Ep 379: Nobody is a Real Libertarian

DOUG STUART: Welcome to another episode of The Libertarian Christian Podcast, a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and part of the Christians for Liberty Network.

DOUG STUART: I’m your host, Doug Stuart, and joined with me as you can see, if you’re watching on YouTube.

DOUG STUART: By the way, you need to watch on YouTube because we do video now.

DOUG STUART: So go over and watch on YouTube, pause your player, go watch on YouTube.

DOUG STUART: You’re going to see Cody Cook and Alex Bernardo, both are participants in the Christians for Liberty Network in various ways.

DOUG STUART: Cody has been resurrecting the Faith Seeking Freedom Podcast, and Alex Bernardo is, of course, the host of the Protestant Libertarian Podcast, and he is always interviewing scholars and controversial figures.

DOUG STUART: In fact, we’re actually having a conversation today about two, I wouldn’t say they’re two.

DOUG STUART: Well, one’s controversial, the other talking about controversy.

DOUG STUART: Two different individuals that he recently had on his show that represent in many ways two different sort of factions or sides or elements of the libertarian movement or the libertarian party and the direction that it’s heading.

DOUG STUART: There’s a lot of talk this year about what’s going on.

DOUG STUART: It’s been quite a rise for the last two years with the Mises caucus Takeover in 2022.

DOUG STUART: And so Alex wanted to have two guys on, and he didn’t have them on together.

DOUG STUART: He had them on his two separate episodes, and I’ll let Alex explain.

DOUG STUART: But basically what we’re going to do is we’re going to have a conversation about the who’s a true libertarian.

DOUG STUART: I’m pretty sure it’s none of us or either only us.

DOUG STUART: I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out by the end of the episode.

DOUG STUART: Alex, Cody, thanks for joining me.

ALEX BERNARDO: Good to be here.

CODY COOK: It’s okay to be here.

DOUG STUART: Well, this is getting off to a great start.

ALEX BERNARDO: Yes.

DOUG STUART: Alex, why don’t you sum up your conversations with it was Zach Weisszmuller and Jeremy Kauffman.

DOUG STUART: Start off, though, with why do you want to have them on?

ALEX BERNARDO: Okay, so I discovered that I was a Libertarian eight years ago, and then about three and a half years ago, I discovered that there were actually different types of Libertarians.

ALEX BERNARDO: I had no idea that there was so much factionalism within the Libertarian movement, but it became apparent to me when I began reading Murray Rothbard’s work at the, as like in the summer of 2021, that the Libertarian movement really could kind of be divided up into like a left and right sphere, and there are different ways of looking at that, but it was pretty obvious to me that Reason magazine, and I think even further to the side, Cato represents one way of thinking about Libertarianism, whereas like the Mises Institute and kind of the Rothbardian tradition represent a second way of looking at that, and over the last couple of months, there have been a couple of articles posted at Reason magazine that were very critical of the Mises caucus which is the caucus that is, I guess, technically in control of the Libertarian party right now, which is certainly right leaning Libertarian oriented, And there was a very popular article that was published by Liz Wolf, who hosts the podcast for Reason and writes for Reason magazine and her co-host is Zach Weissmuller, where she was critical of the Mises caucus leadership and kind of critical of the future of the party.

ALEX BERNARDO: That was an article that really triggered kind of a hostile response to people that are on the other side of that libertarian divide, the Mises caucus type people and the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire in particular, was very vocal online about their disdain for that article.

ALEX BERNARDO: And so, Zach Weissmuller was online defending it and Jeremy Kaufman was online criticizing it.

ALEX BERNARDO: And so, I just opened up to both of them that I’d be happy to have both of them on my show to talk it through.

ALEX BERNARDO: And so, I was able to get Zach on and kind of interview him about everything, what he thought about the left-right libertarian split, what he thought about the article, what he thought about the Mises caucus and the direction of the party, and had Jeremy Kauffman on to do the exact same thing.

ALEX BERNARDO: They gave two very different perspectives on liberty.

ALEX BERNARDO: And it was really great just to kind of see how both of them thought about the libertarian movement and the possibility for the future growth of that movement.

ALEX BERNARDO: And I thought it was really helpful conversation.

ALEX BERNARDO: I mean, to put my cards on the table, I know that the three of us have talked about this outside of the podcast before, but I do align myself with the Mises caucus, and I consider myself to be, I guess, a right-leaning libertarian, if that distinction really makes sense.

ALEX BERNARDO: But I don’t hate Reason Magazine.

ALEX BERNARDO: There’s actually a lot of things that I like about Reason Magazine, and I think that they’re all great libertarians, and there are a lot of people that are like in the left libertarian camp that I have a lot of respect for.

ALEX BERNARDO: So, I really want to hear both sides of the issue and just give everyone a fair opportunity to express their positions.

ALEX BERNARDO: So, that was kind of the entire back and forth, and the episodes have been doing really well, and it was really cool to have the experience of talking to both of those guys.

DOUG STUART: Was there any reason why you didn’t consider the…

CODY COOK: I have a good question I could jump in.

DOUG STUART: Oh, yeah.

CODY COOK: Well, I just…

DOUG STUART: Can I just have a follow-up?

CODY COOK: Is there actually a big divide or has that kind of been exaggerated?

CODY COOK: So, like, I listened to both episodes, and I noticed that, like, you know, Kauffman had mentioned that the Libertarian News commentary site, Reason, he was arguing that they were sort of left Libertarian.

CODY COOK: He highlighted their voting disclosures, which they do every election.

CODY COOK: And he claimed that in the last presidential election, Reason magazine staff voted for Biden 6 to 1, which was both incorrect and misleading.

CODY COOK: And because the actual breakdown was, I think three said they were going to vote for Biden.

CODY COOK: One was, like, a Navy.

CODY COOK: It was one for Trump, ten for Jorgensen, the Libertarian candidate, and then seven said they’re not voting.

CODY COOK: So that, you know, Biden portion is pretty small.

CODY COOK: Trump was smaller.

CODY COOK: And I also suspect that if you went back to, like, kind of a pre-Trump election, what you’d sort of find is that they’d probably swing a little bit more conservative, which was basically true.

CODY COOK: If you go back to 2012, it was zero voted for Obama.

CODY COOK: One was a probable Romney vote, and then 20 for Johnson, then seven not voting.

CODY COOK: Gary Johnson, Libertarian candidate.

CODY COOK: So there was that.

CODY COOK: So, like, I felt like he was sort of exaggerating that, that, you know, that divide.

CODY COOK: I think to some extent, the Mises caucus has been kind of too broadly and maybe unfairly painted as racists by the anti-Mises camp.

CODY COOK: There’s a little something of that critique that I think we could get into, but largely it’s been overstated.

CODY COOK: And so, like, I guess my question is, is there actually divide and what does it look like?

CODY COOK: So for you, Alex, you’re sort of saying, you acknowledge this, you noticed it, you felt like you were on one side of it.

CODY COOK: So is there a divide?

CODY COOK: And if it is, is it political?

CODY COOK: Is it stylistic?

CODY COOK: Is it strategic or is it like a culture war thing?

