A call to Libertarians and libertarian leaning conservatives.

I know that right now it may seem like The Left are a bunch of hypocrites because they condemned you for disregarding COVID 19 dangers when you protested, they didn’t take your concerns seriously, and now they don’t care about COVID 19 and are out there for their own protest.

I’m going to explain why you need to get over that and join in. This movement is what you’ve been waiting for — or at least the closest thing to it that you are likely to see.

I know that they are leftists and their sensibilities are very different from yours. I know that, at first, this looked like a bunch of aimless violent chaos. And to some degree it was. It’s worth considering what precipitated that and maybe you’ll find it in your hearts to empathize with that crude (and yes, self-absorbed) expression of rage. Or maybe not. But I’m going to try and tell you why you should move past it.

If you look into it enough, you will see that the protests have become much more skillful, precise, and effective, and are resulting in real policy changes. These policy changes are actually quite libertarian. Look at what they are doing and demanding (and starting to succeed at).

What they are doing:
1) They are opposing the tyrannical police state.
2) They are showing people the extent of the state’s arrogant sense of entitlement to use brutal force on its citizens, without regard to justification or proportion — an entitlement supported only by naked power.

What they are demanding:
1) Massive defunding of the police, and reduction of their role in society.
2) Real accountability of police where that is possible, and elimination of them wherever it is not possible.
3) The exploration of new options for addressing challenges that were previously only addressed through state force.

These demands are accompanied by solid proposals. They’re not just utopian leftist dreams. They’re well thought out strategies we can try, which ground process and solution more in the community. This is localization, and it is reduction in the state’s tyrannical violent power — two of your favorite things!

Now is a time when those radical proposals are actually getting an amazing amount of consideration. This is a huge moment, and these changes and proposals are as radically libertarian as you’re going to see.

While there are definitely changes happening on the national level (again, these are in terms of government accountability, so they are at least in a libertarian direction), many of the changes are happening locally. This is really a bunch of local movements, led by local leadership, to resolve the issues of their own community. They are more inspired by, and supportive of, each other than led by one top down force. This is about local communities coming together to improve things where they are, while removing the impediments to that on the national level, and hopefully mitigating some of the biggest dangers there (martial law, militarized police, suspension of constitutional rights, etc.).

They are not protesting to take away your guns. They are not protesting to raise your taxes to give them more stuff. They are protesting to hold the government violence accountable and to take away much of its power. This is what you’ve always wanted!

Whenever the gun issue comes up, the right wing & libertarian angle seems to be redirecting focus on the mental health issue, while warning of our vulnerability to tyranny. Okay, fair enough. This movement is starting to address some of the core issues that the U.S. has, in its history, in the current effects of that history, and deep in the consciousness of every person, which are majorly contributing to this environment in which mental health is so precarious. And I mean for all people, because it’s not just the obviously oppressed whose mental health suffers in this environment. It is inhuman to live with these dynamics as a part of normal life. It requires too much internal contradiction. We have to have this reckoning so that we can come into better communion and be a healthier society.

And, unlike trying to convince people that this virus and quarantine is really a government plot, this is actually WORKING! This is actually changing the public consciousness and waking people up to our vulnerability to a tyrannical police state and martial law.

So it actually doesn’t matter whether you think the data highlighted by the left wing narrative or the right wing narrative is more compelling or correct. It doesn’t matter whether or not anyone believes that there are nefarious plots behind quarantine, or at least benefitted by it. It also doesn’t matter whether you believe that police violence is systemically more directed at black and brown people. These beliefs are based on encountering sets of data and making up one’s mind about them. I understand that there is so much data and counter data to sift through, and that’s all a headache and at the end it’s still all too remote and large to know for sure. Luckily we this does not depend on us buying into, or not buying into, any of that specific data.

In order to work together and be massively effective, all we need to agree on is the following:
1) Citizens of all races SHOULD have just and fair treatment by police and other institutions.
2) The police ARE an unaccountable institution of tyrannical force.
3) We all need to come into better communion with one another.
4) We have a history — particularly with the descendants of slaves and the indigenous population of this land — that does need to be further reckoned with in order to have healing and true community
5) We really do want that healing and community.

I understand your skepticism of politicians who say they want to fix race relations. I understand that you may think they actually want to keep us divided for their own power. Without being solid on the specific points of that dynamic, I think it is at least true in some way.
But this is not a movement of politicians. This is a movement of people who really want it for themselves and are coming together to take it for themselves, whether the government approves of that or not.

I repeat, this is not a bunch of champaign socialists asking for the government to put you in jail for using the wrong pronoun. This is the most libertarian leftist movement you’ve ever seen, and it is also the most powerful one. This is the thing you have been waiting for.

Now, if you participate, I must ask two things.

1) Please do not bring new issues and demands to the movement.

I know that seems like you’re being subordinate to leftists, but you must think strategically. Your issues are not the ones that the American public sympathizes with. I agree with you: the culture is very leftist. However, at this moment, many of those leftist concerns are translating to libertarian strategies and goals. It is an amazing opportunity for unity. So please, let this be about BLM and police brutality. They are very just issues in themselves, and they will get you many things that you want.

2) Please do not escalate unnecessarily. Don’t make overly intimidating displays. We probably don’t need all the guns brought out, at least not unless things go to a very different place from where they are now.

The black leadership is really ideal for us to follow here because they are very sensitive to the dangers of police brutality, and conscious of how bad it can get. Yes, provoking some police violence is actually helpful, because it brings attention to it. But the strategy (as far as I understand it, admittedly being a total noob) is minimum provocation to elicit that response, because the police do overreact and that’s the point.

The black leadership has been denouncing the white anarchist punk kids who destroy and loot for their own reasons. They know that this is not the helpful strategy. But it is also something that mostly happened at the beginning. Things are going quite well now. And you can be part of it.
We can be in this together.

The virus and quarantine have given us an amazing opportunity. People finally have the time to put attention on this, and to really care. And since we’re already in an apocalyptic landscape, fine then: let’s just go ahead and really do this!

I cannot speak for others, but I will speak for myself. If you can respect the two requests I made above, I really would like you to be part of this and I would celebrate your partnership. I believe that being conservative is a perfectly legitimate way to be, a perfectly legitimate temperament to have. I appreciate your cautiousness as a balance to the left wing eagerness to experiment. I recognize your valuable place in society. And I know that you can also recognize that sometimes big change is the right thing. This is an opportunity for us to all be part of a big change that is the right thing. I welcome you with open arms.