For all of libertarianism’s intellectual strengths, an unfortunately sizeable chunk of libertarians have long clung to a defensive, bordering on misanthropic, emotional posture. There is a reason that many of these libertarians have affiliated themselves with the Gadsden flag, the coiled snake in front of a yellow background saying ‘Don’t Tread on Me.’ The snake is obsessively possessive of its property rights, hostile to any who approach its territory, cutting itself off from everything and everyone around it. Fairly or unfairly, that is how libertarians have come across to many people, particularly progressives.
Many of the essays in this series will be aimed at persuading progressives to be more market-friendly, more skeptical of state power, or more sympathetic to libertarians’ freedom-orientation. LP #9 “Why Progressives Should Stop Hating Big Business” is such example. This essay though is aimed squarely at libertarians. Rather than telling the world to get off their lawn, libertarians should root for people. They should celebrate every expansion of liberty rather than concentrate on the petty preoccupation with being left alone. It’s time for a warm, charitable, kind libertarianism. It’s time for a Ted Lasso libertarianism. It’s time to burn the Gadsden flag.
Opportunities abound for libertarians to be, and to sell themselves as, the political ideology of nice people. When gay people are allowed to marry whom they choose, that is worth clapping for. When a small business can succeed because it is not being tied down by red tape, that is worth cheering on. When working people can afford to buy a home- because zoning reform made it affordable to build new houses- that is a victory for the American Dream.
Unfortunately, rather than focus on liberty and the successful pursuits of happiness that liberty allows, some libertarians, for whatever reason, think that the height of cool is to let off rhetorical stink bombs. They seem to believe that being a jerk is the most effective way to signal that no one is going to tell them what to do and seemingly nothing is more important to them than doing that edgelord vice signaling. The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire chapter is perhaps the most enthusiastic of these purveyors of absurd assholery for the sheer sake of it. They advocated for the abolition of child labor laws and doubled down after Gary Johnson, the most successful Libertarian Party presidential candidate ever, called them out on it. They said "John McCain's brain tumor saved more lives than Anthony Fauci." On and on. The Mises Caucus does this too. To give just one example, they gracelessly compared private businesses’ COVID-safety measures to racially-segregated water fountains from the Jim Crow South. This kind of incendiary rhetoric may appeal to the already-committed borderline fanatical libertarians who attend the Porcupine Festival, but it is actively toxic to mainstream people remotely considering being libertarian-sympathetic.
This mentality’s affect says ‘I get to do or say whatever the hell I want and no one gets to say a damn word to me about it.’ The devotees of this message are so emotionally and psychologically warped that they see nice as by definition weak. Words like prudence, respect, moderation, and gravitas have no meaning to these people. They have all the casual recklessness of a drunk driver but, if you dare criticize them, they react with zero equanimity. They are angry snowflakes, but they are no less snowflakes simply because they mask insecurity with rage.
The fetishization of a jerk affect is obnoxious in its own right, but it is also a squandered opportunity to authentically persuade rather than performatively confront. It is terribly off-putting to libertarian-adjacent people and makes it all but impossible to build a broader, more attractive, more popular political brand. Few people read A Christmas Carol, see Ebenezer Scrooge’s life prior to the three ghosts’ visitation and think to themselves “that’s a life well-led, that’s the kind of life I want for myself- alone, mean, miserly in every sense of the word.”
A separate but related branding problem for Gadsden flag libertarians is that it is much clearer what they are against than what they are for. The list of what they don’t like is a lot easier to check off in one’s head than the things they do like. All of this makes expanding the draw of libertarianism more difficult. This is where being in a coalition with progressives can help. Aligning with libertarians can help progressives boundary police to their left because libertarians won’t stomach sharing a tent with radical anti-capitalists. The reciprocal to that is also true. Aligning with progressives will help reasonable libertarians boundary police to their right because progressives won’t stomach sharing a tent with cranks.
Even apart from branding and coalition building, the jerk affect betrays a deep misunderstanding of what libertarianism ought to be about. Libertarianism is a theory of government; it is not a theory of life. It is about ensuring that the state does not violate citizens’ rights. Holding that these rights are self-evident does not imply that selfishness is a virtue. Likewise, safeguarding individualism does not imply that there is no such thing as community. Togetherness, compassion, and assistance to the vulnerable may go through the state, but they certainly do not need to. In fact, in an important sense, libertarianism is about saying that we do not need the state to tell us to be kind and gracious in order to be kind and gracious. To borrow a line from the Libertarian Party of Texas, ‘empathy is not a woke conspiracy.’
A better, kinder, wiser approach is not only possible but the best among us do it all the time. A good example of this is Rodney Smith Jr.’s grass cutting service. In 2015, Smith saw an elderly man struggling to cut his grass, stopped what he was doing, and finished the job for the elderly man. It meant so much to the man that Smith started cutting grass for free for the elderly, disabled, single moms, and veterans. He went on to start the Raising Men and Women Lawn Care Service. The program gets boys and girls to take the “50 Yard Challenge” which entails cutting grass, raking leaves, or shoveling snow for 50 of their neighbors in need. Along the way, the kids get different colors shirts based on how many yards they have taken care of with a black shirt once the 50 Yard Challenge is completed (akin to the belt system in karate). The program teaches kids that they have value to society and also teaches them the intrinsic pride that comes from helping others and giving back to the community. When I say I want Ted Lasso libertarianism, this is exactly what I mean. Libertarianism, but also America writ large, needs more of this and less of the coiled snake.
(Note: I have no idea what Rodney Smith Jr.’s politics are, but frankly I don’t care. He’s personifying the kind of community-orientation that kinder, nicer, wiser libertarians ought to aspire to.)
Finally, even when Gadsden flag libertarians are not being intentionally provocative, they are repeating the maximally confrontational approach to politics that is increasingly radicalizing important parts of both of the two major parties. In LP #1: A New Alliance, I decried the extremists on left and right more interested in burning things down rather than building them. A Gadsden flag libertarianism is so bereft of public spirit that it sees no reason to pick up a water bucket to fight those fires. A kindly, nice, optimistic libertarianism aligned with progressivism though holds fast to many of the best aspects of libertarianism while jettisoning this Gadsden flag instinct. A libertarian-progressive has no interest in giving the world the finger but every interest in congratulating people as they achieve their ambitions. A libertarian-progressive has no interest in telling the world to get off their lawn but every interest in inviting people over for a barbecue. That’s what we should want, but it can’t happen so long as the Gadsden Flag mentality poisons libertarianism itself and repels libertarian-adjacent people. So…..
It's time to burn the Gadsden flag.