CODY COOK: What does that look like?

ALEX BERNARDO: I think it’s a little bit of all of them.

ALEX BERNARDO: And I’d love to get your perspective on this in just a minute.

ALEX BERNARDO: Now, I started reading Hans Hermann Hoppe about a month ago.

ALEX BERNARDO: Tho Bishop on Twitter recommended a couple of articles and then I bought some of his books.

ALEX BERNARDO: So I read one and I’m halfway through a second one.

ALEX BERNARDO: And he really is kind of like the heir of Murray Rothbard.

ALEX BERNARDO: And in his analysis of the difference between left and right libertarianism, it’s all about egalitarian rhetoric.

ALEX BERNARDO: And so his split would be that on the right, you have the kind of libertarianism that acknowledges that there are natural differences among people and that celebrate those differences and that believe that people should be able to group based on those differences, whereas left-leaning libertarians, they might believe that philosophically, but their language and their rhetoric is more directed towards egalitarian ends.

ALEX BERNARDO: I think that that’s a big part of it.

ALEX BERNARDO: I also think that a lot of it has to do with, and this is something that I think both Zach and Jeremy acknowledge when I talk to them, is that left libertarianism tends to represent libertarian philosophy with ideas and policies and concepts that are popular to those that are on the left, whereas right-leaning libertarians, they tend to gear their analysis of libertarianism towards issues that are popular for people on the right.

ALEX BERNARDO: And so for me, when I first became a libertarian in 2016, growing up in Kentucky, I’ve always kind of had, and I’m a very traditional Christian in terms of social practice, I’ve always had kind of a conservative bent to me.

ALEX BERNARDO: And I remember reading Reason magazine, and I was like, I agree with everything they say philosophically, but a lot of the issues they cover make me kind of uncomfortable with someone who’s more conservative.

ALEX BERNARDO: And it wasn’t until I found the Mises Rothbard wing of the party, the Tom Woods, those kind of people where I was like, okay, this is a little bit more in line with my kind of more conservative personal values.

ALEX BERNARDO: And I also do think strategically, if you take the egalitarianism issue and you take that we’re going to appeal to right-leaning issues and left-leaning issues into the equation, then obviously that’s going to affect your strategy from a political perspective.

ALEX BERNARDO: And so I think that’s where a lot of the divergence between the two parties go.

ALEX BERNARDO: Philosophically, I think that we agree on almost everything, but a lot of it has to do with the details, the messaging and the direction that we think that this movement should head.

ALEX BERNARDO: I don’t know if you guys feel like that’s a fair characteristic or a fair characterization, but yeah.

CODY COOK: So I do have some thoughts about where these divides might be, but I do want to ask one clarification question because it sounded to me like you were saying that the right libertarians sort of say, well, there’s differences among people groups and that we should want to self separate and that’s okay.

CODY COOK: So that sounds like racial separation to me.

CODY COOK: So am I missing something or is that what I’m hearing?

ALEX BERNARDO: Well, no, I mean, it’s not necessarily that it has to be racial separation.

ALEX BERNARDO: And in reading Hoppe, I understand how people that are not used to thinking about the issue of association in the way that like right-leaning people would might misconstrue some of his language is racist.

ALEX BERNARDO: But I think essentially what he’s saying is that there is an argument to be made that people that and it is like, you know, there I guess there are people that could take this to like racial extremes, but people are different and people tend to gravitate towards those that are similar to them.

ALEX BERNARDO: And we should just be aware that that’s a reality and not necessarily say that from the outset, that is a bad thing, not necessarily have to exclude certain people.

ALEX BERNARDO: But it is helpful to live in a culture where there are people that share probably your cultural values.

ALEX BERNARDO: I don’t even think it comes down to a race so much as it comes down to kind of intellectual, cultural and moral values.

ALEX BERNARDO: And that’s really where that dividing line would occur.

DOUG STUART: No, it’s fine.

DOUG STUART: I just wanted to ask, one of the things that I kind of noticed in that critique of a right-leaning libertarian, you know, the Rothbardian critique.

DOUG STUART: I mean, I’ve noticed this over the last 20 years in becoming a libertarian that those on the little bit more classical liberal slash left end of the spectrum, if we want to use that spectrum, you know, left and right.

DOUG STUART: And I’ve always failed to understand why they feel like it is racist.

DOUG STUART: And the best I can come up with is their arguments appeal to those who are a lot more in line with conservative racism justification.

DOUG STUART: Hey, we just want to be with people who are like us.

DOUG STUART: Which, you know, on the one hand is understandable.

DOUG STUART: On the other hand, maybe there’s more to what it means to actually live in a society than just like huddling with people who are like you.

DOUG STUART: Which can be coded language for, you know, we just want to be with our own white people, right?

DOUG STUART: And maybe there are actual racists in that regard or in that faction or whatever.

DOUG STUART: But it seems to me that it’s more like, hey, what you’re saying appeals to people who are not race conscious or whatever you want to say about that.

DOUG STUART: Who have not evolved beyond being colorblind.

DOUG STUART: Or evolved to being colorblind, I should say.

DOUG STUART: And that doesn’t seem to me to be a very compelling argument for saying, well, they’re racist, right?

DOUG STUART: Like it’s just a matter of like, well, your argument appeals to that.

DOUG STUART: And it’s similar to like the left, like the woke left, not the left of libertarianism, the woke left saying, well, if we get to something like federalism and states’ rights, then we’re just going to end up with Jim Crow again, because some states are just simply racist and that’s going to appeal to, and it’s going to sort of enable that to happen.

DOUG STUART: So, it’s like the enabling attitude of their arguments that people are typically concerned with.

CODY COOK: So, are we talking about sort of ethno-nationalism in a way, Alex, or are we talking about something else when you talk about people sort of separating in different ways?

CODY COOK: Or is that just one way that people might separate and that’s legitimate, or how central is that to what we’re talking about?

ALEX BERNARDO: Yeah, I mean, I don’t think it’s that central, but I mean, I do think that to, like on the one hand, the idea that people of a certain racial background could in a libertarian society self-segregate, as long as they’re not violating the natural rights of other people and they self-segregate using private property, that’s not necessarily out of bounds within a libertarian, so it’s not inconsistent with libertarian principles.

ALEX BERNARDO: I think that the problem that like the Mises caucus and other right-leaning libertarians have with the entire racial conversation is that they look at the way that racist has been used as a term to promote a progressive policy agenda and they just reject that outright.

ALEX BERNARDO: They’re not afraid of having those kinds of conversations being labeled a racist because they understand that there’s nothing inherently valuable behind that category.

ALEX BERNARDO: It’s a rejection of the terms that the left use.

ALEX BERNARDO: Really I think that’s a lot of what this comes down to is that when I look at Reason magazine, I think that in general, they’re more comfortable operating within the rhetorical boundaries that have been established by the progressive left.

ALEX BERNARDO: I think there’s a really important place for that within libertarianism.

ALEX BERNARDO: But when you look at the Mises Institute and that wing of the Libertarian Party, they feel like those boundaries are arbitrary and we don’t have to confine our conversations to those boundaries, if that makes sense.

