Libertarians For Trump

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Libertarians for Trump by Walter E. Block

Dr. Donald Miller (donaldwmiller@gmail.com) and I (wblock@loyno.edu) are starting up a new group to be called Libertarians for Trump.

LFT has its work cut out for it in mobilizing massive support for Donald Trump within the libertarian community. For there are some libertarians who oppose supporting any politician for political office, even a 99% pure one such as Dr. Ron Paul. However, I dedicated this book to refuting arguments of that sort: Block, Walter E. 2012. Yes to Ron Paul and Liberty. New York: Ishi Press. (By the way, the forward to that book – not written by me --- contains in my opinion the single best short essay ever written about Dr. Paul).

Let me just say that there is nothing, nothing at all, incompatible between libertarianism and voting, or supporting political candidates. Both Lew Rockwell and Murray Rothbard can be considered political junkies, and you won’t find too many better libertarians than those two.

Suppose we were all slaves, and the master said we could have a democratic election; we could vote for overseer Baddie, who would whip us unmercifully once per day, or overseer Goodie, who would do exactly the same thing, but only once per month. We all voted for the latter. Is this incompatible with libertarianism? Would this make us worse libertarians? Anyone who thinks so does not really understand this philosophy. For a remedial course, read this book: Rothbard, Murray N. 1998 [1982]. The Ethics of Liberty, New York: New York University Press.

There are several issues upon which libertarians do not and cannot support Donald Trump. For example, protectionism. But, typically, regarding the issues where Mr. Trump deviates from libertarianism, so do the other candidates.

And, also, we readily admit that the presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party (unless they nominate someone like, ugh, Bob Barr) will very likely have views much closer to ours than those of Mr. Trump.

But, the perfect is the enemy of the good. It is our goal to throw our weight behind the candidate who has a reasonable chance of actually becoming President of the United States whose views are CLOSEST to libertarianism.

When put in this way, it is clear that The Donald is the most congruent with our perspective. This is true, mainly because of foreign policy. And, of the three, foreign policy, economic policy and person liberties, the former is the most important. As Murray Rothbard and Bob Higgs have demonstrated over and over again, US foreign policy determines what occurs in economics and in the field of personal liberties. Foreign policy is the dog that wags the other two tails.

We readily concede, Mr. Donald Trump is no Ron Paul on foreign policy or anything else for that matter. However, compared to his Republican alternatives, the Donald stands head and shoulders above them. He has said, time and time again, things like “Look at what we did in Iraq. It’s a mess. Look at what we did in Algeria. It’s a mess there too. And we’re going to repeat our mistakes in Syria? Not on my watch.” Would Cruz or Rubio ever say anything like that? To ask this question is to answer it. And, very importantly, who is the one candidate who went out of his way so as to not antagonize Russia and Premier Putin? It is the Donald, that is who. Do we really want to fight World War III with Russia? With Mr. Trump at the helm, we minimize the chances of this catastrophe occurring. (See Donald Miller’s brilliant article on this issue, mentioned below). Yes, future President Trump wants a strong military, but with only a few exceptions, fewer than the other Republican candidates, only to defend our country

Here are some positive things written about Mr. Donald Trump:

Buchanan, Patrick J. 2016. “Will the Oligarchs Kill Trump?” March 8;