A Trad Lib View on Political Realignment | Re Dave Rubin, Ben Shapiro | TaraElla Report S6 E5

Today, I'm going to respond to an interesting idea that was recently discussed by Ben Shapiro and Dave Rubin on the Ben Shapiro Show. Basically, they seem to be seeing a potential political realignment, that could even be accelerated by the current pandemic. Discussing the issue from the Right, Shapiro sees that it could be splitting into a more libertarian faction, and a more common good faction that could perhaps support the government stepping in to save the economy post-lockdown. Rubin then talked about how he differed from more pro-government conservatives on issues like banning pornography.

I think the truth is, neither the left nor the right is a monolith, and the internet age means they can't pretend to be so anymore. Unlike Rubin, I don't think there will be a post-realignment left or right that shares a solid idea. The new reality is, each side is now a coalition, that needs to also win the votes of other unaligned people and groups, people like myself who don't consider themselves left or right. The quicker a campaign comes to this understanding, the better they will do. In 2016, the Trump and Bernie campaigns both understood this but Hillary didn't. This time, it seems like the Biden campaign is finally catching up, so it will be interesting to see which side is more effective now.

In this brave new world of politics, I think a Trad Lib, or traditional liberal, faction will definitely emerge. I feel like many people are actually Trad Libs, they're saying trad lib ideas aloud already without realizing that it is a political orientation that many of us share. So who are the Trad Libs? We are true to the original cannon of liberalism, particularly pre-1968. FDR was a trad lib, so were JFK and LBJ. We agree with FDR's New Deal approach to economics, but we also have concerns around free speech, family values, and the way some parts of the left have become illiberal culturally, like Rubin keeps reminding us. Furthermore, we don't want to give up one for the other. To go into the Right, like Rubin is now openly identifying as, would be to give up the New Deal approach. To go into the Left would be to embrace this renewed New Deal energy, but they keep saying that cultural issues are a distraction, telling us to shut up and focus on the economics while letting the Critical Theory driven illiberal New Left do whatever they want. The truth is, it's OK to want UBI and absolute free speech without compromising one or the other. It's OK to want universal health care and strong family values without compromising one or the other. In fact, people like Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard have shown us that these things actually go together very well. For myself, if that means cooperating with the Left economically and the libertarian-Right culturally at different times, then so be it, and in this fractured brave new world of politics, I think it will actually work out fine for us.

The other thing about this new model of politics is that one can identify with different ideas, and be informed by different traditions, at the same time. Conventional political factions have fragmented into many pieces, and we can just pick up the pieces and build our own philosophy that is true to our own conscience. For example, besides being a Trad Lib, I'm still also a libertarian, a Moral Libertarian, an old-school progressive when it comes to civil rights, a moderate conservative when it comes to traditional institutions and family values, and so on. It's the best time in history to be able to follow your conscience and use it to make the difference you want to see in this world. And those of us who won't follow labels like Left or Right blindly anymore will stand to be the most productive in this.

There are No Libertarians in a Pandemic? | TaraElla Report S6 E4

Today, I'm going to take a look at the increasingly popular saying that 'there are no libertarians in a pandemic'. What this phrase refers to is, of course, government spending. Right now, governments around the world, left, right and center, are spending huge sums of money to bail out the economy. This, of course, is strongly at odds with the conventional libertarian philosophy of minimal government. Furthermore, the pandemic has highlighted the utility of having universal health coverage in times like these. It appears that minarchy, and the whole 'taxation is theft' idea, is really unfit for a pandemic, or indeed, any national or international crisis.

