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Libertarianism has always suffered from some cognitive dissonance. It combines a certain hopeful, perhaps nave, optimism about human social relations with a clear eyed realism about individual self interest. While libertarians acknowledge that people pursue individual goals they also tend to believe that properly organized social institutions, particularly markets and self governance, can coordinate those individual pursuits and protect people from the risks of centralized government power. That same general outlook has informed the Libertarian Party (LP) since its founding in 1971.

Throughout US history, none of the dominant parties have held consistent beliefs about much of anything, let alone individual liberty. Rather, the major parties have shamelessly chased voters in ragtag coalitions with little concern for a philosophically grounded vision of the good society. Todays Democratic party of racial diversity and wokeness was once the party of racial segregation and Roman Catholicism in the mid 20th century and prior to that the Confederacy. Todays Republican Party, which is now largely white, and more committed to government intervention in the economy, was once the party of Lincoln and later the party of Reagan and free markets. The two party duopoly is blissfully free of ideological consistency over time.

And yet while one set of consistent principles animates the LP, that hasnt had much resonance with the voting public. Perhaps thats understandable since voters themselves typically dont have strong or consistent philosophical views. And of course the single member, winner take all districts in the American political system discourage third party success. But more recently the party with one set of principles is in the midst of a sectarian conflict over the essence of those principles and how they should be achieved. Unsurprisingly libertarianism attracts strong individualists who believe that cooperative solutions to social problems are possible except apparently for themselves.

On the one hand we have the current leadership, the so-called Mises Caucus, animated by a commitment to what they believe is a purer representation of libertarian principles with roots in the Murray Rothbard/Ron Paul wing of the movement. Their beliefs frequently crossover into anarcho-capitalism and contain elements of conservative social views. They are regular and frequent users of social media, and so far have shown less aptitude towards old school politics and compromise. Their adversaries are the previous leadership group lets call them the Old Guard, who had been more flexible on policy and willing to dilute the partys purity while widening the electoral appeal. This group had both brought record high vote totals to the party in the form of the Johnson-Weld ticket in 2016, but also a late plea from Governor Weld to support Mrs. Clinton in 2016 and other significant deviations from core principles.

There are echoes of this divide throughout the history of the party and the liberty movement the 20th and 21st centuries. But social media, generational turnover in the party, and the changes in the political context have made the division starker and, as Ill argue later, perhaps more costly than in the past. The conflict raises questions not only about the future of the LP, but also the future of libertarian thought and perhaps even the branding of the term libertarian.

As Brian Dohertys widely read and cited book Radicals for Capitalism documented, the history of the Libertarian Party has been filled with internal strife and conflict that mirror this current rift. Doherty entertainingly describes the early years of the partys founding and formation that featured many prominent libertarians refusing to participate in the partys work while others tried to function within the mainstream party system. And the history of the party is full of people who began their careers with the LP only to leave for DC in hopes of moving the needle in concrete ways that cat herding never would.

Why does this dispute matter in particular now? We are facing an election with two profoundly unpopular candidates from the duopoly. President Biden is wildly unpopular having overseen relatively poor economic performance during his term in office and widely viewed by voters asbeing too old to run again. President Trump, who was polarizing 3 years ago, has doubled down on divisive politics and is facing numerous criminal indictments for his actions during the January 6th, 2021 riots at the US Capitol.

A legitimate third party alternative committed to liberty principles, one that was perhaps on the ballot in all 50 states and seriously interested in running a nationwide competitive campaign, would pose an interesting alternative to the duopoly as it is currently constituted. I am describing the LP, which was still on the ballot in all 50 states in 2020 and remains a bastion of freedom, but the internal conflict between the Old Guard and the Mises Caucus has derailed any chance that the party might unify behind a viable candidate.

