Part Of The Problem - Dave Smith - Caryn Ann Harlos
Aired: 2021-02-27
Duration: 01:11:28


=== Addressing Factions Without Insults (14:55) ===

[00:00:00]  Fill her up.
[00:00:02]  You are listening to the Gas Digital Network.
[00:00:08]  We need to roll back the state.
[00:00:10]  We spy on all of our own citizens.
[00:00:12]  Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
[00:00:16]  If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
[00:00:21]  Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
[00:00:33]  Hey, what's up, everybody?
[00:00:34]  Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
[00:00:38]  I'm thrilled to have as my guest on this episode, Karen Ann Harlos, who is the secretary of the Libertarian National Committee, also a libertarian activist and a content creator on the internet, like the rest of us are these days.
[00:00:54]  And we had just done a show together, a stream that the Mises Caucus put together with us and Michael Heiss.
[00:01:02]  I know people really enjoyed that.
[00:01:03]  And we talked about doing a podcast together.
[00:01:05]  So here we are.
[00:01:06]  Karen Ann, thank you so much for joining me.
[00:01:08]  And thank you for inviting me.
[00:01:10]  I know it was kind of a pest to you, but I really enjoy your show very much.
[00:01:15]  Oh, well, thank you very much.
[00:01:16]  And I've enjoyed a lot of your content as well.
[00:01:18]  And you really weren't much of a pest at all.
[00:01:20]  You mentioned it once.
[00:01:21]  I've been badgered much worse than that.
[00:01:23]  And I was very happy to have you on.
[00:01:26]  And one of the reasons why I've really enjoyed your content and I've, you know, like I've known you, not we haven't met, but I've known you in the internet world for a few years now.
[00:01:35]  And I think because you're in the Mises Caucus Facebook group and stuff like that.
[00:01:39]  But I've really been getting into your some of your stuff lately.
[00:01:43]  And one of the things I really enjoyed about it is that you seem to be one of the few people in the Libertarian Party who can address disagreements with different factions without becoming deranged and launching insults.
[00:01:58]  And it can kind of just be a thing where you can be like, hey, look, I disagree with Dave on this, this, and this, but I really like what he says on this, this, and this.
[00:02:05]  And you kind of treat the different caucuses this way and different groups.
[00:02:08]  So I really appreciate that.
[00:02:10]  It's surprisingly rare, but you're maybe the only person who I've seen who's really effective at that.
[00:02:17]  Oh, I really appreciate that.
[00:02:18]  And of course, I fail sometimes, you know, but I do try to do that because very few people, like even the people that you really don't like, aren't going to be 100% wrong on everything.
[00:02:30]  I mean, if they were, no one would listen to them at all.
[00:02:33]  There has to be something about them that's giving them some kind of influence of opinion.
[00:02:39]  And most people aren't stupid.
[00:02:41]  They have reasons for why they think things and it behooves us to try to find that out.
[00:02:46]  Yeah.
[00:02:47]  Yeah.
[00:02:47]  No, I completely agree.
[00:02:48]  And I've made the point on the show many times that I think that it bothers me when libertarians, I mean, everybody does this, but it bothers me when libertarians do this because I care more about libertarians.
[00:03:01]  But when they just kind of sit, like they'll refer to Nancy Pelosi as the far left, or they'll refer to, you know, like these things where it's like, hey, you really don't, you haven't read enough about what the far left actually is versus what a corporate Democrat is.
[00:03:15]  And you're limiting yourself because even people who are as wrong as communists, you can benefit from reading them.
[00:03:22]  Like they will make some good points.
[00:03:24]  And so if we can't even within our own libertarian movement acknowledge that different groups are capable of making good points, we're just going to limit ourselves in our understanding of the world.
[00:03:36]  Yeah, absolutely.
[00:03:38]  You know, in my show, I hardly listen.
[00:03:41]  I don't listen to very much libertarian content.
[00:03:43]  In fact, on YouTube, I think your show is the only libertarian show I watch.
[00:03:47]  I watch a lot from people I really veinently disagree with.
[00:03:51]  Yeah.
[00:03:52]  Well, I think in many ways that can be that can be more important, especially after you've reached a certain point of consuming enough, you know, of our libertarian propaganda that you kind of get it.
[00:04:02]  But I like that there was an indirect shot at Tom Woods in that in that comment.
[00:04:06]  So there you go.
[00:04:07]  Take that, Tom.
[00:04:10]  I'm just kidding.
[00:04:11]  Oh, my God.
[00:04:11]  Now you called me out and Tom's going to hate me now.
[00:04:14]  No, I was, I really, really enjoyed your last appearance on Tom Woods' show.
[00:04:20]  I actually just listened to it for the second time this morning.
[00:04:24]  Because partly just because I don't want to say the exact same things that Tom said.
[00:04:29]  So like when someone was just recently a guest on his show, I don't want to say the exact same things, although we'll probably touch on some of the same areas.
[00:04:35]  So one of the things that you and Tom talked about that I really enjoyed your perspective on was you talking about kind of the state of the National Libertarian Party.
[00:04:47]  And I obviously, as you know, I've been very hard on the messaging of the National Libertarian Party.
[00:04:54]  And I know that I've bothered a lot of people there for doing it.
[00:04:58]  I'm sure I could have done it in a more tactful way at times, but I really do.
[00:05:02]  I do it out of love.
[00:05:04]  I do it because I want us to be better.
[00:05:06]  Like I'm a member of this party and I want us to really be on point with our messaging.
[00:05:11]  What do you think, if you had to sum up overall, what is the state of the National Libertarian Party in terms of messaging?
[00:05:19]  It's we have no coherent messaging strategy.
[00:05:24]  And it's, oh man, you know, I'm hardly ever like at a loss to sum up something quite quickly, but, you know, the reaction to the COVID pandemic revealed our weakness.
[00:05:40]  You know, sometimes it takes a crisis to really reveal your weaknesses.
[00:05:45]  And I think we are much better on messaging before.
[00:05:50]  And particularly 2016 to 2018.
[00:05:54]  Now, I know a lot of people have some issues with Nick Sarwark towards the end.
[00:05:58]  But Nick was a much different person in 2016 to 2018.
[00:06:02]  And a lot of the messaging was really, really spot on.
[00:06:05]  If you go back in time to that.
[00:06:08]  But right now, we seem to want to never say anything that might in fact be controversial because we're worried about who's going to hate us for saying this and that.
[00:06:17]  The statists are going to hate us no matter what.
[00:06:21]  And you can't worry about that.
[00:06:22]  But the problem with trying to appease people who are going to hate you to begin with is that the people who might like you if you only spoke up never get to hear you.
[00:06:32]  There are a lot of people out there, as I said on Tom's show, just dying to hear somebody say an actual libertarian thing.
[00:06:40]  And that's what will attract those people.
[00:06:42]  And those are the people we need.
[00:06:44]  Appeasing people who are never going to vote for us to begin with is not helping us.
[00:06:50]  And it's not helping freedom.
[00:06:52]  It's not educating people.
[00:06:53]  It's not pushing the envelope.
[00:06:55]  It's not moving the Overton window.
[00:06:57]  We've become very, very lukewarm and ineffective at the one thing that third parties are really good at.
[00:07:06]  And that is pushing the envelope because you really have nothing to lose.
[00:07:11]  And people who read David Nolan's case for a Libertarian Party that he wrote right before he wrote it, people asked him, why are you forming a political party?
[00:07:20]  You can do a lot of the same things just by being another activist movement.
[00:07:25]  Like there were many in the early 70s.
[00:07:27]  And he said, being a political party gives you a stage that you can't get any other way.
[00:07:32]  And it doesn't cost you anything.
[00:07:34]  And Arvind Votra even has made that point.
[00:07:36]  If you run a high level campaign, you get about $100,000 worth of free media time because they will want to talk to you.
[00:07:45]  But we're not capitalizing on this benefit of being a party.
[00:07:50]  You know, it's not a feel-good thing.
[00:07:53]  People's lives are being destroyed and we're not acting like that's happening.
[00:07:57]  We're acting like we are more concerned about, you know, wearing the proper suits and having the proper proper manners.
[00:08:06]  And I can't do that.
[00:08:07]  I just absolutely can't.
[00:08:09]  And I wasn't elected to do that.
[00:08:10]  People knew what they were getting when they elected me and I got elected.
[00:08:15]  So I'm not the most popular person on the LNC half the time either.
[00:08:20]  So I'm not, again, elected to make friends.
[00:08:22]  I'm elected to make a difference and push forward freedom.
[00:08:25]  Well, amen.
[00:08:26]  One of the things I really appreciated that Spike Cohen said when he was on my show, and he's been saying this on a lot of shows that he's been on, is that he, I thought he had the correct attitude that when people were kind of like, oh, hey, congratulations on the campaign and stuff like this.
[00:08:42]  And he was like, what are you congratulating me for?
[00:08:44]  Like, we got 1%.
[00:08:45]  We've been around for like 50 years and we're getting 1%.
[00:08:48]  And like we, we, and like, it, it, I'm sure was difficult for him to say, but I appreciated it that he's like, hey, we are losing and we need to not be satisfied with where we are.
[00:08:59]  And to your point, I feel like, you know, it's almost like there, there should be this freedom that comes along with that.
[00:09:06]  That it's, you know, like I'm a big MMA fan and I'm a big boxing fan.
[00:09:11]  And it's like, if you're going into the 12th round and you've lost all 11 rounds, then it's like, okay, you have to go for the knockout.
[00:09:19]  You know, you have to go for it because obviously playing it safe is a guaranteed loss.
[00:09:24]  So if you, if you've lost 11 rounds in a row and you're going into the 12th round and you're just like establishing your jab, you're messing up already.
[00:09:31]  Like you have to take risks.
[00:09:33]  And like, yeah, you might get hit, but you might land a knockout and you have to like just by the very nature of the situation we're in, we'd have to do that.
[00:09:41]  And it seems to me like there is a major courage problem from the top of the Libertarian Party.
[00:09:48]  And I want to be clear about this because I really do think there are, and I think this gets lost and this is my fault, but I really do think that the overwhelming majority of the Libertarian Party are really, really good people.
[00:10:01]  Like I've, my experience with people who I've met, people who I've interacted with is overwhelmingly positive.
[00:10:07]  You know, like I've done some shows and some interactions with the people who it hasn't been so positive with and that gets amplified a little bit.
[00:10:14]  But I think it's like a ton of really good people who really care, people who are willing to like go collect signatures in the rain because they just care about this cause so much.
[00:10:24]  And I think they deserve better.
[00:10:26]  And you made one of the points you made on Tom's show, which man, I even, I didn't even really think about this.
[00:10:34]  But no, well, I'm always like bashing the Libertarian Party and I've always been focused on the lockdown stuff and how the government institutes totalitarianism and where are you to lead the fight against this.
[00:10:43]  But you made the point about John Brennan, the former CIA director, just lumps us in with terrorists.
[00:10:50]  And we can't even get a strong condemnation of that.
[00:10:54]  I mean, like, what's what's going on here?
[00:10:57]  There hasn't been a condemnation as far as I'm aware.
[00:11:00]  Never mind a strong one.
[00:11:02]  There might have been like a passing innuendo about it in an email blast that went out.
[00:11:08]  But no, that should have been, we should have been screaming about that.
[00:11:12]  I don't know if you've watched any of the material I've done on the People's Party, which is this new up and coming communist party, but I get inspired by watching them because they're brand new and they haven't been beaten down yet.
[00:11:24]  And they like actually say what they believe without shame.
[00:11:27]  And I'm like, why can't we do that?
[00:11:31]  That's why I watch them sometimes.
[00:11:32]  They get me fired up, even though they're fired up for communism.
[00:11:36]  Why can't we be as fired up for freedom?
[00:11:39]  Yeah, really.
[00:11:40]  It's, and there is a courage problem.
[00:11:43]  I've said it before.
[00:11:44]  And I know people, they get mad at me for saying it because they think, you know, there are two sorts of attitudes.
[00:11:52]  And one of them is kind of you circle the wagons and you keep your criticisms behind closed doors.
[00:11:58]  And I don't believe in that.
[00:11:59]  I think we've got two old parties that do that perfectly well if that's what somebody wants.
[00:12:03]  If I think we as a collective body are messing up something, I am going to say it.
[00:12:08]  And I do think we lack courage.
[00:12:10]  That doesn't mean we're not doing some other things great.
[00:12:13]  For instance, the party management as a professional organization is better than it's ever been.
[00:12:20]  Absolutely better than it's ever been.
[00:12:22]  And that is saying something and it's invisible.
[00:12:25]  So it doesn't get mentioned that much.
[00:12:28]  But kudos, you know, Mr. Bishop Henchman is a fantastic manager, but our messaging has gone downhill.
[00:12:37]  Yeah.
[00:12:37]  Yeah.
[00:12:38]  Well, I certainly, you know, like I, I, I can't speak to the managing aspect.
[00:12:43]  And I, I just take your word for it.
[00:12:45]  I mean, I, and certainly there are like, um, there, there are things about the party that, you know, like it's not easy to run a political party.
[00:12:54]  And I know there are people who specialize in areas that I know nothing about who do that and my hat's off to them.
[00:13:00]  But to me, the look, since it is, um, since it's such a long shot as of right now, not that, again, not saying it can't happen, but since it's a long shot right now that we're about to assume political power on a huge level and really start rolling back the Leviathan, like that's not that it can't happen, but it doesn't seem like it's happening tomorrow.
[00:13:21]  The messaging to me is kind of what we have, you know, like that's, and, and the thing that just drives me crazy that I really just don't understand is that you have this campaign, uh, the Joe Jorgensen campaign with their hashtag let her speak, um, you know, that that they were running with.
[00:13:40]  Now, I was critical of that for, you know, I just, I didn't think it was strong messaging.
[00:13:44]  I think like I would prefer instead of let her speak something like you can't shut her up.
[00:13:49]  Like I'm, I'm not begging for acceptance.
[00:13:51]  We're here to talk.
[00:13:52]  But, but okay, I get the point more or less.
[00:13:54]  It's like we want, we want to be on the debate stage and we want to be able to communicate our message and, you know, see how many people want liberty.
[00:14:02]  But you're saying let her speak.
[00:14:04]  You've got a Twitter account with a few hundred thousand followers.
[00:14:09]  Now, once you have a few hundred thousand followers, you can certainly very easily have a tweet that will go viral and get millions of impressions on it, right?
[00:14:18]  Like this, this can happen.
[00:14:20]  And I'm sitting here.
[00:14:20]  I mean, I almost like, I want to pull this up so I'm not just being just guessing and not having the correct information.
[00:14:28]  But so if I look at the Libertarian Party and I go to their Twitter, their last tweet was from two days ago.
[00:14:35]  It was happy to have you to somebody who just said they just re-upped their membership.
[00:14:41]  Then there was one three days ago about Virginia state lawmakers giving approval for a bill that would end capital punishment.
[00:14:51]  Before that, there's one retweet four days ago.

