Cato CEO says Libertarian Party isn't libertarian

The President and CEO of the Cato Institute has declared the Libertarian Party "outside the bounds of libertarianism," in a Washington Post  op-ed that contains disinformation. 

by George J. Dance 

A day before the Libertarian Party (L) National Convention opens in Washington DC, Cato president and CEO Peter Goettler has launched a blistering attack on the LP. In an article in the Wathington Post, Goettler has declared that the LP is "hardly libertarian anymore" According to Goettler, the Libertarian  "party leadership has been taken over by a faction that places it well outside the bounds of libertarianism altogether". Serious charges indeed, which really should be looked into.  

For Goettler, the "bonds of libertarianism" – his criteria of what all professed "libertarians believe in" (or else) – are, or at least include: 

• individual freedom, 
• equality under the law, 
• pluralism, 
• toleration, 
• free speech, 
• freedom of religion, 
• government by consent of the governed, 
• the rule of law, 
• private property, 
• free markets and 
• limited constitutional government.

Some items on that list can be questioned. For instance, the LP membership has always included anarcho-capitalists – who are not true believers in "limited constitutional government" – which would mean that the Libertarian Party has always been "outside the bounds of libertarianism" for Goettler. But let us not put words into his mouth. The proper thing would be to let him outline which LP policy positions he objects to, and let him explain just how they run afoul of his list. 

Perhaps he will do so in a follow-up article; he does not do that here. Instead, he uses his criteria to criticize the policies of former (Republican) president Donald Trump: 

Trump ... allowed government spending and debt to continue to spiral upward, increasing the national debt by $8.4 trillion. Federal outlays soared from $4 trillion his first year (2017) to $6.8 trillion in his last year. He persists in railing against immigration and free trade, supports further expansion of presidential power and seeks to crack down on political enemies. The Libertarian Party itself said it best in a 2018 statement: “Whatever libertarian impulses Trump the candidate seemed to have … his actual performance as president stands in stark contrast."

As logicians often say on social media, WTF (Why The Fallacy)? If Goettler were arguing only that Donald Trump has done things "ouside the bounds of libertarianism," that would be all well and good: but Trump is not, and never has been or even claimed to be a libertarian (though he claims to like libertarians), much less part of its "leadership". What do facts about his policies and beliefs imply about the LP leadership's beliefs? You may (or may not) be surprised at the answer. 

As those who follow LP news know, this year's convention committee came up with a novel idea to generate some free media; with Biden, Trump, and Kennedy sucking up all the political oxygen, they would invite those three to speak and answer questions at their convention. [Update, May 24 - This morning I read an unconfirmed story that the Trump and Kennedy campaigns independently came up with the idea and took it to the LP]. Biden declined, or at least never replied; Trump and Kennedy accepted; and the free media has followed.  

Hence Mr. Goettler's article. Yet his account of the incident (the invitations) that provoked it is somewhat different, as it omits a couple of details: 

We know by now that Donald Trump likes nothing better than stepping onto a stage, hearing his name chanted by an adoring crowd, and flashing his familiar thumbs-up sign. This week, the former president will do just that under the bright lights at the Libertarian National Convention in D.C.

It will be the first time in U.S. history that a presidential candidate of a rival party will address the convention of a party that is presumably gathering to nominate its own candidate. And this strange turn of events has many libertarians scratching their heads.

As noted, both Biden and Kennedy were also invited, and Kennedy also accepted (and will be speaking). By omitting those facts, and telling his readers only that Trump was invited and will be speaking, Goettler is telling a misleadeing half-truth – he is telling "the truth" but not "the whole truth." His account is misinformation. 

By doing so, Goettler strengthens his argument; he can imply that the LP "leadership" faction invited Trump because the "leadership" faction believes the same things as Trump. So all those nasty, unlibertarian things that Trump is responsible for can now be attributed to the LP as well. Since some at least some Trump policies have clearly been "outside the bounds of libertarianism", that puts the LP "outside the bounds of libertarianism" as well. 

But given that Kennedy will also be speaking, such an implication is clearly absurd: Trump and Kennedy have different, sometimes contradictory, beliefs about policy. It is absurd to think that the LP "leadership" faction, or anyone for that matter, believes the same things as Trump and the same things as Kennedy. (Not to mention simultaneously believing the same things as Biden, who was also invited).

So obviously Goettler had a reason to not tell the whole truth, since to do so would reveal his argument as the absurdity it is. Since that misinformation is crucial to his argument, I have to conclude that it was deliberate. His omission of facts was not merely misleading (misinformation, but deliberately misleading (disinformation). 

To be sure, I was not a fan of the convention committee's idea. As I posted on social media at the time, I thought that inviting Trump to speak was like deliberately getting oneself sprayed by a skunk: it would take a long time to get the stink off. At the time, though, I was imagining the stink coming from the usual sources – the New Republic, Mother Jones, the SPLC, MSNBC, the Niskanen Institute, and the like – not from a libertarian group like the Cato Institute. 

I have always been annoyed at libertarian individuals or groups who try to read other individuals or groups out of the libertarian movement. I am especially annoyed when one of those tries it on the Libertarian Party or its presidential campaign during an election year (as was too often tried by some during the Bob Barr and Gary Johnson campaigns). I do not dispute that those doing that are libertarian themselves, as I believe in giving other avowed libertarians a courtesy that Mr. Goettler obviously does not. But that's just my own view. Libertarians do not require my permission to criticize other libertarians. 

However, those who criticize others should not be immune from criticism themselves. And when one of them relies on misinformation and disinformation, such a criticism is most needed. 

Goettler's article can be read here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/05/23/trump-libertarian-party-convention/