Libertarians Are Exhausting: Part Two. Inside the 50-year American coup d'état.

These are the most important parts of this evolving ideology that, depending upon who you ask either started with Lao Tzu in sixth century BC China, Enlightenment thinker John Locke or Leonard Read in the 1950s. No matter one’s preferred starting day or inspiration, libertarianism has come to mean many different things in modern times and despite being a fringe political apparatus, those who claim it for their own have had a demonstrable impact on society, law, economics and media.

Politics is the mechanism that pulls the levers of sentiment and power. How we feel and the type of power structure we desire is made possible through political means, but political power is derived from three distinct places: economics, law and culture. If you can wrest control of these three things, then you can control a nation’s politics. The forces behind libertarianism understand that better than perhaps anyone.

Let’s quickly recap Part One, then get into the heart of this, where we reveal the masters of the libertarian universe, run through the silent 50 year coup executed by libertarian billionaires, study the concepts behind the Rule of Law and break beyond the theoretical to look at libertarianism in practice. Then, we’ll bring it all home to identify some common ground between progressives and libertarians and offer what I believe to be the most important takeaway from studying libertarianism.

Part One Recap:

• As a political party, Libertarians are pretty new, having only formed in the early 1970s.

• The concept of libertarianism began to appear in earnest around the 1950s, but has come to mean several different things today.

• There are several ideological strains, including Anarcho-Capitalism, Civil Libertarianism, Classical Liberalism, Fiscal Libertarianism, Geolibertarianism, Libertarian Socialism, Minarchism, Neolibertarianism, Objectivism and Paleolibertarianism. (So, if you’re arguing with a libertarian who can’t answer what kind of libertarian they are, you’re wasting your fucking time.)

• We have to give credit where credit is due that the Libertarian Party has successfully gotten onto the ballot in 35 states. (Although, since Ron Paul, they haven’t really had much to brag about.)

• We told you a story about the life and times of James Buchanan, a southern economist so upset with the desegregation of schools that he devoted his entire life to constructing a new ideology we now know as the modern American version of libertarianism.

• Then we deconstructed some of the pillars behind libertarianism’s theoretical framework as written by one of its head cheerleaders, David Boaz. 

Chapter Four

Masters of the Libertarian Universe

In part one, we referenced former congressman and presidential hopeful Ron Paul, who was for many people the first real public face of libertarianism. I characterize him as such because the concepts behind libertarianism were largely academic before Paul made a splash in the 2008 campaign. As we mentioned, he had run before in 1988 as a libertarian in almost complete obscurity, but it was his bid on the Republican line that introduced his ideas to millions beyond academia and the beltway.

Since his last run in 2012, the Libertarian Party has grown, but mostly on the state level. In terms of big time politics like presidential campaigns, they’ve almost conceded that the party has no real place in the conversation. We’ll talk about why I think this is deliberate and the masters of the party really don’t give a shit in a bit, but if you need some clear evidence that they’ve given up, just remember the last guy they put their money on. Similar to Rick Perry’s “oops” moment, when libertarian candidate and face of the party Gary Johnson was asked during his presidential campaign to discuss the deteriorating situation in Aleppo, he responded saying, “And what is Aleppo?” It’s fun to watch, but also helps to illustrate how far the apple fell from Ron Paul’s tree.

“What is Aleppo” became a pretty popular phrase during the campaign to mean, “I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.” Johnson and his running mate William Weld were given an opportunity at redemption, sort of, in a Chris Matthews interview, but just created another viral moment when he couldn’t remember the name of any foreign leader. Anywhere.

I know I’m pounding this into the ground, but I can’t help myself. There is another great clip when the UK Guardian presses Johnson to define his tax policy to abolish all income taxes and the IRS and replace it with a consumption tax. When pushed to clarify it, he just kind of loses his mind and says something like, “I’m the one who wants to legalize marijuana.”

Legalize weed and everything will be okay, okay? It’s called leadership, you fucking limey bastard! That’s my policy! Weed for everyone, then no one will give a fuck about anything!

So Ron Paul was a little too weird, and this guy was a complete fucking buffoon. But the real masters of libertarianism don’t give a shit about putting up a credible candidate to be the face of the party on a presidential level. After all, who needs a figurehead when you literally control the mechanism from power and direct policy from the bottom up? Still, pawns are useful in the dangerous game the masters are playing.