=== Urgent Action Needed Now (02:13) ===

[00:14:56]  I mean, it's like they don't even use this thing.
[00:14:58]  By the way, Joe Biden bombed Syria yesterday.
[00:15:00]  Yeah, I know.
[00:15:01]  Well, there's something coming on that, but no, not quickly enough.
[00:15:08]  But we are hiring a communications manager.
[00:15:10]  So that's good.
[00:15:12]  But here's my concern.
[00:15:14]  There is a certain strategy towards messaging that I don't agree with.
[00:15:18]  And that's okay.
[00:15:19]  I wasn't elected chair of the party.
[00:15:21]  So I don't set messaging, but it is basically to be very non-offensive.
[00:15:26]  And I'm not saying to go out of your way purposely to like to be a big dick, but you've got to be confrontational about what's actually happening to people.
[00:15:37]  So I used to say, and I know people hate when I go off like into these religious analogies, but bear with me one second.
[00:15:44]  There's Christians who are walking around who say they believe in hell, but they really don't.
[00:15:50]  Because if they did, that'd be pretty much all they'd be doing is trying to save people from that horrific fate if they really believed that.
[00:15:56]  If they really thought these people that they loved were going to be like, ah, you know, that's what they would be doing.
[00:16:02]  If we really believe the predations of the state are as damaging and are as aggressive to people, we would be obsessed with that.
[00:16:12]  I am absolutely obsessed with my hatred for the state.
[00:16:15]  And that motivates every single thing I do.
[00:16:18]  And I wonder sometimes if libertarians are scared to taste their own wares.
[00:16:24]  Like, do you really believe this stuff?
[00:16:26]  Because if you do, I think you would act a little differently.
[00:16:29]  You would act a little more urgently.
[00:16:31]  You would act like the abolitionists did when we were keeping black people in chains.
[00:16:35]  That's how you should act.
[00:16:37]  That should be the fire in your belly that motivates every political thing that you do.
[00:16:42]  I'm not saying you can't have any other life.
[00:16:44]  I don't, but I don't think everyone needs to do that.
[00:16:49]  But, you know, but let me give you the thing on the letter speak.
[00:16:52]  I know Spike told you that that was an activist who made that and it took off.
[00:16:57]  And there's not much she can do, but own it.
[00:17:00]  I'm going to, there's something you'll laugh at.
[00:17:02]  With the Gary Johnson campaign, the activists came up with Feel the Johnson, which was very cringy and they couldn't stop it.

