What Do We Do Now? (Part 4)
A necessary bridge to be built between conservatives and libertarians.
I must admit before I get started writing this, that I am seriously excited to try to work this one out. I believe that I have found a path forward between the two sides here. To be fair, the libertarians make up about 100 different sides and the conservatives usually fall into about three camps: the nationalist, the states’ rights, and then somewhere in between.
In my journey through the political realm, I was 18 when I voted for George W. Bush. I completely hated the man after the events of 2007 and 2008. I later realized that I hated him for almost about everything the man stood for-I guess I should say worked for. In 2008, after bouncing around the majors at Texas A&M University, I settled on Political Science as a major. In this time, I realized that the Constitution, when read from beginning to end, was basically reduced to a handful of clauses and the 14th Amendment. If you read it, in actuality, you will find that over the past 150 years or so, it really only is ignored substantially. When I said I settled on Political Science, I was not lying. I did not find the answers to this in any political class, but rather in a History class. In Early American History, I discovered the answers to questions that I always had in the back of my mind, but never was taught before that class. There were two American periods, the Jeffersonian and the Lincolnian. For more on this, I recommend the following brief lecture.
At the same time, the U.S. was getting ready to bailout Wall Street (read Tom Woods’ Meltdown for the best take on this event in the game today) and the two candidates were both backing the bailout. It was voted for by near unanimous vote in the Senate and the House caved after initially voting against it. There was no candidate worth a damn running for President-or at least so I thought. Here came this slender man who was from Clute, TX and he was running on pro-liberty, anti-war, and an actual free market. He was getting relentlessly attacked on stage by the rest of the candidates. They claimed he was from the wrong party. He politely reminded them that he was the most conservative member on the stage. I thought this was a confusing comment, maybe because I did not know exactly what it meant to be a conservative at the time. Anyway, after the primary season, I was talking with a friend of mine and I said that I guess we had to settle for what was on stage. He kindly shook his head and said there was no going back. I thought about this comment for a very long time. Then I started reading Paul's book about 2008 and I realized there was no going back. I started reading everything Paul released and started learning actual economics from the Austrian School. I was so pumped up for 2012. I had graduated at the time, but my wife was finishing up her DVM so I was on campus when Paul came to speak. I was there to see the man who had so much optimism about the future by talking about these old principles. I was so motivated for this campaign. I was donating to all of his “money bombs” that I could.
Then the events of 2012 unfolded. The way they robbed Ron Paul during the primary and then basically told the Libertarians that supported him that they had no place in the GOP. They gave him no speaking time in debates, collaborated to promote a favorite candidate to victory to block Paul in the caucuses and primaries, they robbed delegates from him, they even denied them access with dirty ballots. This is all itemized in Swindled. I recommend this to anyone who reads this Substack because it let’s you know the damage done in 2012 by Romney and the GOP. This is imperitive to understanding the apathy that Libertarians have towards the two-party system. I was a Republican in the beginning and then Ron Paul made me a libertarian. I spent the past decade there until I realized the Jeffersonian Tradition is the best way forward. Thanks to Brion McClanahan and the Abbeville Institute. I have been on all sides of the Right. If we are to take back the Right from the neocons and Straussians who dominate the GOP, we need to find the common ground again. This is the Jeffersonian Tradition. If the Right is going to make it in the next twenty years, it will have to figure out a way to build a bridge between the two.
Why this is pressing?
It is of absolute necessity to build this bridge as we are in a race against time. The following events are escalating this necessity.
1.) The youth of today are completely brainwashed into supporting socialist candidates.
A failure to counter this move will mean that in two generations, the future will be completely sealed in favor of socialism. It will be voted in as if that makes it any less dangerous. At the federal level, there will be no conservativism because they have not offered anything appealing to the youth voters since Ron Paul.
This is where you will begin this merger. The states will need to continue their return to prominence in America. It started in 2020. The federal government once again is the biggest enemy to liberty for both libertarians and conservatives. Both sides need to come to terms that they will not be able to compete at the federal level. The conservatives need to realize that they have no support from the youth. Lincoln and his push for nationalized education years ago and the Republican Party’s love affair with nationalism has led to generation after generation of braindead activists. The Left figured out the long-game and the Right allowed it to happen. Even if you believe that elections are not stolen, look at 2020 with Trump and 2012 with Ron Paul, the fact that conservatives have not had a party and/or even a meaningful message for the country’s youth has led them to an extinction here in the next twenty years-at the federal level. The Right has no answer for the Left when it comes to messaging for the youth. Even if they did, they have allowed the rot of teacher’s unions to plague the schools and the curriculum. Ron Paul was right in 2008 when he said the Republican Party used to stand for getting rid of the Department of Education and then they went out and doubled the size of it. He saw the writing on the wall. Ron Paul and his message of auditing the Fed, preserving liberty, free markets, and a non-interventionist foreign policy broke this cycle. The GOP denied them any voice in the party. They lost in 2012 because of it. They have been terrible with the young vote ever since.
