“The masses will never again accept the mindless serfdom of the Old Order; and given these demands that have been awakened by liberalism and the Industrial Revolution, long-run victory for liberty is inevitable.”  ~Murray Rothbard

It isn’t easy being a libertarian.  Sometimes I can’t help but wonder whether ignorance really is bliss.  In certain aspects, life can be happier by not knowing certain things.

I don’t take that view of 2020 and 2021 where COVID-19 hysteria has dominated.  While it is frustrating being a libertarian (when isn’t it?) and watching the world around you destroy itself, I believe most people are personally better off knowing the truth.

At least I haven’t been living in fear of a virus for the last 15 months.  I can’t say the same for some others.  My fear has been the hysteria and the resultant damage.  But at least I have been able to live my life to the degree that society around me has allowed.  I recognize that I can’t control the actions of governments and corporations that perpetuate the hysteria, but I can still live freely to the degree that it is possible.

Many libertarians are surprised when I say that I am optimistic with regard to the prospects for liberty, at least in the long run.  Some think I am completely crazy for believing this.

To be sure, I have no way of knowing for sure.  It is possible that liberty will be curtailed in the long run.  It is possible that we could have a nuclear war that ends life on earth.  So my optimism isn’t a guarantee, but I do believe that greater liberty is the more likely outcome over the long run.  In 20 years, and more certainly in 40 years, I believe we will be better off than today.

I would be lying if I didn’t say that I had more doubts in 2020.  It surprised me how easily the people were duped.  It isn’t just a matter of buying into virus hysteria, although that is bad enough.  If the establishment and its corporate media will lie to get us into a war, don’t you think they might be capable of lying about the severity of a virus?

But the worst part of 2020 is that people easily gave up their liberty.  They thought it sounded reasonable when we were told we needed to give up life for two weeks to “flatten the curve”.  Flattening the curve then morphed into living life so as to avoid death at all costs.  Even if you thought the virus really was highly contagious and very deadly, it should never be an excuse to grant the state more power.  And this was a degree of power that was staggering.

Governors and mayors now have the power to shut down society on a whim.  People were told to stay at home.  Businesses that were deemed “non-essential” were forced to close down for a certain period of time.  Some businesses (if they haven’t permanently shut down) still face harsh restrictions.

The year 2020 wasn’t a good year for liberty in the United States or across the globe.  At the same time, it may have sown the seeds for greater liberty in the future.

Open Communication

We live in a time where communication is wide open.  Technology has enabled people to communicate on a scale that, at one time, was thought to be impossible.

Again, 2020 seemed to be a step in the wrong direction in terms of communication and free speech.  We live in a politically correct world where the power elite tries to silence people.  The term “cancel culture” is widely understood today.

There has been a conspiracy by big tech and other corporations to silence those who speak out too strongly against the accepted establishment narrative.  Maybe some of this is to avoid bad public relations.  Maybe some of it is due to feeling threatened by government action.  Maybe some of it is just the existence of corporate executives wanting to appear to be in touch with the times.

They are mostly overplaying their hands.  I don’t think most Americans seriously buy into the “woke” culture.  I think most people, including many who preach it, know it is a farce.

I know that Google, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, among others, have made a concerted effort to silence people because they don’t like the message.  In the long run, I don’t think it will work, and I think it will ultimately hurt these big companies.

There are new platforms coming online all the time.  These companies are still the top dogs when it comes to their services, but they are going to start losing ground.  There are video platforms now that will take your video that was banned by YouTube for going against the establishment narrative.

I like to point out to people that these companies didn’t exist 30 years ago.  Most of them didn’t exist 20 years ago.  If you go back to 1990, how did you get your news?  You either read the establishment newspaper, or you watched the establishment news.  You may have had a choice of 3 or 4 networks to watch your evening news, and they mostly repeated the same things (as they still do today).  Conservative talk radio was only getting started.

We have so many more options now.  It is ridiculous.  I know Facebook will prevent some of your posts from being seen.  I know Google will not rank your site high in the search engine because you aren’t saying the right things according to them.  But the lines of communication are more open today than ever.

In order to sell liberty, you have to sell the truth.  In order to sell statism, you have to sell lies and propaganda.  This is why politicians rely on propaganda to promote their wars, and also to promote their domestic policies.

Free speech is still mostly free in America.  It is used widely.  If you want to find an alternative view on most anything, it is out there if you look.  You have to be a little bit curious.  It is easy to get the official establishment narrative on things. If you want to find counter views, you have to be willing to look with an open mind.  You will find something.

Shifting Opinions

Sometimes things are hard to see.  Election results don’t always show shifts in public opinion for some time, especially when the people running are the same old thing.

One obvious sign of optimism was the election of Donald Trump in 2016.  And regardless of how you view the election of 2020, Trump received far more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016.

Trump is not a libertarian.  He isn’t really close to libertarianism on anything.  But he did have a somewhat anti establishment message.  He was probably the first person to win the presidency since at least the 1920s to not be approved by the establishment.  The establishment didn’t care for Reagan, but they felt he could be controlled enough within certain boundaries.  Trump was just a different being, especially with his mouth.

Despite the group effort by the media and all of the establishment organizations, they could not stop Trump from being elected president in 2016.  Americans were told that they shouldn’t dare vote for such a man, yet many of them did it anyway.

Here is another aspect of Trump that is positive.  He has dramatically shifted the Republican Party.  Maybe it’s not all good, but in terms of foreign policy, it is a vast improvement.  Liz Cheney is being shunned by Republicans.  George W. Bush is no longer viewed favorably by many (likely a majority) of Republicans.  The Republican Party is not exactly the party of peace, but the majority of members are far less hawkish on war than they were a decade ago.  This is a highly positive development.

In terms of hardcore libertarians, we are much better off than 20 years ago.  The Ron Paul Revolution brought in hundreds of thousands of radical libertarians who previously didn’t exist.

And while I wish this had happened in 2008, the radical libertarians are starting to take over the Libertarian Party.  We are likely to have a party that can spread the message of liberty on a national stage.

Even outside of the political arena, there are positive developments.  You have to look at the long-term trends.  Attempts by the left over the last few decades to increase gun control have not gotten far up to this point.

Homeschooling continues to rise in popularity.  This was already happening before 2020.  I can tell you from personal experience that the statistics vastly understate the number of children being homeschooled.

While the drug war is still a major problem, most states have adopted some form of legalization for marijuana.  This is in spite of federal laws.  Not only is this a victory for reducing victimless crimes, but it is also a form of state nullification.

The national debt, the unfunded liabilities, the money creation by the Fed, and the massive government spending are all a mess.  It is also unsustainable.

So, yes, there are going to be some tough times ahead, especially for those who are living an unsustainable lifestyle.  Ultimately, I think there are going to be massive defaults in some form.  There are already subtle defaults through currency depreciation.

I don’t think we will end up resembling anything like Venezuela.  People are accustomed to high living standards in America.  They are not going to easily give that up.  Americans still have a sense of rugged individualism.  They are entrepreneurial.  Most Americans still celebrate wealth when it is justly acquired.  Americans like a good rags-to-riches story.