Does this mean the future for libertarianism is now bleak? I don't think so. The problem is, too many people imagine libertarianism to be about minimizing the size of government at all costs. However, I don't think that is how the NAP should necessarily be interpreted. The fact is, drastically lowering spending has not much to do with the NAP. While some may argue this from the 'taxation is theft' angle, this would equally apply to a tax rate of, say, 10% vs 30%, because in both cases, if you don't pay your taxes, you still go to prison. On the other hand, making all taxation voluntary would mean nobody pays tax at all, which would lead to the government ceasing to exist. Therefore, the 'taxation is theft' argument is ultimately not meaningful, unless you are also OK with anarchism and all its consequences. At least since industrialization, we have never actually lived by the 'taxation is theft' idea, and for good reason. I think it's time libertarianism broke from that particular obsession.

Instead, the NAP could be interpreted at a more abstract level, to support things like free speech, freedom of conscience and religion, and ending the endless wars, while still leaving room for an adequate government response to pandemics and other crises, as well as things like universal health care. This is where Moral Libertarianism comes in. In the Moral Libertarian view, the important thing is each individual has equal and maximum moral agency, to pursue what they believe to be the necessary course of action under their moral compass. Where the NAP comes in is that, no other individual can have an overriding power to coerce them to do otherwise. After all, a coercive relationship is, by definition, an aggressive relationship; and non-coercion is essentially non-aggression in a broader sense. Applying the NAP this way allows much more flexibility in terms of government spending, and the provision of programs like Medicare For All. It would also allow a more robust response to things like climate change, in the longer term. In my opinion, it would make libertarianism a much more practical and popular ideology.

The Problematic Priorities of the Elite 'Woke' | TaraElla Report S6 E3

Today, I'm going to talk about a new poll from Pew Research, which asked Democratic voters about whether they were bothered that this year's Democratic nominee is an older white man. Now, this isn't even about Joe Biden or his policies; it's simply about whether someone is bothered by an older white man becoming the Democratic nominee, so even if you don't particularly like Biden, please put that aside and consider the actual question being asked. Now, I understand that some people want a candidate who isn't an old white man, and that preference is definitely OK. However, being 'bothered' by it is quite a strong word, and I know some people won't agree, but I think it's actually wrong to have such strong feelings against an old white man being the nominee, whether it be Biden, Bernie, or someone else. Imagine this: if I rephrased the question as, for example, 'if you are bothered by a young Asian woman receiving the nomination', you'll see that it's clearly racist, sexist and ageist. Those of us who are actually minorities know that double standards only serve to entrench discrimination in the longer run, so we oppose discrimination in any direction. If you allow differential treatment in any form, minorities always end up suffering the most.

Given my view on this matter, it is no surprise that I'm very disappointed that the poll found that almost half of the sample actually agreed with the proposition. I mean, not only is this racist, sexist and ageist, the fact that you're bothered by these things rather than the actual policies show that you don't even care about the important issues at all. It's as if Biden, a friend of workers who has committed to working with Bernie going forward, isn't at least much better than symbolic glass-ceiling Hillary. Now, before anyone goes on to blame minorities for this, no, they are not primarily responsible. The poll found that less than a third of black and hispanic people agreed with the proposition, compared to about half of whites. On the other hand, a majority of some groups actually agreed with the proposition: those under 30 by 54%, those with postgraduate education by 58%, and most stunningly, Elizabeth Warren supporters by a whopping 73%, although that could just be their way of protesting the loss of their candidate so I'm not sure it's accurate. Anyway, the point is, it has become more common than not in some circles to agree with this problematic view, and unfortunately, the young and the educated is where the problem is.

I guess it could be another example of people dripping in privilege trying to revolutionarize the world, taking the moral high ground against other privileged people in the virtue signalling game, while the rest of us are just trying to survive. I think it is incredibly privileged to care about anything other than the policies on offer, because, at the end of the day, the personal characterstics of the US President doesn't affect anyone. It's like the current culture war over pronouns, which certainly didn't come from the trans community, because most trans people are just trying to survive. This was especially true before around 2015, when trans issues started going mainstream. I think it's because the woke crowd, despite being economically privileged, just can't find enough meaning and happiness in their own lives for some reason. This is why they delight in other people's symbolic progress, because it brings a sense of meaning to their own lives. Meanwhile, actual minorities don't even care for any of this, as seen by the majority of black people voting for Biden, the majority of Lations voting for Bernie, and the majority of trans people still refusing to put their pronouns on their social media profiles (not that there is anything wrong with pronouns in bios, but culturally it is not being done well right now). What minorities understand is that it is all a fight among the privileged, nothing more.