Apart from people like Gary Johnson and Ron Paul, there are some notable figures who publicly identify as libertarians like Clint Eastwood, Kurt Russell, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Then there are the wackos like recently deceased John McAfee, intellectually bankrupt reporter John Stossel, former judge and Fox analyst Andrew Napolitano, and billionaire douchebags like Peter Thiel and the DeVos family members. Even David Boaz of Cato and libertarian favorite creep Ted Cruz, are just pawns in the masters’ game.

The Brains

The mad scientists behind this Franken-ism.

Of course, we have to start with James Buchanan, the subject of our story in part one. So offended was this racist cocknoggin that he set out to formulate an entire political and economic strategy that would undermine the tyrannical forces of a government attempting to provide equitable access to schooling. While Buchanan was a trained economist, he was truly one of the ideological founders of modern American libertarianism as well.

In terms of transcending the boundaries of vocation, I think it also should be said that Uncle Fucknipple was a seminal figure in the formulation of libertarianism. Milton Friedman’s impact went well beyond the university setting and can be found in foreign policy, consumer advocacy, public education and so much more.

There are other, lesser known figures that played a prominent role in formulating the doctrine of libertarianism such as Robert Nozick, a Harvard philosopher whom Boaz credits as giving libertarianism a “major boost in scholarly respect.” Nozick published Anarchy, State, and Utopia in 1974 to argue for something he called the “Minimal State,” in which the government is the only entity permitted to use force, but only to protect liberty and property and to provide policing. Any intervention into private affairs or the sacrosanct markets should be considered a violation of rights.

Then there’s Richard Fink. I cannot think of a name more aptly suited than ‘Dick Fink’ to describe this man. Well played, Momma Fink. As a young man, this asshat won over Charles Koch and got him to fund a program at Rutgers to teach the value of Austrian economics. As Jane Mayer writes in Dark Money, with the Koch’s behind him, Fink “drew up a practical blueprint…called ‘The structure of Social Change.’”

In a lecture, Fink described his proposed three-phase takeover of American politics. The first phase required an ‘investment’ in intellectuals whose ideas would serve as the ‘raw products.’ The second required an investment in think tanks that would turn the ideas into marketable policies. And the third phase required the subsidization of ‘citizens’ groups that would, along with ‘special interest,’ pressure elected officials to implement the policies.

And the last of the blowhicans worth mentioning here is none other than Ayn Rand. The little chain smoking Russian gnome who wrote Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead continues to inspire libertarians to this day. From Paul Ryan and Ted Cruz, who claimed to be devotees of Rand when they took over the Republican House and Senate, to Alan Greenspan, who sent a giant dollar sign shaped wreath of flowers to her funeral, Rand’s fiction has had an outsized impact on stupid white men for decades.

Before we move on to the money behind the madness, it’s important to note that libertarians would credit these people as important, but are more convinced that the true ideological heroes of the movement are Thomas Jefferson, Adam Smith, John Locke, David Hume and Thomas Paine. Some even claim Aristotle. But these are convenient fantasies that rely on liberal and selective interpretations from otherwise voluminous works from these men.

Anyway, philosophies and strategies are nothing without the money to put them to work in a system. So, let’s look at the monied interests that brought these ideas to life and put them to work tearing apart our democracy, shall we?

The Money

The network of wealthy funders that set the ideas in motion.

Since being outed by Jane Mayer, the most obvious and now notable of the monied libertarian elite are without question the Koch Brothers. Before deciding to slink back behind the scenes and take over the Republican party from within with the libertarian ideological framework, the younger Koch brother, David, was the vice presidential candidate on the libertarian ticket in 1980. As the New Republic remarked:

“Even by contemporary standards, the 1980 Libertarian Party platform was extreme. It called for the abolition of a wide swath of federal agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Bureau of Land Management, the Federal Election Commission, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the Federal Trade Commission, and “all government agencies concerned with transportation.” It railed against campaign finance and consumer protection laws, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, any regulations of the firearm industry (including tear gas), and government intervention in labor negotiations. And the platform demanded the repeal of all taxation, and sought amnesty for those convicted of tax ‘resistance.’”