And while 2020 was disappointing, I think many people have become more politically astute.  Politics couldn’t be avoided in 2020 because it came home, and it came home hard.  When you are told that you can’t go shopping and you have to stay at home, it doesn’t get any more political than that.

The establishment has likely overplayed their collective hands.  Joe Biden says that if you get vaccinated, obey your orders, and “we” see an improvement, then maybe you can have a small family get-together in your backyard on July 4^th.  I assume that at least 95% of people are already having small family get-togethers.

These establishment people are making themselves irrelevant.  The further they go in wanting to hype the virus and push for restrictions, the more they delegitimize themselves.  This has an impact over time.  People have less trust of authority and “experts”.  This is a major positive for liberty in the long run.

We can only hope that Biden and Fauci keep pushing masks and distancing and isolation.  It only makes the resistance stronger.

It won’t be a straight line up in terms of liberty and living standards.  There will be setbacks.  2020 was a setback, but it also likely shifted some people’s opinions about how much they should trust the state and its “experts”.

As Rothbard said, we aren’t going back to the Old Order.  There are too many Americans who have a high standard of living, and there are too many Americans who generally favor liberty.  I am still optimistic about the long-term prospects for liberty.

There seem to be stories about shortages everywhere.  Up until 2020, most Americans would think of supply shortages as being mostly a third-world problem.

Sure, we might have a few things every now and then where there are shortages because of a bad crop in a certain region or a supply problem in a foreign country.  But in the U.S., we are accustomed to having almost everything readily available, and most things don’t fluctuate much in price.

2020 and 2021 have been different.  In late March and April of 2020, there were definite shortages.  In the U.S., toilet paper was the one good in highest demand.  There were also shortages of meat, and even vegetables, in grocery stores.

This could easily be blamed on COVID or COVID hysteria.  Not only were there supply chain disruptions, but also the demand increased, as many people who frequently dined out in the past were getting most of their meals from the grocery store.  Due to government regulations, it wasn’t easy for food suppliers to deliver more food to grocery stores instead of to restaurants.

In 2021, more shortages are appearing.  While it is often blamed on COVID, it seems hard to blame a virus on this situation.  At the very least, let’s appropriately blame virus hysteria and state interference.

It is important to note that in the U.S., the federal government and state governments are still paying many people to not work with expanded unemployment checks and more leniency in looking (or not looking) for work.  If you have fewer people producing, then fewer things will get produced.  How’s that for an economics lesson?

I have heard of shortages in many things, ranging from computer chips, to chlorine, to raw materials, to flowers.

In the case of raw materials, like steel and lumber, prices have gone up to reflect the reduced supply or increased demand (or some combination of both).  Lumber has received a lot of attention, as the price has risen 2 to 3 times what it was just over a year ago.  For homebuilders, this has led to increased costs of tens of thousands of dollars per house.

I saw a story on my local news about a flower shop that was not taking orders for another 4 days (up until Mother’s Day) because they were out of flowers.  This tells me that they should have been charging higher prices.  If there is less supply or higher demand (or both), then you are going to run out of supplies if you keep charging the old price.  There would be a shortage of lumber if prices were held to what they were last year.  Perhaps it is understandable for a local florist to not want to raise prices too quickly, especially not knowing if the supposed shortage would last.

Central Bank Inflation

The curious thing about all of this is that in all of this talk of shortages, there is little discussion of monetary inflation.  They can blame COVID, supply chain disruptions, and everything else under the sun, but nothing comes out of the establishment media (which includes most local news) about the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet.

Maybe it isn’t that curious because they don’t want to blame the central bank for the current problems, and they certainly don’t want to blame the mass hysteria created by government with shutdowns and restrictions on businesses.

Shortages and inflation go hand in hand.  When a massive amount of new money enters the system without a corresponding increase in production, then prices are going to be bid up over time.  This is what happens when you have more money chasing approximately the same amount of goods and services.

This is what happens when the federal government spends trillions of dollars to bail out companies and individuals who were forced to shut down and stay at home.  It was governors and mayors across the country who adopted these anti-liberty policies, and they should have been the ones to deal with them and face the backlash.

Instead, the federal government largely bailed them out by handing out “free” money to the unemployed and to people just for existing.  Virtually all of this spending was funded by debt monetization.  In other words, the Fed created money out of thin air so that the federal government could go on an even bigger spending spree.

When you hand out thousands of dollars to people to stay unemployed, and then you hand out thousands of dollars to most people just for existing, is it any surprise that prices are going up at an accelerating pace?  Is it really supply problems that have caused the price of lumber to skyrocket?  It is the demand side, and the reason there is so much demand is because people have been flooded with “free” money.

When trillions of dollars enter the economy without a corresponding increase in production, then people are going to bid up prices.  This means prices on almost anything, which includes stocks, houses, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, food, lumber, and flowers.

Warren Buffett, at his annual shareholder meeting, said, “We are seeing very substantial inflation.”  Unfortunately, he failed to learn the lessons from his father, Howard Buffett.  If only Warren had listened to his father as a child instead of becoming something of a tool for the state.  He is going to talk about inflation without addressing the elephant in the room?  Is he really that dumb on this subject, or does he just think everyone listening to him is dumb?  When prices are rising, you might want to take a look at the one entity that controls the entire base money supply for the country.

As long as prices are allowed to adjust, there should be no long-term shortages.  There can be some short-term disruptions where the decreased supply or increased demand is unexpected, and sometimes it takes time for sellers to figure out that they need to raise their prices.

Most of us would prefer rising prices to shortages.  At least with rising prices, you have more options.  You can choose not to buy something, or to buy less of it.  If there are shortages, you may not have a choice at all.

As long as the Fed continues with its insane policy of mass monetary inflation, then these rising prices (regardless of how much they are reflected in the CPI statistics) will continue over time.

We are likely in a massive bubble right now.  I call it the “everything bubble”.  If and when it pops, asset prices are likely to go way down.  It is less clear what will happen with basic consumer goods.  We have to remember the 1970s when there was high price inflation with a stagnant economy.

The early 1980s, with Paul Volcker as chair of the Fed, were probably the last time we saw a true correction in the U.S. where there was a true cleansing.  The bad investments were permitted to fail, and resources were allocated more in alignment with consumer demand.

Unfortunately, since that time, every recession is met with massive Fed interference in the form of inflation and artificially low interest rates.  For this reason, higher price inflation looks to be the continued policy going forward.  It’s better than shortages, but a lot worse than the 1980s.

In my last post, I wrote about Dave Smith announcing a possible run for the presidency in 2024 on the Libertarian Party ticket.  He first mentioned this on Joe Rogan’s podcast.  And while this was the big news for me coming from his latest appearance on Rogan’s podcast, that wasn’t the big news nationally.

Instead, it was another discussion that is apparently forbidden in establishment circles.  Dave Smith and Joe Rogan dared to question the wisdom of getting the COVID-19 vaccine, especially for younger people.  The establishment media is ignoring Dave Smith because he is a nobody to them.  Maybe they’ll get to know him better in 2024.