CODY COOK: If I could push back, Reason has welcomed John McOrder, Coleman Hughes, Camille Foster, and it seems to me that they are pushing back on the progressive kind of what passes for anti-racism, but they’re doing it through a lens of colorblindness and individualism.

CODY COOK: And it seems like the libertarian right is saying, oh no, actually we should sort of self-segregate by groups.

CODY COOK: Let’s not be colorblind.

CODY COOK: It’s actually sort of okay to do this.

CODY COOK: And I feel like that’s the wrong response.

CODY COOK: I feel like they’ve overshot the actual libertarian, the philosophical libertarian answer to this problem, which is colorblindness and individuality.

CODY COOK: Now, of course, if racists want to live together, they have the right to do that.

CODY COOK: But should we sort of see, like, I don’t know, a faction of libertarianism that says we’re sort of rooted in the idea of separation, that’s just not really my kind of libertarianism, I guess.

CODY COOK: I just don’t feel like, like, on the one hand, sure.

CODY COOK: Like, it’s also like you can, you know, overdose on heroin if you want to, too.

CODY COOK: Like, you’re allowed to do that.

CODY COOK: But is that like a smart thing to do?

CODY COOK: Like, is that is that consistent with, like, you know, self-interest?

CODY COOK: And, you know, so I have some concerns about that.

DOUG STUART: Like, it seems to me that there’s a lot of a lot of this is about how do we appeal to others who are not Libertarian?

DOUG STUART: As opposed to how do we, and I think they’re linked probably more than we might want to say.

DOUG STUART: I don’t want to write it off and say, oh, well, this is just an evangelistic, you know, tactic that the left is using versus the right is using.

DOUG STUART: I think it’s more rooted in how do we actually reach other people is rooted also in the philosophy itself, because they’re not going to they’re they’re not they’re not that separatable.

DOUG STUART: Terrible word, terrible sentence structure there.

DOUG STUART: But anyway, yeah, I think it’s more to it than that than just evangelistic.

DOUG STUART: But I mean, what element of this is about the appeal versus the underlying philosophy?

ALEX BERNARDO: I mean, I definitely think that’s there.

ALEX BERNARDO: Cody, Cody, what do you what do you think about that?

CODY COOK: Yeah, I mean, I think the divide could be sort of evangelistic.

CODY COOK: It could also be sort of about what the sides are willing to compromise on, because it seems to me like, you know, open borders is a pretty traditional libertarian position, but the libertarian right has kind of moved away from that, right?

CODY COOK: And we sort of compromise more with the right on that position.

CODY COOK: I’ve said before that, so like we talked about like sort of reason versus like Mises Institute or whatever.

CODY COOK: There’s also like the Mises caucus, which is part of Libertarian Party, a certain sort of group within there.

CODY COOK: And the classical liberal caucus are kind of their foil, more or less.

CODY COOK: And I’ve sort of said before that the classical liberal caucus are libertarians except when they’re Democrats, and the Mises caucus are libertarians except when they’re MAGA.

CODY COOK: And it may be a little more nuanced than that, especially in light of I think what Arnold Kling has noted, that there’s just been a recalibration that Trump has brought to American politics away from a right-wing emphasis on order and institutions and toward a right-wing hatred for cosmopolitan elites in the establishment.

CODY COOK: And because reason sort of feels establishment and sort of feels elite, there’s sort of a negative opinion about that.

CODY COOK: I think the Mises side is ultimately trying to win over the populist right that is coalesced around Trump.

CODY COOK: So there is a strategy here.

CODY COOK: They’re very careful to avoid anything that sounds awoke or smacks of sympathy for the establishment.

CODY COOK: I think one big criticism that the Mises crowd had a reason was that they were favorable and optimistic to the COVID vaccines early on, and that that supposedly proved that they were establishment and controlled opposition, which is why it was really funny to me, Alex, when Jeremy Kauffman, due to his scientific background, when he was on your show, he had to acknowledge some positive things about the COVID vaccines.

CODY COOK: The Mises side, their controversial tweets look like mocking John McCain’s daughter from mourning at her dad’s funeral, sharing names of puppet masters with big noses and little curls hanging over their sideburns, if you know what I mean.

CODY COOK: And in contrast, the Classical Liberal caucus, the reason the CAIDA will just kind of haphazardly lump them all together, they’re more concerned, I think, about respectability, sort of more mild-mannered analysis.

CODY COOK: I think they’re former cosmopolitan and populist, and I think they’re more likely to err on the side of sounding too progressive.

CODY COOK: So their controversial tweets would be like Joe Jorgensen saying we should be actively anti-racist and Chase Oliver saying that all labor has value.

CODY COOK: The fact that there are people who get more bent out of shape by someone using the now politically charged word anti-racist haphazardly than they do about their party promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories boggles my mind a little bit.

CODY COOK: It seems to me there is this kind of big tent that we’re all in, but if I’m wanting to lean a certain direction, I’m probably going to lean away from the racism.

CODY COOK: I feel pretty good about this kind of where I feel comfortable.

ALEX BERNARDO: Yeah, I really do think that you, like, you know, I think, Doug, you hit the nail on the head when you when you, and you too, Cody, you kind of referenced this before, when you really talked about how populism is kind of a big distinguishing factor between the Mises wing of the party and kind of the reason wing of the party, what’s called them left and right libertarianism from here on out.

ALEX BERNARDO: I really didn’t get right wing libertarianism leans very heavily into populism.

ALEX BERNARDO: That appeals to people like me.

ALEX BERNARDO: I love the populist tendencies on the libertarian right.

ALEX BERNARDO: And I talked about this with both Jeremy and Zach.

ALEX BERNARDO: And this is where I think that these strategies are not necessarily mutually incompatible.

ALEX BERNARDO: I think that there is a place for an institution like Reason magazine to operate within the framework of the reigning paradigm, try to reach out to the elites, try to deal with issues that are kind of really at the pulse and the center of American culture.

ALEX BERNARDO: There’s a place for that.

ALEX BERNARDO: But I also think the populist element of there are these elites out there that really are kind of pulling the strings behind everything that’s happening in society and they’re screwing all of us over.

ALEX BERNARDO: We need that message desperately and that’s why when I look at the messaging coming out of the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire, now as a Christian, I wouldn’t post that on my social media page, but with the Meghan McCain tweet where it was Meghan McCain crying over the grave of her father and they posted on the anniversary of John McCain’s death.

ALEX BERNARDO: I am not in principle against that kind of messaging because I think that what it reveals and what it’s designed to reveal is that there are more Americans that are upset by how untasteful or distasteful that post is, but they’re not pissed off that John McCain supported all these policies that literally led to the deaths of millions of people in the Middle East, which is the thing that we should really be mad about.

ALEX BERNARDO: I think that the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire does a great job of exposing just how hypocritical many Americans’ political analysis really are.

ALEX BERNARDO: I mean, they’re very shallow and facile, and there is just a failure to get to the heart of the issues that really matter.

ALEX BERNARDO: And like to me, I don’t have any sympathy for people like crying over a war criminal if they’re not going to cry over the millions of people that were murdered because of their policies, if that makes sense.