=== Motivating Like Abolitionists Did (03:20) ===

[00:17:09]  You know, they absolutely couldn't stop it.
[00:17:12]  So theirs were worse, though.
[00:17:15]  UN or team McGov.
[00:17:18]  What the hell?
[00:17:19]  Why would any libertarians ever have team go?
[00:17:22]  I know it was for governor, but a little bit of me died every time I saw it.
[00:17:27]  But then again, a little bit of me died every time I saw Bill Lyon Weld.
[00:17:32]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:17:33]  I don't know where, where he's at these days.
[00:17:36]  I know his primary challenge to Donald Trump didn't work out so well.
[00:17:40]  But he, I mean, I guess he won because we're returning to the, you know, foreign policy consensus that he was such a big fan of.
[00:17:48]  So there, it looks a lot like Donald Trump's policy, bombing Syria.
[00:17:52]  But look at that.
[00:17:53]  We're back to it.
[00:17:53]  More enthusiastically bombing Syria, I guess is what Bill Weld was after.
[00:17:58]  All right, guys, let's take a quick second.
[00:18:00]  I want to thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Harry's.
[00:18:04]  You know them, the razor company that everybody's talking about.
[00:18:08]  Harry's just came out with their sharpest blades ever.
[00:18:12]  And unlike some other razor companies, they're not charging you more for their product improvements.
[00:18:17]  Harry's new sharper blades are still as low as $2 each.
[00:18:22]  Now, everybody I know who uses these razors loves them.
[00:18:26]  You got to try them.
[00:18:27]  You're going to fall in love with them right away.
[00:18:29]  You can find Harry's new sharper blades in big box drug and grocery stores near you.
[00:18:34]  If you like to shop online, new U.S. customers can redeem a trial offer of Harry's new sharper blades by going to Harry's.com slash problem.
[00:18:44]  As I mentioned, other razor companies, they'll increase their prices when they introduce something new.
[00:18:48]  Harry's is delivering their sharpest shave ever and they aren't raising prices.
[00:18:53]  These new blades are so sharp that in a study with guys shaving four times a week, the guys reported that with Harry's new blades, their eighth shave was as smooth as their first.
[00:19:03]  Harry's owns a German factory that's been honing razor blades for 100 years.
[00:19:07]  They source their steel from Sweden and they own the entire manufacturing process from R ⁇ D to the factory floor.
[00:19:14]  This is what allows them to keep their prices so low and they confidently stand by a 100% quality guarantee on everything at Harry's.com.
[00:19:23]  You can get Harry's sharpest blade ever at big box drug and grocery stores near you.
[00:19:27]  Just head over to the grooming aisle.
[00:19:29]  And like I said, if you prefer to shop online, they've got this great offer for my listeners.
[00:19:34]  new U.S. customers can redeem a Harry's trial set at Harry's.com slash problem.
[00:19:39]  You'll get a five-blade razor featuring the new sharper blades, a weighted handle, foaming shave gel with aloe, and a travel cover to protect your blade when you're on the go.
[00:19:50]  Just go to harry's.com slash problem, redeem your trial offer today.
[00:19:54]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:19:56]  The other thing to me is that it just like you kind of touched on it there.
[00:19:59]  It seems like, see, there's this weird dynamic where like when you say we don't want to offend people, that's almost impossible in today's America because we're such a polarized country.
[00:20:12]  And so you're pretty much going to offend somebody.
[00:20:17]  So it doesn't seem to me to be that the Libertarian Party is afraid to offend people.
[00:20:22]  They don't seem to be afraid to offend their own base.
[00:20:25]  They certainly don't seem to be afraid to offend anyone on the right wing.