Joe Rogan, on the other hand, is a podcaster with millions of followers.  The establishment knows this, so they had to attack him for his comments.  The video clip apparently went viral, which then led to it getting some attention from the national establishment media.

When appearing on CNN, Joe Biden’s communications director, Kate Bedingfield, said, “I guess my first question would be, ‘Did Joe Rogan become a medical doctor while we weren’t looking?’”

That goes right along with the narrative of the last year.  You have to trust the experts.  If you aren’t a scientist or a doctor, then you shouldn’t be questioning the official narrative.  But more importantly, you have to listen to the doctors and the scientists that the establishment (made of mostly non doctors and non scientists) tells you to listen to.  Only the scientists and doctors who parrot the official narrative will get airtime on the establishment media.

This reminds me of questioning a U.S. Supreme Court decision.  If someone disagrees with you, it is inevitable to hear something to the effect of, “You aren’t a lawyer or legal scholar.”

Then you look at the ruling and realize it was a 6-3 ruling.  So there were 3 justices who opposed the majority ruling. They were all lawyers who managed to get appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, yet they disagree with their colleagues.  So how can we ever know who is right or wrong because they are all supposed to be “experts”?

Of course, it is ridiculous to say that you need to be an expert to analyze something.  I didn’t have to be an expert in statistics to realize that the line about a 3 to 4 percent mortality rate of COVID patients coming out of Wuhan, China was bogus.  They were testing people who were really sick.

If all you do is follow the line of the “experts”, then the experts and their controllers can have their way with you on anything.  If they tell you to stand on one leg and cluck like a chicken to keep the virus away, are you going to do it because that is what the science says?

Societal Responsibility

On the podcast, Joe Rogan said if you’re 21 years old, why get vaccinated.  He said, “If you’re a healthy person, and you’re exercising all the time, and you’re young, and you’re eating well, like, I don’t think you need to worry about this.”

Dave Smith was probably even stronger, but he doesn’t get as much backlash, at least from the big players, because they don’t want to give him too much attention.  Rogan is the big fish to fry right now.

Dave said that he wouldn’t sacrifice his daughter for the good of society.  He correctly pointed out that the chance of serious illness or death from COVID for a very young person is essentially zero.  This is true even if you buy into the CDC’s death statistics.  Meanwhile, we don’t really know the risks involved with getting vaccinated.

The establishment’s favorite expert, Dr. Fauci, who doesn’t actually treat patients, discussed these comments on some interviews.  Among other things, he said, “So you have to put a little bit of societal responsibility in your choices, and that’s why I disagree with Mr. Rogan under that circumstance.”

In other words, Fauci is saying the exact opposite of Dave Smith.  Fauci is saying that people should get their children vaccinated for the good of society.  The “good of society” or “societal responsibility” sounds like a term used by communists.

In other words, there may be someone who is old or really vulnerable to a virus.  It is possible (according to the establishment “experts”), that your child could get the virus and pass it on to someone vulnerable.  So even though this has no benefit to your child, and it actually increases their risk of injury due to the unknowns of the vaccines, you should sacrifice your child for others.

Is this really what our society has come to?

For the good of society, I would like to see Dr. Fauci go away.  Unfortunately, Trump was too weak to get rid of him, and Biden and hid handlers depend on Fauci to promote their narrative, which now apparently includes societal responsibility.

I don’t put much faith in the FDA, but even the FDA has not approved these COVID vaccines.  They are only authorized for emergency use.  We do not have an accurate picture of the deaths and side effects from these vaccines, especially in the long term.  The messenger RNA technology is new to humans when it comes to vaccination.  Given all of this and more, it is quite reasonable to believe that the risk of a vaccine is greater than the risk of COVID for a young person.

Does Fauci really want to put children at an increased risk of harm for the good of society?  Is this how sick of a man he is?

For all of the parents out there who have to decide on behalf of their children whether to allow them to be vaccinated, I hope you are taking note.  If your child is harmed, it is ultimately your responsibility.  While you may be fed propaganda from the medical establishment and the establishment in general, it is your responsibility to do your own research and analysis.

Guess what?  If your child becomes permanently disabled in some way due to vaccine impacts, you will be responsible.  You will have to take care of your child for the rest of your life.  Dr. Fauci isn’t going to take responsibility and look after your child.  The FDA isn’t going to look after your child.  The pharmaceutical companies aren’t going to look after your child.

I have a responsibility to my own family.  They are my number one priority.  But I am still trying to benefit society by calling attention to the criminals who are purposely selling these lies.  They are evil people.  Fauci and Bill Gates are evil people, promoting their vaccines for their own evil purposes.

If you want to get the shot (or shots) as an adult, go ahead.  While that’s not my choice, I do believe in free choice.  It is your body.  When it comes to your child, it is your responsibility to look out for the interests of your child.  Fauci and Gates are not looking out for the interests of your child.  They are hiding behind the tyrannical term of “societal responsibility”.

This could be a game changer for radical libertarians.  Comedian and podcaster Dave Smith appeared on Joe Rogan’s show where he hinted at possibly running for president in 2024.

On his own show, Dave came out and said that he was considering a run for the presidency on the Libertarian Party (LP) ticket for 2024.  He said he would only do it if he saw the support.  I took this to mean that he wants his loyal listeners to join the LP, to elect Angela McArdle as the next chairperson of the LP national committee, and then to get out to the national convention in 2024 to support a Dave Smith candidacy.

The LP does not run like the Democrats and Republicans.  The presidential and vice presidential nominees are chosen (separately) at the convention.  If you have just a few hundred loyal followers who are willing to be active, then you can secure the nomination.

Although Jo Jorgensen’s candidacy was somewhat disappointing in 2020, I still think she was a step in the right direction.  She was something of a compromise candidate between the radicals and the pragmatics.  Even if her campaign wasn’t great, it did seem to be a step away from the Johnson/ Weld ticket of 2016.

I believe that the main purpose of having a presidential candidate for the LP is one of education.  It is a platform for the person to use to spread the message of liberty.  This means you need someone who is actually willing to sell a principled libertarian message, and you need someone who is good at selling the message.  Dave wants to return to the days of Harry Browne and Ron Paul.

While I am excited at this prospect, I hope Dave knows what he is getting in to.  He has a wife and kid, with another kid on the way.  If he ever gains any traction, the claws are going to come out.  It will be brutal enough just going through the LP nomination process.  If he gains traction nationally with his message, I can’t imagine what the establishment will do.

Maybe they’ll try to ignore him, but what happens if he starts showing up with significant percentages in the polls?  We all know what they did to Donald Trump just because he dared to question the empire at times.  I can’t imagine what they would do to someone who has a consistent message of being anti war and pro liberty.

I am not naïve as to the prospects of a third-party candidate getting elected, let alone a radical libertarian.  At the same time, I think a Dave Smith candidacy on the national ticket could have a deep and lasting impact on this world.

A Real Libertarian with a Real Message

One of the things Dave addressed on his podcast is that his enemies would be digging up all of the things he has said over the years.  Dave is a comedian.  He is a podcaster.  He is politically incorrect.  He has a foul mouth and tells off-color jokes.

