u/slayer991

Many of the people in this sub know me...and some of you may be wondering why I've been quiet here the past year or two. I was very active in this sub after the MC takeover of the other libertarian sub. I was a libertarian for thirty-four years. From '90 to 2024, split the first Presidential ticket and never looked back after. I read all the libertarian thinkers from Hayek to Friedman to Mises. I argued from a libertarian perspective with reason and passion. I was there in the 2000s with the fight between the pragmatists and the puritans. Recently, I was active enough to show up and fight the Mises Caucus in person because I actually gave a damn what happened to the LP. I had to personally deal with the MC BS in my state which saw 8 of my libertarian friends being sued by the National party. I was never seated for my elected post by the MC. Then my county affiliate was disaffiliated by the MC because we pushed back. And so on and so forth. So when I say what I'm about to say, understand it's not coming from a D, and it sure as hell isn't coming from an R. It's coming from someone who as a kid took Reagan's "less government, more personal responsibility" seriously enough to spend three decades on the IDEA.

The real problem in my mind is that the central promise of libertarianism is that less government makes us more free, and that promise rests on assumptions I stopped being able to defend. That people are rational actors who act in their own interest. That the checks and balances hold. That the government wouldn't simply be bought. But the biggest one, the principle running from Rothbard's non-aggression principle all the way to Friedman, is that only the government can coerce you. That private economic power is just voluntary exchange, so it's not a threat to your freedom the way the state is. That premise doesn't reflect reality because we can cleary see the effects of that today. When a handful of billionaires buy the government outright....from pardons to laws to no-bid contracts...that private power BECOMES state power and the whole voluntary framing collapses. Once the government's bought and paid for, out go the checks and balances that were supposed to preserve liberty for all. The end result is that we're less free today than we were 20 years ago.

So what changed for me? Well, first an observation that the bloated federal bureaucracy I complained about for forty years is the ONLY thing that's slowed the authoritarian roll this administration has been on. Project 2025 opened with a plan to fire federal workers en masse and replace them with people who pass a loyalty test. Not a competence test. LOYALTY. That's not small government. That's a strongman clearing out the people whose job is to say no to him, and the sheer SIZE of the government is the friction that's kept him from doing it faster.

Honestly, I've always considered myself a pragmatic libertarian anyway...not a hardline purity guy. The reason is that I've always been able to be moved with good data, not emotions or simple principles. So now you're probably wondering...what data or evidence started shifting my position from "big government bad."

Well, it wasn't dramatic but it started with Raj Chetty's 2016 work on the Moving to Opportunity experiment broke an assumption I'd held my whole adult life, that government can't causally improve people's lives. It can. Kids who moved to lower-poverty neighborhoods before 13 had higher earnings and college attendance. Welfare wasn't the problem, how we do it IS the problem. That has nothing to do with ideology. That's a real result that didn't match my assumptions, so my position shifted.

But the other thing that really changed me was math, and I can do math. Sixty years on this planet, and here's what I've watched happen. We own less. Right to repair gets fought tooth and nail, streaming services delete movies you PAID for, and everything that used to be a purchase is now a subscription you rent forever. We pay more. You'd think a society that optimizes relentlessly for profit and efficiency would hand us more for our dollar. It doesn't. The average new car now runs close to fifty grand. Tell me how someone earning $7.25 an hour buys a car to get to the job that pays $7.25 an hour. We used to have an entry-level class of cars built for the middle class. Gone. And we earn less against all of it. Minimum wage frozen at $7.25 since 2009. Manufacturing gone from nearly 20 million middle-class jobs in 1980 to about 13 million, and that's before you count what AI's about to do. These were never high school kids on summer jobs; these were the jobs that BUILT the middle class, and they got traded for service work that never came close on pay. Meanwhile wealth concentration is the highest in the country's history, Citizens United handed billionaires the checkout line, and they used it to buy a billionaire. Then they tied your retirement to a stock market that works for THEM and told you to cheer when it goes up.