=== Condemning Evil State Actions (15:43) ===

[00:20:29]  That's, you know, lots of people were offended by them saying they supported the Black Lives Matter movement.
[00:20:35]  But they're not concerned about that.
[00:20:37]  They do seem to be very concerned about offending the establishment.
[00:20:43]  So again, where we still, and I take your word, there will be a condemnation of bombing Syria.
[00:20:48]  And I wouldn't be surprised.
[00:20:49]  You know, I'd expect that eventually.
[00:20:52]  But it took them about 15 minutes to condemn the Capitol riot.
[00:20:56]  There was no question about that.
[00:20:57]  Now, I was very upset with them that they wouldn't condemn until I pushed them to, condemn the riots happening over the summer, which were far more deadly, far more destructive, and far longer lasting.
[00:21:07]  And part of the reason why I felt they really had an obligation to condemn those riots is because they had outright said, we support the movement.
[00:21:15]  They had said, not the organization, but we support the movement Black Lives Matter.
[00:21:19]  Well, when this movement is now turning violent, I think you kind of have an obligation to make it loud and clear that we don't support that part of the movement.
[00:21:28]  Now, that's fine if you want to say, hey, look, we support this part of the movement.
[00:21:32]  We support the end police brutality part, but we definitely don't support this, you know, and it was like pulling teeth to get them to do that.
[00:21:40]  But the January 6th thing, when the entire corporate press is telling you this is 9-11, you know, right away, right away we'll condemn that.
[00:21:48]  Yeah, I was not happy with that release that went out.
[00:21:53]  I didn't approve it, but I got overruled.
[00:21:56]  That's how it goes.
[00:21:58]  Yeah, I've been complaining about this for a while, but what happens is we, as I said before, and you've heard me, we get whiplash, you know, swinging to the left, slipping to the right.
[00:22:10]  And we should just be, you know, why don't we just focus on being libertarian?
[00:22:13]  And in 2008, when we elected, well, nominated, you know, Bob Barr and Wayne Allen Root, we were really, really kissing conservative ass back then.
[00:22:24]  I mean, it was gross in the opposite direction.
[00:22:27]  And now we've gone full circle back this way.
[00:22:30]  And, you know, I'll complain about either, but you're, I think you're absolutely right with the way we're coming off as a more of a leftist organization rather than a libertarian organization.
[00:22:44]  And I know there's some libertarians that are happy with that.
[00:22:48]  And I'm asking them why.
[00:22:49]  Don't you want to be in a libertarian party?
[00:22:51]  Even if you are more sympathetic to the left, you're in the libertarian party.
[00:22:56]  And I would say the same thing if people on the right were more happy if we, you know, didn't mention, you know, some of the more socially taboo issues.
[00:23:06]  But no, you're in a libertarian party for a reason.
[00:23:09]  And we shouldn't be doing that.
[00:23:12]  We should be completely orthogonal to that sort of thing.
[00:23:16]  And one thing to bring up what you said with messaging, you know, I know, and most people, your average person probably doesn't, but you and I know very well that politics is a lagging indicator of social change that's already happened.
[00:23:30]  You know, politics doesn't lead.
[00:23:32]  It follows.
[00:23:32]  And that's where we can lead.
[00:23:35]  We can lead in messaging that helps create the social change and the politics will then follow.
[00:23:41]  We think we have to get elected first.
[00:23:44]  No, we have to change minds first and then we get elected.
[00:23:48]  I am absolutely convinced that if we went hardcore, just bold libertarian messaging from the time we started in 1972, we would have a libertarian president by now.
[00:24:01]  But we've always been this of two minds.
[00:24:04]  We have always been kind of embarrassed libertarians.
[00:24:07]  There's always been some bold messengers, but not consistently for 50 years.
[00:24:12]  And then they wonder, oh, and this is what you'll get from the people who want the wishy-washy messaging.
[00:24:17]  Well, you've had 50 years to do it.
[00:24:18]  No, we haven't.
[00:24:19]  We've never, ever been long-term, consistently bold messaging to turn the culture around.
[00:24:27]  You know, people a few years ago would have thought the term abolish the police would never get traction.
[00:24:32]  But what did you have?
[00:24:32]  You had a social movement, Black Lives Matter, and all of a suddenly everyone's talking about that.
[00:24:38]  We could have that moment, but we don't.
[00:24:41]  We keep our mouths shut.
[00:24:42]  We piggyback on other people rather than being the vanguard to lead forward about freedom because no one else is doing it now.
[00:24:51]  And we used to hop on every single freedom issue.
[00:24:56]  We put out press releases like every three days on everything.
[00:24:59]  We had one on teens and tanning beds.
[00:25:01]  We had one about low flow toilets.
[00:25:03]  We had one about shark attacks in Miami.
[00:25:06]  Like we found a freedom angle on everything and wrote, you would laugh your ass off.
[00:25:13]  If you go to Lpedia, you can look up the press releases.
[00:25:16]  They were hilarious.
[00:25:17]  They were just the one on the toilet bowls is more puns in it than I'd ever seen in my entire life in one document.
[00:25:24]  And we don't do things like that anymore.
[00:25:26]  I think we've lost our sense of fun as well.
[00:25:29]  You know, everything's just very, you know, the chicken logo, I think, is when that started.
[00:25:37]  I hate the chicken, but it seems to me that's when we got very uniform and corporate almost.
[00:25:43]  I don't mean it as in buying, you know, getting corporate money, but I mean very straight laced in the respectability politics and you can't say that, you can't act like that.
[00:25:53]  And being embarrassed by like Vermin Supreme or something.
[00:25:55]  I loved him.
[00:25:57]  I absolutely loved him.
[00:25:59]  If you got what he was doing, but he got messages across and we're not.
[00:26:05]  We're absolutely not.
[00:26:08]  And I used to be on the social media team and all the volunteers on the social media team, except for the graphics people got thrown off.
[00:26:15]  It got taken over by staff and then we sucked.
[00:26:18]  Simple as that.
[00:26:19]  Right.
[00:26:20]  Yeah.
[00:26:20]  You know, I mean, I, like I said, I've only been in the Libertarian Party for a few years.
[00:26:24]  I was really a creature of the Ron Paul movement, but I thought that one of the things that he, Ron Paul really found like perfect balance in was that his campaigns were always obviously about the crises that America was facing today.
[00:26:41]  It wasn't just this kind of like, hey, I have this philosophy.
[00:26:43]  I mean, it was very clear he had this libertarian philosophy, but it was about the country is going to collapse and we have to save this nation.
[00:26:52]  That was always first and foremost.
[00:26:54]  It's like we are dying the way empires die and we need to save this nation.
[00:27:00]  And so it was always clearly like the wars and the Federal Reserve and the economy and like all these things were right at the center.
[00:27:07]  But he would also go to war over like raw milk.
[00:27:12]  And it would be like this thing where even though it could be seen as like kind of this like, wait, what?
[00:27:17]  Who the hell?
[00:27:18]  I don't even know what raw milk is to this day.
[00:27:20]  I don't understand it.
[00:27:21]  But it was just obvious that Ron Paul just loved liberty and hated injustice so much that if some government official somewhere was telling someone they can't drink raw milk, it just made them furious.
[00:27:35]  Like that's no, you, that is their right to drink the raw milk if they want to, you know?
[00:27:39]  And so like that kind of passion for even the slightest infringement on liberty.
[00:27:44]  And there were actually like raids and stuff.
[00:27:46]  It wasn't slight infringement on liberty.
[00:27:49]  But then to contrast that with what the government did to people in 2020, like putting them all on house arrest, you know, and like, okay, well, if we can be outraged about these minor little violations of liberty, then how could we not all be together that this is this is our calling?
[00:28:06]  Like it couldn't have, it couldn't have worked out more perfectly in a political sense, not in a human sense, but in a political sense that, oh, this is election year and the government went totalitarian.
[00:28:16]  Well, our campaign just wrote itself and here we are, the champion of the American people, the champions of freedom.
[00:28:23]  The government has no right to do this to you.
[00:28:25]  And instead, I get like one out of the every seven, you know, libertarian party tweets that take a month for them to get seven tweets out.
[00:28:33]  It'll be like, we condemn bigotry as repugnant and irrational.
[00:28:37]  And like, okay, like, yeah, sure, but really in the year of totalitarianism, this is what our message is?
[00:28:45]  And I know, I know, we should have been like so lathered up that we should have had to have been institutionalized for like just getting so upset by now.
[00:28:55]  This was, as you said, the human cost.
[00:28:57]  You don't want to see every, you got to remember the tragic part.
[00:29:02]  But as a political movement, this is an opportunity that we completely blew.
[00:29:06]  It was handed to us to point out how evil the state can be.
[00:29:11]  And we completely blew it, which that's where I go back and go, do we really believe that?
[00:29:17]  I do.
[00:29:18]  But I'm not so sure we have that spirit right now.
[00:29:22]  How could you not?
[00:29:24]  It'd be like being silent when the Japanese were interred.
[00:29:27]  It's just like, oh yeah, Jan.
[00:29:30]  What?
[00:29:31]  People's lives are destroyed.
[00:29:32]  And not, and you know this perfectly well.
[00:29:35]  It's not just for now.
[00:29:37]  Because what I got told, and these are public meetings, and I do get really upset in these meetings.
[00:29:43]  And I actually told the LNC, if you're not going to address these, you might as well just dissolve the party now because we don't deserve to exist.
[00:29:51]  But people's lives aren't only being destroyed for now.
[00:29:54]  It's going to have intergenerational repercussions, you know, because wealth lost now is lost opportunity to develop for the, you know, the next generation to pass on.
[00:30:07]  It has this ripple effect that we will not even know for sure that's where it came from.
[00:30:13]  Like it'll be so diffuse.
[00:30:15]  And I feel bad for the kids in their formative years now who aren't socialized at all.
[00:30:21]  And in those really critical early years are being grown up with fear.
[00:30:25]  We're going to have a traumatized generation of kids.
[00:30:31]  It's absolutely unreal.
[00:30:33]  Oh, yeah.
[00:30:33]  No, you're absolutely right.
[00:30:35]  It's a tragedy of epic proportion.
[00:30:38]  I mean, this type of stuff destroying people's livelihoods, this leads to marriages breaking up.
[00:30:43]  This leads to people putting pistols in their mouth.
[00:30:46]  I mean, this leads to life-altering events that, as you pointed out, are going to have ripple effects for generations.
[00:30:54]  It's just, it's really hard to overstate how tragic the government response to this virus has been.
[00:31:05]  And yeah, I think you're right.
[00:31:07]  And I think libertarians, we need to get serious and get our act together.
[00:31:11]  One of the things Jeff Deist, who I'm a huge fan of, he said when he was on my podcast a while ago, and it always stuck with me, is that he was like, you know, the difference between the left and the right in this country is that the left is serious.
[00:31:24]  Like they mean it.
[00:31:26]  And he goes, the conservatives are kind of playing pretend.
[00:31:30]  And sometimes libertarians are very guilty of that too.
[00:31:32]  We're kind of playing pretend.
[00:31:34]  It's like, oh, we have this philosophy.
[00:31:35]  We like being in our social club.
[00:31:37]  We like these ideas.
[00:31:38]  The progressive activists, they mean it.
[00:31:41]  When they say, hey, we're going to legalize gay marriage in this country, they mean we are going to legalize gay marriage in this country.
[00:31:47]  Now, that one I'm for.
[00:31:49]  I'm not commenting on whether or not I'm for it or against it.
[00:31:52]  When they talk about stuff, they mean it and they're going forward with it.
[00:31:56]  When the conservatives say, we want to ban abortion in this country, they don't mean it.
[00:32:00]  No one thinks they mean it.
[00:32:01]  It's not happening.
[00:32:02]  There's no effort to make it happen.
[00:32:04]  And I do think that libertarians got to do a little bit of looking in the mirror and ask ourselves, do we really mean it when we say this?
[00:32:13]  And here's what I was told when I kept bringing up the lockdown issue.
[00:32:17]  It's over now.
[00:32:18]  It's over now.
[00:32:19]  I go, well, it might be.
[00:32:21]  Hopefully, you know, from your lips to God's ears, maybe it is, but maybe it isn't.
[00:32:26]  And maybe the overt part is over.
[00:32:29]  But this control, once the government has it, they ain't letting it go.
[00:32:32]  It's never going to be over.
[00:32:34]  You know, it just might be not so obvious.
[00:32:38]  But so would it be wrong to still be complaining about it, even if allegedly it's over?
[00:32:44]  I think it's just beginning.
[00:32:47]  But so now we just, okay, first the excuse was we didn't know where it was going to go.
[00:32:53]  And then it was, well, you know, we're going to let the states handle it.
[00:32:57]  It was actually said in an LNC meeting, this isn't our lane.
[00:33:01]  Okay.
[00:33:02]  Don't know what our lane is then.
[00:33:04]  And now, oh, it's over.
[00:33:08]  So yeah, I think that's it.
[00:33:10]  Well, of course, it's not over.
[00:33:12]  I mean, like, you know, there's, there's still plenty of states in the country that are locked down.
[00:33:17]  And as you pointed out, I mean, look, I mean, all over the place, there are all types of controls on what how many people businesses can have in and in terms of how big gatherings can be and things like this.
[00:33:29]  I mean, they've repealed the Bill of Rights over this last year.
[00:33:32]  And if that's, if that's like, oh, well, they did it, but they're not repealing it really anymore.
[00:33:37]  I mean, sure, the First Amendment does say you have the right to peacefully assemble.
[00:33:41]  And now they're going to tell you you don't.
[00:33:42]  But it's like, come on, man.
[00:33:44]  This just cannot be the libertarian attitude toward government totalitarianism.
[00:33:48]  I just, you know, that's hard to stomach.
[00:33:50]  All right.
[00:33:51]  I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about one of the things that I mentioned at the beginning that you've been, from my perspective, very good at kind of navigating the waters of libertarian infighting.
[00:34:03]  I don't know, you know, as you said, you've maybe don't have that many friends on the national committee or that you've, you know, you will, I'm sure there are different factions who are mad at you at different times.
[00:34:16]  But one of the things that people from the outside see and fairly is that there is just so much libertarian infighting.
[00:34:25]  Obviously, I've been involved in my fair share of this.
[00:34:30]  You've been in the Libertarian Party longer than I have.
[00:34:34]  What is your, like, has it always been like this?
[00:34:37]  Is it worse?
[00:34:38]  How do you assess the level of infighting in the LP?
[00:34:43]  It's always been like this.
[00:34:45]  And it's always been like this predating my time.
[00:34:48]  Here's the difference.
[00:34:49]  We have instantaneous insult wars now, where in the past, see, because as you may or may not know, I'm kind of like the de facto party historian.
[00:34:58]  I'm the chair of the LP Historical Preservation Committee.
[00:35:01]  So I have all these archives I'm going through.
[00:35:03]  And they used to do the same thing, but they had to do it by letter back then.
[00:35:06]  And you should see some of these letters.
[00:35:08]  They're like 10 pages of rants and they really are classic.
[00:35:13]  I mean, they're perfect, but that's they, it was very slow motion, but they were still doing it, absolutely still doing it.
[00:35:21]  So we're, yeah, I've never been part of any other political movement.
[00:35:28]  So everyone tells me it's the same in all of them when you get into the inside circle.
[00:35:34]  Right.
[00:35:34]  We're such a small pond that it's so easy to turn on the other fish because you have to see them every day.
[00:35:42]  We start to get tired of each other.
[00:35:44]  It's quite incestuous sometimes.
[00:35:46]  But I think there's less, though, than it appears when you actually are in person.
[00:35:53]  You know, social media is going to magnify that.
[00:35:56]  And again, the same people who wrote these 10 page nasty letters to each other, the minute they got together at convention, they were fine.
[00:36:03]  Yeah, I agree with you.
[00:36:04]  I think it is.
[00:36:05]  I think there is a false perception out there about how much it really, how much this division really exists.