The Kochs would learn from the bruising experience of a national campaign that the country A) wasn’t ready for these ideas, and B) that electoral politics weren’t for them. Though they had already begun seeding programs in academia and forming well-funded think tanks, they went into high gear after this experience and created their now well-documented network of public policy groups designed to undermine public opinion on a range of issues, and to indoctrinate a new breed of politician wholly dedicated to gutting the structures of government that stood in the way of their continued accumulation of wealth and influence.

Richard Mellon Scaife was another important figure behind the movement. The heir to a banking, oil and aluminum family, billionaire Scaife would be referred to by the Washington Post as a “Funding Father to the right.” And that he was. Scaife was a powerhouse in conservative politics and even lauded in a eulogy given by former President Bill Clinton—as if you needed any more evidence that the halls of power are very, very narrow.

Scaife was close friends with a few other titans, such as John Olin, the chemical engineer turned industrialist who took over his father’s company. The Olin Corporation was dedicated to all things kind and humane like pharmaceuticals, cigarette paper, Winchester rifles, rocket fuel, blasting powder for coal mines, munitions and 20% of the nation’s stock of DDT! Not content with these incredible advancements for humanity, he would go on to found the John M. Olin Foundation. According to Mayer, the foundation was:

“An ambitious offensive to reorient the political slant of American higher education to the right…By the time the John M. Olin Foundation spent itself out of existence in 2005, as called for in its founder’s will, it had spent about half of its total assets of $370 million bankrolling the promotion of free-market ideology and other conservative ideas on the country’s campuses.”

Or how about Joseph Coors? Grandson of Coors founder Adolph. Joseph Coors was another founding member of the Heritage Foundation and also hated liberal academic elite. Plus it was widely known that the Coors family hated unions and black people and pretty much anyone that wasn’t a white conservative. Oh, and they were members of the John Birch Society waaaaay after that was acceptable, if it ever was. (It wasn’t.)

Personally, Joe Coors was a huge supporter of Goldwater and Reagan and could be counted on to fund a whole bunch of under the radar initiatives like buying a drug plane for Oliver North or working with James Watt and Anne Gorsuch—briefly heads of the Interior and EPA, respectively, under Reagan—to try and dismantle environmental regulations from inside the agencies. And if you’re saying to yourself, “Hey…Gorsuch. That’s familiar! Can it be?!” Yup. That’s Neil’s mom.

Friends of Joe Coors, Dick Scaife and the Kochs also included Dick DeVos. That’s right! The DeVos family built their fortune from multi-level marketing company Amway and dedicated their efforts to destroying higher education, unions and campaign finance laws! Dick married Betsy Prince, the sister of famed mercenary Erik Prince and daughter of Edgar, wealthy industrialist and Christian fundamentalist.

More current fuckheads include familiar names like Robert Mercer and his she-devil daughter Rebekah (check out our tribute to her from last year, if you haven’t heard of her) as well as insufferable billionaire twat Peter Thiel and his buddy Joe Lonsdale. This dynamic duo founded Palantir, the CIA friendly, scandal-laden data mining firm that absolutely, 100% has every piece of digital information about you.

And who can ignore our buddy and inspiration behind the #FRM hashtag, good old Rupert Murdoch. Again, we dedicated an entire episode to him if you want to check it out, but his exploits are the most public of all of them, so no need to rehash.

Lastly, on the quieter side of things we have Jeff Yass, who spent $31 million on libertarian political causes and campaigns in 2019 and 2020. While he didn’t donate to either presidential candidate in the 2020 election, he did support two conservative Super PACs dedicated to free markets and undermining democracy.

The Economists

The academic justification for libertarian behavior.

Obviously, we’ve beaten Milton Friedman into the ground, but we can’t get into this section without acknowledging Friedman’s enormous commitment and contribution to the libertarian cause. His words have inspired legions of students and policy makers who take his word as gospel and credit him for undoing the work of John Maynard Keynes. School choice, deregulation, free trade, balanced budgets, decriminalization of white collar crimes. Pick a major economic issue of the past 50 years, and you’ll find Milton Friedman at the heart of it.

A diminutive but fiery polemicist, Friedman would achieve star status and become the face of the Chicago School. For some reason, Friedman’s appeal transcended politics and academia. We’ve argued since this show started that this unlikely hero of libertarianism lived entirely in a theoretical world and promoted impossible policies that ignored every fundamental flaw of human nature. Free markets could fix everything. Racism? Free markets can cure it. Underperforming schools? Free markets baby. Totalitarianism got you down? Free markets to the rescue.

