I so appreciate the unsparing autopsy of the moral and ideological collapse of the LP. It takes intellectual and personal courage to address the failures and amorality of former colleagues. Unlike 'Cornholio' below who quickly runs to the typical 'bothsiders' argument vs addressing valid critiques that have led to the undermining of our democracy, Mr. Craig is both honorable and prescient.
I was surprised. I guess it's plain naivete to think that a party which so strongly avowed its love of individual liberty would find a petty would-be American generalissimo disgusting. I was wrong. Turns out most of the talk about freedom was blather and the Libertarian party was always about re-segregating the schools. The principled people in it, like Mr. Craig, turned out to be a tiny minority.
I don't believe they were a tiny minority of the party as a whole. As Mr. Craig explains, it's not the party members as a whole who control the national convention. The haters got control of the convention, and were able to use that to gain control of the party. Yes, very sad.
These folks don't seem any crazier than the people you like, in your own faction of the LP, such as Nicholas Sarwark, who has praised Elizabeth Warren and retweeted A.R. Moxon's defense of trillion-dollar student loan bailouts at taxpayer expense. Sarwark doesn't believe in freedom of association for social conservatives, claiming they have a duty under "implied contract" to sell to people they would rather not contract with. (In fact, no such duty exists under state contract law, and federal civil-rights law does not reach many small businesses). Members of the Sarwark faction support things that would cost many trillions of dollars, such as reparations, which experts say could cost taxpayers $12 trillion or more. As someone pointed out on Twitter, "The LP isn't as bad as Aaron Ross Powell, who pals around with Marxists, and boasts on Twitter about his 'Marxist friends.' Powell says true libertarians are to the left of both conservatives and socialists, the latter being what Powell calls 'the unstable middle.'" That statement is crazier than anything the Mises faction has said. Johnson and Weld didn't lose support in 2016 because they were too "mainstream," but because they adopted leftwing positions, like Johnson saying Hillary Clinton was a "wonderful public servant," and Johnson arguing that small businesses should have to serve everyone, not just gay people but even Nazis. Genuine libertarians like Jeffrey Tucker rightly criticized them for that: https://fee.org/articles/must-a-jewish-baker-make-a-nazi-cake/
You can have a libertarian organization that welcomes bigots, one that welcomes the targeted victims of their bigotry, or one that welcomes neither just because they happen to be in alignment with the organization on single issues, but you can’t have either under the same tent with consistent libertarians and ever become an enduring and effective libertarian organization.
Is the same pathology that afflicted the ACLU now also afflicting CATO, namely orienting itself not by reference to its fundamental principles but by single-mindedly focusing on its allies? In the struggle for liberty, the enemy of your enemy is rarely your friend. This policy bodes ill for the future of American libertarianism, now that the nation’s most prominent libertarian organization is in danger of joining the cult of compromised liberty rather than consistently opposing it.
The premise of your question is false. They could have condemned bigotry.
In an intellectual arena, it is counterproductive to sell single conclusions rather than to focus on the premises and valid arguments that lead to sets of consistent conclusions. If the LP's mission were merely to garner single-issue votes in the next election, rather than to advance libertarianism, they should have denounced bigotry.
Why do you bother to condemn bigotry when you could be promoting rationality instead (letting bigotry fall as a consequence)?
My premise is absolutely true. The new LP leadership explicitly removed the condemnation of bigotry. This clearly makes the party more welcoming to bigots, whatever the intent may have been.
The new leadership is not pretending LARPing wokeness actually does anything beyond enabling and catering to Cultural Marxism.
I'm glad we're rid of that malignancy. When we see the behavior of those who've left and, more importantly, who they cite and have allied with instead, the story completes itself. Angry Andy Craig is actually parroting the SPLC.
I mean... Talk about organizations that have collapsed into becoming a Marxist front.