So before some of you whine that I've become a Democrat, no...I didn't. I'm not convinced they're the answer. I still want the drug war ended, still want liberty for all meaning ALL, still want immigration policy that reflects reality instead of hate. What I don't believe anymore is that shrinking the government delivers any of those goals. Not a single one.

I still think we need more than 2 parties...but I also realize that so long as we have FPTP with the duopoly controlling who has a seat at the table...that there will never be a viable 3rd party. So I've been putting my energy and money into supporting ranked choice, STAR, and SCORE voting; because that's the only path to a viable third party that isn't a fantasy. Everything else is arguing about the paint on USS America while the ship sinks.

So I'll leave you with the question that I can't answer. In thirty-four years, what has libertarianism actually DONE? Not shifted the conversation on, not raised awareness of. Done. Name the national policy that exists because the movement willed it into being and that's still standing. I'll wait. And before someone says weed, ask yourself whether that was libertarian philosophy winning or just a majority of Americans finally agreeing prohibition was stupid. The LP didn't legalize it. Voters did, in spite of the duopoly, not because a third party forced their hand.

Peace.

Chetty's study for anyone interested:

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20150572

I expect to be traveling more for a new gig and my gut reaction to people preaching on planes is "Fuck off and Hail Satan" while playing Slayer. Unfortunately, my gut reaction only feeds them the persecution narrative they need. So I'm trying to pre-load responses in my head so if faced with the situation, I can react in a way that keeps me calm but denies them both their message and their persecution narrative.

I've seen a few good ideas from reddit.

One is to call the flight attendant and state, "the person that standing up and acting erratically is making me fear for my safety and I don't know what they're planning. Why do I need to be afraid on this flight that I need to pray for safety? What are they up to?"

Why calling the FA? She's banned from the 3 airlines due to safety concerns. The criminal justice system probably won't do squat, but airlines are going to be concerned about safety.

Second, play a copyrighted song in the background loudly. That kills them from monetizing on preaching to a captive audience. You'd probably need a bluetooth speaker and not just your phone. Also, the FAs may ask you to sit down and STFU.

But my wife actually had a better idea. Start singing something everyone could sing along to.

We looked at each other and laughed...we started singing "99 Bottles of Beer."

This would be perfect. Everyone knows it. No persecution narrative to feed. Just a bunch of people drowning them out with a song about beer.

What do you think?

At the end of the movie when Raymond is in the crows nest at MSG. He's loading the rifle and this is the first time I caught it. He loads 3 rounds. We're told repeatedly that Raymond is a crack shot and never misses. That's clear. So one bullet for Iselin, one for his mother...and the 3rd bullet... was for himself. This discovery re-framed the movie a bit for me.

Raymond never really has his own autonomy. First...with his mother. Every time he's tried to choose for himself, his mother took over...and Raymond couldn't fight her...even as an adult choosing to love Josie was nixed by his mother because of her political affiliations.

Then it's the Chinese/Russians that control him. Then it's both. Everyone controls Raymond.

When Marco catches up to him in the hotel room across from MSG and drops the forced deck with queens on him...Raymond says, "They can make me do anything, can't they?"

Back in the crow's nest, Raymond knew what he was going to do and this was the first time he chose his own path. He knew he didn't earn that Medal of Honor that he won for his fake actions on that patrol, but at the end...he put it on because this time he DID earn it and he knew he was going to pay the ultimate price.

Marco's lament at the end hit me harder emotionally this time because now I see Raymond as a far more tragic character (as if he wasn't tragic enough).

Also, Laurence Harvey was amazing in this role. I had forgotten how good he was in this movie.

Hey all...you may (or may not...lol) remember me as the atheist that asks Socratic questions to theists.

Like many of you, I'm livid about the Texas SBOE vote to put required Bible readings in K-12 English classes. While this isn't enacted until 2030, I was thinking about what the average non-Christian could do.