No matter the situation, Friedman could make a cogent, if not aggressive, case that the free market was the answer to all of humanity’s issues. And, despite never being able to present any hard evidence to support his theories because they literally cannot exist in the real world, he remains the patron economic saint of libertarians everywhere alongside Mont Pelerin founder Friedrich Hayek.

We covered a few of Friedman’s colleagues from the Chicago School, such as his mentor Aaron Director and his buddy George Stigler, who popularized radical right wing interpretations of Adam Smith. Three lesser known, but extremely important, Chicago boys were Gary Becker, Ronald Coase and Richard Posner. The three of them were responsible for bringing the concept of free markets into the carceral sphere to accomplish two extremely disturbing initiatives. One was to decriminalize white collar crime, and the other was to promote the privatization of the prison system. Only Posner would have a change of heart about the work of the Chicago boys later in life. As Bernard Harcourt writes in The Illusion of Free Markets:

“After many decades of expressly embracing free market ideology, Posner began to claim in 2009 that he had been a Keynesian all along. On the heels of the subprime mortgage debacle, Posner offered a Keynesian self-presentation, writing that, ‘We need a more active and intelligent government to keep our model of a capitalist economy from running off the rails. The movement to deregulate the financial industry went too far by exaggerating the resilience—the self-healing powers—of laissez faire capitalism…Probably, the term ‘Chicago School’ should be retired.’”

There are so many others, particularly from the Chicago School, that are worth mentioning, but in the interest of time, let’s end on good old Arthur Laffer, who illustrated the relationship between tax rates and tax revenue in what became known as The Laffer Curve. Therefore, in order to stimulate economic growth, it was imperative to cut taxes. On his curve, he argued that if taxes are too high, it will then discourage production and activity, and supply-side economics was born under Reagan. The fun fact about Laffer and his curve that we covered in a prior episode was that he literally drew his entire theory on a cocktail napkin for Dick Cheney at a party and gave it to Donald Rumsfeld for safe keeping.

The Lawyers

The so-called believers in the “Rule of Law.”

Let’s revisit Kurt Andersen from his book Evil Geniuses, who perfectly encapsulates the role of the legal profession in furthering the mission of the big money donors behind the libertarian cause:

“They needed to colonize the legal community and reframe the law itself to make sure they kept getting their way. Instead of litigation almost entirely being used against them by antitrust enforcers and class-action troublemakers and environmentalists and Ralph Naders, they need to reshape fundamental American legal understandings—to make it a toolbox they could use to accumulate more power and wealth for big business and the right over the long run.”

We’ve spoken before about the notorious Powell Memo, where Lewis Powell urged the corporate sector to fight back against liberalism and government overreach. Well, there is another memo that was just as influential in legal circles as the Powell Memo was to business, written by a man named Michael Horowitz.

Horowitz was an attorney who was commissioned to write a thesis about how to reverse the trend of liberalism in the courts. According to Andersen, Horowitz produced a 100 plus page memo that, among other ideas, argued for the creation of, “a network of top students and young graduates from the top law schools…It should appear more idealistic and philosophical and independent…Instead of the occasional ‘episodic tactical victories’ in lawsuits, it needed permanent, large-scale changes in the legal academy and law and jurisprudence, switching from a focus only on ‘courts and legislatures to law schools and bar associates.’”

Shortly thereafter, Horowitz’s dream would become a reality with the formation of the Federalist Society. To give you an idea of the caliber of recruits to the society, the Chicago chapter was advised by a gentleman named Antonin Scalia.

As Andersen writes:

“At birth, the Federalist Society got funding from the new standard roster of right-wing billionaires’ foundations—Scaife, Olin, Bradley, the Kochs…in 1987, Brett Kavanaugh entered Yale Law School, where he joined its Federalist Society chapter, and a year later Neil Gorsuch started at Harvard Law School and became a member.”

Federalist advisor and conservative icon Antonin Scalia would ultimately go on to serve on the Supreme Court, appointed by Reagan, but that appointment was originally designated for another famous libertarian legal mind named Robert Bork. Unf*ckers of a certain age will remember the Bork hearings, as he was eventually put up as a nominee, but in a dying gasp of liberalism, Congress shocked the Reagan administration and denied Bork the opportunity to serve on the nation’s highest courts. Even the Republicans in the system at the time knew that Bork was an ideologue and that he would be a far right activist.