It is infinite folly to endeavor to specifically and individually oppose every irrational conclusion of false premises or invalid arguments rather than to concentrate your efforts on exposing unsound arguments. It is also folly to suspend your advancement of rationality and liberty just to denounce bigotry in respose to those who attempt to silence or discredit you by calling you a bigot. Instead, you should advance rationality and liberty without being distracted by false allegations.
Irrational people hold conclusions indiscriminately, without regard for reason or truth. So, in the battle for an idea, you should permit neither their support nor their opposition to affect your behavior. In the competition for votes, on the other hand, reasons for votes don't count. Is the primary mission of the Libertarian Party to promote the idea of liberty or merely to get more votes in the next election?
It makes it less welcoming to people who believe governments should define bigotry and punish bigots. This group is a much bigger threat to civilization that are any remaining bigots.
That's it! I am telling you right now, if the libertarian party suddenly becomes actually libertarian again, I AM LEAVING and going to some proper leftist party where I know my wokeness and authoritarianism is appreciated! Yang gang here I come.
Yes, we should all QUIT! There is no way my friends and I signed up for the libertarian party to be full of actual libertarians. Like gross! That was not the deal I was promised, when I joined up and started the LP NeoLiberal Hillary Clinton Caucus. Nick Sarwark lied to me, he told me he had successfully infiltrated the LP and was in full control just like Trotsky taught us. I am going back to the Workers World Party where I first met Nick.
Disheartening. I was always hopeful that the Libertarian party would have produced a candidate that reasoned with the public like Milton Friedman did (Bill Weld was the closest it ever got to that).
I guess a casual observer can notice this decay in the incessant bickering about (anti) vaccines and (pro) guns on the Libertarian Party Twitter account.
Libertarianism is very specific about what it is. If you're confusing Bill Weld for it, you've got a long way to go before you're actually in the same solar system with understanding it.
Come now. Bill Weld bravely defended Hillary Clinton when mean and envious peasants demanded that she by subjected to laws about taking bribes or removing classified information, as if she were a mere commoner. Mr. Craig and the other fops and fauntleroys of the professional libertarians know that what America really needs is a Monarch who will show us by example how to live. If only Michelle Obama will run in 2024, to be followed 8 years later by one of her daughters, so we can finally be a civilized country.
How dare these paleolibertarian peasants complain that people be able to send their children to school, open their business, go to work, and defend themselves against crime!
Don't they know they are only here to breed new taxpayers and soldiers (and interns)!
What a sad rant. If there were so many libertarian who disagreed with the Mises Caucus, why did they not elect delegates? If the new group, that was activated not so much by Johnson, or even Weld, but by the Jo Jorgenson pronouncement that all Libertarians should actively endorse the fantasies of the "anti-racist" movement and its hucksters, was so odious, why can't Craig produce any heinous quotations from the new national LP chair, Angela McCardle? It's sad that a small number of "professional libertarians" like Craig have become part of the more general problem of the consultant class that populates NYC and DC. I rarely sample TheUnPopulist and so far its intellectual honesty is lacking.
Thank you for the excellent and thoughtful piece. Sadly predictable though that the comments are filled with a bunch of mindlessly bleating "Whaddaboutists" modeling the old saying about being so opened minded their brains fall out.
As a formerly active member of the LP who served the LP at both the local and state level, I dropped to an inactive, philosophical supporter. This shift occurred because my experiences as an active member led me to the conclusion that the LP was just another political party whose main purpose was to serve the interest of politicians. Recent developments have not changed but reinforced my earlier conclusion. Thus, I have dropped my membership and my monthly donation to the state party.
I so appreciate the unsparing autopsy of the moral and ideological collapse of the LP. It takes intellectual and personal courage to address the failures and amorality of former colleagues. Unlike 'Cornholio' below who quickly runs to the typical 'bothsiders' argument vs addressing valid critiques that have led to the undermining of our democracy, Mr. Craig is both honorable and prescient.
It’s been sad to watch the LP melt into near complete irrelevance but not surprising.