Why I Left the Right AND the Left | TaraElla Report S6 E2

Today, I'm going respond to the recent Hunter Avallone video, titled 'Why I Left The Right', in which Hunter explained his recent political evolution. As he explains, he no longer considers himself a right-winger, although he still holds some beliefs in common with conservatives, like over guns and abortion. As I understand it, one of the reasons why he is leaving the Right is that he cares about the truth, the scientific truth of things, and the Right simply isn't as committed to the truth as he is. Another reason is that the Right is not as committed to individual freedom and free debate as he used to think they were. For example, the 'dogmatic screeching' that he used to associate with the Left appears to also be common on the Right.

I think what he said was one of the most important narratives about politics out there to listen to right now. I highly recommend watching that video. In fact, his disillusionment with the Right is simply true, and it also mirrors other people's disillusionment with the Left. In truth, neither the Left nor the Right as they exist today are committed to the truth, and I don't think that will change anytime soon. The only way to be committed to the truth is to think beyond Left or Right binaries, even though that can be lonely, and in terms of platforms like YouTube, you can lose fans and subscribers for that. But as Hunter says, for many of us, being committed to the truth is more important, and if we can't say what we truly believe, what we do would be meaningless and useless anyway.

I think the reason why neither the Left nor the Right are committed to the truth is because they are more committed to keeping people in their coalition happy. For many power hungry people, politics is about coalition building, and they will feed certain elements of their coalition even if they uphold scientifically invalid beliefs, or if they are against the basic freedoms of certain people. This is why politics is so dirty.

For example, one example Hunter came back to again and again was LGBT issues. Hunter points out that parts of the Right continues to uphold scientifically invalid views about gay and trans people, and they are resistant to people who want to voice their disagreement to the party line. In fact, this is nothing new. The Right has already died on the LGBT hill once. Hunter is only 23, so he may be too young to remember it, but back when I was in college, one of the biggest planks of the Right was vehement opposition to gay marriage. In fact, many Republicans argued for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage back then. They argued that gay marriage would ruin families and society. Opposing gay marriage was a central commitment of many so-called 'values voters' during the 2004 US election, and some people believe their turnout helped re-elect President Bush. Back then, many of us who were just getting politicized saw right through this rubbish, and also considered it to be highly offensive. It is one of the reasons why most people in their 30s today continue to be very skeptical towards conservative politics, contributing to their big deficit among young people. In other words, conservatives have already paid a hefty price for their Bush-era gay marriage nonsense.

Given the experience with gay marriage, you would think the conservatives wouldn't go anti-LGBT again. In fact, it was almost going to be that way. Former British conservative Prime Minister David Cameron led the charge to legalize gay marriage in the UK, arguing that gay marriage would strengthen marriage and family values. Back then, there was definitely a move by some American conservatives to embrace the Cameron approach, as part of the Republican soul searching after their second defeat to Obama in 2012. I mean, the Republicans were much more open-minded during that period of political wilderness; they were even wanting to embrace more ethnic and cultural diversity. I guess that open-mindedness was what led to things like Trump holding up a rainbow flag and all that. However, once the Republicans were in power again, the fundamentalist Christian bloc, for lack of a better word, demanded to be fed again. I believe this is what led to the Trump administration's trans military ban, a policy that almost nobody believes to be rationally valid. But even after that, many evangelicals continued to make noises that Trump should cater more to their wishes. Given that there will be a US Presidential election at the end of this year, I suspect they will also try to remind him of how important so-called 'values voters' were for Bush in 2004. In fact, the atmosphere of the Right is becoming increasingly like it was back in 2004, and that's not a good thing.