This may of course merely be wishful thinking. Third parties have never seriously threatened the two party system in the US, and the institutional and legal deck is heavily stacked against any alternative. But philosophically, both the Democrats and Republicans have moved away from significant positions on issues of liberty. Democrats, supposed the party of inclusion and personal freedom, after 3 years of controlling the White House and briefly both houses of Congress, have done very little on ending the Drug War, appear to be working against significant immigration reform, and seem intent on increasing the size and scope of government. The Republican party under Trump has jettisoned any pretense of defending a smaller national government and believing in free markets. The former president is campaigning on a platform of revenge against his enemies and personal attacks. The political landscape is devoid of any liberty oriented candidates. But before we speculate on the prospect that the LP would have any direct or indirect influence on promoting liberty oriented issues, we have to explore how it became so fractured.

G. Patrick Lynch is a Senior Fellow at Liberty Fund.

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The Libertarian Party: Too Principled to Win? - Econlib

The first issue of The Spark: A Journal of Contemporary Anarchist Thought was published in July, 1983, and the final issue in June 1984. A total of five issues were published. A list of the writers includes:

Steve OKeefe, editor & publisher

Patrick Michael, staff

Rosemary Fury, staff

Bob Black

Karl Hess

Kerry Wendell Thornley

Gerry Reith

Terry Epton

Tom Croft

Judy Kroll

G. Michael OHara

Hakim Bey (Letter to the Editor)

I moved to Port Townsend, Washington, in early 1983, with no money and no place to live. Months earlier, when I was executive director of the Libertarian Party of Michigan, I had been offered a job by Bill Bradford, a precious metals dealer and the editor of Liberty magazine who had moved to Port Townsend from Lansing, Michigan. When I arrived, the job offer had vanished, but he let me stay at his mansion until I got my bearings.

I went to work as a typesetter for Loompanics Unlimited, publishers and sellers of controversial and unusual books. The owner, Mike Hoy, used to work for Bill Bradford at a coin shop in Lansing, Michigan, before he started Loompanics. I knew Mike from Libertarian events in Michigan. Bradford lured both of us to Port Townsend, and he was not wrong: The town was a paradise of drop outs and slackers and I loved living there!

I had spent the previous four years working for the Libertarian Party while putting myself through college at Michigan State University. In 1979, I helped the Libertarians win ballot access in several states. In 1980, I worked for the Ed Clark for President campaign in Las Vegas, Nevada. When Clark got a sickening 1% of the vote, I went back to Michigan and became executive director of the state party.

In school I was studying Karl Marx and Albert Camus and for work I was reading Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek and my brain just about exploded. I became very enamored of the early American anarchists: Benjamin Tucker, Lysander Spooner, and Emma Goldman. In the 1982 midterm elections, the Libertarian Party of Michigan fielded over 50 candidates and I was campaign manager for 49 of them.

When the Libertarians were crushed in the 1982 election, I had enough of conventional, electoral politics. I sold everything I owned, bought a backpack and a rain suit, and spent the next month in the Grand Canyon. I followed that with two weeks camping in Death Valley, then I hitchhiked up the coast from San Diego to Seattle and took a bus to Port Townsend.

A Journal of Contemporary Anarchist Thought

The Spark was my answer to the electoral disaster of the Libertarian Party. I felt that even if they were successful, they would become Republicans Lite, and thats what has become of the Libertarian Party. I felt there were almost no voices representing the right wing of anarchism, the free-markets free-minds wing. I tried to steer The Spark into that space between Lysander Spooner anarchism and Kropotkin anarchism.

The first issue had a long revisionist piece on the Declaration of Independence. It was a shot across the bow to Libertarians that the Founding Fathers nonsense is pure bullshit. The white, male aristocrats in the colonies wanted freedom to govern America themselves. They never believed in freedom and equality for all, and their Constitution was never put to a public vote: it was imposed upon the people.

The second issue of The Spark was on anarchy and violence. The Vancouver 5 had been arrested in January for bombing a power substation on Vancouver Island, bombing a plant in Toronto that produced guidance systems for cruise missiles, and firebombing three Red Hot Video outlets in Vancouver, British Columbia. The issue had writers defending the 5, against the 5, against violence, and pro violence.

