The Death of Libertarianism & the Rise of the Alt Right
Gregory Hood“We are, in a way, breaking a glass ceiling this year,” says Libertarian Vice Presidential nominee William Weld. It’s appropriate Weld uses a feminist metaphor. Like feminists and other Cultural Marxists, the Libertarians are masquerading as opposition to the System while functioning as an indispensable support. And though the Libertarian Party appears to make the greatest electoral gains in its history this year, it has never been less relevant in terms of being a meaningful force for change.
As this is written, LP Presidential candidate Gary Johnson is polling near double digits, suggesting he may be included in the presidential debates. He also will likely secure federal funding for the party by polling above five percent. But just as the question “is the Pope Catholic?” is no longer rhetorical in the Current Year, it’s a real question whether the Libertarian Party candidate is actually a libertarian.
In a way, some of the foolishness at this year’s Libertarian Party convention, including an all but naked fat guy dancing on stage and Gary Johnson tossing an opponent’s congratulatory gift in the trash, actually helped the party. It makes it look like more of a real alternative than it actually is.
Johnson is less Ron Paul come again than the John Anderson of 2016. He said he would have supported the Civil Rights Act, which means he already conceded the right of the federal government to control people’s property for the purposes of social engineering. He does not support religious liberty, showing that whatever rhetoric he uses, he ultimately believes egalitarianism and nondiscrimination trump property rights. This is a key issue for some #NeverTrump social conservatives who would be otherwise inclined to support him but Johnson has shown he doesn’t want social conservative votes. He even mused on the idea of a carbon tax or fee to fight climate change.
Seeing as how Johnson is unlikely to win a single state, let alone the presidency, it’s unclear why libertarians should bother with him even as a means for advancing their ideas. Trump is also promising to lower the federal debt, lower taxes, and cut government waste. Johnson’s fiscal record is unimpressive, as he increased the debt while Governor of New Mexico. His defenders argue it wasn’t really his fault because the legislature controls spending. Even if we accept this, how is the federal government any different?
Trump is also hammered daily by neoconservatives as a foreign policy novice who is insufficiently hostile to Russia. He also shocked the foreign policy establishment by championing America First. Can Johnson promise more to non-interventionists?
Johnson’s Vice-Presidential nominee Weld is a living exemplar of WASP degeneracy and the collapse of the former American ruling class, much like Lincoln Chaffee. Put a Pilgrim hat on him and Weld’s phenotype would fit in perfectly in an old painting of the arrival of the Mayflower. He supported both gun control and the Iraq War, positions which really shouldn’t be tolerated among Libertarian Party members, let alone the Vice Presidential nominee. Even Reason magazine, the flagship for left-libertarians, was mystified by the choice of Weld, saying he wasn’t just a “softcore libertarian,” but not a libertarian at all.
Jack Hunter, before covering himself in shame, used to mock the Beltway Right for defending “conservatism as a word” even though it had been stripped of all substance. Yet today’s supposed liberty movement defends libertarianism as a word. What threat to the state does Johnson present? What personal freedoms can someone like Gary Johnson promise to regain for the American people, other than “lmao, weed”? In short, what does Johnson offer libertarians other than simple exposure?
The answer is a place at the trough. At a time when the Alternative Right is being identified by as nothing less than the biggest threat to hegemonic liberalism since communism, libertarianism (the capital L variety at least) is transforming into the loyal opposition for the System and the state. Johnson unhesitatingly accepts the premises of the Left when it comes to cultural questions. He also endorses using the power of government to force the Left’s social program.
For example, Johnson said, explicitly, it’s the federal government’s job to prevent discrimination “in all cases.” Of course, enforcing non-discrimination provides the rationale for unlimited government control, from mandating racial diversity in suburban neighborhoods to regulating social interaction at the office.
Johnson continued: “I mean under the guise of religious freedom, anybody can do anything . . . Why shouldn’t somebody be able to shoot somebody else because their freedom of religion says that God has spoken to them and that they can shoot somebody dead?”
