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WHAT ELSE WILL POLITICIANS DO TO AVOID THE RIGORS OF THE FREE MARKET?

in Activism/Free Market/Opinion/Politics/Poor Pratt's Almanack
WHAT ELSE WILL POLITICIANS DO TO AVOID THE RIGORS OF THE FREE MARKET?

Budding politicians and political junkies, here is a pithy commentary, with minor wordsmithing for clarity, excerpted from a lively ‘LP 2020 Delegates – Uncensored, Unmoderated‘ Facebook page discussion with D. Frank Robinson of Oklahoma, a ground-floor Libertarian who helped David Nolan with the documentation of our original Libertarian Party Statement of Principles (SoP):

https://www.facebook.com/groups/254985825071721/?multi_permalinks=694033467833619&comment_id=695285091041790&notif_id=1592055283423761&notif_t=feedback_reaction_generic&ref=noti

David Pratt Demarest to D Frank Robinson :

You too noticed that politics “does tend [to] employ every logical fallacy known”. Frank, that is the understatement of the twenty first century!

My approach, unforgivable as it may be, is to figure out why what you say is true using what von Mises called Praxeology. Mises Praxeology is the science of human action and decision making and the broader definition of Economics beyond mere finance. In other words, studying not just what people do but also why they choose to do it, their motivation for choosing a particular course of action.

For example, why do people choose to be Libertarians when it would be easier to go with the flow? Why do people gravitate toward politics instead of just building better mouse traps or other products and services that actually benefit people?

I hear people going on endlessly about the best strategy to get elected, providing lip-service but no action plan to achieve freedom, and never, never mentioning the free market, the real source of benefits and our Libertarian home turf. Consequently, I am understandably skeptical of the motives of many if not most politicians, including many Libertarian politicians.

Unfortunately, despite lip-service to freedom, the political motivations I see are pretty ugly in terms of Libertarian thought. To be fair and give credit where credit is due, a comparatively disproportionate number of Libertarians politicians truly are in it to further freedom. And, of course, there are many political gradients.

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Those folks do the freedom cause a disservice and are part of the problem, not the solution. We know they dominate the duopoly. The question is how dominant they are in the LP.

In my opinion, whether or not they include the free market in their platform, and come with action plans to solve problems leveraging the benefits of the free market, tells me what I need to know about the sincerity of their freedom agenda, as opposed politics as usual for personal aggrandizement. Another tell-tale sign is whether they stoop to the level of using political correctness, i.e., lying to achieve a political purpose like getting elected.

My conclusions are not flattering to most politicians. Unfortunately, that includes many Libertarian politicians. When you take off the political ‘arrested paradigm’ blinders, it is pretty easy to spot the “I wanna get elected” gleam in their eyes, disingenuous political correctness, and insincere freedom advocacy that totally ignores the free market.

Thoughts?

D. Pratt Tseramed, June 13, 2020
David.Demarest@R2FF.org, 402-493-0873

Announcing Freedom Magazine’s First Amendment Free Speech Candidate Forum

in Activism/Candidate/Opinion/Politics

Have you wondered about Freedom Magazine’s editorial position on first amendment free speech rights? Read on.

In the spirit of transparency, the staff of Freedom Magazine has a decidedly radical Libertarian flavor. However, Freedom Magazine was conceived as a voice for free speech within the limits of common decency and collegiality.

We are opening our doors to candidate submissions not only from the Libertarian Party but from all political parties. Censorship is not our nature. We join our readers in the desire to learn from opposing views.

The purpose of the forum is to be a megaphone for the voices of a wide range of candidates limited only by a few common sense constraints detailed in the following paragraphs.

We will, however, out of logistical necessity, filter articles based on standards that take into account the level of originality, innovation, and outside-the-box thinking. We will be looking for thoughtful advances to policy, philosophy, economics, and governance, regardless of whether we agree with the candidate’s positions.

We emphatically welcome diverse points of view presented sincerely. Ad hominem attacks on other candidates will be rejected. Xenophobia and blatant ‘ends justifies means’ propaganda will be discouraged. Due diligence support of arguments will be encouraged.

Submissions should focus on your voice and what you, the candidate, have to offer. Transparency and willingness to look at other points of view will be embraced with open arms.

Again, welcome to the Freedom Magazine candidate forum. We challenge you to enlighten our readers. Submissions can be sent to david.demarest@r2ff.org until a candidate forum email address is announced.

Yours truly may be part of the review process but will forward your submissions to other members of our remote staff for their review. Realistically, most of the review process will focus on format suggestions to pass on to the candidate before publication.

Submission length is somewhat flexible, roughly between 250 and 1000 words. Although yours truly is not noted for missive brevity, concise articles will be appreciated and may increase readership of your submissions.

Associated memes are not required but are strongly encouraged given our online format. Your text is most important but a picture is worth a thousand words and will increase the impact of your submission. Our editorial staff can help with meme generator suggestions.

To repeat, please submit your candidate articles via email to david.demarest@r2ff.org.

Submissions will be prioritized first come first serve subject to relative evaluation rankings based on innovative and thoughtful content. All things being equal, first come first serve will be given first consideration, particularly on articles with commensurate rankings.

Evaluation rankings will not be biased based on political affiliation. The editorial staff may respond to specific points with an op-ed dedicated to a specific topic, but that is not the purpose of the candidate forum.

The candidate forum is designed explicitly to be a first amendment voice for candidates, not the editorial staff who have other forums and columns available to them to voice their ideas and opinions. We will welcome and learn from the diversity of your candidate submissions.

Non-candidate articles on a variety of topics to supplement our resident staff columns will also be welcomed with open arms within the common sense constraints delineated above. More to come as we expand our authoring options.

Freedom Magazine is the first amendment free speech voice for your definition of liberty!

Thoughts?

David Pratt Demarest, December 22, 2019



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