LP Mises Caucus opposed to Kennedy nomination

The Libertarian Party Mises Caucus, said to control a majority of delegates to the Libertarian Party's May national convention, has issued a statement opposing the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

RFK Jr.’s Libertarian play | Politico | Peder Schaefer:

February 15, 2024 - "[I]n recent weeks, [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] has appeared on CNN to float interest in the [Libertarian] party, and appeared on the podcast of a popular libertarian comedian. He is planning on attending the California Libertarian Party convention at the end of February, where he’ll be on a panel with other possible nominees.... It’s sparked a backlash within the Libertarian Party, as both the electoral-focused 'prags' who have traditionally controlled the party [for example, former Libertarian National Committee chair Nicholas Sarwark - gd] and supported more mainstream presidential candidates ... and more subversive, ideologically rigid members of the Mises Caucus speak out against his name going at the top of the ticket.

"The Mises Caucus — a more radical libertarian faction organized around the work of Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises — has been a power center within the party since its endorsed candidate, Angela McArdle, won the national committee chairmanship in a 2022 landslide victory with nearly 70 percent of the vote. It controls the majority of the delegates who will vote on the party’s presidential nominee at the national convention in May.

"While McArdle has suggested that the party may be open to a Kennedy bid, last weekend the Mises Caucus came out formally in opposition to his candidacy, making it unlikely that Kennedy has a real shot at the nomination.... 

"Michael Heise, the founder of the Mises Caucus, said that while he’s open to Kennedy running for the nomination — he says it would raise the stature of Libertarian Party discourse — nominating the Kennedy family scion would be short-sighted, even if he performed well in the general election."

Read more: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2024/02/15/rfk-jr-s-libertarian-play-00141795

Should the Libertarian Party nominate RFK Jr.? | Mises Caucus blog | Aaron Harris:

February 11, 2024 - "Over the last couple of weeks, there has been considerable speculation about whether Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will be seeking our party’s nomination for president—and about the Mises Caucus’ position on the matter. RFK himself raised the possibility first during a Jan. 27 interview.... Then, when discussing the matter on the Feb. 5 Timcast, Josh Smith intimated that the Mises Caucus leadership favored a plan to back an RFK Libertarian bid as a means to gain higher vote totals and thus better ballot access for the LP going forward.

"This is simply false. The Mises Caucus has endorsed Michael Rectenwald for president and Clint Russell for vice president and we are working hard to see that they are nominated by our party at the Libertarian National Convention (May 23–26 in Washington, DC).

"We firmly oppose any strategy that would 'rent out' our party’s place on any state’s ballot to RFK, or indeed any candidate who has so many disqualifying deviations from the essential principles of libertarianism....  

"[O]ur goal as Libertarians must be to convince as many of our fellow men as possible of the moral and practical superiority of liberty. We can’t do that if we muddy our message to chase votes. ory supports this analysis: Gary Johnson’s strong electoral showings harmed our brand and left our active membership stagnant, while Harry Browne’s anemic vote totals resulted in the greatest period of sustained growth in the LP’s history.

"Another reason that the RFK gambit is a foolish idea is that it might actually work. If he did occupy the Libertarian ballot line and win five or even ten percent of the popular vote, millions of Americans will forever associate the LP with RFK’s policies. This would empty the LP of a large number of its most committed activists while attracting an influx of those with little or no regard for the Non-Aggression Principle.

"For this election cycle and the foreseeable future, the only sound presidential election strategy for the LP must be to nominate candidates who will present an undiluted decentralist libertarian message in hopes of awakening the remnant who favor liberty over tyranny. Among those presently willing to take up that task, Michael Rectenwald and Clint Russell are clearly the most capable."

Read more: https://lpmisescaucus.com/blog/should-the-libertarian-party-nominate-rfk-jr/

Why was Shikha Dalmia 'cancelled'?

by George J. Dance

Reason Foundation senior analyst, and well-known magazine columnist, Shikha Dalmia has been let go by Reason. As yesterday's Daily Beast headline has it: "Anti-‘Cancel Culture’ Reason Magazine Accused of Canceling Columnist for Being Too Anti-Trump." Let the Beast tell the story: 

"After 15 years, the curtains came down for me at Reason today. My views, I was told, had become too out-of-step with those of the organization," Shikha Dalmia announced Tuesday evening in a Facebook post.... The Reason veteran further suggested that her demise came as a result of complaints from the Reason Foundation’s donors — many of whom are also big donors to Republicans and conservative think tanks.... 

