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I cannot fail to speak of the grave risks associated with the invasion of the positions of libertarian individualism at high strata of culture and in school and university education, the Pope said in an message sent to members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences meeting in the Vatican and subsequently shared with Breitbart News.

A common characteristic of this fallacious paradigm is that it minimizes the common good, that is the idea of living well or the good life in the communitarian framework, Francis said, while at the same time exalting a selfish ideal.

Members of the Pontifical Academy are currently engaged in a workshop bearing the title Towards a Participatory Society: New Roads to Social and Cultural Integration, which began Friday and will run through May 2.

Francis said that libertarianism, which is so fashionable today, is a more radical form of the individualism that asserts that only the individual gives value to things and to interpersonal relations and therefore only the individual decides what is good and what is evil.

Libertarianism, he said, preaches that the idea of self-causation is necessary to ground freedom and individual responsibility.

Thus, the libertarian individual denies the value of the common good, the pontiff stated, because on the one hand he supposes that the very idea of common means the constriction of at least some individuals, and on the other hand that the notion of good deprives freedom of its essence.

Libertarianism, he continued, is an antisocial radicalization of individualism, which leads to the conclusion that everyone has the right to extend himself as far as his abilities allow him even at the cost of the exclusion and marginalization of the more vulnerable majority.

According to this mentality, all relationships that create ties must be eliminated, the Pope suggested, since they would limit freedom. In this way, only by living independently of others, of the common good, and even God himself, can a person be free, he said.

This isnt the first time that the Pope has taken issue with popular social and political trends.

In March, Pope Francis told leaders of the European Union that the populist movements that are sweeping many parts of Europe and other areas are fueled by egotism.

Populism, he said, is the fruit of an egotism that hems people in and prevents them from overcoming and looking beyond their own narrow vision.

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Excerpt from:
Pope Francis Warns Against 'Invasion' of Libertarianism - Breitbart News

Have you seen the viral "libertarian tip"? Someone in Missouri left a cash tip with a note explaining it was actually a personal gift and so not subject to state and federal income taxes, and wrote "taxation is theft" in the tip line on the check.

Who knows if the note is authentic? "Taxation is theft," an old libertarian bromide, has in the last year or so become a fairly popular internet meme. By some accounts, the meme wars were an important aspect of the 2016 election and its outcomeand you can expect the trend of political memes to grow. Maybe the "libertarian tip" was staged by someone who wants to promote libertarianism or encourage others to leave libertarian tips, or even just someone who wanted to play with the "taxation is theft" meme.

Nevertheless, I went out to lunch today to replicate the meme so I could give you an authentic photo of an authentic non-tip left as an untaxable personal gift. Here it is:

Reason

Some tips for you: the original photo looked like a note, not an envelope. I thought putting the money in an envelope would more clearly separate it from a tip. A note is better to show off how much you've tippedI put the money in the envelope after snapping the photo. You should probably make sure to have the change you need to give the tip you want. Asking for change from the wait staff might strengthen the case your untaxable non-tip is actually a taxable tip.

Afterward, I asked my waitress if my ploy would work. She seemed as if she wanted to tell me it would, even though she knew it didn't, because, as she explained, tips count as sales. She said that the tips that bring her wage up to the minimum wage (waiters and waitresses are generally exempt from minimum wage laws under the assumption tips get them to at least the minimum wage) get taxe like income, and that "40 to 50 percent" of tips beyond that get declared.

The intersection of libertarianism and wait staff is not new. During the 2012 election, then Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), a Republican presidential candidate, became an "unlikely hero" (the New York Post's words) to wait staff for his efforts to pass the Tax Free Tips Act. In 2013, The New Yorker appeared to discover and bemoan that wait staff were hiding tips from the taxman. The horror.

Meanwhile, wait staff are also among workers most negatively impacted by higher minimum wagesthey are often asked to do more work as restaurants look to mitigate the costs of a higher minimum wage in an already low-margin business. Just last month, Eric Boehm reported that San Diego had lost 4,000 restaurant jobs in the year-plus since they raised their minimum wage at an even faster pace than the state, which has so far only seen a slowdown in the growth of restaurant jobs.

