts by others to initiate force (kidnapping, etc.) against them.

And in Pallas, preserving the right to keep and bear arms in defense against tyranny is the entire point of the book.

"Third World immigrants bring disease, poverty, ignorance, crime, and anti-Western hatred to American shores." - TGoRN

A hundred years ago, the same ugly things were being said about the "third world" immigrants of their day, the Irish, Italians, Slavs, etc....

Ah yes...those were indeed libertarian times.

Glad you agree, and that you realise that your remarks were ugly.

People who came to America had to be physically fit to be accepted into the country, and jobs were provided by one's own family, clan, or community not by the government. Everyone needed to pull their own weight -- and learn to speak and read English within weeks of arrival. Immigration 100 years ago was marked by hard work and a responsibility to learn to be an American. Times have certainly changed.

Yep, how true. -- You can be quite rational & unbiased when you try. -- Thanks

8. Playing baseball with live gerbils -- protected

Hmm, I might pay good money to see that...

9. Fisting your lover on a park bench -- protected
10. Walking naked on the streets -- protected

"Protected" is a very misleading word here.

While it's true that libertarians would on principle be against using the power of the *state* to regulate such behavior, they're not against using *social pressure* (i.e. "community standards" and the like) to regulate such offenses to good taste and propriety. Behavior such as you list would hardly be "protected" in the sense of "there should be no repercussions for that, it's a god-given right". In *any* society there's no right to be offensive to your peers and not suffer the consequences.

And let's face it, how many people actually engage in your list of behaviors even *now* simply because it may be illegal, and *not* because they were either raised with better sense/ethics/morals/taste or were unwilling to face the reaction of the public or their peers?

In other words, just how many people do you think would start to "walk around naked on the streets" even if it weren't expressly illegal. Is this the sort of thing we truly *need* laws to control? Or isn't being yelled at (or pointed at and laughed at) by the people they pass on the street enough discouragement?

Actions have consequences, even if getting arrested for them is not on the table. In a libertarian society there would still be plenty of curbs and disincentives for behaving like a crazy person.

But sure, it's a trade-off -- along with decreasing the spheres of governmental power in order to reduce the mischief and harm it can cause, it would open the door to some people -- I would think not many -- taking too much advantage of it and acting like asses. But if seeing some idiot walking around naked once every few months is the cost of getting government the hell out of the things it has no business micromanaging (or flatly outlawing/mandating) in the first place, I can live with that.

"Well OK - heres from Harry Browne website"

Uh, I've got news for you, but Harry Browne's opinion represnts Harry Browne, not all libertarians, which is what you were/are implying. I suspect Browne's sentiments are a minority position among libertarians, and in fact are in opposition to the libertarian philosophy, which is (as I understand it) to not instigate aggression, but if transgressed against, to respond as needed to end the transgression.

Hey guess what dude?? H Browne was the LP pres candidate in 2000 and I think also in 96. As such he is the leading figure in the LP and even in the libertarian movement. So no it won't do to claim he is "not representative."

And in any case, such a claim is false. Do you want to cede the point to me now or do I have to dig up other quotes from other libertarians which support my assertions? Or would you then claim that I have still selected a non-representative sample? I guess I'd have to commission a Gallup poll on the subject.

Anyway, I think that I have proved my case.

Now it is true that a minority of libertarians would support the War on terror and support the US government. And I always believed that indeed national defense was a proper function of government and that's why I was so shocked at the libertarian reaction. It seemed to me that the libertarians (most of them) were turning their back on their own philosophy.

Good link. I was surprised and interested to read this press release.

In turn, I suggest that you try this link:http://www.fff.org/comment/ed1101a.asp

This is Hornbergers comments in 10/01 about the War on Terror.

So, interestingly, two of the leading lights of libertarianism (Browne and Hornberger) are foursquare against the War on Terror. The "rank and file" however and less opposed to the WOT. They support it with majorities but not overwhelming ones. And they support it with qualifications.

Here is my attempt to summarize. Some libertarians, but not all, support the War on Terror. Libertarians support the War on Terror less completely than does the American public at large (even Democrats). They also impose more qualifications on their support than do most Americans. (Such as opposition to measures such as the Patriot Act). Libertarians, despite this support of the WOT, still retain their traditional attitude of distrust and (yes) hatred of the US government.

Now I hope I have accurately stated the case. I agree that the situation is not black and white (as perhaps I had originally held) but rather highly nuanced and needing the details examined.

Now on a personal note, here is what happened to me as a result of 9/11. Prior to that, like most libertarians, I too was highly suspicious of the US government and basically in opposition to it. 9/11 cleared my eyes (at least that is how I see it now). The USA clearly has many many flaws. I still oppose government policy in most of the same areas I always have. However, I now see that, despite these flaws, the USA is a pretty incredible place - the greatest country in human history. By insisting on perfection, we can make the perfect the enemy of the good.

Yes, perhaps it is possible to tear down the US (as the leftists perpetually do). But when it is gone what shall replace it. Again the US is mankind's brightest hope and I wish primarily to support it not tear it down. Yes I will continue to criticize it but in a more constructive way. And I will realize that it is a long term battle in which America is not the enemy. The enemy is the Left, both domestically and abroad.

"Now I hope I have accurately stated the case. I agree that the situation is not black and white (as perhaps I had originally held) but rather highly nuanced and needing the details examined."

You have not. NINETY-FOUR PERCENT is not "some libertarians". What that says is that the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of libertarians support the War on Terror. They have major reservations about some of the specific actions (loss of civil liberties) suggested as part of that war, but they DO support the war. HUGE majorities support military action.

You are simply wrong, and unwilling to admit it.

No, you need to examine the link you provided more carefully. It says that 94.8% of those polled have a responsibility to bring the terrorists to justice (I am paraphrasing). What form of justice? Well it doesn't say. This might mean, a la Browne, putting the mug shot on the post office wall, not the kind of war or terror that the Bush administration is pursuing.

24.3% of libs oppose putting ground troops into Afghanistan - what do you think that percentage would be among Americans at large (or would have been in 10/01)? I'd say a lot lower.

21.4% oppose attacks on the Taliban. Again likely a higher number than for the populace at large. 30.2% oppose efforts to topple the Taliban. Only 52% support action against nations that support terrorism or harbor terrorists.

From the LP press release "Those last three questions indicate that Libertarians are unwilling to give the U.S. government carte blanche to engage in limitless military action in the name of fighting terrorism..." That is they give only conditional support to the WOT.

"It's obvious that as military options move beyond striking back at those terrorists directly responsible for the September 11 attacks, Libertarians grow increasingly uncomfortable..." a quote from Dasbach.

69% oppose any attck without a declaration of war by Congress. I don't know what to say about this one. It seems to arise from the "strict constructionism" of libertarians. The fact is though that declarations of war have not occurred since WWI I think so, like it or not, you're not going to have one.

As I said, perhaps I was too hasty in asserting broadly that "libertarians oppose the war on terror." Rather their support is weaker than that of the public at large and they support the WOT only with major reservations. Finally, many libertarians wish to treat the attempt to bring UBL to justice as just a criminal matter rather than a casus belli.

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