I was surprised. I guess it's plain naivete to think that a party which so strongly avowed its love of individual liberty would find a petty would-be American generalissimo disgusting. I was wrong. Turns out most of the talk about freedom was blather and the Libertarian party was always about re-segregating the schools. The principled people in it, like Mr. Craig, turned out to be a tiny minority.
I don't believe they were a tiny minority of the party as a whole. As Mr. Craig explains, it's not the party members as a whole who control the national convention. The haters got control of the convention, and were able to use that to gain control of the party. Yes, very sad.
The current version of the Libertarian Party is the Southern Strategy with a mailing list and twitter account
Concise & trenchant.
These folks don't seem any crazier than the people you like, in your own faction of the LP, such as Nicholas Sarwark, who has praised Elizabeth Warren and retweeted A.R. Moxon's defense of trillion-dollar student loan bailouts at taxpayer expense. Sarwark doesn't believe in freedom of association for social conservatives, claiming they have a duty under "implied contract" to sell to people they would rather not contract with. (In fact, no such duty exists under state contract law, and federal civil-rights law does not reach many small businesses). Members of the Sarwark faction support things that would cost many trillions of dollars, such as reparations, which experts say could cost taxpayers $12 trillion or more. As someone pointed out on Twitter, "The LP isn't as bad as Aaron Ross Powell, who pals around with Marxists, and boasts on Twitter about his 'Marxist friends.' Powell says true libertarians are to the left of both conservatives and socialists, the latter being what Powell calls 'the unstable middle.'" That statement is crazier than anything the Mises faction has said. Johnson and Weld didn't lose support in 2016 because they were too "mainstream," but because they adopted leftwing positions, like Johnson saying Hillary Clinton was a "wonderful public servant," and Johnson arguing that small businesses should have to serve everyone, not just gay people but even Nazis. Genuine libertarians like Jeffrey Tucker rightly criticized them for that: https://fee.org/articles/must-a-jewish-baker-make-a-nazi-cake/
Top it off, CIA Sarwark's fingerprints were all over the corrupt liar Henchman NH coup attempt, MD, and MA. Good riddance to them all.
You can have a libertarian organization that welcomes bigots, one that welcomes the targeted victims of their bigotry, or one that welcomes neither just because they happen to be in alignment with the organization on single issues, but you can’t have either under the same tent with consistent libertarians and ever become an enduring and effective libertarian organization.
Is the same pathology that afflicted the ACLU now also afflicting CATO, namely orienting itself not by reference to its fundamental principles but by single-mindedly focusing on its allies? In the struggle for liberty, the enemy of your enemy is rarely your friend. This policy bodes ill for the future of American libertarianism, now that the nation’s most prominent libertarian organization is in danger of joining the cult of compromised liberty rather than consistently opposing it.
Seethe loser leftarians, seethe.
The real libertarians are back in town.
I condemn bigotry as irrational and repugnant. Why can't the Mises Caucus?
The premise of your question is false. They could have condemned bigotry.
In an intellectual arena, it is counterproductive to sell single conclusions rather than to focus on the premises and valid arguments that lead to sets of consistent conclusions. If the LP's mission were merely to garner single-issue votes in the next election, rather than to advance libertarianism, they should have denounced bigotry.
Why do you bother to condemn bigotry when you could be promoting rationality instead (letting bigotry fall as a consequence)?
My premise is absolutely true. The new LP leadership explicitly removed the condemnation of bigotry. This clearly makes the party more welcoming to bigots, whatever the intent may have been.
LOL.
The new leadership is not pretending LARPing wokeness actually does anything beyond enabling and catering to Cultural Marxism.
I'm glad we're rid of that malignancy. When we see the behavior of those who've left and, more importantly, who they cite and have allied with instead, the story completes itself. Angry Andy Craig is actually parroting the SPLC.
I mean... Talk about organizations that have collapsed into becoming a Marxist front.
In other words, you think that bigotry should not be condemned by the party? Do you want bigots? Because that's how you get bigots.
