Attempts To Reach The Left: An Unmitigated Disaster

Libertarians face a number of formidable challenges in their efforts to make the world a freer place. The sheer volume of statutes, regulations, and bureaucracies is staggering to even gaze upon, much more so to dismantle in any sort of organized manner. The massive public education system dulling the wits of the populace, teaching them the opposite of all that is true, and doing so while their minds are most impressionable, presents a hurdle so fantastic to overcome, one can scarcely imagine anything but the shrugging of Atlas himself to stop it.  The massive funding of our opponents compared to our struggle to keep activists like myself going. We are threatened with arrest, assault, incarceration, ostracism. Our families don’t understand us. Our love lives are interrupted. Our children are kidnapped. The scorn, the hate, the lies, the violence, the irrationality of it all. The infighting…

At times it seems absurd to go through so much effort just to be hated and see so little progress. It is enough to make some of us quit. Indeed, many of us have.

Others double down, risk it all, stand and fight, come what may.

A growing number of people however have chosen a different strategy, one which threatens to defeat the purpose altogether. This strategy not only fails to accomplish goals, it adds to the frustration that causes good men and women to abandon the cause, and undoes meager advances they had made while still a part of it. It promises unity, greater numbers, and greater funding, but delivers only strife, dilution, and poverty.

The strategy is born out of some toxic catch phrases adopted by libertarians over the decades to dumb down the message for the voting cattle. They are led to believe libertarianism is “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” or “right on economic issues, and left on social issues” or the old classic “low tax liberalism”. You can see how one might come to such conclusions if you just glimpsed at the issues quickly. Libertarians oppose taxes and other economic interferences by governments, yet we don’t seek laws to prevent or punish voluntary activities like drugs, homosexuality, or men dressing up like women.

The thought process goes something like this. “Well, if libertarians are socially liberal, then we ought to be reaching out to liberals on social issues. This will help us reach disaffected demographics and build our numbers and fundraising efforts.”

The trap is set, and the prey has taken the bait.