And while we're so directly on the "taxation is theft" topic, here's one of my favorite chyrons ever on FreedomWatch with Judge Napolitano, a show I produced for. Thanks go to Media Matters for preserving the screen cap:

Fox Business

See original here:
I Gave My Waitress a 'Libertarian Tip': Taxation Is Theft! - Reason (blog)

CUMMING -- Radio host Monica Perez gave some local Tea Party members a lesson in libertarianism this week.

On Monday, the United Tea Party of Georgia welcomed Perez, who hosts a radio show on WSB and is a self-described anarcho-capitalist, a political philosophy she described as extremely libertarian.

I really am a radical Libertarian, Ive absolutely lost all faith in at least the federal government, Perez said. I really think they work against our interests for their own interests, like truly go out of their way to reduce our fiscal and physical security because thats their bread and butter.

Throughout the evening, Perez took questions from the ultra-conservative group, including some issues the group might not favor, such as her opinion of President Donald Trump.

I was always skeptical about Trump and felt, actually, that it was the establishments way to control the Tea Party and libertarians, so people who were desperate to restore the foundational laws of this country, she said.

However, Perez said she did not vote for the Libertarian candidates in November and was not a member of the Libertarian Party.

They were fake, she said. Libertarianism is individual responsibility and personal freedom on all issues at all time it is not fiscal conservatism or social liberalism; thats not what it is.

Also present at the event was District 24 state Rep. Sheri Gilligan, who answered a question about getting more involved in politics by recommending people get involved locally and never staying quiet by their beliefs.

We keep focusing on Congress. We keep focusing on Trump, and we act like everything is up there. By golly, its right here in Forsyth County and its right here in the state of Georgia, she said. As much as I love where I live, I would be really ridiculous to say we are clean and we have no problems and we dont want bigger government issues and answers here in Georgia.

The meeting was the first to be a joint meeting of the Forsyth County Tea Party and the United Tea Party of Georgia, which also holds events in Buford and Lawrenceville, and drew a larger crowd than most meetings.

The group meets on the last Monday of each month at 7 p.m. at VFW Post 9173 at 1045 Dahlonega Highway.

Read more:
Tea Party in Forsyth welcomes Libertarian radio host - Forsyth County News Online

From its beginnings as a distinct ideological movement in the postwar years, libertarianism has been a set of outsider ideas vastly disrespected by most American politicians and intellectuals. It was kept alive by small institutions, publications, and scattered academics (mostly in economics at first) who for decades were largely concerned with just keeping any expression of these ideas a going concern, barely expecting it could soon seriously influence mainstream political culture. (That story is told up to the turn of the 21st century in my book Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement.)

Libertarians understand they are still to a large degree strangers in a strange land when it comes to the American political scene, struggling for impact in a world they never made, and any number of other cliches indicating that obvious truth: libertarianism is still a minority idea and libertarians are still embroiled in a difficult and long-term fight to influence political ideology and practice in America. Libertarians are generally not delusional on that point.

When it comes to awareness and acceptance of the overarching principles of libertarianism, even if not to their actuation across the board in governing, the situation for libertarianism is America has gotten much better in the 21st century along many dimensions. As Reason's Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie have argued, an often pre-political embrace of the options, variety, and choice inherent in the libertarian vision of free minds and free markets has spread massively in American culture, even if government qua government isn't shrinking.

One of the ironic demonstrations of libertarianism's inroads in American culture is that mainstream outlets find it necessary frequently to declare it dead, irrelevant, or fatally wounded. Lately we've had Tim Alberta in Politico assuring us that the libertarian dream is dead; and Adam Ozimek in Forbes saying libertarianism could be more successful if only it would narrow its vision a little.