Reason editor-in-chief Katherine Mangu-Ward publicly commented on Dalmia’s post, replying, "I disagree with your characterization of our parting, but certainly won’t get into it here on your page." And in an internal memo sent to staffers, obtained and reviewed by The Daily Beast, Mangu-Ward announced Dalmia’s departure on Tuesday evening: “Today is Shikha’s last day, after 15 years at Reason. It has been an honor to work with a person of such tremendous journalistic talent and deep libertarian conviction. Her contributions to Reason have been enormous, especially in the area of immigration policy. This change has been in the works for a while, and I wish her great luck in her next phase.

Mangu-Ward refuses to discuss personnel issues with the media. Which leaves us only Dalmia's interpretation, which is: "I had a staunch and uncompromising anti-Trump voice calling out his authoritarian tendencies unambiguously. That this made many libertarians uncomfortable raises all kinds of interesting questions about the state of the liberty movement." Furthermore, "Defending my work to donors and stakeholders had evidently made me too much of a liability."

I am sure that is how Dalmia sees it; but she is hardly an impartial witness. Even the Beast writer had some trouble with her explanation, pointing out that "Reason has excoriated the president’s trade wars, scorned his calls to crack down on social-media outlets because they 'censor' his fact-free missives, and called out his nativist immigration policies including family separations.... It is unclear how Dalmia’s expressly anti-Trump views would have fallen outside Reason’s 'big-tent understanding' of libertarianism." Dalmia's viewpoint, as the Reason Foundation's immigration expert, was an integral part of the magazine's messaging. 

Nor does Reason reflect any general pro-Trump bias. In this year's poll of "How Will Reason Staffers Vote?", 11 writers chose Jo Jorgensen, 6 chose not to vote, 4 chose Biden, 1 was still undecided, and 1 chose Trump as the 'lesser evil'. (That last was Bob Poole, who runs the Reason Foundation – he and Dalmia may have exchanged words on Trump. But that is his belief, not what anonymous 'donors' tell him to say.) And that list does not include other Reason associates, like Ilya Somin of the prestigious Volokh Society legal blog hosted on Reason's website, who this year went full Bidenista. 

Full what? I made up the "Bidenista" term to be provocative; in fact, Bidenistas do not care a fig for Joe Biden. They are the voters, of all parties, who decided the most important thing this election was to vote Democrat to remove Trump from office – basically, people who bought into Trump's narcissistic narrative that U.S. politics is all about him (when in fact he is no more consequential than, say, Biden). Note that Trump is a narcissist, but not "selfish" - it is not his actual self that he cares about, but his public personality, his reputation or image. He made himself a star with that image on The Apprentice, and used that program's ratings to make himself the star of the 2016 Republican TV debates. That's how he got to be President. Enough about him. 

There are millions of Republicans (mainly new blood) who idolize that image. There are also millions who loathe it as the symbol of all that is evil. The former I've called "Trumptards"; the latter are the "Bidenistas". Both groups suffer from what has been labelled Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS): both wrongly believe Trump's line that his image is the most important thing in American politics. For no other reason than their TDS, both groups have spent this election campaigning against Jo Jorgensen and the Libertarian Party (LP). 

Dalmia herself went full Bidenista during the campaign, writing in The Week that "civic duty as a libertarian requires me to help defeat President Trump by casting my ballot for the only candidate who can defeat him: Joe Biden." (That column, which did not appear in Reason, may have been submitted there and rejected.) In the Washington Post she wrote: 

But even a lifelong Libertarian like me realizes that this time around, voting for my party’s ticket could only diminish my vote against Trump. In the face of Trump’s xenophobic demagoguery and the Democratic base flirting with socialism, Libertarian Party delegates complacently put forth a ticket of ideologically rigid unknowns who are selling theories of libertarianism, as if this campaign were unfolding in a vacuum — or a college dorm.

After the election, she hectored Libertarian voters too stupid or gullible to do their identical civic duty – "What’s been disappointing is how many libertarians actually didn’t see through Trump's authoritarianism, how much they allowed him to tarnish Biden as a socialist, ignoring how aggressively economically interventionist he himself was" – in an interview headlined, "Republicans aren’t the only party to be changed by Trump, says libertarian writer.' Sure, that's just one expression of opinion, but consider: Had Trump won, all the Bidenistas would still be screaming it.

No, Ms Dalmia: the Libertarian Party has not been changed by Trump. Jo Jorgensen's presidential campaign, with its obvious similarity to Harry Browne's 1990s campaigns, is enough to show that. Nor has Reason been changed; the magazine has consistently judged all presidential candidates regardless of party not by donors' whims but by the standard of "big-tent libertarianism," and that continues to be its standard. What has been changed by Trump is you. Donald Trump turned you into a Bidenista and an anti-Libertarian. 