For me, the answer came quickly because it's what I already do...ask questions. So I've been noodling on this for the past week and the idea is this:

They've brought the Bible into an educational setting which opens the text up to honest inquiry. Picture this: Two-thirds of a classroom full of Christian kids...the other third? Atheist or some other faith. When the non-Christian kids ask good questions about the text, many of those questions are ones that their fellow Christian students have probably never heard. Parents can provide their kid with sample questions and encourage their kids to ask them. We encourage the kids to ask questions and encourage curiosity.

So to test the feasibility of the idea I went and found the Texas-board approved curricula and took a crack at creating some age-appropriate questions. Now, our kids are grown and I don't have any grandkids...so age-appropriate is something I have little confidence in.

Before I dig in any deeper and flesh this out, what are your thoughts? Do you see any value in this approach? As always, I'm open to suggestions. I'm just trying to think of something that would help. Nothing is set in stone here. It's an idea looking for feedback and I'd love to hear from some non-Christian Texas parents concerned about their children.

---

Here's a sample:

Noah's Ark

Simple (K-3)

• The Bible says how big the boat was. There are millions of kinds of animals. Could they all fit? How would you check?
• What did all the animals eat while they were on it, and for how long?
• What happened to all the animal waste?
• Where did all that water come from? Where did it go afterward?
• How did animals that live far away get to the boat?

Older (upper elem / middle):

• If the flood covered the whole earth, where does that much water come from, and where can it go?
• How did the kangaroos get back to Australia and Penguins to Antarctica from Israel?
• It's being read in English class. Is it here as history, as a lesson, or as literature? Does the class say which?
• The ark's size is right there in the text. Roughly how many species exist, two of each, plus food for a year? Does the math work? Who worked it out, and what did they find?
• How do people who believe the story is true answer these questions?

The Two Creation Stories (Genesis 1 and Genesis 2) Simple:

• In the first story, are people made first, last, or in the middle? What about in the second story?
• God said don't eat it. But the fruit was the thing that taught them right from wrong. So before they ate it, could they even know disobeying was wrong? Is it fair to get in trouble for that?
• One makes the man and woman at the same time; the other makes the man first and the woman later. Are both in your book?

Deeper (middle / HS):

• The two accounts give a different order. If both are true, how do they fit together? If they can't both be literal, what does that tell you about how the book wants to be read?
• People have known about this difference for thousands of years and still read the text closely. How do they explain it?

Job's Wager

• The whole ordeal starts as a test between God and the accuser. Why did Job's suffering begin with a wager?
• Job's children are killed as part of the test. At the end he's given new children. Does that restore what was lost? What does the story seem to assume about that?
• The test is about Job. His ten children die in it. Were the children part of the test, or just caught in it? Does the story treat their deaths as a real loss or as part of Job's score?
• Job spends the book demanding to know WHY. When God finally answers, does he explain the reason, or do something else? What do you make of the answer he gives?
• Is Job history, poetry, or a philosophical drama? Does the answer change how you're meant to read the bet?
• How do serious readers explain this?

I've missed the JWs the last few times they've come through. I've had a question ready for them.

A man with his 2 sons (under 10) rings the bell. I see the Watchtower pamphlet in his hand. I excuse myself for one moment (because I don't have the question memorized).

I ask: Hey, just so I'm clear....the 144,000 anointed Christians who will rule with Christ in heaven is a literal, fixed number where Jehovah personally selects every member. At the annual Memorial, partakers self-identify as members of that 144,000 and the published partaker count is accurate. Is that right?

<looks at me curiously> Yes.

You're out here recruiting to add to that number, yes? The count of self-identified anointed has more than doubled, yet the total is supposed to be fixed. If the 144k is fixed and your partaker count is increasing....the math here ain't mathin. Can you explain that?

<blank look followed by silence> Thanks, have a nice day.

Kind of anticlimactic but it was still fun for me to put the shoe on the other foot and put them on the defense. The bonus here was that he had to explain to his kids after he walked away. I was friendly and calm...not easily dismissed.

EDIT: I've heard from a few ex-JWs that the question didn't land. So my question to any ex-JW...what IS a good question I could ask from my porch?