By issue three, on inequality, we had our first letters to the editor. The issue included writing from a free-market feminist, an African-American black supremacist, and a gay rights piece addressing AIDS hysteria. Issue number four saw the birth of Bob Blacks seminal piece, Feminism as Facism, which really got people unglued.

Things changed rapidly for me after that. I fell in love with a woman named Storme and we made plans to move to Seattle together. I put out one long, last issue of The Spark which I had been working on for months. Called, Redefining Anarchy, I secured pieces from the Village Voice writer, Karl Hess; Kerry Wendell Thornley, the father, with Robert Anton Wilson, of the Principia Discordia; and Gerry Reith, the phenomenal founder of Minitrue and the author of Neutron Gun.

When Thornley delivered his hand-written submission, I mailed back a typewriter. I paid some of the writers and sent books to others. Loompanics gave me multiple copies of several books as part of my compensation for editing. When I left Port Townsend for Seattle, I donated my massive library on anarchism perhaps 50 titles to Mike Hoy because he had an even bigger library. He ended up with hundreds of books on anarchism and I had rights to use his library.

Seattle wore me out and I returned to Port Townsend four years later to take the job of editorial director at Loompanics. We put out about 20 new titles a year with one editor, one typesetter, and one marketing person: me. Summing up the influence of The Spark, I believe it heralded a shift away from political anarchism and toward lifestyle anarchism: making yourself free rather than making society free.

I left Loompanics in 1994 to start Internet Publicity Services for book publishers and authors. Ive written several books since then. My latest is Set the Page On Fire: Secrets of Successful Writers (New World Library, 2019) based on hundreds of interviews. Im still a cranky anarchist writer.

See more here:
A Brief History of The Spark: A Journal of Contemporary Anarchist Thought - CounterPunch

Libertarian Greg Tlapek is running for the District 147 seat in the Missouri House of Representatives once again.

Tlapek has been involved with the Libertarian party going back to the 1980s and ran his first political race in 1994. Most recently, Tlapek ran for the District 147 seat in 2022, pulling 4.1% of the vote. Republican candidate John Voss won the race, receiving 64.5%, while Democratic candidate Andy Leighton received 31.4%.

Before the 2022 race, Tlapek ran for the District 147 seat in 2014 and 2016, losing both races to then-incumbent Kathy Swan. Despite falling short in multiple elections, Tlapek remains upbeat about his position.

"I've been in this a long time, and what my experience has taught me is to be happy and accept that people who don't agree with you politically, they're not bad people," Tlapek said. "Virtually everyone wants the world to be a better place. We just have different ways of getting there."

While he said he feels the election will be a foregone conclusion with incumbent Voss likely winning in a landslide, Tlapek said he is hopeful that running as a third-party candidate can open up the political process to other parties.

"I'm mostly interested in the state Legislature and improving the political process," Tlapek said about his candidacy. "I really do think that we would benefit from having a multiparty system, and Missouri is the perfect state to do it in because we have such a large house with 163 seats. It would be about making people's vote count."

Tlapek continues to run on the same platforms he has run on for quite some time -- education reform through a 1% reduction in sales tax and a scaled tuition program for public schools, health care deregulation and moving toward a free-market approach and election reform through the use of proportional representation.

"(Missouri) is the place to do what's called proportional representation, and I would love to help shepherd that discussion," Tlapek said. "Most counties just haven't done it right. They still make it so you've got to have a threshold that keeps a lot of people unrepresented. If we get that threshold down to where all you need is 6/10 of one Senate vote, you can have a representative. Then, everybody in Missouri can truly feel like their vote counts.

"Honestly, I do think that if you went back and you get the numbers from the last from the last few elections, I think you would find that if you totaled up all the votes, the Democrats got in the state House races and all the votes and Republicans got in the state House races and then you assign seats based on that, Republicans probably are over-represented by about seven seats. It's not a huge difference," Tlapek said. "I see why they don't want to give up those seven seats, but it really eliminates the whole gerrymandering problem. There are no more state legislative district maps that have to be drawn and gerrymandered to favor the political party that was in power when the maps were being drawn. It eliminates that whole problem. This is a better way for us to get the cream of the crop in there."

