Dear Tom Woods… Again with this stuff!

Some people really don’t like some of my articles. They don’t like that I attack anarcho-capitalism as a fantasyland idea. They don’t enjoy me saying Murray Rothbard was a mediocre economist and terrible political strategist. They also really, really hate how I decided to defend Black Lives Matter. With that said, I’m not going to apologize for holding these views, but I do see many people going “I hate Being Libertarian!”

That claim is complete and utter bullshit.

I’m a co-founder to the site and probably the most active writer, but I have no claim, at all, on what the ideology of Being Libertarian is, and with our social media presence, our site and our interviews, the goal is to represent the ideas and the differences of all libertarians. So please, I encourage everyone to contact our site and write a piece. Write about how you love Rothbard. Write about how you think Black Lives Matter is terrible. Say if you love, or hate, Gary Johnson. Say if you hate something I wrote and write a rebuttal to it. Everyone is welcome as long as the content is good and meets our basic guidelines.

My Message To Tom Woods

The purpose here is to discuss the kind of back-and-forth we’ve had. I must note at the offset that my feelings on the topic are still the same, if not stronger. However, please read this, probably not enjoy it and do whatever you’d like after. And obviously, this article is addressed to you, Tom Woods, and I’d ask the reader remember that.

Time to get defending.

My Tone & Motives

I’ll start by giving one simple fact:

I am not a troll!

The following are things you can refer to me as:

• That bastard – Favorite of my father.
• You miserable dick – Classic.
• You stupid c*** – For some reason women with darker hair tend to use that one..
• That prick – Easy one.

Easy enough to follow!

Why am I not a troll? The fact is that I believe in what I write. I have zero interest in getting clicks. I am not a professional libertarian, activist or anything of that nature. I have no intention to become that, and as someone with an equity position in this site, any monetary gain that would come from ads or things such as that, I’d ask for my share to be reinvested to create more growth. My political views and getting them viral is purely due to my efforts to actually shake up a conversation and get people talking about things I believe they should be. And if this was trolling and I just wanted to make people unhappy, I’d find a movement bigger and more impressive than the radical libertarian movement to troll.

No one can say I didn’t cause some attention. Seriously. A guy in his early 20s who you’ve never heard of, who is co-founder of a moderately large Facebook page, and you rally up your A-listers to just do an hour long show attacking my point. Literally one article, and you bring in the heavyweights! Well, a conspiracy theorist who supports Donald Trump and some guy who ensured Ron Paul never passed a damn bill. But still, the dudes! The boys! So, on the front of going viral, sounding a bit more like a jerk over how I actually am, and being a dick, I did get something going here. It happened on both sides. A lot of libertarians I know who were everything from LP state chairs to longer running activists to former state chairs in the Ron Paul campaign messaged me and said “Finally! We hate Rothbard!” So, there was a discussion raised on something I find important and I don’t apologize for having to be a total dick to do that.

On the second article I’ll admit I did give a double scoop of douche.

The reason was, honestly, because of your podcast and your counter article. It was just such a pathetic failure at addressing the points I made, and it made me angry. Getting referred to as “Oh some scrappy young guy trying to redefine libertarianism!” is such a joke statement and operates on this false premise that you guys actually know what it is you are doing. To me, it is people who’ve claimed to have some ground game in a movement bragging and never bothering to learn a damn thing besides “Let’s get more radical!” And there is this awkward little fact: a ton of great libertarians do recognize Rothbard as a joke. Many do think Austrian theory has flaws and the economists in it are just people who can’t do math. Many people also think the political strategies expressed in the Ron Paul movement could be called a total failure. Examining how the end result to that was just a bunch of people who ended up backing Donald Trump, a son who the liberty movement betrayed and two congressmen who, while promising, seem to be stuck at two is an issue.

This  “Oh, we rock!” mentality elicited some anger from me. You don’t rock. In every metric you guys have bombed and I partially blame the blood of radicalism and the failures of Rothbard for this. So please, get the egos under control and go show Lew some chemtrail to ogle at!

Why I Criticize Libertarians About Their Appearance

I felt the worst about this, but it just needed to be done. I was once young and like most radical libertarians. Stuck in this false reality that we should never compromise, had an ugly beard and was not in very good shape. I could have been labeled as part of the Neckbeard trend which I now bash. I was 17 and well… Meh!

However, doing actual corporate work and being forced to leave my Ron Paul blog, I actually did get told some powerful advice from friends I was working with. Which was “Dude, you look like shit. Clean up or go get a back office gig.”. So well… I lost 50 pounds, gained a moderate deal of muscle, got a cool beard, cleaned up my skin, learned to talk like a human (close enough) and, in many ways, just actually improve myself.

I want this for every libertarian!

I call them Neckbeards and overweight, because, holy shit, they need to hear that and be ashamed! When you have something you want to sell, the first thing people will look at is your appearance. They want a winning persona in those advocating a view or it will never happen. And when trying to sell a political view, that’s the cold case of it. Me calling them ugly is supposed to shame these people. I want to shame them because I believe in them.

And this is something I’d like you, being Tom Woods, to do, as being a person with more of a following in this crowd than I do. I want you to actually set up a campaign called “Lose For Liberty”. Have people in the movement set up a weight loss goal, make a donation pledge per pound lost and actually see the idea of a few people here making it the trend to look good and get fit as the greatest thing to ever happen. People being the masters of Rothbard or Mises means nothing with poor presentation. This is the number one thing the liberty movement needs to do.