What the Right has failed to do in the past decade has been to give something of value to the younger generation. Turning Point and Daily Wire do not stand for liberty or even anything valuable for the persepective of the Right. They are 2000s Democrats pandering to their own form of liberalism. The Libertarian Party has no voice on the federal level. Their message has recently been split as well as in 2020 they ran a collectivist ticket that pandered to groups rather than promoted individual liberty. They lost their way as well. They even blackballed libertarian mainstays from the Mises Institute and licked the boots of all corporations in 2020 as they implemented their own tyranny on the land. It is time to restore the energy from the Ron Paul movement to actually have something to sell to the young voters. The best the GOP has offered the youth, is an “I’m Not as Bad as the Left” party platform. It is not just in schools that the youth are indoctrinated with this Leftist propaganda. It is pervasive in the culture. Liberty sold to young voters in 2008-2012. It will still work today. Classical liberals like Jordan Peterson have taken the lead and proven that this is still a message that needs to be heard. Individual liberty and responsibility are two things that the libertarians and conservatives can find common ground on.
2.) A failure to implement a common sense policy at the border.
Another gaping problem in the GOP’s platform is an incoherent stance against the influx of illegal immigration. The Libertarian Party does not offer a coherent strategy either. The party is divided between open borders, a preservation of property rights, and a secure border. Both sides of the aisle need to realize that the culture cannot be preserved without a secure border. Whether that comes from a simpler immigration process or a removal of entitlements, it does not matter as something needs to be done. The landscape will be completely different in the next twenty years if they keep this pace. In the next twenty years, the land you have called home will be overtaken and the globalist “open borders” agenda will have been completed. This is a move pushed for by globalists because it will dilute the cultures within the border. It will muddle it until there is nothing worth preserving. Then they will demoralize you and you will accept more tyranny. This has been the move in America since the Civil War. Try to dilute the state cultures into being controlled by urban centers. This is how they stop state power. They do it by slowly weakening the candidates in each state because they are controlled by urban centers instead of the rest of each state. This has happened all throughout the West and not just to the states in America.
These people coming in have no intention of voting for conservativism. I do not think this is a mystery as to why since the Left seems to be embracing the influx and encouraging it. The complete unfettered influx of immigration will be the demise of the country. It can be protected at the state levels. It can also be allowed at other state levels depending on the values of the people. This does not have to be a massive problem if the conservatives and the libertarians focus on federalism instead of focusing on a winner-take-all exective branch. How this canbe handled at the state level would be eliminating entitlement programs that would draw different types of people into your state. They could then work to eliminate federal entitlements as well. This policy of protecting liberty at the local level would allow different states to compete with each other. This would allow Leftist states to completely fail by offering entitlements and creating dependents. Conservative/libertarian states would be able to sell responsibility and liberty to its constituents and draw the people fed up from other states that failed to implement common sense policies. Practical solutions to practical problems could be the way forward here. At the federal level, there are too many political machines and ideologues that have made that swamp unsalvageable. Think locally and act locally is the phrase that Brion McClanahan has coined. It is the move forward for the Right.
What needs to be done?
This merger between the two factions cannot happen without some concessions from both sides.
1.) Abandon Lincolnian Nationalism
Abe Lincoln picked up the torch from Henry Clay who carried it for Alexander Hamilton. They implemented the American System after waging war on the South over denying them the natural right of self-determination. In this system, there were three planks: protectionism through tariffs, control of the money supply through a central bank, internal improvements through subsidies to railroads, shipping, and canal building. All of these things the South opposed.
To point out that this is crony capitalism is to say the least. This has been the party’s platform since its inception. In that process the states would become part of a powerful centralized empire. This place would compete on the world stage. The imperial dreams of King Lincoln have been the basis for the Republican Party and have masqueraded as conservative since the shift of the Democrats in the Wilson to Roosevelt era. The Republicans called the Democrats the '“conservatives” of that era and it was that way through the Teddy Roosevelt years and up to Hoover and his policies that were the precursor to FDR’s New Deal. He stole Hoover’s blueprint.