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Libertarian Greg Tlapek provides alternative choice in District 147 House race - Southeast Missourian

Season five of showrunner Noah Hawley's TV version ofFargotells a violence-filled story exploring domestic abuse, PTSD, the concept of debt (on multiple levels), and the purpose and efficacy of the institutions of marriageandpolice.

Its villain is designed to cause discomfort for libertarians: Sheriff Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm), who self-identifies as a libertarian and a constitutionalist, and does seem to adhere to a certain peculiar right-wing belief in the county sheriff as the main source of authority. The only libertarianish qualities he evinces are a contempt for the FBI and the ability to recite a few silly, pointless laws. But the writers seem to want his stated ideology to add spice to the audience's dislike of him for being an abusing, murdering, and corrupt bully laundering his own rage and sin through a twisted vision of God.

In one scene, Tillman says he'd rather see orphans fight each other for sport than help them, and another character accuses him of being like a babycrying for freedom with no responsibility. The whole thing is reminiscent of when on old college pal thinks he istotally crushinglibertarianism with a masterful Facebook post.

If Tillman becomes smart quality TV fans' go-to image of libertarians, replacing the weirdly obsessed but well-meaning Ron Swanson of Parks and Recreation, it will be a shame. But hopefully a smart viewer will know, when Tillman calls on the spirit of western resisters of federal power such as Ammon Bundy and LaVoy Finicum, that it's no part of any proven public record that either man ever did anything a hundredth as evil as Tillman does in pretty much every episode.

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Review: Sheriff in 'Fargo' Gives Libertarians a Bad Name - Reason

A national libertarian-leaning nonprofit law firm with a track record of winning at the U.S. Supreme Court has taken command of a lawsuit in New York that alleges government discrimination against white-owned businesses during the states cannabis business licensing.

I can officially say were taking over the case, a spokesperson with the Pacific Legal Foundation told Green Market Report on Monday.

The Pacific Legal Foundation which has won 17 of the 20 cases it argued before the U.S. Supreme Court since 1987 has taken up the plaintiffs cause in Valencia Ag vs. the New York State Office of Cannabis Management et al.

Valencia Ag filed the federal lawsuit in January against New York cannabis regulators, alleging that the social equity-focused rollout of the states recreational marijuana market violates the U.S. Constitutions Equal Protection Clause by giving disfavor to white men, including the owners of Valencia Ag.

The suit targeted goals within the New York state law that include reserving 50% of all cannabis business licenses to specific demographics such as disabled service veterans and women- and minority-owned companies under an umbrella policy of social equity. It argued that provision unfairly disadvantaged businesses owned by white men, such as Valencia Ag.

The firms attorneys are preparing to file an amended complaint in the legal action, hopefully sometime this week, after the firm filed a letter with the New York state court on behalf of Valencia Ag. That letter requested that an earlier preliminary injunction motion be canceled, but that was only so Pacific Legal Foundation could prepare its own such request for an injunction, the spokesperson said.

Pacific Legal Foundation NY Valencia letter

If an injunction is granted by a federal judge, it would mark the third time since late 2022 that the licensing process has been halted in the state, after two other lawsuits that also targeted the social equity framework resulted in out-of-court settlements which allowed marijuana business permitting to resume.

There are also multiple other lawsuits still pending against New York cannabis regulators which are similarly requesting injunctions or regulatory changes to benefit plaintiffs.

Pacific Legal has taken on the case pro bono, which is standard practice for the firm.

This case might seem different for us but government overreach is always a fit for our organization. We fight for what is right, that all people should be treated equally under the law, regardless of race and gender, the spokesperson said.

The firm deferred questions about how the lawsuits legal strategy may change at this point, and said the amended complaint is days away from being filed.

But with a national law firm that has a track record of winning at the U.S. Supreme Court taking the case pro bono, its a good bet the fate of the New York social equity market structure will be in doubt for some time to come.

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Libertarian legal nonprofit takes over New York lawsuit alleging discrimination against white men - Green Market Report