It is infinite folly to endeavor to specifically and individually oppose every irrational conclusion of false premises or invalid arguments rather than to concentrate your efforts on exposing unsound arguments. It is also folly to suspend your advancement of rationality and liberty just to denounce bigotry in respose to those who attempt to silence or discredit you by calling you a bigot. Instead, you should advance rationality and liberty without being distracted by false allegations.
Irrational people hold conclusions indiscriminately, without regard for reason or truth. So, in the battle for an idea, you should permit neither their support nor their opposition to affect your behavior. In the competition for votes, on the other hand, reasons for votes don't count. Is the primary mission of the Libertarian Party to promote the idea of liberty or merely to get more votes in the next election?
It makes it less welcoming to people who believe governments should define bigotry and punish bigots. This group is a much bigger threat to civilization that are any remaining bigots.
What does that mean in a party platform? That government gets to define what bigotry is and who is a bigot?
That's it! I am telling you right now, if the libertarian party suddenly becomes actually libertarian again, I AM LEAVING and going to some proper leftist party where I know my wokeness and authoritarianism is appreciated! Yang gang here I come.
Yes, we should all QUIT! There is no way my friends and I signed up for the libertarian party to be full of actual libertarians. Like gross! That was not the deal I was promised, when I joined up and started the LP NeoLiberal Hillary Clinton Caucus. Nick Sarwark lied to me, he told me he had successfully infiltrated the LP and was in full control just like Trotsky taught us. I am going back to the Workers World Party where I first met Nick.
Sounds like CNN wrote this piece
Didn’t you rage quit the party?
Doesn’t matter how shit the libertarian party is or will become it will be always 1000 times better then The two main parties in power.
Disheartening. I was always hopeful that the Libertarian party would have produced a candidate that reasoned with the public like Milton Friedman did (Bill Weld was the closest it ever got to that).
I guess a casual observer can notice this decay in the incessant bickering about (anti) vaccines and (pro) guns on the Libertarian Party Twitter account.
Compromiser Republican Bill Weld. Got it.
Libertarianism is very specific about what it is. If you're confusing Bill Weld for it, you've got a long way to go before you're actually in the same solar system with understanding it.
Come now. Bill Weld bravely defended Hillary Clinton when mean and envious peasants demanded that she by subjected to laws about taking bribes or removing classified information, as if she were a mere commoner. Mr. Craig and the other fops and fauntleroys of the professional libertarians know that what America really needs is a Monarch who will show us by example how to live. If only Michelle Obama will run in 2024, to be followed 8 years later by one of her daughters, so we can finally be a civilized country.
How dare these paleolibertarian peasants complain that people be able to send their children to school, open their business, go to work, and defend themselves against crime!
Don't they know they are only here to breed new taxpayers and soldiers (and interns)!
What a sad rant. If there were so many libertarian who disagreed with the Mises Caucus, why did they not elect delegates? If the new group, that was activated not so much by Johnson, or even Weld, but by the Jo Jorgenson pronouncement that all Libertarians should actively endorse the fantasies of the "anti-racist" movement and its hucksters, was so odious, why can't Craig produce any heinous quotations from the new national LP chair, Angela McCardle? It's sad that a small number of "professional libertarians" like Craig have become part of the more general problem of the consultant class that populates NYC and DC. I rarely sample TheUnPopulist and so far its intellectual honesty is lacking.
Thank you for the excellent and thoughtful piece. Sadly predictable though that the comments are filled with a bunch of mindlessly bleating "Whaddaboutists" modeling the old saying about being so opened minded their brains fall out.
As a formerly active member of the LP who served the LP at both the local and state level, I dropped to an inactive, philosophical supporter. This shift occurred because my experiences as an active member led me to the conclusion that the LP was just another political party whose main purpose was to serve the interest of politicians. Recent developments have not changed but reinforced my earlier conclusion. Thus, I have dropped my membership and my monthly donation to the state party.
The LP was doing so well when you were supporting it...