Getting Libertarianism Right

This week’s book of the week was kind of an impulse buy…ok, not kind of it was a total impulse buy, so I could figure out what the heck was going on with the Libertarian Party since the national convention in May of this year. So, I bought Getting Libertarianism Right by Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

A little more background information before I get to the actual review. In case it hasn’t been clear enough from some of my recent reviews, I think both the right and the left suck equally. I’ve been politically centrist and voted Libertarian in the last two presidential elections, and whenever a local election kicks out a Libertarian candidate. I am still slightly bitter about the husband deciding to stay in Nevada, versus joining the Free State Project in New Hampshire. What does all this have to do with this week’s book of the week?

In May 2022, the Libertarian National Convention was held in Sparks, Nevada, and the leadership experienced a massive shake up and I believe almost if not actually 100% turnover in leadership as the Mises Caucus swept through and took over the party. This immediately caused the outgoing leadership to start crying about how a bunch of racists have taken over the party.

Now, this does concern me, because I do not support blind hatred of anyone for something they have no control over, like the color of their skin or where they were born. Hate someone for their actions, even hate them for their ideas….looking at you Karl Marx…but racism…no thank you. I would, in fact, nope out if that were the case. However, as Facebook helpfully reminded me earlier this month, being labeled a racist today is much like being labeled a witch in the middle ages. No evidence is required. It’s simply a weapon used to defeat people you don’t like. And the mobs of ignorant rioters never question it. As much as things change, things stay the same.

So, I did a little digging. Or rather, I jumped in to the most vocal Facebook threads on the question, on my timeline at least, and these were found in the Libertarian Party Discussion page. Then a funny thing happened. Every time I asked for actual proof of racism, the ones saying people were racist, were unable to provide any. I had ONE person link me to a blog post, where the blog post repeated the same allegations, but again provided nothing by way of proof. And the three people who were decried as being the most racist were Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

And since no one could provide me any concrete evidence of racism on any part by any of these three titans of thought who are apparently the inspiration for the Mises Caucus, I decided to do my own research. As one should always do. Which leads me to Getting Libertarianism Right.

I think Hoppe is angry. And I don’t blame him. He was a close friend of Rothbard’s, practically his disciple, and the Libertarian Party has gone seriously astray with what he calls liberallala libertarians. Basically, people who dislike the extremes of the Democratic Party are infiltrating the Libertarian Party, and turning it into democrat light.

So, this book is only four chapters long, but he covers a lot of ground in those four chapters. Chapter one he addresses realistic libertarianism. Essentially, property rights are the most important factor of libertarianism. I can almost hear the idiots screaming about slavery and property. If you followed along on my Civil War journey, you’ll know that the south fought the war for the right to keep their property, in the form of their slaves. Hoppe addresses this too. First and foremost, you cannot own another human being. You can only own yourself. Anything else is a violation of the non-aggression principle. So, right off the bat, I’m good with this. Since that statement about only owning yourself 100% precludes owning another human being, making slavery off the table. So, Hoppe passes the racist test there. Specifying slavery is not ok. With no qualifications.

Now, Hoppe does break it down, in great detail, as to why, in general, libertarians tend to get along better with those right of center vs left of center. He didn’t quote Reagan, but as Reagan said, “The very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.”

Now, that made a great soundbite at the time, but very little has been done to hold up that ideal in the beltway. Basically, the Right is closer to liberty ideals in that they do acknowledge private property rights. The Left…not so much. And it is very much the illiberal left infiltrating and destroying the freedom movement in America. Hoppe addresses open borders and why that is a terrible idea, in addressing why the right and the liberty movement has so much in common. The problem with open borders is that the people coming into the country have to share the values of the people already living there, or else there is conflict. Good lord, witness DeSantis political stunt of shipping immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard, or even better, watch how Democrat party mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington DC declared a public emergency in DC when buses of immigrants arrived in our nation’s capital.

The liberallala libertarians maintain this is all fine because we should have open borders. But really, look no further than Europe with their open and free immigration laws. This matter was addressed in detail in Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book, Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights, which I reviewed back in March of this year. The inherent conflict between how Islam view women and the free movement of women in western countries creates a powder keg that blows up the argument for free and open borders.

