This would be #1.
Libertarians for Trump
No, seriously.
I’ll save you the trouble – It contains the following brief paragraph…
But, the perfect is the enemy of the good. It is our goal to throw our weight behind the candidate who has a reasonable chance of actually becoming President of the United States whose views are CLOSEST to libertarianism.
…at which point I didn’t want to read any more.
This is the sort of ‘compromise’ we’ve grown used to hearing from the gun grabbers – where I give up something I wanted to keep, you take from me less than you said you wanted to take, and I get nothing in return but less free.
Screw you, Walter Block, and the soapbox you rode in on.
Lots of strange people calling themselves “libertarian” these days…
Trump is an authoritarian. Probably the worst authoritarian we’ve had run for president in my lifetime. He is the very antithesis of libertarianism. I can’t even imagine how a guy bragging about how he’ll invade everyone, commit war crimes, crack down on all sorts of freedoms, and other ugly, bon-freedomey stuff, could possibly be the libertarian candidate of choice.
Seriously what the hell?
On the left/right scale he’s campaigning to the right, but on the freedom/coercion scale, he’s campaigning just to the coercion side of Mussolini. For Christ’s sake…
Foreign policy: Kill the families (men, women, and children) of enemy combatants to teach ’em a lesson.
Economic policy: Eminent domain is great! Tariffs, tariffs, tariffs!
Personal liberty: I hate guns, until I decided to run for president. Trust me; ignore those gun free zones signs on my buildings. And remember, you commoners have to use the back doors. No cabbage for you!
As far as I can tell, much of the lewrockwell.com crowd is libertarian only because they’ve realized that state-enforced segregation is never coming back, so they’ll settle for an ideology that allows them to discriminate against non-whites, non-catholics, and gays on their own private property. Given the chance to support a candidate who openly advocates racist government policies, it’s no surprise that they’d do so.
Walter Block’s libertarian credentials and accomplishments are more impressive than all the readers of this blog put together. Read Defending the Undefendable for two reasons. First, you might actually learn something about the applied theory of freedom. Second, you would realize what a formidable intellectual opponent Block would be. Defending Trump is child’s play compared to the topics he has the courage to wade into. He’s also prolific, with dozens of books, hundreds of papers, and thousands of essays and blog entries.
Disagree with him if you like, but name calling and epithets don’t answer any of his arguments. It gives the impression that no one has thoughtful, logical, reasoned responses. There certainly aren’t any this far down this page.
In Defending the Undefendable Block provides a spirited, libertarian defense of prostitution, pimps, male chauvinist pigs, drug dealers, drug addicts, curmudgeons (pay attention), and many more – in parts of just 3 chapters.
I won’t be joining Libertarians for Trump, but not because I get the vapors when he uses rhetoric and argumentation that reminds me of those used all too effectively by my enemies.
Trump is a businessman. He won’t be starting WWIII or any other wars – he knows all too well that killing your customers is bad for business. He’s by far the least dangerous of the lot we’ve been offered. I don’t vote, because I don’t consent, but I’m enjoying the spectacle and am a lot less worried about Trump winning than any of the alternatives.
S- who was calling names and hurling epithets again? I must’ve missed it, and I just re read the entire post and comments.
I did see a series of arguments such as “trump is an authoritarian, the very antithesis of libertarianism ” to which you did not respond. So as far as “this far down the page”, sort of makes me think you didn’t read it all. At all.
It’s like a capitalist endorsing Lenin. I do not get it.
“S” seems to believe: ” He’s by far the least dangerous of the lot we’ve been offered.”
You are certainly entitled to your opinion! After several months of consideration, I feel that Trump is the very worst of an unusually bad lot of alternatives.
The word “authoritarian” goes to the very root of my unease. You know the old saying about learn from history or repeat it? There are several good reasons why the Internet is alive with comparisons between Trump and Hitler. They are so easy to find that I won’t list them here.
Our government is, by design, slow, uncertain, and inefficient in almost everything it does. I like it that way, because the polar opposite system, (where one man’s whim runs everything), is scarily efficient at ruining everything and destroying liberty. Again, just look at history.
So please give us a candidate who at least gives lip service to understanding of, and respect for, our Constitution. Really, I’m OK with living in a country where the trains don’t run on time.
Has anyone here read Harry Turtledove’s book “Joe Steele”? It’s an alternative history thing about a populist authoritarian who becomes President. Truly a book for our times. It’s a warning almost on the level of Orwell’s “1984”.
I think that may be the TUAK quote of the day right there.