Ron Paul vs. Gary Johnson

It is true that I am a Gary man before Ron Paul. I felt Paul sold people bad info on the future of the economy, I didn’t really care for his radicalism on the issues, and I also felt Johnson, being a governor, successful businessman, and pro-immigrant, made him better. But I do respect, and like, Ron Paul.

However.

Paul wasn’t the damn messiah. In his career he literally never passed a single bill or got close to it. He never had, despite thirteen terms, any real power or influence in a bill which was passed. When he ran for President, he outspent Santorum two to one, had three times the volunteers and still lost Iowa in decent numbers, and could only get 10% in the GOP primary despite staying in the second longest. In most regards, he also didn’t bring that many people into the movement. On an actual political spectrum of voters who returned in 2016, it feels maybe only 5 to 15% of those who voted for Ron really returned. It makes a case for the idea that he didn’t actually sell liberty, but just sold the anti-establishment vibe.

Saying he was a failure is correct.

For Gary Johnson, I plan to call his campaign a failure after this election, as well. From 2012 on, I looked at the campaign and thought “We got killed!”. Where I see many make this false glorification for Ron Paul, I don’t accept anything besides winning. With Johnson and his campaign, I won’t do anything different. I will still love both the guys personally, but I have the right to say they failed. I have the right to learn from that, perfect the methods, try something new, and win.

This is where I differ from you and your wing in the movement. I donated to Rand. I loved the dude and I’d have literally walked a thousand miles nude to see that man get elected President if that somehow could makes it happen. Your wing, with Lew Rockwell, engaged in petty purist ideal battles, which was a joke. It was basically “What do you mean he doesn’t like us on Twitter?!”. It was honestly this childish parade of begging him to be like Ron which just means never getting anything done.

And I know Rand Paul, as a presidential candidate, did do worse than Ron. However, I blame that on two things: The first being he couldn’t raise money due to radicals bashing him and having libertarians be less friendly towards donations due to them wanting a purist. The second being that he, unlike Ron, actually had a competitive primary to win. He tried, and as a senator, he has achieved vastly than his father in Congress. I look forward to his reelection, so that he can return to kick ass. I’d even be open to a presidential run by him again, one day.

Murray Rothbard & Why He Was Terrible

I think we’ve hammered it in, but let me say again why I dislike Murray Rothbard.

He was a mediocre to bad economist and even worse political thinker. This guy made every bad alliance I could possibly imagine someone making, and he did it all in one lifetime. Bill Weld gets bashed by libertarians for endorsing Romney. Murray Rothbard is a hero and gets a hall pass for endorsing David Duke. Look, I don’t care what the explanation or excuse is. There isn’t one! Endorse a KKK cultist who denied the Holocaust multiple times (Rothbard had a record of endorsing a lot of racists) and lose forever. For the love of God, just say the man was flawed on politics!

As an economist he was mediocre. He represents this case that a lot of libertarians are just the guys not doing math. They seem to equate economics with philosophy class, and fail to draw up models that the real world accepts to explain their case. He fell into this category, and it was a real problem. Plus, with Austrians, we could look at Hayek and find someone in that school who was in the more moderate category, compared to the radicalism of Rothbard; a guy who never had one paper or book make the mainstream, but countless others who shared his radicalism on different sides have.

I don’t like him for being an anarchist. Anarchy is a dumb idea and will never work! It’s stupid! I don’t like it! That’s enough reason to dismiss him!

Austrian Economics & What I Said

People say I do not believe in Austrian economics. I do. But I have read tons of books on the subject and believe that your branch is the worst possible messenger boy of it. It’s junk.

I say that for the following reasons:

• Wrongful association and focus against fractional reserve banking.
• Opposition to explaining the moderation of the Austrian school.
• This false idea of the economy always just about to collapse.
• This joke that you guys are predicting all the recessions which is a total lie.
• This God-awful financial advice being spewed about buying gold.

I believe there’s a realism that needs to be appreciated, which you guys are lacking. There needs to be more of an actual seriousness you guys go out and propose. It can’t just be “We are all living on debt and about to die unless we start buying and using gold! End is near!” It’s not that simple, and that simplicity is why people take it as a joke. It’s hard stuff. It’s math. It’s work and it’s combining realities existing in other schools, to come up with real solutions.

And almost done from this whomping 45 minutes you’ve interrupted me of binging Stranger Things and sending creepy texts to women I want to come over!

Anarchy Is Not Libertarianism

This is my final point. I do not believe anarchy can work. I don’t believe it’ll ever actually happen. I have never seen clear historical or economic evidence that it works. I don’t think it’d be better over present systems. I also just flat-out don’t think it is sustainable, with the outcome of it being far worse.

I want the libertarian movement to separate itself from anarchism. I think it’s a dead point which involves people taking philosophy above reality and being radical for the sake of being radical.

There are more complexities to it. There’s science and a future where many things can happen. However, for now, it’s an idea I’d put in the ‘scrapped’ box.

Conclusion

I do still really like you and most of your crowd (okay, not Rockwell). However, I think that we have reached a pivotal point in the liberty movement. We either moderate and take this progression to get real reforms done, or we stay the guys locked in lecture room circle-jerks. I’m not a professional at this; I don’t have the goals to be in America full time within a few years. I simply hope you think it over with humility and the realization – I’ve done this for many years, and nothing has changed.

With that, my best!

P.S. Still love your lecture on the depression of 1920!