As Hoppe points out, the right does not, in fact, believe that all men (and women) are equal. In fact, it’s patently obvious that we are not all equal. Theoretically, we are all created equal, as the Declaration of Independence says, which means we all come into this world naked, screaming, and covered in blood. From there, equality ends. Some people are born poor, some are born wealthy. Some are born in America, some are born in Eritrea, and if you don’t think those worlds are vastly different, with different expectations, then might I recommend you pick up a book a educate yourself.

The left believes that not only are we created equal, but that we should all stay equal. And they are not above using the state to appropriate funding to ensure that equality. And that is where things fall apart. Hoppe spends a significant part of the book destroying the ideals held near and dear to leftists with cold, brutal logic. It was good for me. There were parts of me that leaned a little left, but the logic was pretty solid. I will be referring back to this book as needed in the future.

Now let’s get to the right. I strongly suspect that, in addition to not being able to defeat the logic of the argument against the left, part of the allegation of racism against Hoppe is that he will at least talk to the “alt-right.” This, as we all know, the left hates. Hell, I had one jackass try to spam my channel that I was racist because I read Brandon Tatum’s book. I read a damn book and this clown tried to shut me down. And look no further than the hatred and vitriol heaped on Kim Kardashian when she met with President Trump to get a poor woman a presidential pardon. Man…there are plenty of things to dislike about the Kardashians, but if you dumped on Kim for crossing the aisle to help an innocent woman out, your moral compass is F U C K E D U P.

So, the alt-right. Here again, despite his willingness to cross the Aisle and converse with someone with an unapproved message, I found no evidence of racism. In fact, I found the exact opposite. Direct quote from the book “I believe it is a serious strategic error to make “whiteness” the exclusive criterion on which to base one’s strategic decisions, as some strands of the Alt-Right have suggested to do. After all, it is above all white men that make up the ruling elite and that have foisted the current mess upon us.”

This all-in relation to the extreme divisions currently found in western cultures as far as ever narrower minorities which are all, to some degree or another, considered victims in the face of white cis-heteronormative males. Basically, the leftists teach that the only one it is ok to actively hate on is white men. And while the message should absolutely appeal to these disenfranchised and deliberately targeted white men, it should not EXCLUSIVELY CATER to them. The libertarian message should be broad. For one very simple reason. The libertarian party has fallen into the political trap of assuming change will only happen when we can start getting people elected to positions of authority.

Historically, this is not what happens’. Not that third parties can’t win. Lincoln was technically a third-party candidate as the Republicans were brand new on the scene, Lincoln being only their second presidential nominee. But rather, as the saying goes, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Get a libertarian elected to a national post, and he will return either democrat or republican lite. The duopoly holds the floor.

The message has to spread in a grassroots movement. And there is no earthly reason to limit that movement strictly to white people, and in fact every reason to include all of We the People in that movement. With the exception of communists and socialists.

Which brings me to why I think the libertarian party had such a melt down and started seeing racism everywhere it wasn’t when the Mises Caucus stepped into power. The paradox of tolerance. I know I’ve mentioned this before in Exposing the Real Che Guevara, but to repeat the point, the paradox of tolerance, states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. The illiberal left is grossly intolerant, but they will call for tolerance in everyone until they have control, then flip the script, and scream how everyone but them are intolerant.

Now, in chapter 3, Hoppe got to the real brass tacks, and laid out 10 points that would lead to a Libertarian Society. These being.

1.       Stop mass immigration. See point above about how if the immigrants don’t share cultural mores, conflict is inevitable. Look, Hoppe points out that no one is against immigration per se. But it is not unreasonable to want the incoming immigrants to let you live your life as you always have been. And yes, I get the cultural relativists and historical revisionists (not to be confused with actual historians, of which Rothbard and Hoppe are certainly included) will scream about how white man came to America and fucked it up for the natives already here. But-- and this is a highly relevant point-- YOU CANNOT CHANGE THE PAST. All you can do is learn from it. The Native Americans allowed mass immigration, how did that work out for them? One could even argue they did NOT allow it, but the white man invaded with guns and took over. Lesson learned: make sure those crossing the border are not armed.