=== Avoiding Reactionary Collateral Damage (04:06) ===

[00:36:13]  I mean, certainly there are areas of disagreement, and that's, that's going to be true in any political organization, especially one that's kind of revolves around individualism and critical thinking and philosophy, which is really not the case for Democrats and Republicans.
[00:36:29]  That's really not what they are all about.
[00:36:31]  It's much more about cultural identity in those parties.
[00:36:35]  Whereas in our party, you really see much more of a range of cultural identities, whereas you see there are very conservative suit and tie people.
[00:36:45]  And then there's, you know, Vernon Supreme.
[00:36:49]  And then there's, you know, like there's, there's just, there's a wide range of cultural preferences or attitudes.
[00:36:57]  And so I do think to some degree it's normal.
[00:37:00]  But I also think that, yeah, it's not, you know, truthfully speaking, people like, I'll leave myself out of it, but to be more a little bit more neutral.
[00:37:12]  But so like people like Ron Paul, Tom Woods, Eric July, Michael Malice, you know, go down the list of like some popular libertarians.
[00:37:24]  These are not actually controversial figures within the liberty movement.
[00:37:29]  These are beloved figures within the liberty movement.
[00:37:32]  You might find five to 10 people on Twitter who are constantly talking, you know, something or something else about them.
[00:37:38]  But overall, like I've just met and interacted with too many people.
[00:37:42]  And there's really, I think there's not as much division as it as it seems at times.
[00:37:49]  Well, and I think where it did get worse, unfortunately, and I've said this to the people involved, is when Nick started going after people publicly.
[00:38:01]  Because when the chair of the party does it, it kind of gives the permission for everyone else to unleash their less noble nature and encourages that because from the top, that's the example.
[00:38:17]  And that's when I think things really just started going downhill is when that happened.
[00:38:22]  And he changed because he wasn't like that when in the past.
[00:38:26]  I don't know what happened, but he wasn't like that.
[00:38:29]  He was one of the best chairs this party ever had for his first two terms.
[00:38:33]  The last term, he went off the freaking rails.
[00:38:36]  He went off the rails.
[00:38:38]  And that's one reason why I believe in three terms in one seat for any LNC member, because people seem to just malfunction in their third term.
[00:38:47]  I don't know what happens.
[00:38:49]  Yeah.
[00:38:49]  And then it seems like everybody, and I will say that I think that I'm guilty of this and the Mises caucus in general is guilty of this as well, is that we all become reactionary after this.
[00:39:00]  So when Nick went after those guys, we become reactionary to him.
[00:39:04]  Other people become reactionary to us.
[00:39:06]  We react back to them.
[00:39:07]  And it kind of becomes this thing where nobody is really slowing down and listening to each other.
[00:39:14]  And there are often times where, and I've seen this happen a lot where, and obviously I have a dog in this fight.
[00:39:21]  Like I'm a Mises caucus guy.
[00:39:23]  And but I've seen things where, so like the Mises caucus will get these like wildly, you know, vicious accusations thrown at them by a whole bunch of people.
[00:39:35]  And that puts. our camp in kind of defense mode.
[00:39:38]  And now we're fighting back against these people.
[00:39:40]  And then I'll kind of like see this online where then someone else will come in and kind of ask an innocent question and they get vitriol thrown at them as well, too, because it's almost like you're just assuming at this point that you're in that camp who's who's attacking.
[00:39:56]  And so we're all guilty of this to some degree.
[00:39:58]  And I guess that's going to be like my, my challenge to myself is to try to navigate these waters better moving forward, where it's like, let's at least like kind of give people the chance.
[00:40:08]  Let's not snap too quickly and try to not all be so reactionary because you do end up there, there like ends up being collateral damage in the midst of all of that.

=== Navigating Criticism Gracefully (02:50) ===

[00:40:19]  Yeah.
[00:40:20]  And if you do realize you've done it, apologize.
[00:40:24]  You know, there's a power in just a simple apology in libertarian circles.
[00:40:29]  You know, I snap at people.
[00:40:30]  They come on my wall sometimes and they say something and I think I know where they're going because I've seen it a hundred times and they weren't.
[00:40:38]  And I've very often had to say, yeah, I'm kind of, I'm being a bit bitchy.
[00:40:43]  I'm sorry.
[00:40:44]  You know, I'm sorry I shouldn't have done that.
[00:40:46]  I'm tired, you know, or I'm grumpy today.
[00:40:48]  I, you know, not your fault, you know, that sort of thing.
[00:40:52]  You should always be willing to apologize.
[00:40:54]  And if you're a public figure in general, kind of for me, at least, because I can run off my mouth.
[00:41:01]  If I haven't apologized at least once a day, then I missed one that I probably should have.
[00:41:07]  Yeah, no, fair enough.
[00:41:09]  Fair enough.
[00:41:09]  I have, you know, I agree with you on all of that.
[00:41:13]  So you're, you're not a member of any caucus, but you, you, you, you know, like you're in the Mises Caucus Facebook group and you're, you know, you're like, you'll, you'll work with all of them, but you're not a member of any of them.
[00:41:26]  I heard you on Tom's show say you think that's the way like national committee people should be.
[00:41:31]  I think that makes that makes sense to me.
[00:41:32]  All right, guys, let's take a quick second.
[00:41:34]  I want to thank our awesome sponsor for today's show, which is, of course, Cushy Dreams.
[00:41:39]  Cushy Dreams offers a full lineup of premium smokable CBD.
[00:41:44]  They specialize in extraordinary CBD rich hemp flour, aka bud, in cans and pre-rolls.
[00:41:53]  I just love Cushy Dreams.
[00:41:54]  I cannot state it enough.
[00:41:56]  I never even knew it was an option to just smoke CBD.
[00:41:59]  It's the best thing ever.
[00:42:00]  If you smoke a lot of weed and you want to smoke less, this is perfect for you.
[00:42:04]  If you don't smoke weed, but you just kind of enjoy smoking and the whole experience of it, it's amazing.
[00:42:09]  I love the stuff.
[00:42:10]  It doesn't get you high.
[00:42:11]  It just makes you feel good and it helps with a lot of different ailments that CBD is known to help with, like insomnia, inflammation, anxiety, stuff like that.
[00:42:20]  It looks like high quality marijuana.
[00:42:22]  It feels like high quality marijuana.
[00:42:24]  It smells and tastes like high quality marijuana, but it's CBD.
[00:42:28]  So again, it's just, I really love it.
[00:42:30]  I think you should try it.
[00:42:31]  You're going to love the stuff.
[00:42:32]  Cushy Dreams has CBD flour in pre-roll joints.
[00:42:35]  They also come in specific indica sativa blends like relax, dream, energy, hustle, and peace.
[00:42:41]  Go to cushydreams.com.
[00:42:43]  That's K-U-S-H-Y dreams.com and get some high quality CBD bud.
[00:42:50]  And at checkout, use promo code P-O-T-P for 25% off your entire order.
[00:42:57]  Free shipping on all orders over $20.
[00:43:00]  Smoke your CBD.
[00:43:01]  Go to cushydreams.com.
[00:43:03]  Use the promo code P-O-T-P for 20% off today.
[00:43:08]  All right, let's get back into the show.