Aside from the obvious answer of “laws against murder,” I’m tempted to say “because it would be Islamophobic to say they can’t.” But Johnson actually said this in reference to Mormons, even though his best chance to do well is in Western states. It was also mere moments after Johnson bemoaned the potential for anti-Muslim discrimination.
Johnson’s swift suggestion that some cake shop refusing to serve homosexuals is equivalent to murder is revealing. Indeed, Johnson does the usual leftist tactic of conflating any opposition to leftist cultural policies to racist tyranny.
On immigration, a divisive issue among libertarians, Johnson appears blithely unaware that there are even arguments against it. He looked on the brink of tears when he said Trump is “racist, just racist.” Instead, taking Rand Paul’s “Detroit Republicans” angle to the next level, Johnson is now “lowriding” to show how much he loves the Hispanics who are replacing the gross European-Americans who once populated the Southwest.
On Black Lives Matter, Johnson now says he supports the movement because it opened his eyes to “discrimination.” Whether he is even aware of BLM’s demands for massive transfers of wealth and government programs to benefit their race is unknown.
Would-be Vice President Weld, again, a Libertarian candidate, explicitly stated the federal government would be justified in taking massive action to appease these activists.
“I think we have a national emergency in the number of male black youth who are unemployed without prospects,” Weld said, according to Politico. “They’re four times as likely to be incarcerated if they have intersection with law enforcement as white people are. Their educational opportunities are not there. We have to get them in to education and just concentrate the power of the government, trying to make sure that there are jobs available for them. It’s a national emergency and when there’s a national emergency, the government has to respond. Libertarian or no libertarian.”
If blacks being arrested at higher rates, having higher unemployment, or having lower rates of education constitutes a “national emergency” forcing drastic government action, then we will always have a permanent emergency and practically unlimited government.
But we know this. And this is what is so frustrating about the Libertarian Party’s recent direction and so triggering for the Alt Right. In the past, Libertarianism has attracted many intelligent young rightists because it’s less obviously foolish than the hoary bromides and self-interested rhetoric coming from the Beltway Right. For those who didn’t start out as nationalists, Identitarians, racial realists or National Socialists, it usually begins with Ayn Rand. But it doesn’t end there unless, like conservatives, you retreat into protective stupidity to guard your ideology from reality.
Much of the history of the libertarian movement in the latter part of the century is about dedicated champions of limited government trying to grapple with inconvenient facts like human biodiversity and racial realism, the inherent inability of a democracy to protect liberty, the drawbacks of universal suffrage, and the self-destructive implications of open borders or cultural degeneracy. If you don’t address these issues, even if arguendo we ignore race and demographics, libertarians can at best make a destructive System function more efficiently.
Consider the case of Milton Friedman, the author of Capitalism and Freedom and one of the more influential libertarians of the last century. He was also one of those who created income tax withholding, which, because it removes the burden from wage earners for writing a check for their taxes and creates the impression of a “gift” when you get a return, makes it far more difficult for supporters of limited government to get tax cuts. Though he wasn’t the only person responsible for this idea, the negative impact of income tax withholding far outweighs whatever Friedman contributed to his cause with books and videos about how to make a pencil.
Thinkers such as Hans-Herman Hoppe, Murray Rothbard, Joseph Sobran, and others who we could call paleolibertarians didn’t just say “freedom works!” Whatever their failings from the viewpoint of those of us who put race first, these men and those like them at least honestly approached the question of how one can achieve and maintain a libertarian society. And their work made an important contribution to Neo-Reaction, which also helped lead to the emergence of the Alternative Right. You can’t talk about the Alt Right without acknowledging how so many libertarians and former libertarians understand there should be a government helicopter program.
