The Case for an RFK Jr. 2024 Libertarian Party Presidential Nomination
Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s interest in running for president as the Libertarian Party’s 2024 candidate is a great opportunity to help educate the public about everything that is desperately needed to save not just the US, but perhaps all of civilization if the naïve Neocons are not stopped in time to prevent what will surely be The Final World War. Let me describe the countless benefits of an RFK Jr. LP run.
One, there is the man himself. From every indication that I have, RFK Jr. is a truly courageous man willing to make the ultimate sacrifices to help save America. He seems like the person who, although in an obviously high position of power and prestige, is extremely humble and willing to take advice from, and praise and value, everyone. This podcast episode with fellow Austro-Libertarian Jeremy Hammond, who like the great Murray Rothbard, is a profound writer in economics, history and thus criticizing Zionist fallacies, and also vaccinations myths, is a great example of RFK Jr.’s humble and inquisitive demeanor. During the last year, in his podcast RFK Jr. has had leading freedom fighters like David Stockman, Matt Taibbi, Jeffrey Sachs, Scott Ritter, Col Douglas Macgregor and countless others.
Two. Hardly anyone of significant fame has fought ‘The Priesthood of Scientism’ and the Corommunism like RFK Jr. has. His best-selling book ‘The Real Anthony Fauci’ has been akin to Martin Luther’s 95 Theses regarding the devastating blow it has given ‘The Priesthood of Scientism’ just like Luther’s writings did to the coercive monopoly power of the Catholic Church at the time. The Pope of Scientism, Anthony Fauci, and his chemical slaughter of millions via the pseudo-scientific HIV->AIDS->Death dogma, and its repeat via the CovidMania and disastrous CovidVaccines-Talismans, is being exposed for its true mythical nature. The longer this book continues to dominate and thus out-compete ‘The Priesthood of Scientism’ the more the faithful masses wake up to the fact that they have been sacrificing virgins in vain, and even more importantly, appreciate freedom in the scientific-medical realm.
Three. RFK Jr. knows what a calamity the so-called Neocons have been. Below is a spectacular 1.5 minute video that summarizes how these simple-minded tribalistic ideologues have bankrupted America and destroyed millions of lives.
Four. RFK Jr. although no seasoned ‘Austrian Economist’ like Dr. Ron Paul, is 100% for real Capitalism, and understands the vital role of competition and the private sector. Here is a brief but excellent 1 minute video of RFK. Jr. properly defending capitalism and free markets.
Also, we all know how keeping it real can go wrong. How much of RFK Jr.’s less-than-ideal economic views are just part of the complex 456th dimensional chess we all have to play to various degrees? RFK Jr. must clearly know that by running in the LP he will not be able to deviate too greatly from our core free market views, which I am guessing he supports. RFK Jr. greatly respects Ron Paul and the feeling is mutual. I have little doubt in my mind that Dr. Paul would be thrilled to have RFK Jr. run in the LP. Nuff said.
Next I would like to address some potential objections.
One. There are many libertarians, myself included, who feel like Zionism and the resulting Israeli state have been a massive error, and the sort of ideological swimmer’s kick that is responsible for most of the geopolitical chaos we see in the world today, especially in the Middle East given the constant warmongering that arises from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Intellectual leaders associated with the ‘Mises Caucus’ like Scott Horton and Dave Smith have been disappointed (to say the least) regarding RFK Jr.’s seemingly strong support of the Israeli-Zionist government and its handling of the Israeli-Hamas war. Zionism, as with Socialism, is a complex ideological movement that misled many bright and well-intentioned people to disaster. The Socialists were thoroughly convinced in the morality of punishing or preventing businessmen’s alleged “exploitation” of labor by making a profit from hiring them, this morally justified in their minds making criminals out of businessmen and killing them if necessary. The Zionists, for very very understandable reasons like the centuries-long antisemitism, have likewise persuaded themselves that what they are doing is moral from their perspective. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Maduro, etc. followed their Marxist intellectuals and were unfortunately adored by millions as they pushed their ideology leaving immense suffering on its wake. Likewise, Zionist leaders like all Israeli Prime Ministers have their great Zionist ideologues like Theodor Herzl, are adored by millions of ‘Zionized’ Jews and Evangelical Christians and countless others, as they push their ideology leading to immense suffering on its wake. As Hayek tells us:
”It is necessary to realize that the sources of many of the most harmful agents in this world are often not evil men but high-minded idealists, and that in particular the foundations of totalitarian barbarism have been laid by honourable and well-meaning scholars who never recognized the offspring they produced.”