ALEX BERNARDO: Now again, is that-

DOUG STUART: What did Zach say to that?

DOUG STUART: I mean, I think you talked about that with him.

DOUG STUART: Like how did he find that strategy?

DOUG STUART: Like that is in theory a good strategy.

DOUG STUART: He probably disagreed, right?

ALEX BERNARDO: Yeah, well, and the same thing.

ALEX BERNARDO: He thought that it wasn’t tasteful and that it was going to push more people away than it helped.

ALEX BERNARDO: Of course, like Jeremy’s response to that is that he doesn’t believe that the vast majority of Americans are ever going to convert to libertarian philosophy because it takes really a certain kind of like mental set and a certain kind of personality set, maybe not biologically innate.

ALEX BERNARDO: Like people can be convinced of these ideas, but because most people want to operate within the mainstream, they’re never going to accept this kind of messaging.

ALEX BERNARDO: And so you should just go ahead and be radical and try to get as many people as you can that way.

ALEX BERNARDO: So it’s again, two fundamentally different approaches to messaging.

ALEX BERNARDO: I think both of them have their place and can be utilized effectively in different contexts.

DOUG STUART: Yeah, I mean, we’ve all talked here about how like there are, and I think Alex, you and I have talked about this, where there are people who, if we’re trying to convince them, we might send them a Reason article or we might send them a mises.org article or we might send them an article from libertarianchristians.com if it’s a Christian wanting, particularly a Christian argument.

DOUG STUART: If Jeremy thinks that nobody is going to be mainstream because libertarianism is just going to be this fringe viewpoint, at least for the foreseeable future, I don’t know if adding more fringe people to the movement is going to be more attractive in the direction of it might become mainstream one day.

DOUG STUART: Whereas if you were going to take a more non-fringe approach, it’s possible that people are going to see Reason as a journalistic outfit as respectable because they aren’t peddling what feels like not quite news, but only sort of news and commentary all mixed in.

DOUG STUART: I know that there’s that still happens at Reason.

DOUG STUART: I mean, it happens everywhere.

DOUG STUART: But it’s very clear when you read like reading like the Huffington Post, we’re recording this in the like longest year of a week that we just had.

DOUG STUART: I mean, we’ve just gotten proof of life that Biden really is still alive after resigning for the run.

DOUG STUART: So this is the week we’re recording that just so people understand.

DOUG STUART: And, you know, reading the news is just like ridiculously biased no matter where you are.

DOUG STUART: And so when you read someone like on more on the right wing, it does kind of have that little sense of conspiracy theory going on.

DOUG STUART: That’s not how reason is going to tackle, you know, topics.

DOUG STUART: And so they will look respectable in news in news circles and more elite circles and become more respectable.

DOUG STUART: And they’ve pushed actual agendas by their coverage and have actually, you know, I think in some ways moved the needle.

DOUG STUART: Now, they just chalk it up to libertarianism moving the needle toward drug legalization and some other, you know, wins on free speech and things like that.

DOUG STUART: But I would say that being respectable to the elites is probably more eschewed by those on the right anyway.

DOUG STUART: And so they don’t want to be respectable to the elites.

DOUG STUART: And so it’s kind of a self-defeating kind of situation.

DOUG STUART: Whereas I think that they opened up their minds a little bit.

DOUG STUART: They can reach people with better rhetoric while also being as trollish and bombastic in a sort of tactical way.

DOUG STUART: Michael Mallis does a really good job of this.

DOUG STUART: He’s very strategic in how he handles, how he critiques things on Twitter.

DOUG STUART: He probably would have had a better tweet over Meghan McCain’s crying over John McCain at John McCain’s funeral than Jeremy Kauffman would.

DOUG STUART: And it would have been more tasteful and probably more attractive.

CODY COOK: Well, in point of fact, he’s befriended Meghan McCain and he’s sort of shifted her a little bit more toward the Libertarian position because he didn’t mock her for crying at her dad’s funeral.

DOUG STUART: Yeah, Jeremy Kauffman will probably never get that opportunity.

CODY COOK: Probably not.

CODY COOK: And I don’t know that I buy that the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire was really playing 40 chess with that tweet.

CODY COOK: I think that they were just being douches and then people responded and they were like, well, and then I think some other people sort of jumped in and said, well, if you care so much about Meghan McCain’s feeling, why don’t you care about the people that John McCain?

CODY COOK: Sure, fine, fair enough.

CODY COOK: But it’s not like everybody who was like, who found that tweet objectionable was like a Warhawk, right?

CODY COOK: I mean, you can find the word disgusting and also I think it’s like just totally gross.

DOUG STUART: Well, I think embarrassing is sometimes the word that people use for the New Hampshire, like for the New Hampshire Twitter account, right?

DOUG STUART: Or the LPNH.

DOUG STUART: Yeah.

DOUG STUART: It’s more like it’s embarrassing and it’s a little bit more of what does this make us look like?

DOUG STUART: And so you read, and this is again, this is sort of like the Southern Poverty Law Center’s sort of tactic is to sort of like pick the worst of what is out there in libertarian world and they say this is what is represented.

DOUG STUART: Well, it’d be, I mean, obviously you can’t get rid of all the losers out there, but you have to realize that you are going to get played this way and it’s going to have some sort of reputational repercussions for the movement.

ALEX BERNARDO: Yeah, but there’s never been though, like, and maybe this is because I’m a horrible person and people are going to judge me as a Christian because of this, but there’s never been a tweet that LPNH has sent out that has not made me chuckle a little bit, even the ones that I’m like, whoa, that is really out there on the edge.

ALEX BERNARDO: I always get a good laugh out of it, but that’s because I have that kind of sense of humor.

ALEX BERNARDO: But I really do, just to push back a little bit on that, Cody, I really do feel like of all of the state affiliates, I feel like the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire has been consistently anti-war and anti-federal reserve for a very long time.

ALEX BERNARDO: And I know even talking to Jeremy, he acknowledged when he was on my show that they try to be provocative when they put tweets out that are like that.

ALEX BERNARDO: And he said that they don’t always get it right.

ALEX BERNARDO: Sometimes they go too far, sometimes they don’t hit exactly the way that they wanted to.

ALEX BERNARDO: But I know in particular with the Meghan McCain tweet that that really was designed to be kind of like, all right, this guy’s a war hawk, we really should be mocking him.

ALEX BERNARDO: Which again, as a Christian, that would not be my approach, but I don’t necessarily think that it is always strategically off the table, and that will appeal to a certain segment of the American population.

ALEX BERNARDO: Again, I don’t know, I know Doug made the point, is that really the kind of population they want in there, but it does appeal to a certain group of people.

CODY COOK: There’s a strategy, I mean, it’s sort of the Trump strategy, but I think the concern, people talk about Trump derangement syndrome as if it’s just a thing on the left, but Trump has sort of deranged everybody.

ALEX BERNARDO: Yes, I totally agree.

CODY COOK: And I feel like what sort of happened with the Trump strategy is to sort of, I think, try to make people hate each other a little bit.

CODY COOK: And I sort of feel like we do have to live together, the idea of a civil divorce notwithstanding.

