The Present Libertarian Priority

By Laurence M. Vance 

“The idea behind advocating for libertarianism is to introduce a more civil society, not the destruction of society.” ~ Robert Wenzel

 I have previously written about libertarian priorities. There I began:

The libertarian goal is ultimately a free society where the non-aggression principle is the foundational principle and individual liberty, laissez-faire, and property rights reign supreme. Standing in the way of that goal is the state. And if that weren’t already a formidable enough obstacle, the state is also actively seeking to increase and expand its power and its interventions into the economy and society.

Under the guise of the Covid-19 “pandemic,” government at all levels is succeeding to increase and expand its power and its interventions into the economy and society as never before.

Yet, some libertarians not only still don’t get it, they are aiding and abetting the state in its destruction of society as a result of their ambivalence or their stupidity.

Libertarians generally recognize that there are core priorities that take precedence over most other issues. Here are ten of them:

• The drug war
• Foreign wars
• The U.S. empire of troops and bases
• The warfare state
• The welfare state
• The national security state
• The size and scope of government
• Government control of education
• Government wealth confiscation
• Government income redistribution

Eliminating the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and privatizing local garbage collection take a back seat to these much more damaging things.

Because of the events of the past year, in addition to the above core priorities there is one issue that libertarians must make their priority for its duration: the bogus government Covid-19 “pandemic” and draconian government response to it. The libertarian priority at the present time should be the condemnation and elimination of:

• Lockdowns
• Curfews
• Face masks
• The Covid-19 vaccine
• Mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations to attend school, travel, or go to work
• Social distancing
• Capacity limits in stores, restaurants, churches, theaters, arenas, and stadiums
• Quarantines
• Plastic shields in front of all cash registers
• Contract tracing
• CDC recommendations and guidelines relating to Covid-19
• Covid-19 testing
• Vaccine passports
• Travel restrictions
• The closure of, and restrictions on, “unessential businesses”
• Government and corporate propaganda in support of these things
• Censorship of opposition to these things

It doesn’t matter if it is private entities that are promoting and practicing these things. They should still be opposed root and branch. Business that are requiring masks, limiting the number of people in their stores, and making announcements about maintaining social distancing are generally only doing so because they are following government mandates and/or CDC propaganda about “the virus.” They wouldn’t even be thinking about these things were it not for the government’s draconian response to the “pandemic.”

But as I said, some libertarians (generally self-proclaimed left-libertarians) still don’t get it.

One libertarian asks: “What does it mean to be libertarian now? I would say that the purer forms of libertarianism are evolving: from a set of policy stances on political questions to a series of projects for building entire new political worlds.” After praising “the importance of Operation Warp Speed in getting the U.S. out of the pandemic” and dismissing the Great Barrington Declaration as “fatally flawed,” he says that “much of the intellectual effort in libertarian circles is concentrated in two ideas in particular: charter cities and cryptocurrency.” I don’t know what libertarian circles he is running in, but the intellectual effort of its members is being wasted while society is crumbling around us.
Another libertarian, even while criticizing Democrats and liberals for panicking over the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions in Texas, spouts a bunch of Covid-19 nonsense that could have come from the CDC:

Masks have been an important tool in slowing the course of the pandemic. There’s a strong case to be made that the unvaccinated should still wear them when they gather in large numbers in indoor spaces.

Fully vaccinated people are essentially immune from serious disease or death, and according to the latest data, they are very unlikely to carry or transmit COVID-19 at all. The message to the unvaccinated should be: Go get vaccinated. The message to the vaccinated should be: Rejoice! You can go back to normal life.

If we don’t want pandemic restrictions to become the new airport security, there needs to be pushback: Get vaccinated, and then get back to normal.

This ambivalence, and this stupidity, by libertarians, is contributing to the destruction of society. That’s right. Supporting face masks, the Covid-19 vaccine, and any of the other things I mentioned above is contributing to the destruction of society. The present libertarian priority is the condemnation and elimination of these things, not just because they are unnecessary, but because they are destroying society.

The best places to find the valuable information you need about the bogus government Covid-19 “pandemic” and the draconian government response to it are LewRockwell.com, Lifefacts by LifeSiteNews, the daily Tom Woods, the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), TargetLiberty, and my Covid-19 insanity page. There are other places, of course, and I apologize in advance for omitting to mention them, but these places will give you more than you can possibly use to combat the lies, nonsense, and propaganda about all things relating to Covid-19—even when uttered by libertarians.

Laurence Vance is a columnist and policy adviser for the Future of Freedom Foundation, an associated scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and a columnist, blogger, and book reviewer at LewRockwell.com. His published books and pamphlets include "Social Insecurity," "The War on Drugs Is a War on Freedom," "War, Christianity, and the State: Essays on the Follies of Christian Militarism," "War, Empire, and the Military: Essays on the Follies of War and U.S. Foreign Policy" and "Gun Control and the Second Amendment."

The above originally appeared at LewRockwell.com and is posted here with permission of the author.