Good morning, afternoon, evening, or whatever the case may be; thanks for coming. So, the most recent Twitter feud that has been burning my feed the past couple of days has been about child labor laws. I haven’t put a great deal of thought into this topic, so I won’t offer a personal opinion. However, I have some real-life experience working as a kid that provided me with some valuable tools for later life.
For context, when I was under legal working age, I started doing construction work and lawn care with different relatives. From that experience, I can now do most household tasks without calling a specialist to fix any problems. It has saved me a lot of time and, more importantly, money. So, in my opinion, that experience was time well invested as a kid. Not long ago, I had an issue with my roof, and I fixed it in about 10 minutes. Without my experience, I would have had to call a roofer to come to look at it, get an estimate, and pay whatever that cost might have been. It didn’t cost me anything but 10 minutes of my time and part of a tube of caulking. Granted, I will have to replace the whole roof in the next few years, but that is also something I can do at the cost of nothing but my time and the material.
That being said, I still am not going to take an “official” position on child labor laws at this time because I have not put enough thought or conducted enough research on the topic to offer a valuable opinion. This post is not even about child labor laws but about the absolutely ridiculous nature of libertarian infighting and small-scale tribalism growing amidst people who call themselves libertarians. Disagreeing is one thing, but doing so in a civil manner is worth far more than resorting to the “I’m right, and you’re wrong” argument. The name-calling, the anti-capitalists and anti-socialists, the LPMC and the Prags, the Loser Brigade, the anti-Trumpers, and the GOP sympathizers….they are all insanely exhausting.
I’m not saying that there are no merits to anyone’s arguments. On a personal level, I think I have grown significantly just in the last 7-9 months of engagement with other libertarians. Unfortunately, it seems those seeking leadership positions in the LP are more concerned with their tribe’s goals than trying to fortify against the real enemy: authoritarianism. I mean, yeah, you score more Twitter points with the left-leaning libertarians if you constantly trash Republicans and Trump (cough, Nick Sarwark), and you score more Twitter points with the right-leaning crowd if you shit-talk the more socially concerned libertarians (cough, Dave Smith).
I am not saying that any of those guys, or anyone else for that matter, specifically have bad motives but that more or less they are playing the political game and pandering to their base. This makes the LP look more like a smaller, less than impressive version of pissed-off R’s and D’s attempting to put together a misfit group of outcasts to take on the two juggernaut teams in the little league world series. I’m in no way interested in that kind of nonsense. The minute differences in opinion are meaningless compared to the growth of federal power and the expanding widespread acceptance of a belief in one-party rule.
What is really mind-blowing is that each faction tends to believe that they are in the TRUE pursuit of REAL liberty. Honestly, I don’t know anything can violate liberty so long as transactions are voluntary and state interference is at its minimal possible level. I have not really witnessed anyone advocate FOR the state to bring more regulations, but somehow the arguments against each side tend to go in line with “that’s statist!”
I’m over it; this is my short vent session. If LP growth is the goal, I would suggest dropping the nonsense infighting about things that don’t matter and focusing on what is really important. There are way more people like me on the outside looking in, wondering when these “leaders” are gonna quit with the popularity contests among their bases and actually fight against the state. If that day comes, the party might actually become a force to be reckoned with because it might draw those like me into the mix. Or, maybe I should jump in and try to bridge the gap? I’m not sure what the answer is, but I’m just so exhausted with the fighting that is getting us nowhere.
If you have made it this far, thanks for reading. Have a great day.