With Johnson and much of the mainstream libertarian movement, the objective is not to limit the state or even think critically about how to approach the problem. Instead, literally decades of arguments and research are ignored as self-declared enemies of the state flock to Washington DC to lobby and labor in the government they are supposed to fight. By openly adopting leftist and egalitarian premises, they ensure they never face any real opposition. The most degraded College Republican has more courage.
Thus, the figures toying with the idea of endorsing Gary Johnson reportedly include Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, and even Jeb Bush. Weld calls the campaign a “six-lane highway going right up the middle between the two parties.” If this is true, why bother calling it Libertarian? Why not resurrect Sam Waterston’s Unity08 proposal for a moderate third party? Or why not just hand the country over to Michael Bloomberg and call it a day? At least then we wouldn’t be kidding ourselves that this is some kind of a real opposition to Washington DC.
The Alt Right wants an alternative to the current political, and more important, cultural system. Libertarians want a place inside that system where they can goof off about regulatory reforms which will never happen and make fun of Middle Americans who think “liberty” means something other than degeneracy. Just as the conservative movement became Conservatism Inc., the opposition to the state has transformed into Libertarianism Inc., a racket for mediocrities to eke out a living in the capital of the Hollow Empire.
This is a danger the Alt Right may face as well if it continues to grow in prominence. Already, we see attempts at co-option and a push to deny the role of race as central to the Alt Right.
As the movement grows, we have to remember what the Libertarian Party has forgotten. We don’t want to giggle and offer polite suggestions to our enemies about how to do things better. Our role is not to serve as the loyal opposition to Leviathan, but to ensure our people can escape its poisonous grasp.
The Alt Right is not just an alternative to the mainstream conservative movement. It’s an alternative to the regime and its rulers which govern us, hate us, and mandate our destruction. And the Libertarian Party, and much of the libertarian movement, is now just another part of the System we need to displace.
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13 comments
The 2016 election is between a civic nationalist and a third worldist. The Libertarian Party presents a bizarre sideshow of third-party White men who find themselves running as 2004 Democrats, neither appealing to today’s Democrats nor to most Republicans. Maybe they will grab some #NeverTrump votes and the dude-weed-lmao single issue supporters of Sanders. But what kind of party can conduct itself with any self-respect knowing most of its success is owed to traitors and stoners?
Emerging development:
A new medical procedure said to allow parents to preselect the racial identity of their offspring has been reported in Wednesday’s San Diego Cornucopia. Known as the Taxonomic Reassignment Protocol (TRP), the treatment has been reported effective when administered no later than seven weeks after conception. Despite political opposition from some minority spokespersons, the cure has been approved by the FDA and is expected soon to go into production under license of the patentees.
Company representatives claim this innovative application could significantly alter the racial composition of the nation. To date, more than seven million applications have been submitted, while common and preferred share prices have soared in value by more than 400% since the announcement.
This is a danger the Alt Right may face as well if it continues to grow in prominence. Already, we see attempts at co-option and a push to deny the role of race as central to the Alt Right.
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A very real threat, but what’s interesting is that among Breitbart, the (frankly nutty) Alex Jones crowd, and a number of garden-variety “conservative” gathering holes, associating oneself with the Alt-Right has now irreversibly become a positive signal. Even if their motivations are generic and mostly sterile (e.g., the desire to be vaguely “politically-incorrect”), the choice lying before all but the most committed anti-Whites and ethnomasochists is perceived as: RINO vs Alt-Right. The days of Hannity, Levin, and Limbaugh dominating the discussion are over. Sure, we’ll continue to see the occasional slip-back argument of “Demonrats have policies that are so bad for African-Americans!!”, but I anticipate that this will become more of a rarity once election season is over.
Clinton’s speech and commercial have all but coronated Jared Taylor, Peter Brimelow, etc. as the leaders of the New Right. (Duke will never gain that kind of stature, rightly or wrongly, with the baggage that he carries.) It is the establishment Right that will board our ride; not the reverse.