By denying Bork a seat on the Supreme Court, they effectively turned him into a martyr for the libertarian cause. As it was, he was an intellectual darling of right leaning libertarians, as he’s largely credited as the father of originalist thinking, an idea that pervades the right in today’s judiciary. Like so many others, Bork fell under the influence of the legal and economic scholars at U Chicago and cut his teeth arguing against the Civil Rights Act.

And that my dear Unf*ckers is what I’m talking about when we talk about the long game.

Chapter Five

The 50 Year Libertarian Coup

If nothing else, what we’ve attempted to communicate through these episodes is that any discussion of economic, social or political libertarianism is impossible without going through various forms that this can take and how each one was influenced, by whom and why. If you want to talk ideology, then you have to address the core rationale behind it, the thinkers who inspired it and the circumstances under which it was conceived.

Doing this allows us to look more closely at someone like Adam Smith, who can just as easily be claimed by libertarians as he can by conservatives and socialists alike. It’s about context, perspective and experience. That’s why the role of the think tank has been so powerful in building the case for libertarianism. We sometimes casually refer to some of these institutions as “conservative,” but it’s mostly a misnomer. They’re libertarian. The economic theory behind them, the motivation of the funding class and the policy outputs they produce, both in governance and in the legal system, are mostly libertarian in design.

As we covered early on in our propaganda episode, their concepts are filtered directly to conservative outlets like Fox, Sinclair Broadcasting, independent podcasts and far right blogs, which are then circulated through social media to ensure that this information is all you hear in your echo chamber.

The whole gambit has been so successful that the rank and file voters who pull the lever for Republicans or self identify as libertarian have been so indoctrinated into the language of American libertarian policies—as defined by the masters of this bizarre universe—that they actually think they’re the underdogs. That they’re under attack from a tyrannical left wing government and a liberal media.

To make matters worse, Christian Nationalists have hidden inside the Republican Party like soldiers in a Trojan Horse and aligned with this form of libertarianism that couldn’t be further from the teachings of Jesus Christ. When you isolate their ideas and examine them through a policy lens one-by-one, they’re literally the most un-Christian things you can think of.

• Companies should be free to pollute and hide the chemicals they use from the public.

• We are a proud nation of immigrants. The melting pot. Also, no one else is allowed in.

• Taxes shouldn’t be levied on wealthy individuals who make money from our labor. Besides, they already hide profits illegally in offshore accounts, so just fuck off and leave them alone already.

• Social Security should be managed by private financial institutions. The same ones that brought you the financial crisis and a recession every seven years.

• Medicare and Medicaid are forms of tyranny. Remember that dying is the ultimate expression of liberty.

• Minimum wage suppresses wages. Minimum wage…suppresses…wages. I’ll just leave that there.

How the fuck does this happen? How does a nation with a proud blue collar working class that sneers at the rich, fights communism and defeats fascism fall for this bullshit? We used to fight for shit. For Civil Rights. Marriage Equality. The elderly. When did we decide to say fuck everyone, let the billionaires have their way? How did we get to a place where those who struggle stand behind the people whose feet are literally standing on their necks?

(Inserts basic white guy movie reference of Robin Williams telling Matt Damon it’s not his fault.)

Yeah, I know. But somebody help me here! When they plastered posters of Uncle Sam pointing his finger and saying “We need you,” it was the working class that answered the call. When FDR stood up for the poor and was called a traitor to his class, he didn’t back down, he got angry and built a social safety net structure. Hell, even Nixon defended the environment and demanded corporations stop polluting the air, the land and the water. How did we let it be that a guy like Nixon would be considered a fucking liberal today?

(Repeats basic white guy movie reference.)

Max sobbing: I know. Don’t fuck with me Unf*ckers. Not you. (Breaks down.)

99: While Mr. basic white guy movie reference collects himself, let’s get back on track and explain.

Introducing the American Legislative Exchange Council, also known as ALEC.

ALEC is known for promoting The Castle Doctrine, more commonly known as the Stand Your Ground Law; Protecting companies from having to disclose toxic elements used in hydraulic fracturing, known as “fracking”; Partnering with funders like The Bradley Foundation to “dismantle and defund unions”; helping states to outlaw sanctuary cities, and; Finding ways for states to opt out of federal climate change laws.

