Through Thick and Thin
Which way does the liberty movement go? Think or thin? Jorgensen or Massie with a copy of HUMAN ACTION?
It is tense these days, inside the circle of the liberty movement, because crises require self-definition. Riots, unending wars, intense social isolation, COVid hysteria, and a hyperactive, sore-loser yet still emboldened left in the middle of a presidential election cycle–it’s a natural time to convey with conviction one’s identity.
Let’s face it then–there is no Ron Paul in the political office-seeking, active libertarian world. He did what is seemingly unthinkable today: He spoke with utter conviction, knowing he knew more about the subject matter he addressed than anyone else in the room, and–as Tom Woods is right to say–Ron Paul was willing to be booed out of the room by the same lessers in the audience.
Such courage and conviction is absent in the “thick” libertarian world; and the “thick” libertarian world is led by the Libertarian Party and their presidential ticket of Jo Jorgensen and Spike Cohen.
Thick libertarianism adds so many corrolaries, so many social justice initiatives to the zero aggression principle only to render it more attractive to the intractable left and untenable to the principled right. Pandering is their game, thus Jorgensen tweets support for Black Lives Matter and only post hoc offers a correction that she’s not endorsing the Marxist organization but the spirit of the movement. Cohen speaks of a non-existent genocide of the transgender community with no causative evidence of such taking place.
In other words, their messaging–wherein messaging is the entire purpose of this whole thing–is atrocious. It is as if the ticket hired the Vatican and Pope Francis’s public relations team.
It appears that the liberty movement has a much better shot at advancing the cause with like-minded, actually principled and even agorist-leaning Republicans like Thomas Massie, than anyone on the establishment or radical left. Massie admits that he is not schooled or versed enough in Austrian economics, Mises, Rothbard and Salerno; but that can be easily changed to such an extent that the principles of thin libertarianism, authentic libertarianism would have a powerful and prominent voice in Washington and beyond.
Maybe a close friend of mine has it right: we shouldn’t be touching the GOP with a ten foot pole, much less couch the liberty movement within the broad tent of the Republican Party. It’s too establishment; it’s too toxic especially to young people. Still, a Mises Caucus in the GOP might have much more of an impact than a Mises Caucus in a hopeless, spineless, and antagonistic LP. Ron Paul, after all, was a Republican, and one willing to get other Republicans to hate him. So be it.