He already knows his strategy.  As soon as someone points out something “bad” he said in the past, Dave will say that the U.S. government has been dropping bombs on Syria and starving children in Yemen (or something to that effect).  He will immediately turn it around.  “Ok, so I said something that was offensive.  You know what’s really offensive?  Killing innocent children in foreign countries.  Why aren’t you as mad at the people doing that?  That’s odd.”

He can turn it around every single time that he is able to respond.  Of course, if the establishment media is forced to deal with him, they will relentlessly attack him, much like they did with Trump.  But if anyone sneaks outside of the establishment media to hear what Dave is actually saying, they will hear the brutal truth.

Dave is a great salesman for liberty.  He is strong and principled without coming across as overbearing.  It helps that he can add humor when appropriate.  He has a somewhat populist message at times while still sticking to radical libertarian ideas.

He has been on Joe Rogan’s show something like six times now.  I believe four of them were with just Dave alone.  Joe Rogan has an audience in the millions.  The average Rogan podcast draws more viewers and listeners than MSNBC or CNN would draw on an ordinary primetime show.

Rogan obviously likes Dave.  I think he is somewhat sympathetic to his ideas.  This may be hard to believe because Rogan endorsed Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries.  But that’s because Bernie was on Rogan’s show.  I believe Tulsi Gabbard was the only other candidate to appear.  I don’t think Bernie is genuine, but I can see where he might come across as genuine, even if you don’t agree with him on some things.  Rogan wasn’t endorsing Bernie because he wants socialism.  He was endorsing Bernie because he was a thumb in the eye of the establishment.

I think Rogan would likely endorse Dave Smith.  That would be millions of people influenced right there.  They would listen to Dave and hear his message.  He would likely convert a certain percentage of these people to libertarians.  Another decent percentage would probably disagree with him on some things but still vote for him anyway because of genuineness.

Let’s also consider that there hasn’t really been a radical libertarian on the presidential ballot in a long time.  The Constitution Party has had some decent candidates in some prior elections, but that is about it.  The LP hasn’t had anyone decent for a long time.  They haven’t had anyone decent since 2007, which is a key period of time.  That is when Ron Paul started his first Republican presidential campaign and managed to convert hundreds of thousands of people towards libertarianism.

We don’t know how a radical libertarian will do on the ballot in a general election.  There are many people who supported Ron Paul who have had nowhere to go.  Some went to Donald Trump just because he rattled the establishment.  Some went to the LP, but I don’t think a lot did.  Some just went back into hiding.

By the time 2024 comes around, a dozen years will have passed since Ron Paul’s last presidential campaign in 2012.  There were people who were 10 years old who will then be 22 years old.  They may not have been exposed to this message yet.

If Ron DeSantis is the Republican nominee in 2024, I think that could take a little steam away from Dave Smith.  DeSantis, while originally imposing a lockdown, opened up Florida in September 2020 when most of the rest of the country was still in partial shutdown mode.  DeSantis deserves some credit for this, at least compared to most other politicians.  I think DeSantis could be a disaster as president, especially when it comes to foreign policy, but I really don’t know.

If the Republican nominee is a bit more conventional, or even if it is Donald Trump, I think Dave Smith could get the ear of a lot of disaffected voters (or non voters).  We need someone who is willing to stand up and tell the truth, and to tell it in a way that sells.

I don’t think Dave’s past will hurt him much.  It may actually help him because people will see him as a real person. They won’t care if he used the F-word a million times or if he told jokes that offended the woke crowd.

Again, I don’t expect Dave Smith to win the presidency in 2024.  If he got anywhere close, I’m afraid what the establishment would do to him.  But let’s imagine that he gets 10 million votes and causes a major stir.  Let’s say that half of those people listen to the radical libertarian message, and it sticks with them.  We could change the world.

The amount of government (i.e., the state) that we get is almost directly proportional to what public opinion will allow.  The reason that the U.S. is more open than Canada right now isn’t because Biden is better than Trudeau.  It’s because Americans stopped tolerating the lockdowns.

As Etienne de la Boetie pointed out many hundreds of years ago, the state relies on the consent of the governed.  Without that consent, it crumbles.  If 5 million people turn into radical libertarians, while another 20 million turn into people with libertarian sympathies, it could radically transform the country and the world.

It is not really the elections that count.  They are more of an effect than a cause.  The key is to spread the message of liberty.  The more hearts and minds that are changed towards living in a free society, the more free of a society we will get.  This can only be done by spreading the message of liberty by convincing others.  Dave Smith may get a great opportunity to spread the message of liberty in 2024 to a wide audience.

In a video from June 2020, finance guru Dave Ramsey received an interesting call on his show.  The caller told of his fears about Federal Reserve inflation and asked Ramsey about where he sees inflation going and whether gold should occupy a place in one’s portfolio.

Ramsey immediately responded, “Well, you’ve been listening to me for a while, so you know I’m not going to tell you to buy gold.”

Ramsey then says, for the sake of argument, that we pretend that hyperinflation does occur.  He then goes on to talk about the double-digit price inflation of the 1970s.

Right here, I do not agree with his definitions.  What happened in 1970s America was not hyperinflation.  It is admittedly difficult to nail down a good definition of hyperinflation, but I don’t think I had ever heard anyone refer to the 1970s as hyperinflation.  It was a period of high inflation, but 10 to 12 percent annual price increases does not meet the definition of hyperinflation for most people.

For me, I would want to see annual prices overall going up at 50% or more before I would consider it hyperinflation.  Even then, when we talk about hyperinflation from Zimbabwe or Weimar Germany, that was hyperinflation where prices were going up virtually every single day.  At its worse, prices were easily doubling in less than a month’s time.

Next, Ramsey says, if there is heavy inflation, “There is no promise that gold follows that.”  He says, “…they are not tied together in any way.  There is no index.  We do not operate on the gold standard any more.”

Of course there is no promise that gold follows.  There is also no promise that stocks will go up forever, even though Ramsey would have no problem recommending index funds.  But gold did go up significantly in the 1970s.  The last ties of the dollar to gold ended in 1971.  Gold went up in price substantially after this time.  So while we have no guarantee that gold will go up significantly with double-digit price inflation, there is a high degree of probability that it will, and it makes a good hedge against severe inflation.  It provides diversification for a portfolio.

Ramsey then says that gold is like all other commodities such as oil, silver, and wheat and that they go up based on a perceived shortage or they go down based on a perceived over supply.  He says gold goes up when people are greedy or when they are afraid.

It is curious why Ramsey doesn’t talk about depreciating dollars.  Isn’t that enough reason for any of these commodities to go up, or really anything at all?  If you have more money chasing the same goods and services, then eventually prices are likely to rise.  Gold wasn’t primarily going up in the 1970s because of a perceived shortage.  It was going up because of an oversupply of dollars.  It boggles my mind how Ramsey cannot understand this basic economic point.

Ramsey then says, “It is a golden colored rock.  It has no intrinsic value except for the fact that two different people are fighting over it, and that’s the only thing that gives it value.”  To his credit, he says the same thing about the dollar and other currencies.

In a sense, Ramsey is correct in that all value is subjective.  That’s the world we live in.  But you could say the same thing about any stock index fund.  They only have value because customers put a value on the products sold by the companies.