CODY COOK: And so I do think that it’s important that we sort of are trying to move things in the right direction.

CODY COOK: But as far as strategy is concerned, I think the Mises crowd has a concern for what I’ve called respectability politics in reverse.

CODY COOK: They don’t really care if they sound like racist or nationalist or whatever.

CODY COOK: They just don’t want to sound woke.

CODY COOK: And it’s like sort of an obsession that I think is almost a little bit silly.

CODY COOK: And there is some history here that I think we need to think about a little bit, which is within the libertarian movement, like the paleo strategy where libertarians were trying to build a coalition with pat Buchanan conservatives.

CODY COOK: And I think ultimately we were captured by them more than we changed them.

CODY COOK: And some of the stuff that Lou Rockwell was ghost writing in the Ron paul report was pretty yikes about the criminality and welfare mindset of the blacks, for instance.

CODY COOK: And there’s a concern, I think, that libertarians could be captured by the left as well.

CODY COOK: And that’s a totally legitimate concern.

CODY COOK: But if the libertarian right were sort of leaning in the direction of like Jonah Goldberg or David French minus the Warhawk stuff, I don’t think I’d mind that so much because I feel like there is a respectability to the conservative tradition and a legitimacy to it.

CODY COOK: But if we’re just talking about kind of, I’m concerned that there’s a real danger of right-wing capture and it’s from not like the sort of traditional conservative tradition, but like alt-right, anti-intellectual, populist bigotry and Trumpism.

CODY COOK: And that makes me concerned.

CODY COOK: So I don’t know.

CODY COOK: I have friends who are kind of more the libertarian right who were just like incensed that Chase Oliver tweeted that all labor has value.

CODY COOK: And, you know, they read into that two different things.

CODY COOK: One thing they read was like the labor theory of value, which obviously I don’t think that’s what he believes.

CODY COOK: You know, because libertarians would argue that labor doesn’t have value inherently.

CODY COOK: It’s, you know, it’s sort of what people are willing to pay for it.

CODY COOK: I think what they were sort of right about, though, is he was sort of trying to make a sort of progressive point, I guess, which is and also in a way, it’s really a populist point.

CODY COOK: If you think about it, that, you know, the work that you do has value.

CODY COOK: It has value, perhaps to God.

CODY COOK: It has value to yourself.

CODY COOK: It has value to your community just because you’re not, you know, Jeff Bezos or whatever, doesn’t mean your work doesn’t have value.

CODY COOK: You should value the work that you do.

CODY COOK: And that just sets those people off, but some of the unhinged or potentially racist or anti-Semitic stuff is just like, eh, well, they got that wrong.

CODY COOK: And so I worry that Mises caucus, that Mises caucus wing of libertarianism are making a huge miscalculation.

CODY COOK: I think they see an alt-right populist hatred for the establishment, and they assume that it’s libertarian adjacent, when I think it’s mostly just sort of unarticulated rage and a desire for revenge because people are unhappy with their lives.

CODY COOK: And I think you could harness that to some extent, but it requires a careful, cultivated conversion of the alt-right, not a coalition between libertarians and the alt-right.

CODY COOK: because I don’t think statism, tribalism, collectivism can be reconciled with libertarianism.

ALEX BERNARDO: Yeah, well, it is interesting because Hans Hermann Hoppe had a book that was published maybe in 2019, I don’t know, it was the first full book that I read called Getting Libertarianism Right.

ALEX BERNARDO: And he talks about the relationship that libertarians need to have with certain groups on the right.

ALEX BERNARDO: And he’s very critical of many figures in the alt-right for doing exactly what you just said.

ALEX BERNARDO: So I think there is a space even within that tradition for delineating, hey, we have our libertarian principles and we have to make sure that we are consistent in maintaining them.

ALEX BERNARDO: I do want to ask you, Cody, this question because I feel like, especially with the members of the Mises caucus that are very much against the Chase Oliver campaign.

ALEX BERNARDO: And this is going to be, I guess, hopefully no one judges me for this.

ALEX BERNARDO: I’ll put my cards on the table here too.

ALEX BERNARDO: I don’t really have that much of a problem with Chase Oliver.

ALEX BERNARDO: I mean, I think that he definitely has some positions I don’t agree with.

ALEX BERNARDO: But I agree with 98% of what he believes.

ALEX BERNARDO: I think he’s a good libertarian and I think that that’s really valuable.

ALEX BERNARDO: And I’m probably going to wind up voting for him.

ALEX BERNARDO: I understand if you’re not living in a red state, Trump’s going to get our eight votes.

ALEX BERNARDO: Doesn’t matter.

ALEX BERNARDO: Whatever.

ALEX BERNARDO: In a swing state, maybe it’s different.

ALEX BERNARDO: But I think that a lot of the response to the Chase Oliver campaign and the Mises caucus in general has been from the equally negative and vicious response that the classical liberal caucus type people had towards the Mises caucus.

ALEX BERNARDO: I mean, I follow a lot of the classical liberal caucus type people on Twitter.

ALEX BERNARDO: And they’re just as mean and hateful towards the Mises caucus people as the Mises caucus people can be to them.

ALEX BERNARDO: So would you see that maybe it’s just an, like that the maybe unproductive and sometimes overly hostile nature of the conversation is a product of people that are on both sides of the political divide?

CODY COOK: Yes, there’s good and bad people on both sides.

CODY COOK: Yeah.

CODY COOK: That I can tell you.

DOUG STUART: Yeah.

DOUG STUART: I was just in Charlottesville a few weeks ago and I can hear the echoes of that statement still, just walking down the streets of Charlottesville.

CODY COOK: No, and you know what?

CODY COOK: I’m not on the classical liberal caucus because I do think that they, to me, being a libertarian means not having to compromise.

CODY COOK: If I wanted to compromise, I’d be a Republican or a Democrat.

CODY COOK: And so, I don’t think we should compromise our core values.

CODY COOK: I find the Mises stuff to be kind of grosser sometimes, but ultimately, I’m not on that side.

CODY COOK: I think some of that stuff is unfair.

CODY COOK: And ultimately, I think that they also compromise in the other direction.

CODY COOK: I mean, as for like Chase Oliver, I don’t think that there should be Libertarians who are more comfortable with Trump than Chase Oliver.

CODY COOK: And my thing with Chase Oliver, I remember seeing in the last year a couple of events he was at, there was kind of this weird sort of third party debate thing and a speech he made here and there.

CODY COOK: And I liked him and I thought he was a good communicator for libertarianism.

CODY COOK: Two big issues, he’s pro-choice and I’m not.

CODY COOK: If I thought he had a chance of winning, I probably wouldn’t vote for him because of that.

CODY COOK: But because he does and I’m happy to just do a signal vote.

CODY COOK: The other thing is his kind of moderate position on transing the kids, they say.

ALEX BERNARDO: That’s a bad one.

CODY COOK: Which I don’t love.

CODY COOK: But that being said, it’s still within the realm of libertarian discussion.

CODY COOK: Like what are your rights as a kid?

CODY COOK: What are your rights as a parent?

CODY COOK: How should this need get involved?