To the contrary to this style of imperialism stood John C. Calhoun who said because he was a states’ rights man, that made him conservative. It is important to understand that this was the way that the founders wanted it-at least 90% of them. Read the ratification debates or Brion McClanahan to better understand what they had intended. Conservatism in America has always been states’ rights. Nationalism was not conservative and was not even really considered to be so until after World War 2. Before then, the conservatives still fought for states’ rights. They lost the battle to Lincoln. Then lost it again in 1913. Then the final nails were driven into the coffin of conservatism in the sixties with Hugo Black and incorporation.
Conservatives need to abandon the nationalism. The United States has never been a nation. It has always been a compact of states working together to preserve liberty while maintaining their individuality. These have stemmed from the four britsih folkways that David Hackett Fisher told us about in Albion’s Seed. This is another book worth your time.
2.) Restore the Jeffersonian Tradition
Restore the conservative tradition of letting the states decide for themselves what is best for the culture of their people. They will allow the states to escape the election cycle that tyrannizes the public. It will stand between the people of the states and the overarching tyranny of the executive branch. This is the most libertarian thing that can exist today. What is more libertarian than letting other people in other states live their way while you live your way? This is the definition of the non-aggression principle. It is the practical application of it.
This is also the conservative way to exist. It lets Texas be Texas while California can be California. It lets Illinois be Illinois while Alabama is Alabama. This is the best way to protect the American ideal because this is the American ideal. Your state will become your country and that country will block the general government. It will create different cultures within the same land. If you do not like the way your state is, choose another state. You will never vote your way out of the mess at the federal level, but you can move to a state more in-line with what you stand for. Move to Texas if you want socially conservative values. Move to California if you want to live in a socialist utopia. Why should the Left be afraid of the Right and vice versa? Block the gloablist agenda in your state if you want. The federal government is bought and paid for. Your states are not. Maybe you will even get to build a completely libertarian state if people got the choice to vote with their feet. Imagine the social conservatives clearing out of say Idaho or New Hampshire while the pro-liberty policies flourished. People need to be able to vote with their feet. This can even be subdivided even further. Imagine states splitting into two or three. The people of rural Oregon could split and go their own way or join Idaho instead of being tyrannized by Portland.
The good news is that federalism is back in action. 2020 and Covid Tyranny has led states to move act to protect their citizens. They were much more responsive to the elctorate. Look at the quickly changing policies in Florida. Desantis has apologized for his early transgressions and has worked to make it right. The Supreme Court ending Roe has opened the states back up to being in charge of their states when it comes to moral issues. These have always been left to the state. even mainstream former neocons like Glenn Beck are talking about decentralization. They need to end their love affair with Lincoln. You cannot support decentralization while worshipping the tyrant who ended it by force. So there are good signs. We need to work on educating ourselves further to help promote the process.
The Path Forward:
The possibilities are endless, but the biggest obstacles to liberty at this point are the Republican grasp on the party at the federal level. If you take a look at what the state parties stand for, it will differ greatly. The republican state parties are much more responsive to their people. The platforms mirror this. The parties are better at the state level. They need to divorce the Lincoln worship. They need to embrace the Jeffersonian Tradition. This would lead to all sides winning on both the Left and the Right. The only losers are the tyrants at the federal level and their bureaucrats and the globalist agenda that has infiltrated the top levels of the federal government. Stop focusing on the federal level. Instead focus on all levels of the state and local government. This will get like-minded people in each state and this will end all federal tyranny. If not, the youth movement and the illegal immigration will make certain that both conservatives and libertarians are extinct in the next twenty years. The bridge between the two parties is federalism. Start embracing it. Start reading about it. Start working to implement it.
Republican Party needs to focus at the state level. This state level will be much more responsive to the people of their states. The libertarian movement can influence the party at the state level to start controlling the states. These states with strng leaders held accountable by responsible and independent constituents will work together to hold the federal government responsible. I believe the libertarians need to divorce their acceptance of a universal liberty for the whole of the country and realize that federalism will better preserve the liberties of its people. Morals are not universal and the smaller the government the better protection of the peopke that reside in the state. Both sides here need to focus their efforts on restoring liberty at the state level. This is conservative. It protects liberty much better than the leviathan state and that is libertarianism. This is how we combat the Left. This is how we move forward into the next couple of decades.