Dan Mitchell: Libertarian Humor

"Even though I have an entire page dedicated to libertarian humor (pro and con), I only added two columns in the past year (here and here).

I’ll try to do better in 2025, starting with this bit of stand-up humor.

I have to give the guy credit. I don’t know his personal views, but at least he understands the differences between philosophies.

Next we have the libertarian perspective on the political spectrum.

Not as good as my triangle, but fundamentally accurate.

I thought about putting our third item with my collection of gun control humor, but the real message if in the bottom frame, so it qualifies as libertarian.

Our next item shows someone who thinks like me (the guy with the beard, in case that’s not obvious).

Per tradition, I’ve saved the best for last.

And what makes this article from the Babylon Bee especially amusing is that I just landed in Buenos Aires this morning…

Source:Dan Mitchell with look at the lighter side of libertarianism. But that’s only assuming there’s any other side to libertarianism.

From Dan Mitchell

Before I go much further into this, I just want to say that I and the rest of The New Democrat, actually have a lot in common with what we call Classical Libertarians. As real Liberals, (or Classical Liberals, if you prefer) we believe in individual freedom as well… both personal and economic, as well as personal responsibility. 

But having said that, The New Democrat also believes in the rule of law. And someone might say: “Can’t you believe in the rule of law and also be a Libertarian?” I guess so. But when you have people who call themselves Libertarians, but who call for privatizing law enforcement, or just say something like:

“It’s up to the individual to fix any injustice that may occur to themself by themselves”. It's harder to believe that Libertarians even believe in a role for government when it comes to law enforcement.

And the rule of law is just 1 issue. Schools, public infrastructure, pretty much anything that’s run by local government’s, Libertarians will tell you that there’s no need for public this, that, and the other thing, plus something else…. all those things can be handled by the private sector and individuals themselves. 

So what I’m going to do here is give you at least a classical definition of what it means to be a Libertarian. And then make fun of people who call themselves Libertarians, but who are really right-wing Anarchists. The Right’s version of antigovernment hippies. 

As was written on The New Democrat 3 weeks ago: 

“If I were to give a serious definition of libertarianism, (and that’s a big if) it would be very close to the first Wikipedia article about it that I posted here: someone who believes in the individual and individual freedom over everything else. That means someone who believes in both personal and economic freedom, combined with personal responsibility. And that government is just there to do for the people what the people can’t do for themselves:

National security

Foreign affairs

Law enforcement

Managing the currency

And that the best government is the government that’s closest to the people, instead of the Federal Government trying to treat the states and cities as just additional federal agencies, with very little, if any autonomy of their own.

From The New Democrat

The classical definition of what I just gave you, you could probably call that from the Ron Paul School of Libertarianism. But when you got people even from Reason Magazine, or Ayn Rand supporters, or John Stossell saying: “We don’t even need a Defense Department, let alone law enforcement, or public schools and roads”, that begs the questions: “What do Libertarians want from government, other than to be left alone and allowed to live their own lives?”

Just go about with the rest of your life while so-called Libertarians try to come up with answer to that. Because you might have forgotten the original question before you get answer. And if the answer to the question is essentially “nothing”, but perhaps explaining that answer in at least 1 paragraph… what’s the difference between a Libertarian and a right-wing Anarchist? 

If you want some political cultural stereotyping, I’ll give it to you anyway: if you are old enough to remember the Hippies from the Silent and Boomer generations from the 1960s and 70s… the Beatniks from the 1950s and early 60s… there was a cultural and hardcore individualist faction in both movements, who weren’t very political. They just wanted government to leave them alone. That’s what the so-called “Modern Libertarian” looks like to The New Democrat.

TND sees “modern Libertarians) as right-wing hipsters who just want to be free to live the life and be able to do anything in the world… that’s currently illegal. Perhaps short of being able to kill without cause, or physically assault without cause. But who knows, they may think even murder and assault, even burglary should be legal… but so should vengeance:

“Yeah, man… vengeance is out there. I mean, it’s really out there”.

And at risk of sounding really insulting: if you are familiar with The Manson Family… “Modern Libertarians kind of sound like Lynette Fromme (also known as Squeaky) or Sandra Good, and perhaps a few other whacked-out, hardcore, antiestablishment members of that crime family… who are currently not serving life sentences in prison for murder.

I would put the Dan Mitchell’s of the world in the classical bloc when it comes to American Libertarians. He’s someone who I believe thinks we should have a have government defense department, law enforcement. etc… a government strong and responsible enough to protect its citizens from predators: foreign and domestic. Not to try to run the people’s lives for them. But he might a member of a small minority when it comes to people who call themselves “Libertarians” today.

Source:The New Democrat

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