CODY COOK: because ultimately, the right side on the right is saying we should have the state more involved in these things.

CODY COOK: Which you could argue is a less libertarian position.

DOUG STUART: Well, just to go back just for a little bit for Chase on that particular issue is his goal, and he’s been asked about this on, I mean Reason did a really good Just Asking Questions episode where they grilled him on this.

DOUG STUART: Pretty hard actually because it was a big deal.

DOUG STUART: And so you’d think if it was the left libertarian group would not do that, but they did.

DOUG STUART: Okay, so just want to point that out for the first thing.

DOUG STUART: But the thing was he was just trying to be like, look, the big question here is what part of the government should be part of our medical decisions, and that is zero.

DOUG STUART: And so that was how it was a libertarian answer and how he was attempting to shift the overton window of acceptable opinion to be like, oh, well, yeah, no, we shouldn’t be let the government dictate that.

DOUG STUART: It is between a woman or parents and their doctor and the kid and whatever he said there.

CODY COOK: But he does something similar to what pro-choicers do there, though, right?

CODY COOK: Whereas he sort of argues that in some circumstances.

DOUG STUART: It’s a very Bill Clinton answer.

DOUG STUART: No, no, I get that.

CODY COOK: I think ultimately his position is puberty blockers fine, but non-hormones and not surgery, right?

CODY COOK: More or less.

DOUG STUART: I don’t want to speak for him because I don’t quite remember, but that sounds about right.

CODY COOK: That was what I recall from the reasoning.

DOUG STUART: Yeah, no, that sounds about what I remember.

CODY COOK: So he’s taking kind of a moderate position.

CODY COOK: He’s like, okay, well, maybe puberty blockers aren’t so bad.

CODY COOK: I mean, there’s evidence that they could have long-term negative effects, but he’s trying to sort of, I think, he lives in this world where the trans thing is legitimate, but also maybe over the top and exaggerated in sort of a cultural contagion.

CODY COOK: So he’s trying to, I think, put himself in the middle of it.

CODY COOK: And he does sort of something similar that like pro-choicers do where it’s like, oh, it’s always a woman’s decision.

CODY COOK: Well, unless you’re in the last trimester or something like that, now it’s not anymore.

CODY COOK: So there is an inconsistency.

DOUG STUART: Well, I want to make a comment about the whole signaling thing.

DOUG STUART: Like you said a few minutes ago that something about appealing to Trump versus appealing to Chase Oliver, right?

DOUG STUART: And like he shouldn’t be any, how did you say it?

DOUG STUART: You don’t think he should be…

CODY COOK: I think it’s, there shouldn’t be libertarians who are more comfortable with Donald Trump than Chase Oliver.

DOUG STUART: Yeah, okay.

DOUG STUART: So here’s the thing.

DOUG STUART: I heard you say that and I’m thinking, okay, but that’s because and it kind of gives away the game, right?

DOUG STUART: They know Chase Oliver is not going to be the next president.

DOUG STUART: I mean, I don’t know.

DOUG STUART: This week has been so crazy weird.

DOUG STUART: So maybe there’s, I mean, it could be Chase Oliver versus RFK Jr.

DOUG STUART: is the only two candidates left by the end of the month.

DOUG STUART: That would, I mean, I realize that a disaster would have had to happen to some things.

DOUG STUART: So I don’t really wish that on anybody, but yeah, in terms of, you know, if we were writing a script, that would be cool.

DOUG STUART: So, but it kind of gives it away.

DOUG STUART: It’s like, well, my vote is just a signal vote.

DOUG STUART: And there’s nothing inherently wrong with that.

DOUG STUART: I don’t want to say that there’s nothing wrong with virtue signaling because there is a sense in which it is a protest vote and I want to protest against Donald Trump.

DOUG STUART: I want to protest against whoever, right?

DOUG STUART: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, whatever it might be.

DOUG STUART: Whoever it might be.

DOUG STUART: But I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I got to vote for Trump because Joe Biden or Kamala Harris or the left, right?

DOUG STUART: And so there is a sort of implicit acknowledgement and admission that whatever it is that you vote for, whether it’s, you know, any Libertarian candidate that you would have wanted to be as a Libertarian candidate is just a signal vote.

DOUG STUART: Why isn’t the logic playing out as, well, I’m just going to pick one of the two parties as well.

DOUG STUART: And so, and I’m not, again, I’m not here to advocate for voting for anybody for any particular reason.

DOUG STUART: LCI doesn’t endorse candidates or, you know, we don’t endorse the Libertarian Party.

DOUG STUART: Obviously, we’re here having an argument about the Libertarian Party and how possibly ineffective it is in certain ways.

DOUG STUART: And we’re critiquing factions of the party and the movement.

DOUG STUART: And so we’re here to speak the truth and discuss ideas.

DOUG STUART: So anyway, I don’t know.

DOUG STUART: That’s one thought.

DOUG STUART: I had another thought that I wanted to bring up, which is the avoidance of, what would you call it?

DOUG STUART: Virtue signaling in the opposite direction, Cody or something, or respectability.

DOUG STUART: Reverse respectability.

DOUG STUART: It’s interesting to me, and it seems like a little bit of a shallow take.

DOUG STUART: Not that, not your take.

DOUG STUART: Sorry, I don’t mean that.

DOUG STUART: I just realized that that’s how that sentence came out.

DOUG STUART: I think it’s a shallow angle to look at what the left is doing and try to be as anti-anti-racist as possible or as anti-woke as possible, as if that’s the only thing that matters.

DOUG STUART: Now, you guys know that you probably have friends who think you’re one of those liberals who believe we should legalize drugs.

DOUG STUART: And you also probably have friends, oh, you’re one of those conservatives who believes in the free market.

DOUG STUART: We’re stuck in the middle.

DOUG STUART: People think we’re liberals.

DOUG STUART: Liberals think we’re conservatives.

DOUG STUART: Conservatives think we’re liberals.

DOUG STUART: We’re stuck, right?

DOUG STUART: And so the avoidance of looking like a liberal is dictating the messaging, right?

DOUG STUART: Or I’m suggesting that that might be part of why the messaging tends to be avoidant of sounding like woke.

DOUG STUART: And that seems to me to be a little bit short-sighted on the one hand, simply because people are more complex than that.

DOUG STUART: And when you have conversations with people, you can actually get them to realize that you’re not liberal, or you’re not conservative, you’re a libertarian and you have a consistent ethic, or you have a consistent worldview on how politics ought to be considered, right?

DOUG STUART: And we can talk about how, oh, it’s the Democrats and the Republicans are basically two sides of the same coin, and they’re more about power, and I’m less about power.

DOUG STUART: I want libertarianism to take over the world, to leave it alone.

DOUG STUART: And so it seems to me that that is a shallow way of looking at how we reach other people.

DOUG STUART: That’s what I meant to say was shallow, not you, Cody.

DOUG STUART: Yeah.

DOUG STUART: I don’t know, would you guys have any thoughts on that?

ALEX BERNARDO: Well, really, would you mind if I circle back to the first thing about voting for Trump real fast before I answer that question?

DOUG STUART: Yeah.

ALEX BERNARDO: Okay.

