Liberty Hangout vs. Liberty Hangout
Up until now, I haven’t payed much attention to the folks at Liberty Hangout. Most people — including themselves — understand they are not libertarians. At best, they’re Pat Buchanan style paleolibertarians/paleoconseratives, which isn’t an ideology that has been friendly to us throughout history — even when Rockwell and Rothbard tried to change that by writing racist shit in Ron Paul’s newsletter.
However, this doesn’t mean I haven’t been keeping an eye on them. The calls they’ve made for monarchy, immigration restriction, and Donald Trump have been a hilarious read.
However, I’m interested in the contradictions they made. Many exist, for instance, saying that they are trying to fight for Christianity while themselves being founded by a Jew.
Here’s a recent Tweet from them:
The non-aggression principle is for intellectual midgets. You can’t reduce a legal system and conflict resolution down to one single, inconsistent principle. Libertarians that actually think so live in fantasy land. — 2/8/2020
Not sure how the non-aggression principle is inconsistent. It’s actually quite simple, it’s a principle against aggression — it has to be consistent, that’s why it’s called a principle.
Of course, Liberty Hangout use to understand this. A fellow named NewMartyrSpeaks proved just that when he went back through some of Liberty Hangout’s old tweets.
Notice how they reference the NAP back when they believed in it:
I support morality and am opposed to stealing & killing, which is what gov can only exist by doing. I believe in non-aggression — 4/14/2015
Equal freedom meaning the non-aggression principle. No one has the right to initiate force. — 6/24/2015
Abortion is murder. To tolerate abortion is to reject the NAP and all libertarian philosophy. — 7/15/2015
I am thankful for the non-aggression principle, and for my followers that have faithfully helped us spread the message of liberty. — 10/26/2015
Google the non-aggression principle. Google Austrian economics. #CPAC2016–3/3/2016
What libertarianism is about: property rights & non aggression What libertarianism isn’t about: doing whatever you want wherever you want — 6/13/2017
For the 100th time, libertarianism is not about being half liberal and half conservative. It’s about property rights and non-aggression. — 8/9/2017
Commonly, the arguments Liberty Hangout made were based in the idea that they were the biggest believers in non-aggression. Of course, at this time they were more or less libertarian leaning Republicans, and it seems like only once they realized this philosophy did not work with us that they tried to rethink our philosophy.
Of course, this should not surprise anyone who has read what Liberty Hangout stands for. On 8/17/2016, the official website published in article called “The Return Of The Paleo Strategy: Why The Right Is Our Best Ally.”
I touched on this historical event earlier in the article. Long story short, all it did was lead to a bunch of racist non-sense being put in the newsletter of Ron Paul, and it failed to create a single libertarian as a result.
Here’s the ending to this article:
Why not start with the religious right, who is tired of having the government’s boot on their throat? Why not start with the hard working, blue collar, tea partier who just wants to raise his family the way that he sees fit? We need not pander, but rather all we need to do to make this happen is return to our roots and return to consistency. It is also apparent that the paleo strategy works fairly well when one looks at the rise in popularity of many famous libertarian talkshow hosts as they begin to market themselves to the right, like Stefan Molyneux. If we pass this opportunity now, we may find ourselves losing credibility in the long run, and we might not get another chance to build a legitimate and strong coalition that will work to change things.
The answer, of course, is that we’ve tried this before and it didn’t work. All it did was put a bunch of moderate libertarians to normal conservatives into congress, and we still got the shaft. 2012 was suppose to be the election of the Tea Party, Ron Paul still didn’t even come close to winning.
Rather Liberty Hangout are just useful idiots for the people who want to give us a Day Of The Ropes, or they want to do such a thing themselves, is up for you to figure out. Either way, the fact that the libertarian movement rejects them is not because we’re so in favor of hedonism or whatever it is you guys believe, but because this is a failed strategy that most libertarians remember trying.