Hayek again:
”Most people are still unwilling to face the most alarming lesson of modern history: that the greatest crimes of our time have been committed by governments that had the enthusiastic support of millions of people who were guided by moral impulses. It is simply not true that Hitler or Mussolini, Lenin or Stalin, appealed only to the worst instincts of their people: they also appealed to some of the feelings which also dominate contemporary democracies.”
Today the Zionists are as negligent of the suffering of Gazans as Lenin and his Bolsheviks were regarding the suffering of the ‘Kulaks’ and the millions of Catholics and religious people who stubbornly refused to go along with Socialist ideology and morality. But this should NOT be seen as some naive moral failing on their part. This is all about the evolution of complex ideologies and fallacies. As Mises reminds us:
“The problems involved are purely intellectual and must be dealt with as such. It is disastrous to shift them to the moral sphere and to dispose of supporters of opposite ideologies by calling them villains. It is vain to insist that what we are aiming at is good and what our adversaries want is bad. The question to be solved is precisely what is to be considered as good and what as bad. The rigid dogmatism peculiar to religious groups and to Marxism results only in irreconcilable conflict. It condemns beforehand all dissenters as evildoers, it calls into question their good faith, it asks them to surrender unconditionally. No social cooperation is possible where such an attitude prevails.”
Mises’ wisdom applies to Zionism as well. Thus, just like Mises-Hayek-Hazlitt provided, we need a careful understanding of the fallacies leading to the polarizations and wars, not naive moral pontification because ‘No social cooperation is possible where such an attitude prevails.’ Mises again:
“Neither as judges allotting praise and blame nor as avengers seeking out the guilty should we face the past. We seek truth, not guilt; we want to know how things came about to understand them, not to issue condemnations.”
RFK Jr’s strong sympathies with Zionism and seemingly good relations with many prominent Zionist Jewish leaders like Rabbi Schmuley is actually a huge benefit for those of us who feel like Zionism was a mistake. If we are ever going to overcome Zionist fallacies, we must help Zionists realize they made a mistake, just like the great ‘Austrian Economists’ helped socialists overcome their fallacies. RFK Jr. could very well be, or help us ferment, the necessary Zionist Gorbachevs needed to end the current brand of Zionism just like happened with Soviet Communism. In RFK. Jr’s discussion with Dave Smith, he did a great job of understanding and describing the Zionist view and this is great. It took immense class and honest search for truth for RFK Jr. to do the podcast with Dave Smith who rightly criticized him and sees things differently. More evidence of RFK Jr’s greatness. And not only that, RFK Jr. in a very sincere and heart-felt manner even offered Dave to be his running mate! Thus helping launch to immediate world-wide attention one of Zionism’s and Statism’s best critics. What a golden opportunity!?!? How much of a naive Neoconish Zionist could RFK Jr. possibly be, if he actually had Dave Smith as running mate? Bottom line, RFK Jr. would be superb for the LP regarding helping fix all the Zionist-related chaos, especially if he has Dave Smith as running mate which would greatly improve RFK Jr’s free market views as well as those related to Zionism. Maybe Dave Smith will be the Jewish Gorbachev? Maybe Dave Smith is Kwisatz Haderach?
Two. RFK Jr. is not a “real libertarian”. This is nonsense. Libertarian is a word whose meaning is very subjective. Some feel like Libertarian must be the 100% totally privatized anarcho-capitalist view, some feel like it is consistent with various degrees of ‘minarchism’. Ultimately the LP and the Libertarianism it represents is shaped by the complex and subjective views of those ‘who show up’ :-). A favorite quote by Hayek is relevant:
“Nobody can be a great economist who is only an economist — and I am even tempted to add that the economist who is only an economist is likely to become a nuisance if not a positive danger.”