ALEX BERNARDO: because I really do think that I understand why there are a lot of libertarians that are supporting Donald Trump this cycle and that are supporting RFK.

ALEX BERNARDO: Now, I live in this, again, no matter what happens in November, all eight of Kentucky’s electoral votes are going for Donald Trump.

ALEX BERNARDO: My vote does not matter at all.

ALEX BERNARDO: So I can vote for Chase Oliver and support the Libertarian Party and everything’s fine.

ALEX BERNARDO: But if I was in the swing…

DOUG STUART: You vote for yourself, Alex.

DOUG STUART: Just write yourself in.

ALEX BERNARDO: Oh, yeah.

ALEX BERNARDO: Well, I get to vote for Thomas Massie.

ALEX BERNARDO: So I can at least feel confident in that one.

ALEX BERNARDO: But you guys live in swing states.

ALEX BERNARDO: So I understand why people might make the calculation and thinking, okay, I’m going to vote for Donald Trump because realistically, Chase Oliver is not going to win and Donald Trump might get us closer to our goals than a Kamala Harris presidency could.

ALEX BERNARDO: Or I can also understand Libertarians voting for an RFK because strategically, I think that he’s kind of getting the Ron paul treatment in the press right now.

ALEX BERNARDO: I think that his poll numbers are actually probably a little bit higher than what they’re leading on.

ALEX BERNARDO: He’s got a shot at flipping a state.

ALEX BERNARDO: I really do think that he does.

ALEX BERNARDO: And if he did that, that would change electoral politics forever.

ALEX BERNARDO: So I can understand why there would be Libertarians that would get behind Trump and not Chase Oliver.

ALEX BERNARDO: If you’re in a swing state, I just think a lot of that has to come down.

ALEX BERNARDO: A lot of that has to come down to how strategic you want to be with your vote.

ALEX BERNARDO: I mean, ultimately, you know, 130 million people vote.

ALEX BERNARDO: So like what one person’s vote doesn’t actually matter.

ALEX BERNARDO: It’s like my presidential vote does not matter in Kentucky.

ALEX BERNARDO: But I do think that there’s kind of that strategic element to it.

ALEX BERNARDO: And then also going back to the messaging thing that you addressed there, Doug, this is why I’m comfortable with what both Reason Magazine and the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire are doing.

ALEX BERNARDO: I think that those messages can appeal to different groups of people.

ALEX BERNARDO: And we need as wide of a net as possible.

ALEX BERNARDO: And this is where like bringing it back to the biblical element.

ALEX BERNARDO: When you look at what the Apostle paul did in his evangelism, he was able to tailor his message to all of his audiences, which is why each of his letters are a little bit different.

ALEX BERNARDO: He was brilliant at that.

ALEX BERNARDO: He knew how to approach every single audience to which he wrote.

ALEX BERNARDO: And I think that we should be able to embody that in the way that we present libertarianism.

ALEX BERNARDO: I think the perception from people on the left that were radical conservatives and the perception from people on the right that were radical liberals is actually really advantageous because that means that when I’m like, and I do this with my friends, like when I’m in a social situation where I’m surrounded by people that are on the left, then I can kind of play up like the, you know, yeah, we’re all about drug legalization.

ALEX BERNARDO: We want to help the poor and that plays really well.

ALEX BERNARDO: Same thing when I’m with people on the right.

ALEX BERNARDO: Yeah, there are these elites out there that are screwing us.

ALEX BERNARDO: These government regulations are harming the economy.

ALEX BERNARDO: So I think that there’s a place for both of those elements.

ALEX BERNARDO: Cody, I’m sorry, I threw a lot of stuff at you right there, but I’d love to get your thoughts on all of those things.

CODY COOK: Yeah, so on the voting thing, I think about what Leson Fleiss and your Spooner said a lot, which is, I’ll paraphrase here, that voting for the least painful spanking for you personally is legitimate.

CODY COOK: And so what I was saying, I think, was more that there are people out there who single out one or two things about a candidate that can’t win, but agrees with them on 99% of everything, and they really just focus on that 1%.

CODY COOK: Like, that’s just ridiculous, and that’s horrible.

CODY COOK: And they’re like, well, vote for this statist over here who’s a protectionist and all this other stuff.

CODY COOK: And that’s like, yeah, I don’t really feel guilty about that at all.

CODY COOK: I guess that’s kind of what I was getting at.

CODY COOK: As for the respectability politics and reverse thing, if I were to kind of bumper sticker this, just kind of make it a slogan, it would be that neither wokeness nor douchebaggery is a legitimate political philosophy.

CODY COOK: You have to have something a little stronger than either one of those.

DOUG STUART: Yeah, that’s like two bumper stickers, I think.

CODY COOK: Well, that last sentence, you can leave off.

DOUG STUART: Yeah, sure.

DOUG STUART: No, that’s fine.

CODY COOK: Neither wokeness nor douchebaggery.

DOUG STUART: Yeah, no, that’s good.

DOUG STUART: All right, I want to leave you guys with any last-minute thoughts or comments before we wrap up here, and then I want to tell everybody else what LCI is up to and how they can get involved, especially around the topic of voting.

ALEX BERNARDO: Yeah, I just want to say that I think that it is, just like I believe that it’s possible for Christians from different denominations to come together and have thoughtful, respectful conversations without denying them the right to be a participant in the faith.

ALEX BERNARDO: I also think that libertarians from different backgrounds or different perspectives need to learn how to come together and have more productive conversations like the one that we’re having right now, and like Zach and Jeremy both being very gracious and coming on my show and talking to me about these issues.

ALEX BERNARDO: We need more of that because that’s actually going to be what promotes our agenda and helps us move forward as Libertarians, so we need to have more of this kind of stuff.

DOUG STUART: Yeah.

DOUG STUART: Good.

DOUG STUART: Hey, a quick question for you, Alex.

DOUG STUART: Right after you gave your summary, I was going to chime in and ask you this question, and I have my mic on mute and I couldn’t even talk over Cody because he couldn’t hear me.

DOUG STUART: So that’s why it looks like I was talking, because I was and you couldn’t hear me.

DOUG STUART: Did you consider having Zach and Jeremy on the same episode or did you even think about that at all?

ALEX BERNARDO: I had to squeeze it in before Freedom Fest.

ALEX BERNARDO: There was no way I would be able to accommodate with my schedule.

ALEX BERNARDO: But in the future, I will be open to having Zach.

ALEX BERNARDO: Or if Liz wants to come on and we want to get someone else from LPNH, I’d be happy to have any combination of those people on to have a conversation.

DOUG STUART: Yeah.

ALEX BERNARDO: Okay, cool.

DOUG STUART: No, I just wanted to know if that was even a consideration in your mind or if you thought it would just be better to do two episodes.

DOUG STUART: Of course, having two conversations got you two episodes.

DOUG STUART: And they’re both great.

DOUG STUART: Everybody got to say their piece.

DOUG STUART: It was really good.

DOUG STUART: I strongly recommend doing that.

DOUG STUART: Cody, what thoughts do you have?