2.       And I cannot stress this enough: STOP ATTACKING, KILLING, AND BOMBING PEOPLE IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES! Seriously people, 9/11 didn’t just happen. It happened because we had been waging war in Afghanistan for DECADES! My heart aches for all the innocent lives lost that day. And it aches for the innocent lives destroyed daily in the TWENTY-TWO YEARS since that happened, as we continue to drop daily bombs on innocents in the middle east. It is not only combatants who are injured there. We the people had nothing to do with that, and neither did the so called “collateral damage” in the middle east. If we quit destroying their country with bombs, they’ll have less reasons to immigrate to western countries, causing the culture clashes described by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Step 2 directly helps with step 1.

3.       Defund the ruling elites and their intellectual bodyguards. I’ve said on Facebook…and possibly in a review but definitely on Facebook, the only people the IRS should ever audit, are our elected officials. Their salary, their stock trades, their expenditures, every cent they take in or spend, should be open to public scrutiny. Same for university professors. The criminality that occurs by our elected officials that is swept under the rug by professors and media is absurd. To the point that, God love him, Joe Rogan is more trusted for news than any of our media outlets.

4.       End the FED and all central banks. This would also help with step three. Also, Ron Paul wrote a book called End the Fed. 10 out of 10 would recommend it. Excellent reading.

5.       Abolish all “affirmative action” and non-discrimination laws and regulations. This is probably the third stick the useful idiots use to bang the racist drum when decrying Hoppe. Only, this idea has also been espoused by economists like Walter E Williams and Thomas Sowell. But…well…. it’s hard for the intellectually dishonest to call either of those gentlemen racist. So, they just call them Uncle Toms, without ever knowing what exactly that story was about.

6.       Crush the “anti-fascist” mob. As more and more victim groups are identified, we must eventually recognize that the only thing anti-fascist about antifa, is their name. You do not get to use fascist tactics and claim to be the good guy.

7.       Crush the street criminals and gangs. This goes with the immigration policy highlighted above, but also covers how uber liberal cities like San Francisco and Chicago have literal no fly zones, where policing is virtually non-existent, and criminals run things. So now we have criminals in congress, and in the street. No wonder the average American no longer feels safe in America. Also, this point has been razed by Gothix…also not a racist

8.       Get rid of all welfare parasites and bums. Look, before the welfare state came into being, people depended on private charity and family to care for those who could not care for themselves. Prior to the government stepping in and taxing the life blood out of America, American’s were wonderfully charitable. But now everyone assumes the government will take care of it. And consequently, no one gives a damn anymore.

9.       Again, big stressors on this one GET THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF EDUCATION. Gad Saad wrote a whole book on this one. Great book, recommended reading. All of it is the result of government intervention in education. One GOOD thing to come out of the recent medical crises is the rise in homeschooling. The teacher’s union has seriously overplayed it’s hand here.

10.   Don’t put your trust in politics or political parties. This includes the Libertarian Party. Because political parties can be infiltrated. Witness the recent upset at the Libertarian Party National Convention. Again, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The last chapter specifically addresses his time with Murray Rothbard and at University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV). I’m sad that I was not political right out of high school. If I had been, I would have chosen to go to UNLV specifically to study with Hoppe.

I quite liked this book. It did answer for me the question of whether or not Hoppe is racist, with a resounding NO. Those who claim he is dislike the fact that he could logically explain away their logical fallacies. Basically, this book explains why they are not real libertarians. And they resent him for calling them out on their bullshit.

Now, I can’t yet answer the question of racism in regard to Mises and Rothbard, as I have not read those two gentlemen yet, but I’m inclined to think this is all a witch hunt drummed up by sore losers. When I posted the quote on Facebook at the beginning about racism being a red herring, one of my lefty friends commented on how those accusations were rarely made without some modicum of truth. I responded with this picture from one of the Salem Witch museums in Massachusetts.

 Especially note the last sentence. “The fact that the young girls were unquestionably believed because the community allowed fear to overtake reason is a valuable lesson.”

Salem Witch house was fun. The tour at the end, they had this big wall mural explaining witch hunts and how McCarthyism in the 1950s was just another witch hunt. I whispered to my husband “oh it’s like saying someone is racist, or that all cops are racist.” He grabbed me and whispered back “we are deep in enemy territory here. Do not turn us into victims 21 and 22.”

This book was originally reviewed on YouTube on September 18, 2022, but is now available on Rumble and PodBean.