Politico makes a good point as far as it goes: Until Donald Trump's bold political entrepreneurship proved surprisingly successful, there was reason to believe the GOP might be more inclined to go for a libertarian-leaning candidate such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) rather than someone like Trump, policy-wise a Buchananite populist in the Rick Santorum style (to point to the nearest even slightly successful precursor in the GOP), but with less sanctimony, less even half-convincing Christianity, and more aggressive crudity and lack of intellectual polish.

Examining the respective political fates of Paul and Trump in the 2016 presidential race, now we know better. But by the very fact that it is an outsider political movement not fully at home in either major party, nothing about libertarianism's correctness or its hopes for the future depend on some short term victory; certainly nothing about the American people's choice of aggressive protectionist nationalism (to the extent we can be sure what people thought they were getting when they choose Trump) proves that libertarianism is either mistaken or dead.

It just proves libertarianism remains what it has been since it arose as a distinct movement in America after World War II: a small fighting rump, but one whose spread and reach is as high as it's ever been, even if it has failed in 2016, as it has always failed, to win the White House.

Otherwise, Politico's long article is merely a portrait of a moment in time, not the final fate of an ideology. Its observational power is mostly rooted in noting that, while he occasionally talks a libertarian-sounding game when it comes to, say, regulation, Trump is overall very opposed to the larger libertarian vision of truly free markets, respect for property rights, and restrained government power. True, and understood; especially as Trump's pre-election rhetoric that hinted at the possibility he might be less bellicose than his predecessors overseas is drowned out in the sound of exploding missiles.

Alberta's Politico article is a portrait of libertarianism as a philosophy still where it's always been: not a comfortable fit with either major party. But it has a greater grip on a greater number of prominent politicians, and Americans (see, for just one easily quantifiable example, the Libertarian Party nearly quadrupling its highest previous vote total) than ever in modern history.

If libertarians are rightor even on the right pathwith their understanding that our government is overtaxing, overspending, overregulating, and overextending its reach both into the lives of its citizens and across the globe in ways that make many people's lives worse and our future more perilous, then American history will show it an idea that's neither dead nor needing extensive pruning, as Ozimek in Forbes seems to believe.

Libertarianism: Is Less More?

Ozimek should rest assured that a narrowly-funded, scrappy, outsider ideological movement that has never quite been able to find a national politician they can all get behind (not even Ron Paul) knows full well that a majority of Americans don't yet agree with them.

That's the purpose of an organized minority ideological movement such as libertarianism: to do the research, education, advocacy, electioneering, and storytelling that might help Americans see that, to survey some libertarian ideas, the drug war is both wrong and unproductive; that stealing property from citizens without charging them with a crime is unjust; that market and price mechanisms need to play a role in a sensible and affordable health care market; that our foreign interventions often merely sow the seeds for the next perceived necessary foreign intervention.

With that understoodthis basic idea that a radical and small movement for ideological change is trying to move the political needle somewhere it isn't alreadyOzimek's basic argument that most Americans don't seem to shape their own decision-making or voting around small government proves libertarianism is terribly flawed and needs rethinking doesn't bear much weight. (Nick Gillespie explained here 12 years ago why obviously decisions other than tax rates or regulation are going to shape people's decisions about where to live as life is, blessedly, about more than just taxes and regulations.)

Ozimek has a narrow set of libertarian ideas he thinks are important and workable, and they are indeed part of the libertarian movement message. Precisely what they are isn't quite clearhe writes that "people want quality of life, economic growth, and good government. All three of these can be helped on some margins by utilizing market forces, deregulating, and increasing freedom. Libertarianism should focus on these margins, and accept that the all-too-popular vision of radical freedom and minimal government at all costs is not wanted by enough people to actually matter."

It sounds like what Ozimek really should be concluding, if he indeed believes that stuff about bettering the world through "utilizing market forces" etc. is that people and politicians that are not libertarian should be more libertarian. And that's what libertarians are trying to accomplish.

