On Saturday, June 3, I wrote a little e-mail to several Libertarians, and the text that follows is a slightly modified version what I wrote to them. I asked these Libertarians, as well as myself: Do you think that Libertarianism can prevail when Libertarians do not agree on metaphysics, epistemology, or even ethics? Shouldn't they all know that objective reality, reason, and the ethics of rational self-interest provide the proper basis for the "non-aggression" or "non-initiation-of-force" principle, which states that no person or group of persons (including the government) can rightfully threaten violence on the life, liberty, and property of thoese who have threatened no such violence on others or their property? I asked them and myself some more questions.

If a libertarian mystic says that we shouldn't initiate force because Beelzebub or Lucifer told him so, then does he really understand what the non-aggression principle is about?

If Libertarianism welcomes to its rank just about anyone who has some beef with the government on just one issue, or any wacko who just likes to annoy people, or some rude Democrat comedian who just likes to call himself "Libertarian" because it sounds kitschy, then does that really strengthen the libertarian movement, or weaken it?

If a guy is Libertarian just because he's against the government, then weren't those stupid anarcho-collectivist kids who protested the WTO in Seattle "libertarian"? They were collectivist, they hated technology, they hated trade, and they wanted everyone to live chaotically like cavemen in some environmental Nirvana. And, in their minds, it is humans who intiate force on dolphins, green sea turtles, and trees. So, in one context, they WERE against "the initation of physical force." And they were the against the government. Therefore, how are they not "libertarian"?

In Liberty magazine, supposedly the publication that the Libertarian intelligentsia is centered aroudn, I see Libertarians arguing against the government's intiation of force against Microsoft. Then I see some noxious letter about how Microsoft "forces" us to buy its product through its mere market power. In other words, that letter's author, science fiction writer Matt Ruff gsve a Marxist argument against and he is, of course, still accepted as legitimately Libertarian.

I see arguments by Libertarians about whether it is good or bad if Elian is sent back to the slave state of Cuba. Libertarians say that this is "healthy" and that both parties in the antitrust and Elian arguments fundamentally support the same definition of "liberty." And if I say that Libertarians shouldn't even be having such arguments, then some of them say that makes me a "close-minded Objectivist." Fine. They see it as an insult, but I take it as a compliment.

Some Libertarian intellectuals intimate that all people who complain about "Big Government" "should work together." But, by that twisted logic, Libertarians "should" have no trouble with animal "rights" wackos in their camp. After all, the animal "rights" activists simply oppose the initation of force upon mammals, and they hate police officers who try to stop them from stealing--sorry; "liberating"--lab rats from their cages. And if one says, "These people do not understand rights, so they're not worth even talking to," then that will makes him or her a "close-minded Objectivist." (Which, remember, those Libertarians think is a bad thing, even though it isn't.) Well, it looks to me like there may come a day when Libertarians begin to argue amonst themselves whether animals have rights. And when that imminent day arrives, I will be convinced that the libertarian movement--as a whole--is inconsistent, is built upon nothing, stands for nothing, and does not understand freedom.

Is aligning oneself with animal "rights" activists "open-minded"? If Libertarians align themselves with animal "rights" people and then argue with them in Liberty magazine, does that then make this only a "healthy, minor disagreement"? I don't think so. What it tells me is that Libertarian movement, in a desperate attempt to appeal to just about any disgruntled political outsider, has compromised away its pro-freedom principles (if it had anyone in the first place)--and has sold out.

I'm not saying that the Libertarian Party should kick out people for a few major disagreements on some issues. What I am saying is that, by pandering to wackos who share the Left's sympathies and just disagree with the Democrats on just a few issues, the Libertarian movement is self-destructing (assuming that it was actually going anywhere since its inception).

I concluded my questions by saying, "So where do we draw the line between non-agression dogmatism and being outride sell-outs (and selling out to wackos nobody cares about, no less)? A line needs to be drawn before it is too late."

Now, I do not want to give the impression that I am blaming the "liberals" for co-opting the libertarian movement. The liberals may be trying that, but that they are succeeding is not primarily the fault of the "liberals," but the leaders of the libertarian movement itself.

For example, "liberal" Bill Maher calls himself a libertarian. But the reason why everyone considers him a libertarian is because no libertarian has been brave enough to just come out and say, "Look, Bill Maher is no friend of liberty. He just likes to call himself 'libertarian' because it amuses him." David Boaz of the Cato Institute was on Politically Incorrect the very night that Bill Maher first called himself a libertarian. If David Boaz simply said, that very night, that Bill Maher was no such thing, then that would have solved a lot. But no, he didn't. So now one can read annoying little articles on Yahoo.Com calling Bill Maher a libertarian. Then one can watch Politically Incorrect and see Bill Maher do a sketch mocking banks and the second amendment as intrinsically evil. To the average college student and viewer, this means that libertarians believe banks and the right to own a gun are intrinsically evil.