Which, I think, is why large parts of the Right simply cannot just accept the science over LGBT issues, or even the honest libertarian view on that matter. I suspect that many Republicans continue to feel the need to keep the evangelical bloc on board, even if that means feigning homophobia and transphobia that cannot be justified with facts and logic. Their calculation is that evangelical voters are more important than the 'gays for Trump' bloc at the end of the day. Of course, just as in 2004, many people will see through them, and I'm almost certain that what they're saying in support of the trans military ban will not age well, just like their comments on gay marriage or the Iraq War back then. The truth is, conservatives are willing to die on the LGBT hill a second time, simply because they think it's more important that they turn out older evangelical voters this year. I think it's a dangerously wrong calculation, but I guess time will tell.

Anyway, I think all this teaches us a larger lesson: that as long as the power hungry may drop their morals and their commitment to the truth in an attempt to maintain political coalitions, those of us who are committed to the truth should remain skeptical of their intentions. It is therefore that we should remain at an arm's length distance to any political movement or faction. Which is why I'm happy to borrow this motto from Andrew Yang: 'not Left, not Right, but forward'. Let's move forward together, committed to no political coalition, but only the truth, and what's good for humanity.

Dear Emma Watson, Microaggression & Postmodernism are Very Problematic | TaraElla Report S6 E1

So Keir Starmer isn't Left-wing? Inside the Online Left's Psychology | TaraElla News

Today, I'm going to talk about the fact that much of the online left seems to find newly elected British Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer not left-wing. As I understand it, Starmer identifies as a socialist, and supports the re-nationalization of several industries. That, I believe, makes him to the left of even Bernie Sanders! Not my cup of tea, but definitely very leftist. Yet, they think he's not a leftist, probably because he defeated someone to his left.

Which, of course, reminds me of the situation where the online left appears to think that Joe Biden is actually a Republican, and a worse choice than Donald Trump! Never mind the fact that Biden now has the most progressive platform of anyone who ever run for US President on a major party ticket, with things like a $15 minimum wage. I suspect that even if Biden were to support Medicare For All, they would still call him a conservative.

For the extremely online left, the point isn't whether Biden or Starmer is progressive or not; the point is simply to have a fight. If you suspect that nothing will ever satisfy these people, then you're absolutely correct. This psychology comes from a long line of Western Marxist thinking, where it is the struggle itself that is romanticized, and for that, practical chances for progress are often sacrificed, so the 'struggle' can continue. The true believer is all about the stuggle, never mind how working people are sacrificed. Of course, this is an attitude that only the economically and socially privileged can maintain. No wonder actual working class people don't want to have anything to do with this faction of the left.

'Cultural Appropriation' is back? Let's Talk About Social Justice Again | TaraElla Report S5 E14

NOTE: Marxian doesn't mean Marxist. It is an academic term, and here it means something like pseudo-Marxist or Marxist-like. For my latest thoughts on why criticalism isn't Marxism, see this 2021 post.

 

Hi everyone, welcome again to the fifth season of the TaraElla Report, where we dive deeper to take a real look at the issues underlying the toxic political environment we have throughout the West right now. This show is brought to you by my new book, The Moral Libertarian Idea, which is all about reimagining a positive and pro-community, pro-humanity classical liberalism for the 21st century.

Today, I'm going to talk about cultural appropriation, and social justice more generally. Do you remember the outrage around so-called 'cultural appropriation'? I certainly do. And while that has died down for some time now, I see signs of a revival on the horizon. For example, the other day, I saw a video talking about whether singer Billie Eilish was guilty of 'cultural appropriation'. So it's unfortunately important to talk about that again. I also think this is a good time to reflect again on the state of the social justice discussion as a whole.

