This is James Yeager, the owner of Tactical Response - a firearms training service in Tennessee. I recently attended one of their classes and found the instruction top-notch and the instructors highly professional. I'm a fan of Yeager's YouTube channel where I learn quite a bit about the new innovations in firearms and training.
Having said that, Yeager is a proud Libertarian. Here he is, telling you why:
And here are my comments at the video, and the responses from some of his other viewers:
I am coming to believe the Libertarian Party is a temporary holding place for:
A) Avid marijuana users,
B) Disgruntled Republicans,
C) Those both politically active and naive,
D) Those who must be 'more enlightened' than the rest of us.
Marijuana users come and go. They lack focus and can't be trusted to stick with anything for a long time. While they cycle through the Libertarian Party, they are the most vocal. Just watch Rand Paul's CPAC speech. The applause is louder when he mentions drug-related sentencing than when he mentions the NSA spying or drones targeting American citizens.
Disgruntled Republicans is the largest growing constituency in American politics today. Some cling to the Libertarian Party for a principled stand. Those who can think things through to their logical outcome eventually return to the Republican Party, as they discover the true nature of Libertarianism.
This is the Nolan Chart, designed to map the Libertarian 'enlightenment.' Notice that Libertarians are 'above it all?' How they straddle both sides to determine the 'best' solution for all? It is so simple!! One could even conclude that the Libertarians are the only people with Liberty in mind. They get the Statue of Liberty and we Republicans get an elephant and John Boehner.
Here is a different analysis of the Nolan chart: Libertarians adopt the anti-God and anti-family values of the left, and the pro-business values of the right. And, if you watch them as I do (click the Libertarian label at the bottom of this post) you'll find that it is even worse:
* The Libertarian Party would put the elderly into the streets with their entitlement shutdown.
* The Libertarian Party would legalize prostitution. How will that look in front of your home, or in front of your child's school?
* The Libertarian Party would expand abortion services. Who are we to tell others what they can do with their bodies?
* The Libertarian Party would pull our military away from their foreign posts. Show me a time this led to improved security.
* The Libertarian Party would end the Fed. Do we know what will replace it?
* The Libertarian Party would legalize a gateway drug. Then they'd realize their arguments for legalizing Marijuana also work for Heroine, Cocaine and Oxycontin. Any parents want to weigh-in on their ability to teach right from wrong in a Libertarian utopia?
* The Libertarian Party would restore America as it was at our founding.... (but without the religious and family values).
And you'll notice they shamelessly co-opt anything. See how Yeager brings up NSA? How did that belong to the Libertarians and not the Republicans or even the Democrats? Yeager is mistaken to think that if I am against the NSA, that I'm actually a Libertarian. These mistakes add up.
Another favorite co-opt of Libertarians (and a mistake) is Ayn Rand, author of my favorite book, Atlas Shrugged. Do they know she sees Libertarians as hippies who attach themselves to the Right to gain more attention? Do they know she sees them as anarchists?
Ayn Rand:
All kinds of people today call themselves “libertarians,” especially something calling itself the New Right, which consists of hippies, except that they’re anarchists instead of collectivists. But of course, anarchists are collectivists. Capitalism is the one system that requires absolute objective law, yet they want to combine capitalism and anarchism. That is worse than anything the New Left has proposed. It’s a mockery of philosophy and ideology. They sling slogans and try to ride on two bandwagons. They want to be hippies, but don’t want to preach collectivism, because those jobs are already taken. But anarchism is a logical outgrowth of the anti-intellectual side of collectivism. I could deal with a Marxist with a greater chance of reaching some kind of understanding, and with much greater respect. The anarchist is the scum of the intellectual world of the left, which has given them up. So the right picks up another leftist discard. That’s the Libertarian movement.Bless you, Ayn Rand.
Two things impressed me with the Tea Party movement. In 2009, thousands came together within weeks of Obama taking office. It was true grass-roots. The other thing that few see is that the Tea Partiers have stayed active in local politics. This led to the 2010 Republican gains, but I believe the real impact of this organization's infiltration into the unseemly world of politics has yet to be seen.
How do the Tea Party and the Libertarian Party differ? In short, the Tea Party is focused on key reforms and is acting on those fronts. The Libertarians just complain.
I can do this all day.
UPDATED 5.20.14 2:30pm:
UPDATED 5.26.14 10pm:
More comments at the YouTube video.
Nothing yet worth replying to.
UPDATED and BUMPED 6.4.14:
Something worth replying to:
9 comments:
You and Og both decry the concept of not voting for either of the Big Parties. You may be right. But all you folks ever do is say we throw our votes away.
Yet in the past two elections, voting for either of the RNC candidates was also throwing a vote away. Neither could win, because neither was a viable alternative to the DNC candidate.
Both were "lesser evils" in the minds of many non DNC voters, but in reality they were "DNC Lite" candidates. Neither had a chance of winning. Neither gave a clear alternate to Barry Obama. Would the country be better off by having either McCain or Rommney in office? Perhaps. Likely not though, because they were not materially different. We might not have had Obamacare, but we would likely have had something very very similar. In nearly all other respects they would be the same.
Until the RNC chooses to be DIFFERENT than the DNC, they will not motivate people to vote for them..
"Less bad" won't cut it. And it won't motivate people to get off their dead asses and vote either.
