I have grown even more jaded with politics, if that was even possible.  It’s not that I’m bored with the subject, as I find it interesting.  It’s that I don’t trust anyone in political office or seeking political office to do the right thing.

To be sure, I am not someone who just throws up their hands and proclaims, “They’re all the same.”  They aren’t all the same.  This was shown during COVID.  Every governor was bad to some degree, but some were worse than others.

Still, I have entertained the argument that as long as we live in an unfree society, we should work within the system to the degree possible to make things better, even if it isn’t directly advancing liberty.

For example, let’s take the government schools.  Let’s say there are schools that are teaching kids that you can choose to be whatever gender you want in life and not even your parents can tell you otherwise.  I, personally, think this is quite destructive of society and children’s minds.  It is quite evil in many ways, especially in the harm it can cause children, whether the people teaching it know it or not.

I don’t want to be the libertarian who says, “Well, it’s better to let it happen so that others can see how awful the system is and we can abolish it sooner.”  I understand the argument, but I’m not sure it is correct.  First, we don’t really know that making things worse will lead to a better outcome in the longer run.  It is the same situation with a fiscal collapse.

Second, what about the individual child who has irreversible harm done to them?  This could be psychological harm or actual physical changes that are not reversible.  Am I going to give this person a lecture on the immorality of government schools when they are older?  That won’t do them much good then, even if it does resonate.

On the other hand, I don’t want to be a libertarian who comprises on everything in an attempt to make things just a little bit better in our corrupt system.

There has to be some kind of mix of trying to help the children of right now while simultaneously continuing to call for the abolishing of government schools.  Maybe there is an order of getting the federal government out of the way first and then moving on to the state governments, but even here I’m not so sure.

Government Property

Ron DeSantis has done some good things in Florida.  His opponents of the left like to smear him for banning books.  In most cases, DeSantis didn’t actually ban the books they are proclaiming that he did.  DeSantis did remove some pornographic material from government libraries, which includes government school libraries.  It is rather ridiculous to hear someone who says these things shouldn’t be banned.  It is like hearing a supposed free speech advocate saying that a teacher should be able to curse and say whatever they want in front of the third-grade class.

This wouldn’t be allowed in most private schools, and for good reason.  So, I don’t think it is unreasonable for a libertarian to say that as long as there are government institutions, there should be reasonable rules and etiquette that is standard in society.  I don’t think a homeless drug addict should be able to take up residence in the local library or a school classroom because they are “publicly owned”.

At the same time, libertarians should continue to call for the abolishment of government schools and government libraries.  If we never state our ultimate objective, how can we ever hope to achieve it?  How can we ever get others to think the same thoughts if they don’t ever hear them?

Politicians, One Disappointment After Another

Just about everyone is a disaster in politics these days.  Ron DeSantis just signed legislation in Florida that bans social media for anyone under 14.  It requires parental consent for 14 and 15 year olds.  I’m glad that Ron DeSantis thinks he knows how to parent my children better than I do.

Is DeSantis worried that young minds are getting corrupted by social media?  Trust me, Ron, they are getting far more corrupted in the institutions called government schools that you will never advocate abolishing.  It is the babysitter for America.  It is the biggest welfare program for middle-class America.

DeSantis was already a disaster in his run for president.  His foreign policy was, unsurprisingly, horrific from a libertarian standpoint.  Now he has resurrected his authoritarianism in the state of Florida.  I am happy I lived in Florida through the COVID craziness because he was less bad than most other governors, but he still locked down.

There was one state that didn’t have statewide lockdowns, and that was South Dakota.  It’s hard to say how much of a role Kristi Noem had in this.  But even she has been terrible lately.

She is joining the anti-free speech movement in South Dakota by declaring it illegal to criticize Jews.  Actually, it might be much worse than this, as it could be interpreted as a crime to criticize the state of Israel.  So, the least authoritarian governor when it came to COVID has shown her authoritarianism in other ways.

In the presidential race, it is a total disaster outside of the Libertarian Party.  We already know that Biden is a criminal in almost every way, and virtually everything he does is destructive of society.

There was some hope that Robert Kennedy Jr. would be significantly better.  He is something of an old-school Democrat.  He seemed to be the only possible path to some normalcy in the United States in 2025.  We all know that if Biden or Trump is elected in November, there is going to be chaos no matter what.

RFK Jr. has been really good on Ukraine.  He knows the history well.  He seemed like an actual anti-war candidate.  Then Israel happened.  He has gone all-in on supporting the funding of Israel and the Israeli state’s mass bombing of Gaza.

He previously went on Dave Smith’s show and they argued about it for at least an hour.  RFK then proceeded to offer Dave the VP slot on his ticket.  Since Dave declined, RFK decided to go another route and choose Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.

So, instead of having a principled libertarian as his running mate, RFK decided to pick a leftwing lawyer who was briefly married to one of the founders of Google.  She really sounds like a woman of the people.

Trump is probably the least disappointing at this point.  Maybe it’s because he is always inconsistent in his views and I don’t have high expectations of him anyway.

Still, his inconsistent views are better than the consistent views of the authoritarians.  Trump doesn’t even make sense when talking about Israel, but at least it is something different.  He just says things like, “If I’m president, then things will be great.  We’ll make sure to bring peace.”

He won’t say that he will cut off all funding to Israel or Ukraine.  At the same time, he doesn’t repeat the establishment narratives.  So, there is at least a little hope that Trump will be better on these issues.  Of course, if he is elected and allowed to take office again, the establishment is going to stir up major chaos domestically, perhaps more than we have ever seen.

Conclusion

I will most likely vote for the Libertarian Party candidate in November, unless Trump picks a really good running mate like Tucker Carlson.  I encourage other libertarians to do the same, especially if they live in a solid red or blue state.

Regardless of what you think is the best political strategy (even if that means not participating), I think libertarians need to be reminded to often repeat and explain the libertarian position on any issue.  I write this to remind myself.

If the issue is immigration, education, welfare, war, or any number of issues, there may be some non-libertarian solutions on the table that nonetheless make our society a little better.  It is hard to deal with these problems in a statist world.  Do we support building a wall?  Do we support another state in Gaza to bring temporary peace?  Do we support telling teachers what they can and can’t teach in government schools?  Do we support setting aside money for Social Security even though it is welfare?

It’s one of those things where I can ask 10 different libertarians these questions and get 11 different answers.  There are no easy answers for libertarians within the realm of a statist society.

The important thing is to state your principles.  If you want the government to build a wall, you emphasize the importance of ultimately having property privately owned and having secure property rights.  If you want teachers to stop teaching destructive things to children, you still emphasize that government shouldn’t be in the business of owning and running education systems.

You can always emphasize the libertarian solutions within a libertarian world, even if you support some state measures in between in order to make society a little more civilized in the meantime.