Liberty Blog

Sometime in 1982, I turned the final page of the book Atlas Shrugged, and as I closed its cover, the red pill slid down my throat. With my brain on fire with all the ideas crystalizing in my head, I looked around with no small desperation for more. I wanted more to read about this thing called liberty. I wanted to meet more people who understood reality as I finally did. 

Within the next three years, I tore through every book Rand wrote, fiction and non-fiction, and sought out alternative voices. However, in that prehistoric, pre-internet era the pickins' were slim. I lived in Boston at the time, and I can count on one hand the number of libertarian-related events to attend in that decade. One day while riding the subway, I saw a man reading The Fountainhead, and we furtively exchanged subtle nods of acknowledgement. Ours was, at the time, a secret cabal. 

In the 1980s, we had Reason Magazine, a mail-order book store, and a state party you could fit on a bus. Because of that relative isolation, I knew of only one flavor of libertarianism, the one based on, as Reason stated it, “free minds and free markets”. You can’t have one without the other. I led a quiet libertarian life mostly by example, gently questioning opposing dogma when appropriate, but the idea that I had to choose sides within my own party seemed inconceivable. 

What a difference an internet makes. Not coming from academia in any sense, maybe I missed out on all the libertarian salons. Maybe my invitation to the rallies got lost in the mail, but I had no clue nor any expectations that the movement could experience the explosion of internal debate I am seeing today. I have to think that somewhere in a paneled room, Democratic and Republican Party apparatchiks laugh in their snifters watching this movement tear itself apart in a bloodbath of tribalism. 

Looking at this rabbit hole of a graph I found on Quora, it seems that calling myself simply a libertarian is no longer sufficient for my credentials. So, lessee.. Am I a libertarian capitalist or an anarcho-capitalist, or mutualist (huh?), or… What tortured soul calls themselves an anarcho-communist? Sounds like therapeutic rape to me. 

In the grand scheme of things where this party has a very small chance of success in even uncontested elections, who the fuck cares? Is this really worth the discord? 

For a political party that received a whopping 1.2% of the presidential vote in the last round, I see a lot of fighting for a larger piece of a very tiny pie, which makes me not wonder why more people don’t join the cause. Then again, welcome to politics. Put three people in a room, and that’s what you get. 

My challenge as Chair of our committee, as I see it, is to keep these schisms out of our business meetings. The qualifier you attach to your libertarian moniker won’t matter unless you make it matter. As long as you work to build our membership, bring in more money, and help us get people elected, we welcome you. 

If you want to debate the virtues of your tribe over someone else’s especially with any degree of hostility, please take it outside or maybe just leave it at home. 

 Randy Garbin is the current Chair of the Montgomery County Libertarian Party. The opinions and positions stated in this article are his and do not necessarily reflect those of the Montgomery County Libertarian Party or its members.