If anyone connected with Reason was "uncomfortable" with the anti-Libertarian Bidenista message, that was more likely to have been (1) Libertarian supporters and (2) believers in 'big-tent libertarianism' regardless of party. Since the LP's founding, some libertarians, from Sam Konkin III to Murray Rothbard (initially) to 2016's Liberty Herald, have tried to build a 'libertarian movement' from which the LP was excluded. Reason to its credit never had anything to do with that tendency to divide libertarians, which is one reason it has succeeded as the flagship magazine of the larger libertarian movement. Reason has a role to play in criticizing LP candidates and officers, but there should be no room in it for explicity anti-Libertarian messaging. (Except, as with Mr. Solmin's Bidenista turn, as part of a debate, balancing a pro-Libertarian message.) 

I have appreciated Shikha Dalmia's work at the Reason Foundation and Reason magazine. I hope that another libertarian think tank offers her a position to continue that work. There is far more to the libertarian movement than the Libertarian Party or Reason, and no reason (pun intended) for them or for Dalmia to worry about each other. I wish her all the luck in the world. But I believe that her view of events should not pass unchallenged. 

Jacob Hornberger is a toxic candidate

Principles do not make up for toxicity | Liberty Herald - Elaine Joan:

May 21, 2020 - "Early last year and through fall of 2019 I was favorable to a Jacob Hornberger candidacy. I was even excited about the prospect, though I made no secret that my first choice was a Justin Amash candidacy. Over the next few months, while preparing for state convention season and while getting to know more members of the party it started to become clear that while Jacob Hornberger had truly libertarian principles he was not a positive figure to many libertarian activists and party members for a variety of reasons....

"I learned the details regarding his falling out with Harry Browne and Hornberger’s 20 year absence from the party, his falling out with the Libertarian Party of Virginia, and his unsuccessful Senate run as an Independent barely 18 months after his Presidential nominee bid in the Libertarian Party. It points to a fact that when given the opportunity to build coalitions with others in the party and work together, he is not interested and attempts to sabotage others under the guise of purity and adherence to his principles. His toxicity and divisiveness became apparent very quickly.

"Other quotes reveal that he is aware that many consider him troublesome, 'I also acknowledge the horrible charge that some have leveled against me – that I can be quite obnoxious. I agree, and I apologize for that too but think of the big advantage of resolving this whole thing now. It would enable me to turn this talent fully against Democrats and Republicans,' he said in April of 2001.

"It is not appropriate to demand that we thank someone for their admitted obnoxiousness. Before you can weaponize that against the duopoly, you have to have enough power to be present on the debate stage to challenge them. Without that you’re shouting into the void at worst or an annoying pest they easily ignore at best. Being dismissed and ignored is not what our activists have spent countless hours of their lives working towards.

"The duty of a Presidential nominee is to represent the party well and attract more members, one of the measures we use internally to determine if a candidate was successful. Hornberger seems not to care to attract anyone new to the party, even going so far as to say, 'votes don’t matter' during the Libertarian Party of Kentucky’s 5th Presidential debate. Votes, may I remind him, secure ballot access and without that our down ballot candidates will suffer, not just this year but for the following 4 years as well. I am tired of explaining how difficult it is to be on the ballot and how much time and money it costs to accomplish. I am even more tired of explaining why the Libertarian Party runs a Presidential candidate every 4 years even when we haven’t managed to elect any Libertarian Governors, Senators, State Representatives, or Congressmen; largely because of ballot access.

"'No accord can be reached with Jacob Hornberger that doesn’t begin with his public acknowledgement, circulated far and wide, that the accusations he’s made against so many different people were untrue and that he has falsely damaged the reputations of dozens of dedicated Libertarians,' Harry Browne said of his behavior.

"There is no doubt that Jacob Hornberger is principled. It is also equally clear that he can be a toxic individual when he wants to accomplish his own goals without regard for the damage it may cause. That is a risk the delegates should not take on a Presidential nominee. The Libertarian Party can grow while maintaining our core values, any candidate who doesn’t believe that should not be running for the Presidential nomination. Principles do not make up for toxicity and our party has plenty of toxic personalities to go around. There is no need to enable more of them."

Read more: https://thelibertyherald.com/2020/05/21/principles-do-not-make-up-for-toxicity/

Harry Browne’s New Year’s resolutions

Harry Browne’s New Year’s Resolutions for Selling Liberty Effectively | Libertarian Party:

December 30, 2019 - "Harry Browne, the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee in 1996 and 2000, was among the greatest salesmen for liberty who ever lived. He wrote the below Libertarian New Year’s Resolutions in 1998.....