Gold does have value though outside of just being a form of money or investment.  It is used for jewelry.  It has many industrial uses.  There is a reason that gold was used as a form of money for thousands of years, which Ramsey seems to miss.

It was all frustrating to listen to from a libertarian standpoint.  Actually, it should be frustrating to anyone who just understands some basic economics.

I have written about Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman several times in the past.  I think they are both intelligent people who give great, and much needed, advice on money.

When it comes to investing though, I wouldn’t listen to them.  They do not understand the benefits of owning gold in a portfolio.  They do not understand the threats of a severely depreciating currency.  They have full faith in the U.S. dollar, which apparently means that have faith in the Federal Reserve System.

You can, and probably should, listen to Dave Ramsey when it comes to saving money, paying down debt, buying life insurance, getting a mortgage, and several other topics dealing with money.  Stay away from the bad investing advice though.

The scariest time for me in 2020 was in March and April 2020.  I wasn’t worried about a virus, but I was worried about the reactions to the virus hysteria, and I had good reason to be worried.

The shutdowns and stay-at-home orders dramatically changed everything.  It was a glimpse of totalitarianism in America.  I know libertarians often like to talk about socialism and authoritarianism, but Americans are still relatively free when it comes to most things.  The government is involved in almost everything, but we still have a degree of freedom that is underappreciated.

Although Florida has been open since September 2020 with few restrictions (there are still local restrictions in some cities, especially when it comes to masks), there were stay-at-home orders in April 2020.  I was calling Ron DeSantis a dictator back then.  As it turns out, he ended up being one of the best governors in comparison, which isn’t saying much.

I remember going to Publix (a grocery store for those not familiar).  I got there early in the morning, about 10 minutes before opening.  There was a line outside the door, going down the sidewalk.  It looked like a long line, but people were already “social distancing”, so it wasn’t as bad as it looked.

Mask wearing was not yet a big thing.  It wasn’t being preached by Fauci and company yet.  I have still never worn a mask into Publix, and I have never been questioned about it.  They are all about great customer service.

When the store opened, most people went straight to the toilet paper aisle.  I remember getting one of the few packages of toilet paper left.  One time we got this horrible organic toilet paper (yes, that exists), and it isn’t the most soothing on the body.

The really scary part was going to get meat and vegetables.  The meat aisle was the second place to go.  I was lucky to get a couple of chicken packages.  I believe the store was limiting purchases to two items for many products, which included meats.  The vegetables were also in short supply.

This was the scariest moment for me.  I am particular in what I eat (a mostly low carbohydrate, paleo-like diet), so I can’t just stock up on some potato chips and frozen pizzas.  It showed how delicate the supply chain is.  Of course, the government regulations don’t help, as food supplied to restaurants can’t easily be redirected to be packaged for grocery stores.

In one sense, it is amazing how delicate the supply chain is.  In another way, it is amazing that the marketplace, to the extent that it is free, adjusts so quickly and efficiently.  There were all of a sudden tens of millions of Americans who previously ate out at restaurants who were all of a sudden buying groceries and cooking all or most of their meals at home.  Some restaurants were still open for takeout.

Being Prepared Without Overdoing It

Since that time, our household makes an effort to stay at least one ahead on certain items.  Sometimes we fail, but at least the thought is there.  This includes things like laundry detergent, dish soap, hand soap, paper towel, and of course, toilet paper.

I know a true prepper would laugh at this.  We wouldn’t last more than a couple of weeks with these extra things.  But if something bad does go down again, at least it buys you a little bit of time and leeway.

I have actually recommended a strategy before of buying extra things, not just to be prepared, but also to save a little bit of money.  If you wait for sales or coupons, sometimes you can get a good deal on certain goods when buying in bulk.  And if you buy a lot, you can be almost certain that prices aren’t coming down in the future.  In today’s time, prices are likely to go up.

As long as the items you are buying in bulk last (don’t expire quickly), then it is a strategy that is almost guaranteed to not lose.  You may have to be creative with some storage, but you know prices aren’t going down.  As long as you will use the stuff one day, then it won’t be wasted.  If anything, you will save a little bit of money in the long run by buying in advance.  And you will get the benefit of being prepared, which can be a mental benefit alone even if nothing bad happens.

Although the prepper movement seemed to be almost vindicated in 2020, I am not a hardcore prepper at all.  I understand my place in the division of labor.  Unless you are planning to buy a farm and move out into the country, then you will be reliant on the division of labor to a large degree.  If the trucks ever stop running, then a large portion of the population is likely to be dead within 6 months.

This is the biggest fear with hyperinflation.  This is the biggest reason we never want to see the money we use destroyed virtually overnight.  If the truckers don’t want to get paid with worthless currency and the trucks stop delivering food to the stores, then almost everyone is in trouble.

I really hope that we never see anything like 2020 again.  I do believe we are in for tough economic times ahead, especially given what has been done by the federal government and the Federal Reserve since March 2020.  But as long as we have some semblance of freedom, people will figure things out and get along.  Times may be difficult, but most people will survive.

It is also important to realize that much of life just goes on.  Most things revert back to some form of normalcy.  We most likely won’t see hyperinflation.  If you own a house with a mortgage, you will still have to make mortgage payments to your lender.  Maybe it will be in depreciated dollars, but it will still be there.

I am saying this as a reminder to myself and everyone reading that you shouldn’t take any drastic steps that are stupid.  You should try to maintain a steady income, you should save some money, you should diversify your investments, you should pay your bills, and you should try to take care of your health.

Sometimes life just requires a steady hand.  It is better to turn off the news in most cases.  You can be aware of what is generally happening in the world by paying attention for five minutes out of the day.  Most things you can’t control.  You just have to look after yourself and your family.

You can make good decisions and live a somewhat normal life while just being a little extra prepared for rough times, whether it be more virus hysteria, or high price inflation, or a crashing stock market, or whatever life brings us.While I think there will certainly be rough times ahead economically when the “everything bubble” pops, I have some long-term optimism for the future.

I am a long-time advocate of the permanent portfolio.  This is a portfolio going back several decades, which was promoted by the great libertarian, Harry Browne.

The permanent portfolio is designed to protect your wealth in any type of economic environment.  It is also designed for simplicity.  The allocation is for four equal parts (approximately) in four asset categories.  The portfolio consists of 25% in stocks, 25% in gold, 25% in long-term government bonds, and 25% in cash (or cash equivalents).

Each asset category is there to do well in certain economic environments.  When one or more of the categories does poorly, the others are there to make up the difference.

Stocks are there for times of prosperity.  This would include the current environment where some of the prosperity is illusory and is a monetary inflation-driven boom.

Gold is there for times of high price inflation.

Long-term government bonds are there for times of depression and deflation.  As interest rates go down, the value of long-term bonds rises.

Cash is there to smooth everything out.  In certain periods of recession, it is possible that all assets can perform poorly.  Cash will hold its value and make the portfolio less volatile.

As Harry Browne noted in his book Fail-Safe Investing, recessions are generally short-lived.  The recession will turn into an environment of depression/ deflation, or prosperity, or inflation.