Social Justice Got Hijacked By Theoretical Concerns

Cultural appropriation is one of those topics most people don't think of as important at all, for a good reason: there is almost never any injustice to any individual from the act of 'cultural appropriation'. Now, I'm not talking about blackface, which is actually offensive, but is not really relevant to most discussion about 'cultural appropriation'. I'm talking about things like a white person wearing an Asian dress; or a non-black person doing rap music. According to most people's common sense, there's simply nothing wrong with that, and they would be correct. In fact, 'cultural appropriation' is what I call a 'theoretical injustice', that is, a form of injustice that only exists in academic theories, and has no real bad consequence in the real world. Most of these 'theoretical injustices' seem to arise from the application of a pseudo-Marxian worldview, as I will discuss later in this video.

Anyway, the point is, in the past few years, the discussion of theoretical injustices have made the whole social justice idea look stupid, to the point where many young people simply stay away from social justice nowadays. Back when the conversation was starting to get ridiculous, I warned people that this was what was going to happen next, but they didn't listen. Oh, well, the social justice thing is now dead in the water, as I told you so! Back in Season 1 of the TaraElla Report, and even earlier than that, I was arguing for pulling back from the excesses of the social justice movement, but all I got was nasty comments from the most extreme activists. They accused me of not supporting social justice; but in fact, I was trying to save it. In truth, I care deeply about social justice. I care that people aren't treated unfairly because of their race, or that they aren't fired because they are LGBT. But by 2017 or so, the social justice movement had lost sight of what's important. Besides, they started promoting things like the 'progressive stack', where straight white men got less of an opportunity to speak, which was clearly unjust to many individuals! Ideas like these make a mockery of what social justice should be about.

The Pseudo-Marxian 'Cultural appropriation'

'Cultural appropriation' is one of the best examples I can use to explain the nonsense that is the pseudo-Marxian version of social justice. Under cultural appropriation theory, ethnicities or cultures are seen as analogous to the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, like everything in the pseudo-Marxian worldview. As usual, Western culture is seen as the oppressor and other cultures are seen as the oppressed. Therefore, a white person doing rap music would be seen as someone from the oppressor class taking something away from the oppressed class, like how capitalists bosses take what's produced by workers and sell it for a profit. That's what they mean by 'appropriation', it is literally used in a pseudo-Marxist sense. That's also why black people playing Baroque music doesn't count as 'cultural appropriation'. It's a 'logic' that only makes sense if you both understand and accept pseudo-Marxism in the first place, which most of us don't. Of course, the other problem is that, when you reduce everything to a pseudo-Marxian oppressor vs oppressed dynamic, there's really no room for freedom, creativity, individuality, or anything else. That's why most people can't accept this worldview.

As mentioned earlier, I think the reason why the social justice train got de-railed was that a pseudo-Marxian, worldview had taken hold in that movement, some time around the middle of the decade. Interestingly, it was also the reason the 1960s anti-war progressives got de-railed. In the most basic form, a pseudo-Marxian worldview is where people are seen as groups that are pitted against each other, oppressors vs the oppressed, plus the idea that we are all living in a structure that holds this oppression together, so traditions are bad and radical cultural change is needed. The problem with all this is that it doesn't afford any freedom or dignity to individuals. It's scary to see this kind of thinking getting mainstream in the West. That's why I welcomed the influence of Jordan Peterson back in 2017 or 18. I don't agree with everything he says, and I openly stated my disagreements with him, but I thought he could save social justice by removing the us-vs-them theories influence, and restoring the central role of individual dignity. I guess that didn't work.

What Needs To Happen From Now On

The experience of how social justice got de-railed in the 2010s has inspired the position I will take going forward: that I won't be ready, or interested, in another social justice movement, unless a framework that is rooted in individual dignity, like the Moral Libertarian principle of Equal and Maximum Moral Agency for every individual, is accepted a-priori. The fact is, there is no point to restart the social justice conversation, only to let the us-vs-them theories worldview hijack it again, to lead the movement to yet another trainwreck, which would probably discredit social justice for at least a generation. Given that I think there are still social injustices that need to be fixed, I really don't want that to happen. Therefore, from my point of view, it is better than the next social justice train only departs the station when there are enough safeguards to prevent it from de-railing again.