Then, of course, there’s the Heritage Foundation, the critical Koch-funded think tank that has a few notches on its belt as well.

Notches like the Strategic Defense Initiative, the Reagan Tax Cuts, NAFTA, climate change denial policies, school choice, vouchers and charter schools. They’re also experts at fomenting war with Islamic states. Oh, and even though they originally crafted the plan known as Obamacare for then Republican governor Mitt Romney as a way to punish immigrants and poor people who used the emergency room when they were sick, they did an about face when a black Democratic president supported it and have dedicated themselves to destroying their own invention.

The Heritage Foundation was so successful during the Reagan years, one of the co-founders bragged that the administration had adopted 775 of the Heritage proposals!

The Cato Institute: Famous for preventing increases to the minimum wage, all the while pushing legislation to abolish it altogether, along with parental leave!

Citizens for a Sound Economy: Another Koch brother invention, first chaired by Ron Paul, and devoted to defanging antitrust legislation to allow large corporations to get as big as they please, even though one of the core tenets of libertarianism was promoting free trade through tight competition fostered by antitrust regulation!

Mercatus Center: The think tank aligned with the dickbags at George Mason, the fake college that started in a fucking strip mall and exists only to indoctrinate students into the free market ideology.

The Federalist Society: Jerkoff lawyers that gave us Scalia, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.

And on…and on…and on…

Chapter Six

Practical Application and Common Ground

• The rights to your own body.
• Freedom from censorship.
• The right to privacy.
• The right to love who you love.
• Abortion is a personal choice.
• Parents and children have rights.
• Legalizing drugs, gambling and sexual services.
• Opposition to the death penalty.
• The right to bear arms with no prohibitions or regulation.

These are the stated tenets of personal liberty on the Libertarian Party platform.

• The military should exist for national defense purposes only.
• The security and surveillance state should be dismantled.
• Our foreign policy should be used to promote peace and not provoke.
• We should not restrict the freedom of movement for people or capital.
• Human rights are natural and cannot be infringed upon, regardless of race, religion, creed or sexual orientation.
• Financing of elections should be individual and not tax financed.
• Gerrymandering and restricting access to the ballot should be prohibited.

These are the stated tenets of security liberty on the Libertarian Party platform.

The third pillar relates to economic liberty. Before we get there, I think it’s helpful to acknowledge that the vast majority of the aforementioned principles are fairly well aligned with progressivism. Not all. But a lot of them. This is where we need to begin to form alliances and work together to recognize that common ground exists and can be built upon.

Having said that, the third pillar is also where things fall apart in this happy horseshit alliance:

• The government should be absent from all consensual contracts and never impede the free trade among nations and individuals, unless it involves settlement of a dispute related to force or fraud.
• Private landowners and conservation groups have a higher vested interest in protecting the environment than the government, and should therefore be in control of our natural resources.
• The government shouldn’t subsidize any form of energy.
• The government should not incur debt.
• The elimination of defined pension systems and mandatory union membership for government employees.
• Markets and financial institutions must be deregulated, which also means they should not qualify for bailouts. The same goes for student debt.
• The state should not grant licenses for any trade.
• Decriminalization of sex work.
• Eliminate government arbitration, mandatory wage minimums or government mandated benefits.
• Education and health care should be determined by market forces.
• Retirement should be up to the individual and therefore Social Security must be phased out.

These are the stated tenets of economic liberty on the Libertarian Party platform.

If the political discourse between progressives and libertarians was limited to the pillars of personal freedom and securing liberty, there would be great alignment between us, leaving room for disputes over hard issues like gun control. But I have the sense that it was all designed that way. That the brilliance of the brains behind libertarianism—the perverted nouveau American version—was to create compelling personal freedom arguments that side with the common citizen, then link them to the economic pillars as though they’re related.

Economics is squishy and difficult. So if the same purveyors of personal truths that clearly resonate with you are selling a story that these economic freedoms are essentially the same and wholly aligned with this ethos, then it’s easier to buy into. For any con to work, the majority of it has to be rooted in truth and tangible concepts so you’re more willing to believe the parts that on their own would be unbelievable.