Your permanent portfolio can certainly go down in value.  But it tends to not last long, and the downturns are typically not severe.  It isn’t like owning a 100% stock portfolio where you could lose 60% of the value in the matter of months.

There are no guarantees with the permanent portfolio, just like anything else.  It is also far from perfect.  But I also haven’t seen anything with its simplicity that is better.  Even without regard to simplicity, I don’t think I’ve seen anything better in terms of balancing wealth protection with growth.

With that said, the current environment is difficult.  It seems like nearly everything is in a bubble.  I have been calling this the “everything bubble”.  The one major exception may be gold.  But if there is a major crash/ recession in the near future, gold could easily go down in value (in dollar terms) as well.  I just don’t think it will be as severe as stocks.

Bonds and Cash and a Depreciating Currency

I have received multiple comments recently regarding at least two of the components of the permanent portfolio.  It is hard enough for many people to swallow putting that much into bonds and cash.  It is that much more difficult for someone who is a libertarian.

It is easy to question the permanent portfolio at any time because one of the components will always be doing better than the others.  There will be at least one that is seemingly a loser, at least compared to the others.

The first thing I’ll say is that the permanent portfolio is up, certainly in nominal terms, and probably in real terms.  It is up quite substantially over the last year no matter how you measure it.  If you own PRPFX, which somewhat mimics the permanent portfolio, that is up about 30% from exactly one year ago.

Sure, if you are in the permanent portfolio, you are not up nearly as much as your friends who have 100% invested in stocks.  If you bought the Nasdaq one year ago, you would be up about 50%.

The whole point of the permanent portfolio is wealth preservation, while maintaining some growth over time.  There is nothing stopping anyone from going 100% into stocks, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.  I wouldn’t be sleeping well at night.  And if we hit a bear market with some kind of crash, it is impossible to know when it begins.  Even if we have one big down day where stocks fall 5%, you have no idea if it is the start of a major crash, or if it is just a one-day blip.

Libertarians tend to hate U.S. government bonds and cash for obvious reasons.  The Federal Reserve is creating money out of thin air like crazy, thus causing the money we have to depreciate in value.  The national debt keeps going higher, and some think there will be some kind of default.

I don’t think we will see an outright default in U.S. bonds any time soon, but we will see defaults on a continuing basis by devaluing the money in which they are priced.  That is happening now.

So why would you buy a 30-year bond that pays just over 2% annual interest?  Why would you hold cash/ money market funds that may pay 0.01% interest?

For the bonds, you are buying bond funds.  I don’t recommend purchasing long-term bonds through the actual Treasury. You can buy mutual funds and ETFs that fulfill this role.  If we hit a major crash, the long-term interest rates could go back down to near zero.  There would be significant appreciation in long-term bonds that would help offset the likely fall in stocks.  It is even possible that interest rates could go negative, as we have seen in other countries and regions.

If interest rates rise, then the value of the bonds will go down.  But then you will get the benefit of higher interest rates on your cash and bonds in the future.

It is important to remember that you rebalance the permanent portfolio.  If any one asset class strays too far from the 25% mark, then you rebalance.  You lighten the load on the assets that have gone up, and you add to those that have gone down or have not performed as well.  In other words, you are buying low and selling high.

It is important to stay disciplined with the rebalancing.  It is probably best to do it on a certain date a couple of times per year.  Or, if you are saving money by adding to your investment portfolio, then take your additional contributions and add it to whatever asset class is the lowest percentage at that point.

It is possible that bonds could go into a long bear market with interest rates going up.  If that is the case, then your other pieces are likely to do well, particularly gold.

I completely understand why people are concerned about investing in bonds and cash equivalents.  But you have to take in context with the entire portfolio.

I have previously offered alternatives to the bond portion, such as paying down debt, including a home mortgage.  But even here, I would still recommend having at least 15% allocated towards bonds.

There is a final important point to be made in all of this.  In Harry Browne’s book, he differentiates between speculation money and money you cannot afford to lose.  With the money you cannot afford to lose, it should go into the permanent portfolio or something similar.  You can set aside “play money” to speculate with, where you won’t be devastated if it doesn’t work out.

So if you believe that stocks and/ or gold are going to go sky high (in dollar terms) over the next several years while watching bonds get destroyed with higher interest rates, then you should speculate as such.

You could take 75% of your money (as an example) and put it into the permanent portfolio.  Take the other 25% and speculate in gold, mining stocks, Bitcoin, tech stocks, or whatever your heart desires.  Just make sure that it will not be devastating if those speculations do not turn out well.  For more conservative investors, maybe you will want to put 95% of your financial assets into the permanent portfolio, while playing with the remaining 5%.

As I have stressed a lot lately, this “everything bubble” is going to end at some point, and it isn’t going to end well for most people.  There are very few people who have cleaned up with speculative investments who will be satisfied and go completely conservative before the trouble hits.

Most of the people who have been invested heavily in stocks will be invested heavily in stocks when the crash eventually comes.

And for the people who are ultra conservative with their money who have a big pile of cash in the bank, they will end up getting burned by inflation.  The permanent portfolio may be considered conservative, but it does a great job of protecting against a depreciating currency.  In fact, the returns tend to be higher during times of higher price inflation, which is really what you should want.

Any one investment by itself is risky.  This includes holding cash.  The permanent portfolio diversifies this risk, while still providing for growth.

We are in the “everything bubble”.  This doesn’t technically mean that everything is going up or is in a bubble, but there is no question that most asset classes are going up in price right now.  It also seems unsustainable, unless the Fed is determined to bring us to some form of hyperinflation.

Stocks are booming.  Housing is booming.  Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are booming.  NFTs are booming.  Bonds, to a certain extent, have already boomed, but were limited to booming farther by zero interest rates.

Consumer prices are starting to rise faster.  We are going to get the Fed’s magical 2% inflation good and hard.  I have seen reports of raw materials such as lumber going up in price by 2 to 3 times what it was last year.  This partially explains the higher price for housing in most areas.

The Fed’s balance sheet keeps exploding higher.  It is nearing $8 trillion.  Yet the Fed keeps adding approximately $120 billion per month to get to our 2% average inflation.  We don’t know the time period that this “average” is supposed to take place.

Even going by the government’s own statistics, price inflation has picked up.  This isn’t the metric that the Fed cites, but it is the metric many others look at.  The CPI for March was up 0.6% from the previous month.  If you annualize that, it is an annual inflation rate of 7.2%.

The median CPI was up only 0.2% for March, which tends to be more stable.

While high inflation doesn’t necessarily show in the CPI statistics, there is no question that price inflation is picking up.  You can probably see this in your everyday life.

What should we expect when the government is handing out money to people to not work, while also handing out money to most Americans, just because?  Where does everyone think this money is coming from?  Taxes haven’t been raised on the rich recently.  It is all coming from debt monetization.  The Fed is funding all of this so-called stimulus by creating money out of thin air.

With direct payments, people have money to spend.  Young people can easily set up a Robinhood account and buy Tesla, GameStop, or whatever the newest gambling fad is.  They can also buy Coinbase, a company that briefly became worth $100 billion because it facilitates trading a bunch of computer code.