=== Using Serious Language Matters (15:02) ===

[00:43:10]  Let me ask you, because I'm kind of curious, because also one of the things that I think is a benefit of the kind of tactics that you use or employ is that because you are fair to the Mises caucus, but will also voice criticism when you think they're doing something wrong.
[00:43:29]  I'm a lot more receptive to your criticism.
[00:43:32]  So if somebody's being hysterical and like calling me like a Nazi sympathizer, even if they have some criticism of me that might maybe should be addressed, my response is like, fuck you.
[00:43:42]  Like I just like, how am I going to have a conversation with you now?
[00:43:45]  But if somebody's being reasonable, then I'm much more interested in what they have to say.
[00:43:50]  So I know what's your overall assessment of like the Mises caucus, how they've done.
[00:43:56]  They're a caucus that's only existed for a few years and kind of become one of the major caucuses in the party.
[00:44:01]  Caucuses?
[00:44:02]  Cauckey?
[00:44:03]  Cauckey.
[00:44:04]  One of the major cauckey in the party.
[00:44:07]  And so what do you, what do you think of the Mises caucus and how we're doing?
[00:44:12]  I think they're doing fantastic.
[00:44:13]  I've said this multiple times.
[00:44:16]  The fact that they're raising, what's it, $11,000 a month now is unreal.
[00:44:21]  It's absolutely amazing.
[00:44:22]  I don't think any LP caucus has ever done that.
[00:44:26]  I mean, I don't know that for sure, but I'm fairly positive in saying that.
[00:44:31]  And the activism and the focus on the issues, I do.
[00:44:37]  That's why I spend a lot of time in there because it's inspiring.
[00:44:41]  You know, I originally came from the Radical Caucus.
[00:44:43]  I was a member of the Radical Caucus before I was elected to be secretary.
[00:44:50]  And we really had our crap together in 2016.
[00:44:53]  And then I don't know what happened to them.
[00:44:54]  They fell apart.
[00:44:56]  They're not effective right now.
[00:44:59]  Who did the Radical Caucus support for president in 2016?
[00:45:02]  Daryl Perry.
[00:45:04]  Oh, okay.
[00:45:04]  Yeah.
[00:45:05]  Okay.
[00:45:05]  That makes sense.
[00:45:06]  I gave Daryl's nomination speech.
[00:45:07]  And then I ended up giving Will Coley's where I just mostly spent the time saying what a shithead Bill Weld is.
[00:45:14]  So I am on CNN saying, let's nominate somebody who read the platform more than a week ago.
[00:45:20]  Yeah, let's do that.
[00:45:22]  I will say I really like, I really like the Radical Caucus.
[00:45:25]  I don't know that much.
[00:45:26]  Like I still have a lot to learn about like the kind of inner, you know, like every little group and the inner workings of the party and stuff like that.
[00:45:32]  Like I said, I'm, I'm more a creature of the liberty movement.
[00:45:36]  And then I joined the Mises caucus and I've been in the party for a few years now.
[00:45:40]  But I'm more, you know, just like of a communicator and of these, the, the philosophy.
[00:45:45]  Like I really know my shit on the philosophy.
[00:45:47]  I know everything about like the history of the Ron Paul movement and like stuff and the history of the liberty movement, but I there's still a lot I don't know.
[00:45:54]  But from what I've seen out of the radical caucus, I really like them.
[00:45:57]  I think there's a lot of really great people in that caucus who are really excellent libertarians.
[00:46:02]  And so I, yeah, I was, I was, I was just curious who they were for in 2016.
[00:46:08]  And their key points, they have like five key points.
[00:46:10]  Everyone has their shtick.
[00:46:12]  I absolutely agree with 100% don't have any disagreement at all.
[00:46:18]  I just wish they would become effective.
[00:46:20]  I wish they would get inspired by what the Mises people are doing and become effective.
[00:46:26]  Yeah.
[00:46:26]  Yeah.
[00:46:27]  Now, in terms of the, you know, obviously the Mises caucus has generated a lot of criticism since coming in.
[00:46:36]  What do you, what do you think they've done wrong?
[00:46:39]  What do you think we are at fault for?
[00:46:45]  I'm trying to, I want to think carefully and word this right.
[00:46:55]  There's a lot of overly young buck energy, if you know what I mean.
[00:47:02]  So there's a lot of young men full of piss and vinegar that are kind of brash that rub people the wrong way.
[00:47:11]  And when you're going to work with other people, you need to learn to tone that down a little bit internally.
[00:47:17]  Save it for the state.
[00:47:18]  Save it for the status.
[00:47:20]  So I think that has been the biggest thing is being a bit brash in a way that has annoyed people.
[00:47:34]  And a lot of that stemmed from them.
[00:47:39]  They didn't start because of what Nick was doing, but it was concurrent with it.
[00:47:43]  So they started in a very hostile atmosphere.
[00:47:48]  So they were always, oh, for a while, and I said this in the group, they had Nick derangement syndrome.
[00:47:56]  All they talked about was Nick.
[00:47:58]  And a lot of people are still remembering that and doesn't don't see the maturity that they've gone through.
[00:48:06]  But there is still some of that, you know.
[00:48:10]  And that's what I would say.
[00:48:14]  But on other things, you're always going to have people who are just going to say shitty things about you.
[00:48:20]  And I used to get all upset about it.
[00:48:23]  And now I just block them.
[00:48:24]  As I find them, I block them.
[00:48:25]  The fakertarians don't bother me one bit because the things they say are just so stupid.
[00:48:32]  And anyone who believes them, you should, there's some pyramid schemes out there that really want your money.
[00:48:41]  That's all I can say.
[00:48:42]  If you find, if you find the fakertarians credible, it's, it's, it's just, it's gross and you can't worry about that.
[00:48:52]  And that's where most of the criticisms are coming from nowadays.
[00:48:56]  You know, as I feel about the takeover language and don't like that.
[00:49:00]  And I have to tell you, if you go and read, what group was it?
[00:49:06]  And I know this isn't one of the bigger state parties, but I got a lot of friends there and I love these guys.
[00:49:10]  But apparently a lot of people were rubbing people the wrong way in Delaware.
[00:49:15]  I guess they just had their convention and a lot of people are really upset about the takeover language and it hurt the Mises supported candidate for chair because they viewed it as a hostile takeover.
[00:49:28]  Yeah, well, so that language is going to hurt you getting elected people within state parties.
[00:49:34]  Okay.
[00:49:35]  Yeah, look, I mean, look, we, we had a fairly lengthy conversation about this on the stream the other day.
[00:49:40]  If you want to check that out as well, they can go look at that.
[00:49:43]  But I will, I will say this, that like, I, um, look, I'm not going to apologize for any language that I've used to try to inspire people.
[00:49:52]  And I really do think, as, as we said on that stream before, that look, like the Libertarian Party, I get, first of all, I get your point.
[00:50:00]  I think you're right about young men with piss and vinegar in the Mises caucus and sometimes rubbing people the wrong way.
[00:50:06]  I would also say that I think that as a party, we could use a little bit more of that and that we can use a little bit more of, as you were talking about before, people who really believe this shit and are really serious about making it happen.
[00:50:18]  And by the way, that's not to say that there aren't a ton of people like that in the party.
[00:50:22]  There's a ton of them who are really sincere, great people.
[00:50:25]  And I want to work with all of those people.
[00:50:28]  But the truth is, the reality is that the Libertarian Party is sitting on the greatest political philosophy ever devised by man and they're seen as a joke.
[00:50:38]  And we need to address that and we need to be real about what the situation is.
[00:50:42]  So I would just say to a lot of those people that, you know, if the language rubs you the wrong way, think of it in a different, as a different term.
[00:50:50]  Like forget the term or whatever, you know, think about like what we're talking about doing here.
[00:50:55]  This isn't about kicking anybody out or taking anything away from anybody.
[00:51:00]  This should be like viewed from my perspective as like, oh, the reinforcements are coming.
[00:51:06]  Like we're coming to help to join.
[00:51:09]  That is the essence of what we're doing here.
[00:51:11]  We're joining and we're trying to make this thing better and bring a whole bunch more people on board to have your back.
[00:51:18]  Like Mr. or Mrs. Good Libertarian or Ms. Good Libertarian in the LP, we're here to have your back and to make sure this thing is everything that you deserve it to be.
[00:51:29]  You know, and so that's what I I would try to offer as, as perhaps a bridge uh, to some of those people.
[00:51:35]  Yeah, I think that you know I was saying recently because i'm like completely uh convinced, uh at this point, that uh woke wokeism, woke culture, is a corporate plot.
[00:51:46]  Uh, in the same way that progressivism was, a was a corporate plot to basically distract the left from all the issues that really matter, that they used to be really good on protesting like it's it's.
[00:51:56]  It's easy almost for people today, particularly young people, i'm sure today, to to completely forget.
[00:52:02]  Like i'm old enough i'm, i'm going to be 38 in a few months i'm just old enough to really have vivid memories of the left protesting wars and banker bailouts.
[00:52:13]  Like this was not that long ago.
[00:52:15]  That that's what animated the left.
[00:52:17]  Like we're going into a bullshit war and we're bailing out banks.
[00:52:21]  That's what we get in the streets and protest about.
[00:52:23]  And right after that, as soon as the Occupy Wall Street movement was, it was even before it was done they were just bombarded with every different article being about social justice and race and gender and transgender bathrooms that they were completely thrown off the scent.
[00:52:40]  But the truth is that it also throws the right off the scent, because then the right spends all day just bashing woke shit and so nobody's talking about, like the fact that you know the American government locked you in your home and stole trillions of dollars from you last year to give to big corporations you know like, and the stuff that matters.
[00:52:58]  And I think there's some dynamic like this happening in the LP.
[00:53:02]  Where we spend, we get sucked into spending all this energy bashing the people like you were just mentioning, who are just like dishonest and irrelevant and it doesn't matter.
[00:53:11]  And then we are also not focusing on the issues that really matter.
[00:53:14]  And I think that would be my pitch to any of those people who are um off put by the language we use or posts in in our group or something like that.
[00:53:23]  It's like hey, let's all rally together around.
[00:53:26]  What really matters.
[00:53:27]  What really matters is how corrupt this system is.
[00:53:31]  What really matters is that in real people's lives, regular people are being screwed over this.
[00:53:39]  The whole system is is rigged against the average person in favor of the billionaire class and the and and the warfare state and the militarization of the police and the debt we're handing our children and all this stuff.
[00:53:53]  If we're all together on that, then we we should be able to get past.
[00:53:57]  You know whether takeover is the right word or or not.
[00:54:00]  You know what I mean and I tell people, if there's someone you don't like, for whatever reason, just ignore them.
[00:54:06]  You don't need to fight with them, just ignore them.
[00:54:08]  Listen, there's we're it because we're so close here in Colorado.
[00:54:12]  There's There's plenty of people here that I don't like and who don't like me.
[00:54:15]  And I do my best just to ignore them because they're good activists.
[00:54:19]  They're not bad activists.
[00:54:21]  We just don't get along for whatever reason.
[00:54:24]  Fine, you go do your thing and you do things I don't do.
[00:54:28]  So it fills a need.
[00:54:30]  You're good activists.
[00:54:31]  I'm not going to go out of my way to fight with you.
[00:54:33]  I'm not going to go out of my way to be in the same room with you either.
[00:54:36]  But when we are, I'll be cordial.
[00:54:39]  And if somebody happens, no matter what caucus they're in, you don't like somebody, but they're good activists.
[00:54:46]  I'm not talking about the bad actors like people in the fake Atarians, because really I have no use for them.
[00:54:51]  Sure.
[00:54:51]  But people who it's just a personality thing, then just stay away from them and let them do their thing.
[00:54:57]  You do, you do your thing.
[00:54:59]  I've once said that the LP motto should just be you, do you, boo-boo, because that kind of encapsulates it in a cultural way.
[00:55:09]  And if more people would just not fight and block the people who just want to consistently say dumb crap about them, I got a guy right now riding my tail wants to know what my salary is.
[00:55:20]  You want to know what my salary is with the LP?
[00:55:22]  This is my salary.
[00:55:23]  Zero.
[00:55:24]  It's everybody's salary on the LNC.
[00:55:26]  I don't know.
[00:55:27]  I guess he thought I was making like all this coin.
[00:55:30]  No, no, I volunteer about 40 hours a week for nothing to get slammed on Facebook.
[00:55:36]  That's my salary.
[00:55:38]  So truthfully, I'm not sure that's a, that's a good thing.
[00:55:42]  I mean, I to be honest, I think probably we should pay our committee members more.
[00:55:48]  Or I guess anything would be more.
[00:55:49]  Well, you could double it.
[00:55:51]  Yeah, right.
[00:55:52]  You know what?
[00:55:53]  Triple it.
[00:55:53]  Karen Ann.
[00:55:57]  But I think that, you know, there's there's a lot of people out there who like, you know, they'll accuse others of like grifting or something like that.
[00:56:07]  And it's like, well, I don't know.
[00:56:08]  I mean, like, look, I make, I make good money from what I do, but the fact that I can support my family off what I do means that I can invest full time in what I do and really be on point.
[00:56:19]  I think it's one of the reasons why I'm, I, you know, like if people are like, oh, I'm, I'm better at what I do than someone who's got a full-time job and is doing, you know, this as a hobby.
[00:56:31]  It's like, well, I have a huge advantage over that person.
[00:56:34]  I mean, this is my life.
[00:56:35]  This is my career.
[00:56:36]  So I can devote full time.
[00:56:37]  I saw people criticizing Michael Heist because one of the goals of the Mises PAC is to make sure that he can do this full time.
[00:56:44]  It's like, dude, yeah, that's the way the world works.
[00:56:47]  Like we want Michael Heist is debatably the most effective libertarian activist in the world.
[00:56:54]  You know, so if that's, I mean, seriously, there's a really strong argument that he is the most effective libertarian activist from an organizational point of view.
[00:57:03]  The guy has created what is one of the biggest caucuses, if not the biggest caucus in the Libertarian Party out of thin air in the last few years, right?
[00:57:12]  So if we can get that guy full-time working on this, yes, I will contribute directly to that.
[00:57:19]  You know, so this whole thing, it's a weird angle to accuse someone of making money.
[00:57:24]  You think libertarians wouldn't be against people being successful, you know, anyway.
[00:57:29]  Well, I had people complaining that I do on my YouTube channel where I have a Patreon account.
[00:57:34]  I had people complaining about that.
[00:57:36]  Why?
[00:57:38]  If people are getting value out of your content, why would you not be for them, you know, like, you know, rewarding you for that?
[00:57:48]  I mean, this is how basic of a like market function 101 is this.
[00:57:53]  But I also, you know, I think that I agree with you that there's a line where you should just, you know, like there are people who are dishonest actors and all that stuff.
[00:58:03]  And that's true with any organization.
[00:58:05]  But I also think that there are important battles of ideas that it's really good to have those and to kind of work out.