As nationalists, we preference our own. My fundamental problem with libertarianism is that – particularly in its ‘vulgar’ form – it boils down to whoever has the most money wins. This is an explicitly (((internationalist))) creed that would consign white workers in all countries to the scrap heap. Give me the tribal socialism of Jack London, William Lane and William Guthrie Spence any day.
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Great article. This is why race is central to the alt right – we could never be the loyal opposition, the well-behaved poodle, so long as we remain ethnic nationalists.
The one benefit to being such a radical and dissident movement is that co-option is harder. We call ourselves the ‘Alt Right’ and whenever the media asks, “Who is the ‘Alt Right’?” they send their readers over to Radix Journal, Counter Currents, VDARE, and American Renaissance. They are not sending their readers over to some milquetoast site where they avoid the race issues and are merely civic nationalists. Not only that but the only sites producing intellectual content that call themselves ‘alt right’ are the ones listed above. I do not know of any cucks who wear the ‘alt right’ label who are producing anything at all. If any race-denying cuck calls themselves ‘alt right’ it is apparent that they have not done their homework as to what that term means. We call ourselves ‘alt right’ and our enemies in the media call us ‘alt right’ so we are the ‘alt right.’
So InfoWars, Milo Bubbalopolous, Breitbart, John Eyebrows Watson, Ann Dynomite! Coulter, Alex Coloidal Whatshisname, & The Conservative Treehouse are Alternative Right? You’ve got to be kiddin’ me! I can barely tolerate the idea of Jared Taylor or Peter Brimelow being included!
Solid article on the Alt Right:
Who Is Pepe, Really?
http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/29/who-is-pepe-really/
also here:
http://archive.is/cegbY
I doubt that a year ago anything so racialist could have been published at the Daily Caller.
I think the leftward turn of the Libertarian party is due in large part to Ron Paul. A lot of leftists became libertarians because they really liked Ron Paul – his policies (some of them, anyway) and his personality. He’s such a sweet old man that you can’t help but like him – he’s the white Morgan Freeman.
But he’s not a candidate anymore, so now there are all these new converts to libertardianism who are basically still leftists at heart. The party really has no choice but to cater to them, else be even more irrelevant than they already are.
“As the movement grows, we have to remember what the Libertarian Party has forgotten. We don’t want to giggle and offer polite suggestions to our enemies about how to do things better. Our role is not to serve as the loyal opposition to Leviathan, but to ensure our people can escape its poisonous grasp.”
I’m not usually a black-pill kind of guy, but I have to ask the question. What if our country is already too far gone to win in an election? What if it is too inundated with non-whites for an alt right candidate to ever win the presidency? No matter what happens this November, in all likelihood the brown hordes will continue to pour into our country. It doesn’t matter how hard line we are ideologically or politically, pretty soon it won’t even matter. We need to be thinking of alternatives. We need to really invest in real world networking and building parallel institutions. We need to start befriending people in our local governments, in the police, and in the military. It’s fun being in the alt right, it’s fun going to conferences and trolling people online. I think it should continue to be fun, but if we don’t want to end up like Libertarian or Conservative Inc. we’re going to have treat this as more than a leisurely pass time. Hopefully it won’t come down to it, but we need people who would willingly die for the cause if we’re going to win. We need to cultivate that kind of attitude.
^^This^^
“… [I]nsufficiently hostile to Russia…”?1?1 Tsar Vladimir’s Russia ia N O T the Soviet Union.
Gary Johnson is receiving a lot more support this year than he did when he ran in 2012. In 2012 he got 1% of the vote and now he’s polling at 9%, but you can’t tell me that there are nine times more Libertarians than there were four years ago. I know of one guy who was a fan of John Kasich who is now supporting Gary Johnson. I think a lot of moderates have gone over to Johnson and lot of blue-collar Democrats to Trump. These candidates serve as repositories for coalitions rather than pure reflections of ideology.
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