A friend of mine sent me an article the other day referencing tulip mania.  My comment: At least with tulip mania you might get some pretty flowers out of the deal.  With cryptocurrencies and NFTs, you’ll be left with a bunch of computer code.

Investing or Gambling?

We are in a gambler’s paradise right now.  If you are an “investor”, it has been pretty hard not to make money over the past year.  Don’t tell that to the hedge fund that was heavily shorting GameStop though.

I am a relatively conservative investor compared to what is out there now.  I know others who are similar.  We almost look like chumps right now for not cleaning up in the casino.

If you are in the same boat, or if you have been fortunate enough to get some big wins over the last year, then I will suggest that this cannot go on forever.  It can’t go on forever unless we have some form of hyperinflation.  If that’s the case, then you’ll have other issues.  If we have hyperinflation, then you’ll want to own gold.  Or more importantly, you’ll want to own food, along with guns to protect your food.

We are in a massive boom right now.  I was shopping over the weekend and it almost seemed like Christmas time at the mall.  Maybe a lot of people are tired of being locked up for the last year (whether it was forced or voluntary).

The problem is that it is an artificial boom built on easy money from the Fed.  Some people are paying down debt.  Some people are spending money on necessities.  Some people are buying consumer goods that they don’t need.  Some people are investing, or more accurately, speculating.

People intuitively know that they don’t want a large chunk of money sitting in their checking account.  They know it will lose value (purchasing power) over time.  They also know that it will barely pay anything to have it in a savings account or a U.S. Treasury bill.  This essentially forces people to become speculators so as not to lose money to inflation.

This is why it makes sense to a certain degree for people to be bidding up the price of houses.  This is why people are trying to make a quick buck in the stock market and in cryptocurrencies.  But it is all a giant bubble waiting to be popped.

People look brilliant right now.  There are people bragging about 40% returns over the past year, and this is just for people who are buying index funds.  People in even more speculative investments are largely cleaning up.

I was in my 20s when the tech bubble blew up and then popped.  It was euphoria in the late 1990s, and then it came down hard in the early 2000s.  By the way, the Nasdaq peaked in that bubble at just over 5,000 in March 2020.  It now stands above 14,000, which is almost three times the bubble price 21 years ago.

Most people who make a lot of money from a speculative boom are not disciplined enough to take their money and run.  They don’t know when it will end, so they keep playing the game.  If there are a couple of down days, they don’t know if it is a temporary blip or if it is the start of a bear market.

I can guarantee you that the majority of people who are cleaning up right now will be severely hurt when the bear market arrives.  It will arrive fast and hard.  The people who have done the best will be the people who get hurt the most.

I know it seems like it will keep going, at least for a while.  But consider how quickly it can change.  Let’s say that inflation numbers come out showing that price inflation has spiked to near double digits (10%).

Would the Fed be so insane as to blow it off and say that it will continue with its policy of near-zero interest rates and asset purchases of $120 billion per month?  It’s possible that would happen.  It’s also just as possible that it would announce it has to stop inflating so as to control the price inflation before it goes completely out of control.

If the Fed suddenly announced a stop to its monetary inflation, it could turn the sentiment of investors (gamblers) right away.  It could lead to a major crash.  It could quickly expose the house of sand that this bubble is built upon.

The brilliant investors will become the suckers.  They will be the last to hold the bag.  The ones who got in late will really become the worst of the suckers.

There will be a few who really were brilliant who made a lot of money but were smart enough to head for the exits before everyone else.  There will not be many of those people.

Meanwhile, for the more conservative among us, we will have to be satisfied in knowing that we didn’t get sucked in too much and didn’t get burned too much.  Even if you experience a 10% to 20% reduction in your investment portfolio, you will start to look like the genius compared to all of the people who lost 50% or more in the casino.

I am afraid that down the road, Bitcoin will make libertarians look bad.  There are varying opinions about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies even within the libertarian movement, but if and when Bitcoin fails, the enemies of liberty will be quoting the large segment who are currently promoting Bitcoin.

I am not so much talking about the investment or speculation side of Bitcoin.  If a libertarian, or anyone else, says that you should get into Bitcoin because it is going to $100,000 and you can make some quick money, that is one thing.  It is quite another to promote Bitcoin as an alternative form of money that will transform the world.

For hardcore libertarians who understand that there should be a complete free market with regard to money, the position is consistent that people should be free to use or not use Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency or alternative currency as they want.

Many libertarians are sympathetic to Bitcoin just for the fact that it is a potential competing currency, and it calls attention to the harmful policies of the central bank.

In this sense, I don’t want to make enemies of the people who are hardcore Bitcoin supporters, as it is difficult enough in this world to find people who have some understanding of the Federal Reserve and actually oppose it.  However, I also don’t want to give a reason for all of the anti liberty people to be critical of the liberty movement when Bitcoin doesn’t fulfill its promises.

It’s Not Money

I recently listened to an episode of the Tom Woods Show.  He had on a guest talking about Bitcoin.  The guest kept insisting that Bitcoin is money.

This is completely untrue.  In the United States, U.S. dollars serve as a form of money and really nothing else.  Gold has a long history of being used as money and would probably be used if left to the free market, but gold really doesn’t serve as money now either.

To be money, it has to be widely accepted.  You can’t walk into Walmart and pay with Bitcoin.  You can’t buy airline tickets with Bitcoin.  You probably aren’t going to pay your car mechanic in Bitcoin.  Even if some of these places started to accept Bitcoin, they would be almost-instantly converting bitcoins received back into dollars.

There is also the continuing problem that you are supposed to pay capital gains taxes on any dollar gains made by trading Bitcoin.  This would make bookkeeping quite complicated for individuals and businesses trying to stay compliant with the law.

The guest on this episode of Tom Woods’ show wasn’t saying that Bitcoin had the potential to be money.  He wasn’t saying that Bitcoin was on its way to becoming money.  He was saying that it is money, which is wrong.

Tom Woods is a solid libertarian and very knowledgeable on many issues.  And while I don’t think my position differs in any way in terms of policy (let the free market decide), I didn’t agree with one of his points in this episode.

Tom said that most of the people out there criticizing Bitcoin are the same people who want to keep you under lockdown for the virus.  This is a faulty debating technique.  It also isn’t even true.

Sure, there are many pro lockdowners who criticize Bitcoin in the corporate media.  This is no surprise.  But there are also a lot of people who fully opposed the lockdowns who also are not proponents of Bitcoin.  Also, the people in the corporate media criticizing Bitcoin are often criticizing it for different reasons than some libertarians criticize it.  I have also seen several establishment-type figures promoting Bitcoin for investment purposes.

Peter Schiff is one such prominent person in the liberty movement who speaks against Bitcoin, but there are many others in the libertarian/ Austrian school camp who are not hyping up Bitcoin and are warning about it.

I think some libertarians are excited about Bitcoin now because it was a group of somewhat liberty-minded people who brought it about, and now it has become something.  It has made the ticker on CNBC, so it is in the big leagues of personal finance now.  And this all came about because of a bunch of techie nerds who were sympathetic to free market money.