=== Reaching Out To Reach Groups (05:43) ===

[00:58:12]  And one of the things that is, it's kind of like my new thing.
[00:58:15]  And I've seen Michael do a lot of this as well, where it's like, you know, for some of the people who at least don't strike me, I don't really know them that well, but they don't strike me as like the bad faith actor type, like they're just critical, you know, is that I'm kind of just like, well, look, if you feel like this strategy is not effective or this is not the way to grow the party or this is not the way to do outreach.
[00:58:39]  It's like, well, then go do it better.
[00:58:41]  Like that's fine.
[00:58:42]  You know, like if you feel like I'm somebody who's not going to be able to reach out to this group or that group, it's like, well, then you go reach out to that group and do it better.
[00:58:49]  Go raise more money.
[00:58:50]  Go recruit more people.
[00:58:52]  And then you've got nothing to worry about as far as we go.
[00:58:55]  Like, look, I, for example, there's a small contingent of libertarian socialists in the party, right?
[00:59:03]  Who really have some beliefs that I'll say this, it's a stretch for me to be able to consider them in the same political philosophy that I have, right?
[00:59:17]  Like if you, if you don't believe in private property, I really, you know, I'm not trying to get into this like, who's the real libertarian thing, but we have to have some lines, right?
[00:59:25]  Like if you, if you support the militarized police or the warfare state, I can't really call you a libertarian.
[00:59:32]  You're not in the same thing as me.
[00:59:33]  And if you don't believe in private property or you think like landlords are a crime or wage slave labor should be illegal, it's like, I just, you're really not, whatever the word is, you're not the same thing I am, you know, but I'm not concerned about them.
[00:59:46]  And I'm not trying to kick them out of the party because they're tiny and I know we're going to outrecrate them.
[00:59:51]  You know what I'm saying?
[00:59:52]  So it's kind of like, if you think your ideas are superior, then you got to, you got to convince more people that they are.
[00:59:59]  And then I would be concerned if I actually thought they were on the verge of controlling the party.
[01:00:04]  Well, if they were on the verge of controlling the party, the party has lost its way irrevocably.
[01:00:09]  Personally, listen, I don't try to throw anybody out of the party either.
[01:00:17]  But what I am very clear on, which some of them are not, is what you believe is not the party position.
[01:00:25]  And don't deceive people into thinking it is.
[01:00:28]  For whatever reason, you found your home here because you have enough points of agreement.
[01:00:31]  Wonderful.
[01:00:33]  But your view on property is not.
[01:00:36]  Don't pretend like it is.
[01:00:38]  Don't tell other people that it is because it is not.
[01:00:42]  To pretend like we weren't founded either as a capitalist party is also, they're either ignorant or lying.
[01:00:50]  And I spend a lot of time on my show pointing out all the times in the early party that that was made absolutely clear.
[01:00:59]  And it's fine, though.
[01:01:00]  I don't care.
[01:01:01]  You can hate capitalism.
[01:01:02]  Just don't misrepresent the party.
[01:01:04]  Sure.
[01:01:04]  Yeah, I think that's reasonable.
[01:01:06]  That seems fair.
[01:01:07]  Yeah, that's always been my thing.
[01:01:09]  And that's what bothered me about with Gary Johnson with Bake the Cake.
[01:01:12]  People thought that was the libertarian position.
[01:01:15]  I didn't care that he believed that so much I cared that he deceived millions of people into thinking that's what we believed.
[01:01:22]  He didn't say this is my position, you know he he did not clarify that at all and I was on an advisory committee for him and we were.
[01:01:32]  We asked him to do that.
[01:01:33]  We pretty much got told, yeah no, you'll get nothing in like it yeah, the truth is right, and there it's.
[01:01:41]  It's funny like i've.
[01:01:42]  I've laughed at kind of the irony of all of it, for all the like accusations of, like you know um, anti-semitism or as you know which i'm a Jewish person um, but uh, the accusations of you know, like you know, whatever alt-right or Nazi stuff or any of that that Gary Johnson actually outright advocated that the force of the state be used to force a Jewish baker to put a swastika on a cake.
[01:02:09]  But it's all only just as a joke, because the truth is Gary Johnson didn't even really mean that that really isn't his position.
[01:02:16]  He was just trying to not get trapped in an inconsistency after being pushed on the other thing and he was trying to remain consistent.
[01:02:24]  So it was really just a blunder, but yeah, it was.
[01:02:26]  It was not the best one um, but you know I I, you know, anyway it's.
[01:02:31]  It's kind of funny that that was actually the position of the nominee.
[01:02:35]  I wanted to bring a, a Nazi cake, to the convention in 2016.
[01:02:41]  That could get misconstrued, though.
[01:02:43]  I know, I know, but I did want to do that.
[01:02:46]  I wanted to offer Gary a slice.
[01:02:50]  And I adore Gary Johnson.
[01:02:52]  And maybe I don't agree with him.
[01:02:54]  I just think he's such a cutie pie.
[01:02:56]  I had such a political crush on Gary Johnson.
[01:02:59]  I've always, I said, you know, I've always, I felt this way about Gary Johnson and to a large degree about Joe Jorgensen that I really, I felt bad criticizing them because I really just like both of them as people.
[01:03:15]  And I do think that like they're good libertarians.
[01:03:18]  I mean, Joe Jorgensen's a better libertarian than Gary Johnson is in terms of like going down the list of policies.
[01:03:24]  But Gary Johnson was good.
[01:03:26]  He was always on the side of moving toward a more libertarian society.
[01:03:32]  And he was a really good governor.
[01:03:34]  And he's like, you know, like, and I just liked him.
[01:03:36]  He's like a nice dude.
[01:03:37]  Like I've met Gary Johnson several times, a really nice guy.
[01:03:40]  And so I never took any pleasure in like criticizing those guys.
[01:03:43]  It's just like when they've become the leader of the party and I feel like they're really messing up, I feel kind of like that's like, I don't know, this, I have to, I have to, you know, tell the truth as I see it.

