To those who are unaware, I left the Democratic Party during my days as a university professor and the Republican Party after the first Trump nomination was clenched in 2016. Technically I was independent in South Carolina because I don't think they recognized the Libertarian Party, so technically I first registered as LP in AZ (where I voted in the general election). When I moved back to MD in 2017, I could register as LP. Then at some point over the next 4 years, I got some message that MD no longer recognized the LP. I'm not sure but when I moved locally last year, it showed me registered as LP.
I'm not politically active in the LP, but then I've been involved as a volunteer only once, in Jimmy Carter's first campaign in Texas. We libertarians notoriously bicker amongst ourselves, e.g., over ideological purity. For example, I'm a minarchist (allowing for a minimal State) while others can be anarcho-capitalists (who argue a limited State makes for a slippery slope). One good example arises from the "gay wedding" cake mandate, whereby a religious Christian baker could not refuse to bake one on request on grounds of discrimination. (The conventional libertarian take is one has a natural right to transact voluntarily, meaning the baker has a right to turn down business for any or no reason.) During the 2016 campaign, the issue was rephrased in the context of baking a celebratory Nazi cake. LP nominee Gary Johnson curiously affirmed that he would support a Nazi cake order mandate for bakers. Most of us opposed that on principle, of course. Nate Thurston of "Good Morning, Liberty" felt so strongly about it he left the LP over it. I wasn't happy over Johnson's stand but he was still vastly more preferable to voting for Clinton or Trump.
Followers of my blog know I have followed 3 current or former federal legislators: Rand Paul, Justin Amash, and Tom Massie. I've followed all 3 on Twitter but currently only Amash, who retired from Congress in 2018 (largely because Trump decided to primary him). There are various reasons, but Paul and Massie were too accommodative of Trump to my tastes and voted against the impeachments, and Paul seems unduly obsessed with Fauci. I've had more nuanced issues with Amash; One recent one is the post-Dobbs codification efforts (following Justice Thomas' opinion against substantive due process as a SCOTUS argument in multiple culture war issues like abortion and gay marriage). So, Amash supports the current legislation codifying gay marriage and interracial marriage. There are multiple reasons I oppose this (not dealing with relationship rights), first the institution of marriage should be privatized, the second being marriage has traditionally been regulated at the state level; there is no constitutional authority for federal judicial, legislative or executive control over state actions.
The government forcing millions of Americans to take an experimental vaccine that might kill them should’ve been the last straw.
— Libertarian Party (@LPNational) December 1, 2022
As of this year, the US government has spent $8 trillion on its post-9/11 wars.
— Libertarian Party (@LPNational) August 28, 2022
Global mass murder isn't just wicked and destructive. It's also financially unsustainable.
There have been probably up to a dozen or so insanely provocative tweets by the national LP account or various state-affiliated ones I've responded to and probably captured in my past social media posts over the past year or two. I never intended to set them aside as a trend; I've just listed a couple above to make the point; it's possible some of the more objectionable ones were deleted in the interim.
But there are a couple of topics which the LP national account has been pushing on recently that set off this rant. One of them is the anti-vaxxer thread exemplified above. The other is this anti-Ukraine aid talking point, a particularly obnoxious example of which is:
If you don't understand the context, Ukraine President Zelensky was recently named TIME's Person of the Year. The notorious Azov Regimen, now integrated in Ukraine's National Guard, initially arose as a far-right battalion, known for its fierce resistance to Russian forces from 2014; many argue that the regimen has been normalized since its integration, but Russia propaganda has continued to use it to rationalize Putin's denazification talking point. Many in the Mises caucus are linked to Ron Paul, who has frequently been interviewed on Russia Today. In this context, the LP tweet is little more than pro-Russian propaganda against the Ukraine government's most prominent leader, Zelensky.
It goes beyond this meme, of course. They have criticized Ukraine military aid (in the face of Russia's violation of the Non-Aggression Principle).
Going back to the prior tweet, it's one thing to call America's Gulf Region interventions misguided or mistaken, another to describe them as "global mass murder". These were wars fought with two sides, the other side having their own crimes against humanity.
Finally, the attacks against COVID-19 vaccination have unnerved me as a man of science. The charges of crony capitalism, the misleading anti-vaxxer phrasing ("experimental vaccine") and fearmongering, The discussions of deaths from vaccines likely draws from VAERS, an unverified reporting system that does not determine cause of death, not to mention the number of cases is statistically insignificant.
These are just a sample of troublesome tweets that I do not think help to bridge the pro-liberty side. I may end up saving additional tweets over time, but I've started blocking certain sources.
