In the words of Larry Sharpe, “We’re a family and we fight like brothers and sisters but at some point someone’s gotta be able to say ok, we’re all fighting but we’re all a family. Outside of this family there is a real enemy and people who are trying to stop us and hurt us. At one point we will need to be able to close ranks because the enemy closes ranks. The two enemies that we have will often close ranks together against us.”
This is exactly how I feel about so much of what’s going on in the movement. There is a huge difference between those who will do legitimate damage to the Liberty Movement, and those who we simply have “process” questions about or those who are newer and are still earning all of the parts of the philosophy. The best way we can grow our movement is learn how to be more respectful when we have disagreements.
Disagreeing with another libertarian is usually like an analogy I recently heard:
Ok, so the Liberty Journey is like going on a cross country roadtrip. Everyone in the car knows we’re going from NYC to LA. We all agree that’s where we need to end up. Libertarian infighting is mostly like when we’re only 20 minutes into the roadtrip and two passengers are yelling at each other about what we’re going to do first once we get to LA. It doesn’t make sense with where we are in our journey.
Let’s continue the roadtrip analogy.
The Libertarian Journey is still our NYC to LA roadtrip. Everyone still agrees with that. However, one passenger wants to get out in Kansas City and another in Denver. Well, doesn’t it still make sense that we all stay together until those passangers’ journeys end instead of not starting the trip at all? Well of course it does.
While we’re all working towards to goals of Liberty, as long as we’re not violating each others’ rights or committing violence or fraud, shouldn’t we all be trying things we believe will advance the cause of Liberty? The Founding Fathers designed a Republic with the idea that each colony or state would be it’s own laboratory of democracy.
All of this to say that yes, we need healthy and legitimate debate. We need to hold each other to account to ensure that we don’t compromise principle. We need to cooperate and keep petter personal disagreements out of the equation.
The truth is that the Liberty Movement already has the moral high ground on every possible subject I can think of. Starting petty arguments is a sign of someone unsure of their place. We don’t need to be arrogant at all, but we can approach those who disagree with us with confidence and grace rather than snark or vitriol.
My takeaway is that let’s work together to advance the 90% of things that we do agree on, and the other 10% of the time we don’t agree, let’s just assume the other person has positive intentions and wish them well.
