There are a significant, but hopefully only a small percentage of libertarians who maintain that utilizing the ballot box is incompatible with our philosophy.
What are their arguments? First and foremost they assert that if you vote for candidate X, you are giving him your imprimatur. You are supporting him. You are, hence, at least partially responsible for his actions. There has never been a U.S. president who acted completely compatibly with libertarian principles. So, in casting a ballot for one such you are per se acting contrary to the freedom philosophy.
This sounds awful, but consider the following. You are a slave. The master allows you to vote between overseer baddy who will beat the crap out of you daily, and goodie, who will administer the precisely same beating to you, but only once per month. I don’t have to tell you for whom you cast your ballot. Does this mean that you support Goodie? Slavery itself? Of course not. You are only acting defensively.
Here is another refutation of this misconstruel of libertarian principles. A holdup man sticks a gun in your belly and yells at you: “Your money or your life.” (The comedian Jack Benny, a famous skinflint, did a skit on this in which he replied: “I’m thinking, I’m thinking.”) As a result, you hand over your wallet to him. In effect, you are “voting” for him. (Stipulate, arguendo, that if you refuse, he murders you, but does not take your money). As a result, he will be able to purchase a bigger, better gun, and more effectively pursue his criminal activities. Are you responsible for such an eventuality? No deontologist, libertarian or not, worthy of his salt, will acquiesce in any such notion. You are not a criminal, even though what you did could be interpreted as aiding and abetting this murderer. You are innocent. You acted, only, defensively, to save your life. This is true even though he is now, thanks to you decision, able to pursue his evil deeds more effectively.
Let us now consider the pragmatic aspects of this anti-voting stance. How many libertarians are we? When I first met Murray Rothbard in 1965, I asked him that. He said there were 25 in the entire world. I think that was pessimistic, even then. My best back of the envelope estimate for the entire world is 25 million. Don’t ask where I got that from. It is just my guess. Let us take the U.S. as a basis. If you go by the number of votes garnered by the Libertarian Party, it is roughly 2% of the electorate, maybe a bit less. However, according to official surveys, we are about 15% of the population. These people might not all characterize themselves in this manner, but they favor lower taxes, more free enterprise, and the legalization of many victimless crimes concerning sex and drugs between consenting adults. That ain’t hay in terms of having an influence over public policy. Why should we throw away this opportunity to render our lives a bit more free, prosperous and enjoyable than otherwise they would be? We do just that when urge folks of this sort not to vote.
Libertarians complain, rightly, about Trump’s activities in office. Yes, he deviates from strict Rothbardian libertarianism. But who is or would be closer? Relative goody Donald, or baddy Hillary, baddy Biden, baddy giggle girl Kamala, baddy Obama? There is simply no contest in any of these choices from a libertarian point of view.
Yet another complaint is that the presidential candidates for the Libertarian Party have been, well, far less than libertarian. No one seriously indicts John Hospers, Roger McBride, Ed Clark, Dave Bergland, Ron Paul, Harry Brown, in this regard. However, among the non-libertarians who have somehow snuck onto the top of our ballot there are Gary Johnson, Bill Weld, Bob Barr, Chase Oliver, some of whom by no stretch of the imagination can really be considered members of our philosophy at all.
They get no argument from me on this criticism of theirs. But Murray Rothbard, Mr. Libertarian if ever there was one, told me this on several occasions. The average American is not at all interested in politics. For the men, it is beer, football, pizza that hold his interest. For the women, beats me. Except, every four years they perk up from their apolitical slumbers and focus on the election. This is our golden opportunity to make hay while the sun shines. Do we want to promote liberty or do we not? If we do, we need more recruits. When better to get them than when people will at least pay attention to us, a little bit? We miss this prospect if we eschew the political process.
When the LP started in 1969 (nationally, 1971) the name of our philosophy was not even in the standard lexicon. It was confused with librarianism, libertinism, libertoonianism, or some such. Nowadays, even socialist rags such as the New York Times, can spell it correctly, employ it accurately, and even use it upon occasion. I cannot believe that the LP had nothing to do with putting us up on the map in this way merely by being on the ballot.
We must not forget that the much unjustly derided LP played a pivotal role in the release of Ross Ulbricht. If this organization did nothing else to promote liberty, that alone would have made all the expenditure of time, energy and treasure spent on it more than worthwhile.
I have save my best point for last: Ron Paul! Apart from possibly Ayn Rand, he alone is more responsible than anyone else for recruiting masses of people to our banner. How did he do this? As a doctor? No. Even though he delivered thousands of babies during his medical career, he did not promote liberty in that way. Did he do so during his long and very productive years as head of the Ron Paul Institute? Again no. How, then? As a politician! A little tiny bit via the LP and overwhelming so as a Congressman for the Republican Party, and during his quest for its presidential nomination. An entire generation of present libertarians first heard of our viewpoint, through his magnificent words, his wonderful demeanor, as a politician. That is, a vote-seeker. He has become our hero and accomplished his great work seeking approval at the ballot box!
My favorite story of how Ron was treated in his quest for the Republican presidential nomination is this. He came in a very close second out of five candidates in the Iowa straw poll and he was not mentioned in the results! You can’t get better publicity than that. Even opponents of freedom remarked on that omission.
So, libertarian opponents of the political system: rethink your position!