=== Speaking Up For Oppressed Victims (04:11) ===

[01:03:56]  Otherwise, I'm not doing my job.
[01:03:58]  So, you know, that's, but yeah, there's a, um, that's just, it's just what the situation is.
[01:04:03]  I want to give you an anecdote, though.
[01:04:05]  I, I just thought of it that, that this anecdote really summarizes in situational form what the problem is with the libertarian party right now with its messaging.
[01:04:15]  And this, this does go back to the bake the cake.
[01:04:18]  Um, I was lathered up over the National Party not really jumping on defending the bakers and the photographers.
[01:04:26]  I thought we should have been on the forefront of that.
[01:04:29]  And Nick had said in the radical caucus group publicly, so there's not a private conversation.
[01:04:36]  He said, well, you, you can't lead with your chin.
[01:04:40]  And Mark Montoni, God bless him, said to him, sometimes that's the only way you can lead.
[01:04:45]  Amen.
[01:04:46]  A men, we need to, we're scared of touching the third rails, but that's all third party.
[01:04:53]  That's, that's, that's what third parties do.
[01:04:56]  That's what they're good at.
[01:04:58]  But yeah, we're scared to lead with our chin.
[01:05:02]  No, but our, and our job is, is to persuade the American people that the third rails are stupid.
[01:05:10]  Yeah.
[01:05:11]  And that this shouldn't be the third rail and that you should have every bit as, you know, we're in this like kind of where, you know, they used to say, I don't think this is true anymore because politics has gotten so much crazier, but they used to say that like the entitlements were the third rails, you know, like questioning entitlement programs were the third rails.
[01:05:27]  And it's our job to be up there and say like, well, listen, first off, these programs are all insolvent with tens of trillions of unfunded liabilities, but you're telling me the media has decided I'm not allowed to address this.
[01:05:40]  But if I wanted to support bombing children in third world countries, that's a completely reasonable adult conversation.
[01:05:47]  What type of sick society is this?
[01:05:49]  That's our job is to point out that the third rails make no sense.
[01:05:53]  And in fact, in a sane moral society, if someone ever suggested the idea that we bomb children in third world countries, they'd never be allowed in polite society again because it's the most evil, insane thing to suggest.
[01:06:07]  But that'll just get you praise from the corporate press.
[01:06:10]  So it's obviously our job is to shake up the whole thing and present something radically different.
[01:06:17]  And if we're already conceding that we have to play by their rules, then we've conceded the whole game and we lose.
[01:06:24]  There's no chance to win like that.
[01:06:26]  I also think something you touched on there that this is what really drove me crazy about the Libertarian Party over the last year is that it seems to me like we've got this, we've completely bought into the corporate narrative, the kind of, it's kind of informed by critical race theory or, you know, like kind of the woke culture of who the victims are in society and who is not a victim.
[01:06:55]  And that is according to the universities and the corporate press and politicians of every both major parties.
[01:07:01]  That is, it goes the following.
[01:07:03]  It's like, well, women are more oppressed than men.
[01:07:05]  Blacks are more oppressed than whites.
[01:07:07]  Gays are more oppressed than straits, you know, and in some situations that's true, you know, in lots of situations, it's true.
[01:07:14]  But it seemed to me like there were these victims of state policies over the last year that nobody wanted to stand up for.
[01:07:23]  And it's like, but what about these business owners?
[01:07:26]  What about like the working mom who's now got a kid who's doing virtual learning and she has to try to go to her job if she's even allowed to go to her job?
[01:07:34]  And she like, she, she's a victim of the state and, you know, like all these things.
[01:07:39]  And the other thing was the victims of the riots, which were all over the country.
[01:07:43]  It's like, well, what about them?
[01:07:45]  What about these property owners who are being attacked by a group of violent rioters who are then being bailed out of jail by Democratic fun, you know, Democratic politicians and Democratic donors.
[01:08:01]  And then the state will come in and prosecute the property owners if they defend themselves.
[01:08:05]  Like, what about those victims?

=== Spreading Conversation On Issues (03:20) ===

[01:08:07]  Why don't we speak up for them?
[01:08:10]  It's not the popular thing.
[01:08:11]  It's not the safe thing.
[01:08:14]  I asked when Alex Jones, who I cannot stand, got thrown off all the, I saw what was coming today way back then.
[01:08:22]  And I'm like, why aren't we saying something about this?
[01:08:25]  Oh, we can't look like we're supporting Alex Jones.
[01:08:27]  I go, you're not.
[01:08:28]  You're not.
[01:08:29]  You're just, you're supporting the principle behind behind the thing, but they wouldn't say anything then too.
[01:08:34]  And boy, I got a lot of crap for that.
[01:08:37]  You know, now look where we're at.
[01:08:41]  Now look where we're at.
[01:08:42]  And on a terrorist list.
[01:08:44]  Yeah, because we're domestic terrorists now, apparently.
[01:08:47]  And it really wasn't so hard.
[01:08:49]  Like it really wasn't just for self interest.
[01:08:52]  It wasn't that hard to see that this was one step away, you know?
[01:08:56]  Like if you go, if they're willing to like, you know, silence people who are threats to the establishment, and we know that our philosophy is really the ultimate threat to the establishment, you know, and I mean that in a nonviolent way, in case the feds are listening, I just mean we will take your unconstitutional power.
[01:09:13]  But, you know, like then, oh, yeah, maybe we should be on the air on the side of like, hey, we want to have an open society where everybody's allowed to express their political views.
[01:09:22]  And, you know, yeah, okay, Alex Jones has some pretty nutty ones.
[01:09:25]  By the way, he's also got some pretty good ones, truthfully.
[01:09:28]  I mean, the guy was like, you know, he's, he's baddy, but he was like crying when Donald Trump bombed Syria the first time and asking how he could betray us.
[01:09:37]  So there are some things that he gets right, you know.
[01:09:40]  Well, the gay frogs, I mean, he was right.
[01:09:42]  Well, he was right.
[01:09:43]  He was right.
[01:09:43]  We've covered this.
[01:09:44]  The frogs are gay.
[01:09:46]  Have you seen these frogs?
[01:09:47]  They're flaming.
[01:09:48]  They're just, it's out of control.
[01:09:50]  You go by these frogs.
[01:09:51]  Very well dressed.
[01:09:52]  Very well dressed, these gay frogs.
[01:09:54]  And they have the best parties and they're very neat, but they have, they have been turned gay, evidently.
[01:10:00]  All right, listen, we're over our time.
[01:10:02]  I really appreciate you joining me.
[01:10:04]  For people who want to check out your stuff, let them know where they can find you.
[01:10:09]  Okay, certainly.
[01:10:10]  I have a YouTube channel.
[01:10:11]  It's Pink Flame of Liberty.
[01:10:13]  And I do political stuff.
[01:10:15]  And it's all very LP stated.
[01:10:18]  But when we're talking, since we were talking about the mandates, we're launching a like social media awareness campaign because we don't think it's over a group of us.
[01:10:28]  When I say we, the LP isn't doing this.
[01:10:30]  So we got these things that you can print out already against the next mandate at alreadyagainstenextmandate.com.
[01:10:37]  You could go there.
[01:10:38]  You can get this.
[01:10:39]  Take a picture of yourself with it on social media.
[01:10:41]  Maybe we can start spreading a conversation on this.
[01:10:44]  The conversation that the LP won't have.
[01:10:46]  They told me to go do it myself.
[01:10:47]  So that's what I'm doing.
[01:10:48]  I'm rolling my own.
[01:10:50]  And yeah, so go to this and you'll see me spreading a lot of this.
[01:10:54]  So Pink Flame of Liberty on YouTube and alreadyagainstmandate.com.
[01:11:00]  All right.
[01:11:00]  I love it.
[01:11:01]  I think that's that's excellent.
[01:11:02]  Bless you.
[01:11:03]  I wish there were a hundred more of you in the LNC, but I really appreciate you taking the time.
[01:11:10]  And I really appreciate you, you know, being fair and that, you know, I appreciate the criticism as well as the praise of the Mises caucus.
[01:11:20]  And we'll have to do this again sometime.
[01:11:22]  So Karen Ann Harlos, thank you so much.
[01:11:24]  Thank you, everybody, for listening.
[01:11:25]  That's our episode for today.
[01:11:27]  See you next time.
[01:11:28]  Peace.