Barry won largely because he motivated a bunch of black people to actually bother to vote, for whatever reason (race?) and the DNC made it easy for them to do so....(possible (likely!) fraud aside).
But giving us lackluster candidates who are not a clear alternative to the DNC candidate is not the way to win. And if you don't win, and have a leader who will actually change anything, you can't fix the country either.
I reject your statement that I threw away my vote because I didn't give my support to the RNC. They have failed to provide a candidate who is worthy of a vote. And they took your support for approval, and have not learned anything from the fact that you "held your nose" and voted in support of them. Until they do learn, you are wasting your vote supporting them.
Thanks Mr. B for stopping by. With my post and your comment, we have collectively brought down the Internet. Think of the fires they are putting out in the NSA data centers right now!
I know one thing we would NOT have if McCain had won in 2008: The Tea Party. I am a believer that the Tea Party will rid us of the McCains and Romneys in years to come. It takes time and I'm frustrated too.
I respect your choice to vote in a principled manner. I feel I am doing the same.
The country is too far gone. Sure, I will continue to resist the socialist/communist wave our country is in the midst of. B is right about the R's giving us sub par democrat lite candidates, but we have gone over the edge and there is no coming back. I would LOVE to be wrong.
C.J.
They say you can't judge a book by its cover and I call bullshit. You can SO judge a person by his looks, and a party by its members.
The libertarians are always the same: long greasy hair. Or tatted up Rasputin-esque beardos like that twit in the vid. These people can't even groom themselves or look presentable...why should I listen to them or take them seriously?
I think that if these idiots can't get off the couch to vote - then they will deserve Hillary Clinton as the next president.
"Two things impressed me with the Tea Party movement. In 2009, thousands came together within weeks of Obama taking office - See more at: http://blog.ushanka.us/2014/05/the-anarchists-among-us.html#sthash.dbBh0jOq.dpuf"
The whole movement was birthed from the supporters of Ron Paul, a former libertarian presidential candidate and a member of the libertarian wing of the party. ..
And the tea party accomplished absolutely jack shit unless you count a 60 billion dollar budget as something to be proud of...
Here's why I vote libertarian, it steams from my participation in the 2012 presidential primaries in Washington state where the GOP establishment actively tried to suppress candidates of a certain contender. I should know, I was one of them and there were more than just a few of us. While the candidate we supported probably wouldn't have won the presidential primary, I can sure as shit tell you, that if what went on in my state went on every where else that his totals would have been far higher than reported nationally.
Why should I vote for a party that has not only absolutely failed to advance touted republican ideals but also actively suppress it's most potentially substantial voting block?
Given what I have witnessed since 2000 The GOP is just a left wing party that says nice things about Jesus, guns and the military; along with the occasional blurb about free enterprise. If you want to continue to vote for a fantasy then go ahead, I'm not going to stop you. But even if we had elected republicans in 2008 and 2012 I can tell you with 100% certainty things wouldn't be any different.
Appreciate the comments. Clearly this topic is deeper than a single blog post.
Glen - you are a crack-up. That reminds me to do a post about my Libertarian experience at CPAC 2008. Watch for a future post with "Zombies" in the title...
Cognitas, my votes for Republicans is not based on fantasy. My blog posts will attest to this. It is a "they suck less" vote for someone with a fighting chance. They may not advance Republican ideals in this "free stuff" political environment, but they may/will slow our decline.
Since you used the word, "fantasy," can you tell me what a vote for a party that never gets over 2% will do for you? Or me?
Karl
If given a choice between the lesser of two evil statist cronies, I would rather stay home and clean my guns.
I want to take issue with your criticism that libertarians want to replace the Fed but don't know what will replace it.
Two observations. First, if something has utterly failed then it should be replaced, even if you aren't sure what might work better. The Fed has done nothing to stabilize the economy, nothing to stabilize our currency, and nothing to improve the lives of Americans. All it has really done, in tandem with the abandonment of the gold standard, is to allow the government to spend trillions of dollars it doesn't have without having to actually tax us to pay for that spending, given it by the ability of a central bank to print fiat currency at will.
Secondly, the questions "replace it with what" has already been answered. This country did quite nicely for most of it's history without a central bank running a fiat money system. You don't need to speculate about what it would be replaced with, it's been tried and succeeded. Eliminate the Fed, eliminate fiat currency, go back to the days of low government spending and relatively stable economic growth.
Heresolong: I really appreciate your comment. Yes, the gold standard is an attractive option. I love the idea of taking people out of the equation, and yes, the gold standard was a success until a Republican (!) stopped it.
Having said that - and I plan to do a post on this in the near future - the gold standard has its flaws and worse, would backfire spectacularly if implemented today. The short version: a gold standard would require the US to trade currency for gold if asked. Who has a mountain of US debt right now? Imagine if China were to approach the US the day after the gold standard was implemented and asked for a trade for all their US debt they hold? Answer: we wouldn't have the gold to trade.
Now I'd argue (and would expect you to argue) that that is what we get for racking up $17T in debt. We deserve it. We must pay our debts.
So, we "deserve" a total collapse of our economy on day #2 of the gold standard?
I could be missing something here, but this scenario suggests an anarchist approach to replacing the Fed. Something "principled" yet destructive.
I'm an ass when it comes to Libertarians and their policy ideas, but you'll find me to agree with the sentiment more times than not.
Again - I really appreciate you taking the time to leave your comment.
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