What if Joe Biden Picked a Feminist VP? | TaraElla Report S5 E13

Today, I'm going to talk about, well, Joe Biden's potential VP picks, and also feminism. In recent days, people have been talking about potential VP picks for Joe Biden, the Democratic front-runner. Biden has already said he would pick a women, and many of the women that are being talked about are also feminists, or at least appear to be feminists. This has made some people worry, because feminists generally haven't performed well at the ballot box in America and other Western countries. As the people say, there doesn't seem to be a problem with women as leaders, the late Margaret Thatcher was elected British Prime Minister as long ago as 1979, and she remains admired by conservatives even today. However, ever since Hillary 2016, it seems that feminists just can't make it far. And it's not just Hillary: the feminist Julia Gillard also fared badly in Australia a few years earlier, and Britain's Theresa May may also have been hampered by her feminist-type statements.

Some of you may not know this, but back when feminism was in the mainstream spotlight, back in the middle of the decade, I had actually been commenting on various cultural issues from the angle of a 'feminist who doesn't agree with contemporary feminism'. I even tried to save intersectionality by talking sense to the movement, until I concluded that it was fruitless, upon which I quit. You can see some of that stuff in Season 1 of the TaraElla Report, those were recorded when the feminist wave was just winding down. Anyway, my general point was, I still strongly agree with a traditional feminist ideal of gender equality, as it was supported by classical liberals like John Stuart Mill even back in the 19th century, but this wave of feminism seems to have lost sight of the goal. I also commented on how figures like Cassie Jaye, of 'The Red Pill' fame, quit feminism because of how the movement had become, on which I said I wouldn't quit feminism myself, but the movement really need to change. People are really sick and tired of blaming men for everything, all the negativity, and the extremist moves to 'de-platform' people, like the aforementioned Ms Jaye.

I guess it wouldn't be a problem if Biden chose a feminist VP, as long as she isn't the postmodernist and divisive type of feminist, like those who tried to de-platform Ms Jaye. As I commented repeatedly back in Season 1, the problem with contemporary feminism is that, since the 1970s or so, it has been affected by the pseudo-Marxian left, who had a worldview that pit groups against each other. There is feminist literature out there that literally describes women as a sex-class that is oppressed by men as a sex-class, using full Bolshevik-like language to describe the relationship. Now, that's really divisive and scary, I think. Not to mention unfair, because it would call a working class man the 'oppressor' but a rich woman 'oppressed', something that I think even Marx himself would not have allowed. It's also clearly not the kind of feminism that most of the suffragettes and their classical liberal allies from the earlier wave were about. So, we really have two kinds of feminism here: the truly equal rights type I call the modern-day suffragettes, and the pseudo-Marxian type who sees society as a continuous struggle between groups pit against each other. I guess a feminist VP would be widely acceptable if she was of the former type, but not of the latter type.

However, another thing is that, unfortunately, there probably is a general taboo around feminism in some circles by now, because of the confusion between the two types of feminism. That's why it's important to clarify the difference here. It's why I welcomed the intervention of Jordan Peterson back in 2017 or 18, when he wanted to start a conversation around what he called 'postmodern neo-Marxism'. While that term itself was controversial, what he was referring to was a real thing, and my hope was that the removal of the pseudo-Marxist element may help in rehabilitating feminism itself. After all, feminism has been around for more than a century, and has contributed to real improvements for humanity. It would be a shame if all that was overshadowed by a misguided fringe movement that originated as recently as the crazy 1970s. Don't get me wrong, I don't always agree with Jordan Peterson, and I have openly voiced my disagreements with him, but the thing is, I thought we needed an intervention ASAP, and I thought he could be the one to do it. Obviously, that didn't quite work out at the time.