The problem is that Bitcoin and the thousands of other cryptocurrencies are nothing.  They were invented on a computer screen.  They have taken off now as part of the everything bubble.  I have no doubt that there was a good chunk of people who took their free government money (stimulus checks) and bought Bitcoin or other cyrptocurrencies.  The Bitcoin bubble fits right in with the stock bubble.

The only thing that libertarians should be saying in terms of policy is that people should be free to choose whatever form of money they decide.  It should be left to the marketplace.

This doesn’t preclude anyone from predicting or speculating that Bitcoin will go higher in terms of dollars.  But that should be done outside of the realm of libertarianism.

It’s like a libertarian saying, “As a libertarian, I understand that price inflation will reach 10% by next year.”  This is incorrect.  You can say, “As a libertarian, I understand that the Fed’s monetary inflation will do harm to the economy by misallocating resources and potentially leading to higher prices.”

It would not be incorrect to say, “As a libertarian, I predict that price inflation will hit 10% next year.”  But in this case, identifying as a libertarian is unnecessary in order to predict price inflation, and if you get the prediction wrong, it doesn’t mean you are wrong about libertarianism.

If Bitcoin crashes in terms of U.S. dollars, I think libertarians are going to take a beating in terms of reputation.  I know that the powers-that-be will go after libertarians no matter what.  But in this case, they will have actual quotes and video footage of libertarians touting Bitcoin and how it will one day compete with (or replace) dollars.

If Bitcoin goes to zero, the libertarian position remains the same.  The marketplace should choose money.  Ultimately, there should be no central bank.

I am thankful that Peter Schiff has been a consistent critic of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general.  Again, he’s not saying that anyone should be forbidden from trading it or holding it.  But he understands that Bitcoin lacks all of the good characteristics as a form of money.  That honor still belongs to gold.

On March 29, 2021, the Libertarian Part of Kentucky sent outthe following tweet.

“Are the vaccine passports going to be yellow, shaped like a star, and sewn on our clothes?”

The LP of Kentucky later sent out a clarification tweet saying, “If the Star of David tweet didn’t make it clear, The Libertarian Party of Kentucky is against #Vaccinespassports as they are a complete and total violation of human liberty.  This is the stuff of totalitarian dictatorships.”

In the original tweet, the LP of Kentucky is comparing the idea of vaccine passports to Hitler and Nazi Germany.  Instead of being tagged as Jewish, people would be tagged as unvaccinated.  And, of a course, unless you deny that the Holocaust happened, we know that millions of Jewish people were slaughtered in the early 1940s.

If there was one thing wrong with the tweet, it was that it got things a little backwards (which was later admitted).  The vaccine passports won’t be the equivalent of the Star of David. It will be people who are not vaccinated who will have the equivalent of the Star of David.  It will be the people not vaccinated and without “passports” who will be the mark.

This original tweet stirred up a big response.  There was a lot of backlash and support.

I think most of the people condemning the tweet are being hypocrites.  If someone says it is not an apt comparison, then that is one thing, and it can be debated.  The problem is that most of the critics are calling it insensitive or worse because it is comparing taking a vaccine to killing millions of Jews.

But that’s not what the tweet is doing, as I will discuss shortly.

Most of the people chiming in are hypocrites because they themselves use Hitler/ Nazi analogies for the things they hate.  At the very least, they don’t flip out and call it insensitive when others make an analogy for the people or things they hate.

Do you know how many times Trump was called a Nazi?  Did these same people speak out saying that it is insensitive or repulsive to compare Trump to Hitler or the Nazis because it compares Trump’s policies to killing millions of people?

I’m sure there may be a few consistent people out there, but not many who were attacking this tweet.

I can understand if a libertarian is criticizing it because he doesn’t want it coming from an organization with the “libertarian” name in it.  But even here, if they aren’t being hypocrites, I still think they are wrong.

When it comes down to it, most of the people criticizing this tweet aren’t criticizing it because it invoked the Holocaust.  They are criticizing it because they favor pushing the vaccines and are not opposed to the idea of vaccine passports.

It’s an Analogy

An analogy is an analogy.  Ayn Rand, call your office.  A is A.

An analogy doesn’t mean that we will literally have yellow-shaped stars sewn on our clothes if we don’t get vaccinated.  It also doesn’t mean that we will be marched off to concentration camps. It is an analogy, and it is a warning.

The comparison is also not referencing the same period of time as the actual Holocaust.  This is the point.  The Holocaust didn’t just happen.  The German officials didn’t just wake up one morning and decide they would march Jews off to concentration camps.  There was a groundwork laid down, and this tweet was a warning of groundwork being laid for something worse to come.  It doesn’t mean that all unvaccinated people will be taken to concentration camps and killed.  It was a warning against laying the groundwork for tyranny.

Hitler came to power in 1933.  The Nazi regime had to stir up a lot of propaganda and hate against the Jews.  There had to be a lot of groundwork laid down. Most of them were probably not even doing it with the ultimate intention of slaughtering millions of people.

So for all of the people who think that tweet is insensitive, repulsive, offensive, etc., I say you need to understand analogies.

Maybe it was over the top, but I am not even sure about that.  Again, it wasn’t comparing vaccine passports to the Holocaust. It was comparing vaccine passports to what was happening before the Holocaust.

And is it really so crazy that libertarians are making these comparisons after what has happened over the last year?  When people were talking about the possibility of vaccine passports less than a year ago, they were called crazy conspiracy theorists.  So what is supposed to be said now that vaccine passports are being publicly discussed and widely advocated by people with power?

In the last year, across America, people have been told to stay at home.  They have been told to wear masks and keep their distance from others.  Businesses deemed “non-essential” by government were forced to shut down.  People were told they couldn’t have weddings and funerals. People were told they shouldn’t see their loved ones on Thanksgiving and Christmas.  And now we’re being told that we might need a vaccine passport to just carry on with a normal life.

Tyranny has already arrived.  It doesn’t mean we have concentration camps and mass murder.  But if the above doesn’t qualify as some form of tyranny, I’m not sure what would.

What do the so-called libertarians who criticized this tweet think should be said at this point? Should we all be polite and say, “These vaccine passports may not be a good idea.  They could lead to an infringement on our civil liberties.”

There is a time and place for politeness, and I don’t think this is one of them.  It’s not to say that you shouldn’t be polite to others, but I don’t think we should be polite in the sense of holding back the truth because we are afraid to offend others.

I don’t know if using a Hitler/ Nazi analogy works in convincing others on the dangers of vaccine passports or anything else.  But I do know that libertarians who hold back the truth because they are afraid to offend others are mostly irrelevant and ineffective, at best.

Some people need to be figuratively hit over the head with a sledgehammer.  They need the bold truth thrown in their face.

I believe the LP of Kentucky did nothing wrong here (other than getting the original wording backwards), as they are fighting for liberty and trying to be bold about it. The tweet was not insensitive towards Jewish people or minimizing the Holocaust in any way.  It was a warning that we don’t even want to begin to go down any similar path in any way here.

This idea of vaccine passports is a dangerous idea and antithetical to liberty.  If only there were more people and organizations that would realize just how dangerous this whole idea is.