Hayek’s wisdom applies to not just economists, but to libertarians because in many ways we are sort of economists. Naive libertarians who have never bothered to read about the complex history of Zionism and its ramifications like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict always fall for all the naive Neocon-Zionist wars and associated myths like so-and-so is the next Hitler (Putin) and got their pro-Zelensky (next great Churchill in Neocon-Zionist mythology) Ukraine flag pins. Then you have the ones who have likewise never read about the emergence of all kinds of bullshit medical myths due to government and thus competition-immune coercion, and fell for all the Corommunism and vaccination Talismans. Fortunately over the last years Michael Heise’s ‘Mises Caucus’ created a beacon that united the better informed libertarians who ‘showed up’ and replaced the ‘loser brigade’-type libertarians who are just too naive to actually read books and overcome popular myths, Zionist-Neocon myths, and ‘Priesthood of Scientism’ myths, and thus becoming a small, but powerful and better defense of freedom. However, even though the ‘Mises Caucus’ has done a superb job uniting many better-informed libertarians and replaced the more naive ‘loser-brigade’-type libertarians, it has made various arguments, flawed IMHO, for opposing RFK Jr.’s potential LP leadership. Next I will deal with a few of those. In a recent newsletter and twitter post the LPMC states:
“We firmly oppose any strategy that would “rent out” our party’s place on any state’s ballot to RFK, or indeed any candidate who has so many disqualifying deviations from the essential principles of libertarianism.”
Again, ‘principles of libertarianism’ is a very subjective thing. Being a ‘Misesian’ is also a very subjective thing. For example, Ludwig von Mises was a deep evolutionary thinker who ridiculed the concept of ‘Natural Rights’ as a ‘silly or irrelevant’ defense of freedom. He writes in Human Action:
“The arguments advanced by average politicians and writers against socialism are either silly or irrelevant. It is useless to stand upon an alleged “natural” right of individuals to own property if other people assert that the foremost “natural” right is that of income equality.”
Should the ‘Mises Caucus’ be “disqualified” from using Mises’ name to arguably misrepresent his views? I believe that like Mises, RFK Jr. defends freedom on utilitarian-like grounds, not some ‘Natural Rights’ thus making him, in that sense, more of a Misesian than the ‘Mises Caucus’. The LPMC again:
We in the LP bill ourselves as “The Party of Principle” fro a reason
Yes, the current slogan of the LP is ‘The Party of Principle’, but again, this is just a slogan, a rather silly one IMHO, naive climate-freaks can easily make the case that the “principled” thing to do is to eradicate all homo sapiens because we are leading to the extinction of other defenseless species, polluting and thus destroying much of complex biochemical order that sustains all life in the planet and so on. This outcome is definitely very much in the cards if Homo sapiens remains ignorant of Mises and friends, and if I was 100% certain that mankind would ultimately destroy the complex biochemical order that took 4+ billion years natural selection to create, I too would be in favor of the disappearance of homo sapiens. However, unlike the the clueless climate-freaks and hopefully fellow freemarketeers reading this, I know how economic freedom is the key to taking care of the environment and an amazingly prosperous and lively planet is very much in the cards if we succeed at educating the masses per Mises’ advise. It is NOT adherence to some ‘Principle’ that saved civilization from Socialist tyranny, it was the monumental intellectual and marketing efforts of ‘The Austrians’ and fellow traveler-economists. Running around with a boot on your head or parroting ‘Taxation is Theft’ educates no one and keeps the public rightly seeing the LP and libertarians as a bunch of simple-minded naive fools.
…our goal as Libertarians must be to convince as many of our fellow men as possible of the moral and practical superiority of liberty. We can’t do that if we muddy our message to chase votes.
“our message”??? Again, which message? ‘Taxation is Theft’, that the State is a “gang of thieves writ large — the most immoral, grasping and unscrupulous individuals in any society”, is that the message that defines what the Libertarian Party should be about? This excludes Milton Friedman, Mises, Hayek and countless others. Or…. Or that per Carl Menger, peace be upon him, social institutions like the State and language “present themselves to us rather as “natural” products(in a certain sense), as unintended results of historical development.” , in other words, we see the social order as a sort of ‘Social Organism’ that has emerged without man’s planning, similar to how solitary cells, over millions of years via an evolutionary process created the respiratory, nervous, digestive, etc. systems that allows them to create complex biological orders. Which is “our message”? Do we expose “the bad guys”? Or do we help the totally clueless masses and just-as-clueless so-called ‘leading intellectuals’ finally catch up to Menger and his intellectual disciples before it is too late?
LPMC:
“Another reason that the RFK gambit is a foolish idea is that it might actually work. If he did occupy the Libertarian ballot line and win five or even ten percent of the popular vote, millions of Americans will forever associate the LP with RFK’s policies. This would empty the LP of a large number of its most committed activists while attracting an influx of those with little or no regard for the Non-Aggression Principle.”
