True libertarians not on the Trump Train

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for February 26, 2025)

I'm disappointed with how many former libertarians are now fans of big government just because Donald Trump is the president. Some have abandoned all pretense of supporting liberty.

If this is all it takes to make someone turn their back on liberty, were they libertarian to begin with? To me, it matters what you do, not what you say you are.

This includes some highly influential "libertarian" social media accounts which now seem to be nothing more than Republicans using "libertarian" in the name.

Some are even spending their time and energy to insult those who haven't tossed principles aside and jumped on the Trump Train. The insults fall flat, but they try.

"Libertarian" has a specific meaning; it means you reject the initiation of force, property rights violations, and fraud as ways of dealing with others; those are things no one has a right to do. Never, under any circumstances. It means you recognize that without liberty, humans are enslaved to some degree. How much slavery is acceptable to you? The correct answer is always "none".

It doesn't mean you hate those in power because the power is being used to violate rights, until you suddenly love those in power when they violate others in a different way.

I get caught in the middle because I neither suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome nor am I a Trump fan. He's just a politician like any other, who happens to be doing some good things no one else has been willing to consider, while doing some bad things which are not better in some way simply because he's the one doing them. He's neither a messiah nor a devil.

If you aren't able to acknowledge the good things someone does while condemning the bad they do, you're not thinking it through. It's the same if all you do is condemn them. Either way, you're jumping on a bandwagon. It's the easier path.

No one should have the power to govern others. It's never a legitimate power. As long as the majority believes in the most dangerous superstition-- political authority-- there will be people taking advantage of their belief and grabbing the reins of power. Everyone who wields this power will get some things right and get other things wrong. These days it's like a superpower to be able to see both sides. It's a superpower that is within your reach. Use this power well.

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Battle scars

I have scars. Some of those scars are from surgeries. Others are from living life. I prefer those I didn't get from scalpels.

I have a scar on my shoulder from a scuffle with an armadillo I had chased down. I have a long scar on my wrist from a cat who suddenly decided she needed to be on the other side of the house immediately and lept from my lap. I had scars from animal bites, but most have faded.

I have many scars on my left hand- because the knife was always in my right hand.
I have scars from getting injured while doing worthwhile things, like building stuff, exploring, and having fun. 

I don't try to hide my scars, not that most would notice them anyway.

These are my battle scars; signs I didn't just sit in a padded room dreaming of what I could be doing instead.

I also have psychological scars, but we won't talk about those.

If I drove a Tesla Cybertruck (or a lesser, pointless Tesla), I wouldn't have it refinished if it got scratched by members of the Mental Illness Drama Club acting out their issues and delusions. 

I would leave the scratched in swastikas, insults, and lines. If it got dents from being rammed with a scooter or kicked, they can stay. If it got set on fire but not destroyed, I would repair just enough to get it functional again, but I'd leave the scars. They are earned.

Those scars would be battle scars in the battle between the Far Left and literally everyone else. They would testify against those who believe it's OK to damage other people's property because the corporate media gave them their marching orders. NPCs carrying out their programming because they can't do otherwise. They are losers of the most useless sort.

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