What we’ve attempted to demonstrate since the very first episode is that these economic concepts are wholly unnatural. Nonsensical. Evil. All it accomplishes is to replace the perceived tyranny of the government with the tyranny of faceless and all powerful corporations; a concept we have covered before, referred to as inverted totalitarianism. It’s why all of their propaganda and lobbying efforts have gone into the economic pillar and not the others. You don’t see a public outcry to end the death penalty, reduce the military budget, legalize sex work and dismantle the security and surveillance apparatus. There’s no energy there, no money there. Peter Thiel, for example, claims to stand for these things, and yet founded Palantir to aggregate the personal data of every living person.

Libertarian economic thinking is all sleight of hand. Boaz, for example, likes to tout supermarkets as the ultimate expression of liberty. Freedom to choose whatever cereal and fruit that you like. But as we uncovered in our vegan episode, this very system has reduced the varieties of food types from 7,000 to 150 over the past 50 years. That’s not food choice, that’s food tyranny. That’s sleight of hand, my friends.

When we covered the great economists of the past 250 years, we have repeatedly proven that their concepts of free markets are also anything but; particularly those of the neo-libertarian strain who are proponents of military force to achieve our economic interests.

Moreover, it’s clear that the elite power brokers behind libertarianism aren’t actually interested in governing as a party because they would have to campaign on these things they really don’t want or care about. This is part of the brilliance, as I perceive it from the outside. With no real ballot or electoral initiatives, they don’t have to worry about the heavy lift of building a ground game and a party. In finding consensus among and between the disparate tentacles of the party. No compromise is necessary, so long as the core element of each libertarian strain is a comfortable platitude like freedom, liberty, individualism.

You have a confederate flag? Congrats. You might be a libertarian.

You have a don’t tread on me flag? Congrats. You might be a libertarian.

You have a Trump 2024 flag? Congrats. You might be a libertarian.

Think markets should be free, that your property is your own and the government should stay out of your bedroom? Congrats. You might be a libertarian.

Do ya back the blue? Think critical race theory is racist? Hate the Russians one day then admire them the next? Wanna speed down the highway with no registration sticker and cut your seatbelt in protest cuz it’s your right to smash into a pole and crash through the windshield?! Congrats! You might be a libertarian.

In claiming nothing and everything at the same time, they’ve been able to turn their party into a Jeff Foxworthy punchline.

It’s fucking genius. Once you whip people into a frenzy about things they take personally, then convince them that environmental regulations, Social Security, healthcare and public education are also forms of tyranny, it starts to make sense.

Except that it doesn’t.

Create economic policies that benefit only a few wealthy individuals and sell it through the lens of freedom and liberty. Anything else is tyrannical, and here’s the white paper to prove it. Here’s our media trained expert ready to sell it to you on our privately owned media outlet to help shift the Overton Window.

Adam Smith believed that unfettered capitalism unleashed the worst natural instincts of humankind and should therefore be carefully regulated. And that the excess capital in the system—i.e. profits—should be reasonably apportioned through the government as a conduit to fund the arts, the sciences and protect the weakest members of society. That’s Adam Smith.

The bottom line is that there is no Libertarian Party, because the assholes who created the economic framework for the party never wanted one. Once they figured out that it was easier to take over a party than to create one, it became a game. One that they’re winning handily.

Remember back to the start of the last episode that this idea of libertarianism in America all began when James Buchanan was offended by the desegregation of schools in America. That was the spark. The moment that illuminated this movement and set us on this course. And the billionaires whose No Nothing and John Birch efforts had previously failed, suddenly found a new, more legitimate way to infiltrate the system with ideas that would further their accumulation of wealth and power at the expense of the misguided souls that would assist them in doing so. All to make America great again.

Hopefully, those of you who have expressed frustration at my unwillingness to consider building a third party in this country understand why. The Republican Party wasn’t taken over by conservatives. Far from it. It was taken over by libertarian billionaires. They did it without firing a shot or ballot initiatives. They won it with ideas.

So, the way I see it is we’re nearly two-thirds of the way there. So let’s steal the billionaire playbook and turn it against them. It’s time to occupy the soulless cadaver of the Democratic Party and populate with the true concepts of liberty and freedom.

We want the same things. Occupy the Democratic Party. Recruit a libertarian.

Here endeth the lesson.