Finally, the bottom line is that, a feminist VP pick would either be able to rehabilitate feminism, or it could lead to the whole ticket being sunk by the popular peception of feminism a la Hillary 2016, depending on what happens between now and November. As someone who wants to help save feminism rather than see it sink, you know what my hope is. I'm just not entirely confident that things would go the way I want them to, however.

Andrew Yang & UBI Supporters Can't Be Real Libertarians? | TaraElla Report S5 E12

NOTE: While I did support certain candidates in the 2019–20 Democratic primaries because of their ideas (e.g. UBI, anti-war, broad tent approach), it doesn't mean I endorse their other positions.

Libertarian is a really controversial word right now. Both when used as a label of pride and a smear, it carries a range of sometimes contradictory meanings. For example, the far-left has often accused Andrew Yang's UBI as a 'libertarian trojan horse'. I don't know what that is supposed to mean, but it's clearly something bad. Meanwhile, some self-identified libertarians have indeed been enthusiastic supporters of Yang during the past year. On the other hand, other self-identified libertarians have criticized those Yang supporters as 'not true libertarians', because they clearly aren't for drastically cutting government if they support a Democrat. Finally, some elements of the anarchist far-left have come out and said that, no, you are all fake libertarians, because the word 'libertarian' actually means anarchist in its original meaning.

So, who is a libertarian? It appears that we don't have a clear and agreed definition of the word. Some may point to the Non-Aggression Principle as the foundation of the whole idea, and most would agree. But then, how would you define what is an acceptable application of the NAP? I mean, there's the example where if you don't pay your taxes, somebody would take you to jail at gunpoint, so that's a violation of the NAP. However, even if the government were as small as only having a police force, law courts and a military, they would still need tax revenue, so the aforementioned situation would probably still happen to people who refuse to pay their taxes. And given that lower taxes are not really associated with lower tax evasion, it appears that the very existence of taxation would already violate the NAP, and a tax rate of 5% would likely violate the NAP as often as a tax rate of 50%. If we are to accept this logic, it would indeed lead to anarchism being the only acceptable libertarian position. However, as we all know, the majority of libertarians don't actually want anarchism!

Therefore, let me propose this: a libertarian is somebody who supports individual liberty as a core value, and supports the application of the NAP in some form. Now, this definition can encompass a wide range of people, and I don't think that's a bad thing either. For example, my support of practical individual liberty is the reason I support a UBI program, and for me, as a Moral Libertarian, I believe the best way to apply the NAP to its fullest spirit is to follow the principle of Equal Moral Agency for all on every policy issue. Now, another libertarian may not see things the same way, and that's fine. Freedom of conscience and diversity of thought are core values for every libertarian, and we should be able to respect our differences, as the NAP requires of us. Furthermore, I think if we define libertarian this way, it's much more useful and logical. For example, some definitions of libertarianism focused solely on low taxation or property rights would include people who clearly don't believe enough in individual liberty, while excluding those who have a more consequential model of liberty. It's how fans of Milo Yiannopoulos and Lauren Southern can define themselves as libertarians, while trying to exclude supporters of Andrew Yang. I think this is ridiculous, because there's clearly no way being neo-reactionary adjacent is actually more supportive of liberty than being a UBI fan.

At this point, I think we should also return to the roots of classical liberalism. Classical liberalism arose as a response to the religious conflicts of the late middle ages, and its purpose was to allow people with different faiths to coexist in peace and cooperate. This arrangement only works where there is a robust social fabric supported by strong social institutions, especially strong families. One reason I particularly liked Andrew Yang's campaign was his emphasis on families. Having a UBI as well as free marriage counselling may somewhat detract from the goal of smaller government, but it's good for families, especially those with stay at home moms. Given that families are the most essential part of the social architecture supporting liberty, there is indeed nothing more libertarian than supporting strong families. Liberty is the best guarantor of the natural social fabric, and the natural social fabric is the best guarantor of liberty.