If RFK Jr. did become the LP candidate he would immediately become a world-wide beacon of anti-‘Priesthood of Scientism’, anti-Neocon, and pro-free market wisdom, and would have another 6 months with which to lead a Ron Paul Revolution-like exponential growth that could topple the ignorance that is destroying civilization. He is already surrounded by great free marketeers, and as LP candidate, surrounded and better immersed in the Ron Paulized, ‘Austrianized’, LP, his messaging would get even better. Anyone how follows the RFK Jr. campaign can see that he is surrounded by great libertarians like the Jackman brothers. Instead of the relatively clueless Democrats somehow ‘corrupting’ our free market views and party, we will spread our views and help educate his massive following. RFK Jr.’s followers are not static things that can’t change or learn. Libertarians love to complain about “identity politics” yet they suffer from the same naive thinking. No one is born understanding freedom, some are naive enough to think they are, but most libertarians were once economically ignorant “Leftists”, or die-for-Zionism Christian-Republican ‘Rightist’ kinds. We are constantly evolving our personalities and views, and given that we are all just fellow homo sapiens, it should be easy to realize that all can quickly learn and change our minds. Mises again:
Liberalism is rationalistic. It maintains that it is possible to convince the immense majority that peaceful cooperation within the framework of society better serves their rightly understood interests than mutual battling and social disintegration. It has full confidence in man’s reason. It may be that this optimism is unfounded and that the liberals have erred. But then there is no hope left for mankind’s future.
I’m pretty sure Mises rightly didn’t care much about ‘attracting an influx of those with little or no regard for the Non-Aggression Principle.’ I’m sure he believed he could persuade anyone. Javier Milei, just managed to persuade the usually Socialist-minded clueless Argentinians to accept more freedom, and I have little doubt that RFK Jr. if given 6 months at the national stage will be able to do likewise. In many ways RFK Jr. could be better than Milei. Milei appears to have eaten CovidMania hook, line, and sinker, and seems to have zero clue regarding the disastrous Zionized-Neocons. Whatever edge Milei may have on RFK Jr. regarding Austrian Economics, a couple of long talks with Dave Smith or many other Austrianized LP personalities should quickly close the gap.
LPMC:
“to have any hope of success we must be willing to put in the work as outlined in our Project Decentralized Revolution document.”
Nonsense. What is outlined in that document is deeply flawed. Was anything learned from the ‘Ron Paul Revolution’? Or Javier Milei’s recent revolution in Argentina? Ron Paul’s campaign, by launching a great freemarketeer to the national spotlight, allowed Ron Paul to become a beacon of sound economic education to millions. The Milei revolution at its core was just a repeat of the Ron Paul Revolution. Two men who stumbled upon ‘The Austrians’, and by running for office at the highest levels, placed themselves where people were looking, and became great beacons of economic education. It was not involvement in the local level that educated so many, it was the fact that you have great beacons educating millions at the national and worldwide level. RFK Jr., with some clever marketing, reaching out to influencers and famous people who can be educated-persuaded who can then lead their millions of followers, this is a far better strategy, and RFK Jr. is ideal for this, he already has leading support among young people and I believe is already the overwhelming favorite of the increasingly influential online-independent media and people like Joe Rogan, Lex Friedman, Elon and what remains of real American independent thought. Again, an LP nomination win, will then give him an additional 6 months of further exponential growth, which is what Ron Paul lacked when he lost his primaries in 2008/12.
In a certain poetic sense, RFK Jr. is what remains of the best of America. The cultural inheritance of the courageous and much-beloved Kennedy brand, his network of courageous doctors, lawyers and friends, his proven track record of fighting against the grain, the pissed off mothers who have had their children and loved ones mutilated by the ‘Priesthood of Scientism’, and countless other accolades make him and his campaign a formidable beacon of freedom with which to hopefully lead America and the rest of the world from its current path towards increasing tribalism, chaos and tyranny.
In many ways some Libertarians remind me of the story of ‘The Scorpion and the Frog’ where the frog agrees to swim across the river with the scorpion on its back and a promise by the scorpion not to sting because both would drown, but the scorpion stings anyway and both die because that is just the nature of the scorpion. Did communist ideologues really stop and reflect why their ideas never really brought prosperity? Do Zionists ever really try to think about why they are increasingly hated and always involved in naive good vs. evil wars? Do naive ‘loser brigade’, ‘taxation is theft’, and ‘Principled’ libertarians ever consider that their rather simplistic portrayal of freedom is perhaps the main reason why most people, if they have even heard of the LP, rightly see libertarians as a bunch of naive simpletons? I believe we have an immense opportunity and perhaps this article can help those who see it as such ‘show up’ and make a huge difference in spreading freedom and further educating Americans.