• I resolve to sell liberty by appealing to the self-interest of each prospect, rather than preaching to people and expecting them to suddenly adopt my ideas of right and wrong.
• I resolve to keep from being drawn into arguments or debates. My purpose is to inspire people to want liberty ­not to prove that they’re wrong.
• I resolve to listen when people tell me of their wants and needs, so I can help them see how a free society [can] satisfy those needs.
• I resolve to identify myself, when appropriate, with the social goals someone may seek ­... and try to show him that those goals can never be achieved [well] by government, but [can] be well served in a free society.
• I resolve to be compassionate and respectful of the beliefs and needs that lead people to seek government help....
• No matter what the issue, I resolve to keep returning to the central point: how much better off the individual will be in a free society.
• I resolve to acknowledge my good fortune.... Any plan for improvement must begin with a recognition of the good things we have.
• I resolve to focus on the ways [we] could be so much better with a very small government ­ not to dwell on all the wrongs that exist today.
• I resolve to cleanse myself of hate, resentment, and bitterness....
• I resolve to speak, dress, and act in a respectable manner.... No one will hear the message if the messenger is unattractive.
• I resolve to remind myself that someone’s 'stupid' opinion may be an opinion I once held....
• I resolve not to raise my voice in any discussion. In a shouting match, no one wins ... and no one will be inspired to join our quest for a free society.
• I resolve not to adopt the tactics of Republicans and Democrats. They use character assassination, evasions, and intimidation because they have no real benefits to offer....
• I resolve to be civil to my opponents, and treat them with respect. However anyone chooses to treat me, it’s important that I be a better person than my enemies."

Read more: https://www.lp.org/blogs-staff-harry-brownes-new-years-resolutions-for-selling-liberty-effectively-0/
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WWE wrestler Kane to run for mayor

WWE's Kane Runs For Mayor - Being Libertarian - Brandon Kirby:

March 25, 2017 -  "Best known for lighting people on fire and chokeslamming his enemies, World Wresting Entertainment’s Glenn Jacobs, better known as Kane, sets his sights on the political ring to run for Knox County [Tennessee] mayor, according to the Associated Press.

"Standing at 6’9 and weighing over 324lbs, The Devil’s Favourite Demon had a successful 22-year career in the WWE.... Outside of the world of wrestling, Jacobs and his wife own and operate Jacobs Insurance Associates, LLC, offering auto, business, flood, home, life, and motorcycle insurance.

"The successful businessman and entertainer’s bid for mayor is sure to excite libertarians. Jacobs is actively involved in libertarian politics, supporting Ron Paul’s presidential campaign, is a member of the Free State Project, and spoke at the New Hampshire Liberty Forum and the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

"In an interview with Fox Business, Jacobs cited Harry Browne, Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, and Mary Ruwart as influences on his political thinking. The former world champion also cited the non-aggression principle as his guiding principle.

"In an interview with Tom Woods, Jacobs elaborated, 'Then I realized that it really is a philosophy that we’re talking about, you know — the nonaggression axiom, that the government should be bound by the same moral laws that the rest of us are. Once you realize that, you’re like, "Oh!" Your entire world opens up, and then your entire paradigm changes.'

"In the interview he also indicated that he believes taxation is theft."

Read more: https://beinglibertarian.com/wwes-kane-runs-mayor/
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Libertarian ticket on all 50 state ballots

Johnson/Weld to Appear on All 50 State Ballots - Josh Guckert, Libertarian Republic:

September 9, 2016 - "Earlier today, the Libertarian ticket of Gary Johnson and William Weld achieved ballot access in Rhode Island. The feat is important in that it marks the first time since 1996 that any third-party ticket will appear on all 50 state ballots (plus the District of Columbia).

"Twenty years ago, both the Reform Party ticket of Ross Perot and Pat Choate, as well as the Libertarian ticket of Harry Browne and Jo Jorgensen, appeared in all 50 states. Though the Libertarians accomplished universal ballot access with Browne as the nominee again in 2000, L. Neil Smith instead appeared as the party’s presidential candidate in Arizona.

"Since the turn of the century, ballot access has become increasingly difficult for third-party candidates. For this reason, this year’s accomplishment by the Libertarians is fairly important. By being in position as a serious third-party ticket, Johnson and Weld are able to receive as many votes as possible.

"Further, they increase their odds of reaching the ever-important 5% of the popular vote, which would ensure matching federal funds in future elections. Nader in 1996 was the last candidate to reach this mark.... that 5% goal is simply the next step toward long-term victories for the Libertarian Party, after this success of universal ballot access."

Read more: http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/johnson-weld-50-states/
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