Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

I recently received an exceedingly nice contribution from an individual who, sadly, told me that he could no longer consider himself a libertarian. I have been meaning to write back to him. This essay is what I would write.

I would begin the discussion by asking my friend a question: do you still believe that you own and have an absolute right to control your own life? I would follow it with another: do you still cherish the Zero Aggression Principle and think that it’s wrong to initiate physical force against another human being for any reason? If the answer to both of those deeply important questions is yes, then you are still a libertarian. You haven’t left the libertarian movement, the libertarian movement—and especially the Libertarian-ish Party—has left you.

For many years, L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise has had a link on its opening page to a specific definition of the word, “libertarian”: “A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being for any reason whatever; nor will a libertarian advocate the initiation of force, or delegate it to anyone else. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim.”

I wrote that declaration because of insane, 1960s hippie-stlyle resistance in the movement—“I don’t like labels, man”—to defining anything, let alone libertarianism. Labels, of course, are words, and words are an attempt—accurate or not—to identify the facts of objective reality. Words are the software of the human mind. But there are those who don’t want reality identified. The same morons who raped the best, most principled and specific platform the Libertarian Party ever had, in the 1990s, and who laughed about it like demented loons afterward—you know who you are, you cretins—are spiritual cousins to the Marxist animals tearing down and burning America’s cities.

Which brings us to Jo Jorgenson, the current Presidential nominee of today’s Libertarianish Party. This vacuous airhead has been shamelessly shouldering for the LP nomination for years and just embarrassed herself and the Party by endorsing Black Lives Matter, which has absolitely nothing to do with being black, but is a Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist organization dedicated to destroying Western Civilization. The idiot had to walk it back later, but she still accuses Americans, in effect, of “systemic racism” and claims that you’re a racist if you’re not actively anti-racist. Excuse me, bint, but it’s a long-established principle of libertarianism that people have an absolute right to be stupid, which includes the right to be racist. And I’ve got other fish to fry, like upholding and defending the Constitution of the United States.

Jo Jorgenson’s ridiculous position is what comes of seriously discussing “thin” libertarianism as opposed to “thick” libertarianism. The former is all there really is, rooted in self-ownership and the Zero Aggression Principle. The latter is driven by liberal guilt and would oblige us to accept a gigantic pile of dog-shit that nobody in their right mind ever agreed to.

I would commend to Jo Jorgenson’s attention—if she can get somebody to read her the big words—and to yours, dear reader, my 2012 essay, “A Maple Leaf Rag”, which I wrote when a cheesy Canadian magazine accused me of being a racist. Like all “progressives”, they wouldn’t allow me to reply in a way they would promise not to censor. I have since forgotten the name of the magazine.

The Libertarian Party is not the first institution that has been shot out from underneath me by tiny-minded bucketheads. I was, and proudly remain, an Eagle Scout. The Boy Scouts of America once stood for everything the Libertarian Party once stood for. (It was a little too religious for my taste, but that may have just been me.) I don’t know if my late friend Dave Nolan, the founder of the Libertarian Party, was ever a Scout, but like me, he was one of the “children” of Robert A. Heinlein, who often wrote about Scouting and was perhaps its greatest promoter.

Jo Jorgenson should resign her nomination and spend the next year reading Ayn Rand, Joghn Hospers, and Murray Rothbard. If you would like to know what a real libertarian (since 1962, almost sixty years) really thinks and believes, I urge you to read my worst-selling book so far, Down With Power. It was meant as alternaive to the crippled platform of the current Libertarianish Party, I am a scientist by inclination and discipline. and an idealogue (for liberty) but not a dogmatist. Objective reality being what it is and all, I have changed my mind about a couple of issues, notably immigration, since it was published, and my stance against taxation is much stronger, but if you buy more than the two dozen miserable copies I have managed to sell so far, then maybe I can justify an update to my publisher.