But that's just the surface of it. Bill Maher and Howard Stern can take some blame for creating misconceptions of libertarianism, but in the cases of other celebrities, the fault is intially that of Libertarian leaders.

Take for instance, Free-Market.Net, which is run by the Henry Hazlitt Foundation. Free-Market.Net's Intellectual Matchmaker Page[http://www.free-market.net/imm/] implies that ACLU president Nadine Strossen and anarcho-Marxist Noam Chomsky are of great influence to Libertarians.

Or take a look at the Advocates for Self-Government's Libertarian Celebrities Page at [http://www.self-gov.org/celebs.html]. If a guy just once refers to himself as libertarian, then the Advocates for Self-Government consider him a libertarian, no matter how statist his remarks are. The Advocates for Self-Goverment page says that all of the following people are libertarian:

* Anarcho-nihilist sci-fi author Robert Anton Wilson
* "Big Government" Democrat Jerry Springer (yes, the talkshow host)
* "Liberal" David Letterman
* Dennis Miller (the same Dennis Miller who says "liberal" things every night and referred to all supporters of the right to bear arms as "The Million Moron March.")

Liberty magazine doesn't help much either, considering that loads of space are not devoted to five pedantic "debate" articles over whether or not George Orwell was an "imperlialistic homophobe," it is given to the far worse writings of self-proclaimed "libertarians" like Matt Ruff, who opposes property rights, and James Wood (not the actor), who decries the rise of new technologies in a free market. If these two are Libertarians, then who's not a Libertarian?

What does all of this say? According to Free-Market.Net, the Henry Hazlitt Foundation, Advocates for Self-Government, and R. William Bradford, people who want to ban technology (James Wood) are legitimate liberatarians, anarcho-Marxists (Noam Chomsky) are legitimate libertarians, anarcho-nihilists (Robert Anton Wilson) are legitimate libertarians, liberal Democrats who just like the word "Libertarian" (Bill Maher and Dennis Miller) are legitimate libertarians, and sleazy politicians-turned-talkshow hosts (Jerry Springer) are legitimate libertarians.

I'm not saying that the National Libertarian Party's executive committee should kick the anti-market libertarians out of the party. What I am saying is that the libertarian message is destroyed when all of these Marxists and wackos are respected as legitimate libertarians by leaders of the Libertarian movement. The leaders believe that they increase the number of the Party's members by being "inclusive" and "tolerant," but what they are really doing is disgusting the sane people in the party and chasing them away, which leaves space for even more of the "nuts" to come in. All the Libertarian leaders need to say in order to stop that is something along the lines of:

"Bill Maher and the Marxists can call themselves libertarians all they want, but we won't call them libertarian. We'll point out to people that they are NOT libertarian."

But I don't see R. W. Bradford doing that and I don't expect him to anytime soon. He may tell the "close-minded" Objectivists to take a hike, though, considering his antipathy toward them. (Not that the Objectivists would be losing much by dissociating themselves from those who relish scorning them.)

It doesn't help that the Advocates for Self-Government calls just about any "liberal" Democrat celebrity a "libertarian" just to make the word "libertarian" look more appealing to young people who like those celebrities' art (and not necessarily their politics). It makes the movement all the more inconsistent and confusing, and lends itself to be co-opted by Noam Chomsky's ilk.

Libertarian leaders can stop the Left's co-opt of Libertarianism easily. They don't have to kick out the leftists; they should simply refuse to give the statist pseudo-libertarians the unearned respect that they are currently giving them.


EPILOGUE


I now write this on July 9, 2001. Since I e-mailed the above words, the Libertarian movement has shown no signs of wising up, though I must admit that it has not gotten much worse, either. I am not as proud of calling myself a "libertarian" now as I used to be, and, though I am still a member of the party, I consider myself more of "member of the Libertarian Party" than of just "libertarian." I am still with the party, but not so much the ideology.

I have come across many articles by Libertarians attempting to intimidate members of the movement to stay away from Objectivism, but this only increased my curiosity about the philosophy, of which I had previously only known from reading Ayn Rand's novels--and not her nonfiction. After reading most of Miss Rand's works, though not all of the Objectivist canon, I can say that I find Objectivism to be far closer to the truth than plain Libertarianism (if there is such a thing).

I do not have as much confidence in a national libertarian movement as I did two years ago, but I have not lost hope in the Libertarian Party of Hawaii, whose leaders still tend to be more rational and sympathetic toward Ayn Rand's line of thinking than that of more prominent specimens of the Libertarian (and pseudo-Libertarian) persuasion whom I have found in print and on the Net. Thus, I am still sticking with the Libertarian Party of Hawaii, and I'll see how things go with it. The further inflow of Objectivist ideas into my local party also wouldn't hurt. --S.H.