Libertarians Against Liberty
In modern American politics there are several constants : The Democrats will try to get your vote with a thing, the Republicans will try to get your vote with the opposite, and the libertarians will try to get yours with liberty. Or will they?
In recent years many young people have found themselves disillusioned with the 2 party system. This leads to questions, the biggest one being “do we really have only 2 choices, isn’t there a better way, a better party?”. The answer to the first half of the question is a big yes, however it gets complicated with the second part.
By all measures the libertarian party is the biggest third force in U.S. politics on the national level, which leads to it being many people’s first choice for that “better way”. When you ask a libertarian what their organization stands for in 99% of cases their response will be one word „liberty”. But is that statement entirely honest? Unfortunately It is not, and here’s why.
I think the best way to demonstrate the true goals and values of the libertarian party is by letting the libertarians speak for themselves, and what’s a better way to do it in an article other than quoting them? During a speech which can be best described as the modern libertarian manifesto, it was given by a major libertarian thinker and former underling of Ron Paul, Jeff Deist:
“A world of seven billion self-governing individuals is the ideal, but short of that we should prefer the Liechtensteins to the Germanys and the Luxembourg’s to the Englands. We should prefer states’ rights to federalization in the US, and cheer for the breakup of EU. We should support breakaway movements in places like Catalonia and Scotland and California.”
Majority of people lose him right here, but in case you are still wondering if they may have a good point, allow to me explain further why this is a disastrous and an anti liberty idea.
The idea behind regionalism and secession is that “local people know best how to govern themselves”. While this idea may work in terms of potholes(although even here it rarely does) it falls apart when you dig deeper. A rarely talked about benefit of modern large states is that a large population brings with it a natural protection against what can be best described as „wacko polices”. However when you’re dealing with smaller and smaller states eventually you may find yourself in a country where the majority is crazy. For example imagine if the most rural parts of Mississippi had complete control over their governance, or imagine if the entire American south didn’t have to follow federal laws since the 1860s.
The libertarian party doesn’t want you to have freedom, it doesn't care about that, its stated goal is to prioritize freedom to oppress over freedom from oppression. If they had to choose between the U.S. government existing and a second confederacy splitting off and bringing back Jim Crow or slavery they would pick the latter.
To conclude, despite “liberty” being their motto, libertarians will not bring you freedom. So if you wish to increase your civil liberties and make sure that they’re not threatened please vote blue.