CODY COOK: Yeah, I just want to mention real quick, because I don’t know if you discussed it much in the main podcast, but The Libertarian Christian Book Club, it’s something that Doug has started, and all three of us have posted or co-hosted one.

CODY COOK: I’m wrapping up one right now.

CODY COOK: I mentioned Arnold Kling earlier, his book, The Three Languages of Politics.

CODY COOK: We’re wrapping up as we’re recording this.

CODY COOK: I don’t know exactly when this is coming out.

CODY COOK: There’s a gap in August where we’re not doing one, but we’re going to jump right back into it in September and October.

CODY COOK: And we’d love to have you guys on.

CODY COOK: It’s been really great sort of camaraderie, the discussion.

CODY COOK: And if you’re a lonely Libertarian, isolated guy, doesn’t have a girlfriend, perfect, perfect.

DOUG STUART: Even if you have one.

CODY COOK: Yeah, of course.

CODY COOK: We’re all married and doing perfectly fine in that area.

CODY COOK: But yeah, we’d love to have you.

CODY COOK: And it’s been a really good thing that you started, Doug.

DOUG STUART: Yeah.

DOUG STUART: So I was going to share my screen, but I don’t have the right permission set up because I didn’t plan to.

DOUG STUART: But if you go to libertarianchristians.com/events, you’ll see the September and October book clubs that are out there.

DOUG STUART: The one in October is on a book called Electing Not To Vote.

DOUG STUART: And there’s a handful of essays on different perspectives from Christians on why they should not, why their reasons are for not voting.

DOUG STUART: And no, we’re not trying to get people to not vote.

DOUG STUART: It’s not taking a political stance, but the book club itself has actually has been really great as Cody has just described.

DOUG STUART: So that’s really good.

DOUG STUART: The other thing, if you’re listening to this, go over to YouTube and subscribe to our show because we actually do live streams a lot more frequently than we used to.

DOUG STUART: We used to kind of just do them randomly on big events.

DOUG STUART: We’ve been doing the presidential debates, commentary live during the presidential debates.

DOUG STUART: So you want to subscribe to our YouTube channel because, you know, then you’ll get an alert when we’re actually live, right?

DOUG STUART: The other thing is this, if you’re listening to this and you’re not watching, you could be watching.

DOUG STUART: And what you’ll notice is that Cody has come to the table representing the sort of not quite, I’m a little bit allergic to the right wing side of libertarian perspective.

DOUG STUART: But if you were watching, you’d understand the irony in the contrast between Cody and Alex’s backgrounds.

DOUG STUART: And so you’re missing out on something.

DOUG STUART: We’ll just leave that at that.

DOUG STUART: So you can go over to the YouTube channel and chuckle.

DOUG STUART: And if you have any sense of where I am and my background, my background is quite socialist right now.

DOUG STUART: So we’ll leave it at that.

DOUG STUART: You’re missing out if you’re not watching.

CODY COOK: Alex looks far more like an elitist than me.

CODY COOK: He looks far more elite than I do, is what I should say.

ALEX BERNARDO: Oh, please, please don’t do that to me.

DOUG STUART: All right.

DOUG STUART: Well, hey, guys, I really appreciate it.

DOUG STUART: So for everybody, you know, we’ve got three podcast hosts here, basically.

DOUG STUART: So you’ve got a Faith, Seeking Freedom podcast that Cody is helps us resurrect the Protestant Libertarian podcast that Alex is part of.

DOUG STUART: And then, of course, you’re listening to this podcast.

DOUG STUART: So go subscribe on YouTube to all of those things.

DOUG STUART: Wherever else you get your podcast, do those things.

DOUG STUART: Rate and review.

DOUG STUART: I don’t think people realize that reviews actually really, really, really do do good work, even if it’s a short review.

DOUG STUART: You don’t have to say a lot, but getting a review, getting a rating actually helps the algorithms suggest our podcast to others.

DOUG STUART: And so that’s a really great way to support what we’re doing.

DOUG STUART: And all right.

DOUG STUART: So, guys, thank you so much.

DOUG STUART: We went over time on our efforts, but I think it was a really good conversation, and we will definitely do this again.

ALEX BERNARDO: Sounds great, man.

ALEX BERNARDO: Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_5: Thank you for listening to another episode of The Libertarian Christian Podcast.

SPEAKER_5: If you like today’s episode, we encourage you to rate us on Apple Podcast to help expand our audience.

SPEAKER_5: If you want to reach out to us, email us at podcast at libertarianchristians.com.

SPEAKER_5: You can also reach us at LCI official on Twitter.

SPEAKER_5: And of course, we are on Facebook and have an active group you are welcome to join.

SPEAKER_5: Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time.

SPEAKER_6: The Libertarian Christian Podcast is a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute, a registered 501c3 nonprofit.

SPEAKER_6: If you’d like to find out more about LCI, visit us on the web at libertarianchristians.com.

SPEAKER_6: The voiceovers are by Matt Bellis and Catherine Williams.

SPEAKER_6: As of episode 115, our audio production is provided by Podsworth Media.

SPEAKER_6: Check them out at podsworth.com.

DOUG STUART: Hello everyone, it’s Doug from The Libertarian Christian Podcast.

DOUG STUART: You might notice already that this recording sounds quite a bit different from usual.

DOUG STUART: In fact, it probably sounds pretty crappy.

DOUG STUART: Well, I’m doing this to show you something pretty amazing.

DOUG STUART: As you might know, the guys over at Podsworth Media have been producing my show for several years, quite a while, hundreds of episodes.

DOUG STUART: And now they have a brand new online app for taking rough recordings like this one and making them sound a whole lot cleaner and a lot more listenable in just a few easy clicks.

DOUG STUART: So here are some of the core features.

DOUG STUART: They remove background noise, it reduces plosives, which is really handy for me because I often forget to put my pop filter on before I do a YouTube video.

DOUG STUART: I often forget to put my pop filter on before I do a YouTube video because pop filters look terrible when you’re on camera.

DOUG STUART: It fixes clipping.

DOUG STUART: It removes clicks and pops.

DOUG STUART: It fixes clipping.

DOUG STUART: It removes clicks and pops.

DOUG STUART: It evenly levels dialogue so that you don’t have somebody talking really quietly.

DOUG STUART: And then somebody talking really loud because they’re too close to the mic or too far away from the mic.

DOUG STUART: It evenly levels dialogue so that you don’t have somebody talking really quietly.

DOUG STUART: And then somebody talking really loud because they’re too close to the mic or too far away from the mic.

DOUG STUART: How do you use it?

DOUG STUART: It’s easy.

DOUG STUART: You go to podsworth.com, you click get started.

DOUG STUART: And because you’re a listener to one of the Libertarian Christian Institute’s podcasts, you can get 50 percent off your first order by entering the promo code LCI50.

DOUG STUART: That’s LCI50 and you will get 50 percent off your first order.

DOUG STUART: If you are doing anything like a podcast, a video, a sermon, an audiobook, anything that’s spoken word, you want to use podsworth.com and clean up your audio to be even more professional and polished.

DOUG STUART: You want to use podsworth.com and clean up your audio to be even more professional and polished.

LCI uses automated transcripts from various sources. If you see a significant error, please let us know.