What advantagefor the libertarian as opposed for the Ozimekanfrom pursuing a narrower vision of freedom and limited government is not clear from this essay. Nor is it clear exactly what ideas of the libertarian movement he is recommending jettisoning, or keeping. (While Ozimek isn't rigorous on this point, he seems to be implying that somehow the existence of very libertarian people or arguments is harming the cause of slight libertarian improvement. I addressed whether libertarian extremism, that is, a full or radical version of the small-government vision, was harming the movement writ large last year. I didn't find the case proven.)

Libertarianism certainly hasn't cleared the field in American political culture yet. But to be held to such a standard, when 20 years ago it was considered so unknown and insignificant that publications of the stature and focus of a Forbes or Politico would never have bothered running articles about how and why it's allegedly failing and fading, is its own kind of victory in political culture, and a necessary prelude to more important ones.

See the original post:
Libertarianism Does Not Yet Rule America. Libertarians Know That. That's Not a Reason for Them to Abandon ... - Reason (blog)

The United States Libertarian Party is a strange beast. It has a wide following within the movement and is comfortably the countrys third largest party. Yet, its had little meaningful electoral success in the decades of its existence. Smaller parties in other countries, with far less widespread support have managed to convert their core base into electoral breakthrough; so, what is causing this failure in the Libertarian Party?

Part of the problem is the dual mandate the party has given itself to both compete in elections and be an educator on libertarian principles and policy.

A political party, by its nature, is distinct from any think tank, club, or foundation, because it is designed to engage directly in the political process and fight real campaigns. An additional mandate to educate the public is fine to have, but that mandate should not alter the unique position and role the party has, as a political agent.

The Libertarian Party must take up its unique position in the libertarian movement and do all that is necessary to professionalize its messaging and organizational strategies to be competitive in the political sphere.

If the party truly believes that its platform, if enacted, would make the country and the world better, then it has an obligation to fight for this enactment; If its going to happen, we need to rethink how we approach both the electoral and educational mandates.

We need to focus less on making statements or proving points, and more on convincing people in their hearts. This will require a fundamental reevaluation of the way libertarians (in the party or otherwise) spread the message to those not yet convinced.

Perhaps even more importantly, the Libertarian Party, and the libertarian movement more broadly, must think in terms of how to convince people.

Too often we get caught up in internal factionalism and disagreements on philosophy. Worse still, libertarians often become dogmatically attached to notions they determine to be axiomatically true; such as the claim that taxation is theft, or that the non-aggression principle is an a priori moral absolute. While libertarians may be convinced of these principles and may even consider them intuitively self-evident that is not the case for society at large. They need to be convinced of these principles.

The problem is that libertarians usually fail to engage skeptics in a way that could potentially convert them to our way of thinking.

Because we are convinced of the axiomatic truth of our beliefs, we treat opponents like they are wrong, ignorant, or even morally perverse. This attitude throws up a barrier between the libertarian and the skeptic, that, once raised, is very hard to break down.

We are a long way from a libertarian world because not enough people have adopted the libertarian mindset. We need to change those minds before we can meaningfully change society. Libertarianism can only succeed if it reconciles all its sides and factions purist, radical, pragmatic, or whatever other sub-label a group chooses. This squaring of the circle can only begin when we start to think about messaging as a unifying, rather than a divisive, exercise. The Libertarian Party and other libertarian organizations should look toward exploring the effects of their messaging strategies, and to refashion them to engage outsiders.

This is not a matter of abandoning our principles or beliefs. It is a matter of understanding how people think and how they respond emotionally and psychologically to new, and often radical, ideas. We need to understand how people think and feel, and talk to them like human beings. Maybe then well at last begin to see the world we want to live in take shape.

This post was written by John Engle.

The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.

John Engle is a merchant banker and author living in the Chicago area. His company, Almington Capital, invests in both early-stage venture capital and in public equities. His writing has been featured in a number of academic journals, as well as the blogs of the Heartland Institute, Grassroot Institute, and Tenth Amendment Center. A graduate of Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and the University of Oxford, Johns first book, Trinity Student Pranks: A History of Mischief and Mayhem, was published in September 2013.

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Originally posted here:
The Right Engle: How to Talk to Non-Libertarians - Being Libertarian