 I recently appeared on a podcast known as the Wake Up Call, and the co-host and I had a great discussion on libertarian strategy, and we thought you might enjoy it, so stay tuned. We've heard you recently describe four strategic options for libertarians, and we're going to focus on the political option last, but I want to focus on the other three first. So let's start with the strategic withdrawal option. What does that mean, and what are the pros and cons? Well, it's an interesting question. Libertarians tend to be, or the stereotype of libertarians is that we're long on theory, and we're short on practical action or tactics or strategies to implement what we think the ordering of the rules of society ought to be. So I think strategic withdrawal is an option that people in Catholic circles talk about. I don't happen to be Catholic, but there's a phraseology called the Benedict option, where Catholics talk about, well, the culture around us has become so degraded and so antithetical to our Catholic values that we need to almost start physically self-segregating into communities or regions. Of course, this has always happened in U.S. history. People have always lived in communities that mirror or reflect their own values, but so the idea behind strategic withdrawal is that libertarians could withdraw as much as possible from the dominant political paradigm, which of course we oppose, and try to live in communities, whether that's actual physical proximity or whether those are online or digital communities of people spread about made possible with today's technology, to try to live and work and socialize within more like-minded communities. So strategic withdrawal is the idea behind places like Liberland, which is a small libertarian country that's being attempted in Europe. It's the idea behind a project like the Free State Project, which was designed, oh gosh, maybe 10 or 15 years ago now by a Yale professor named Jason Sorens, and the idea was to get a lot of liberty-minded people to move to New Hampshire, which is a relatively sparsely populated state, and over time, a few tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of liberty-minded people could change the landscape, the political landscape, in a particular small state much more rapidly and more effectively than they might at the federal level. So that's the idea behind withdrawal. It sort of strikes some people as bitter, this idea that we're going to take our ball and go home, and it strikes some people as defeatist. No, no, no, we ought to be engaging the larger culture and the larger political scene head on at every turn. Well, a lot of people have tried that in the liberty area for a long time. It hasn't much worked. So I think the idea of strategic withdrawal really appeals to a lot of people who want to have a more libertarian lifestyle, if that's the word, while they're still alive, as opposed to constantly trying to build something for a future that they might not live to see. So how successful has this withdrawal option been, both in recent years and over a longer period of time? Well, it's hard to say. The talk I gave was very much a prospective talk, and I was talking about strategies we might employ as much as strategies that have been employed. The Free State Project has gained some traction. I think they've had some small legislative successes at the state level on gun control and the like, but it's very, very tough. And I would say in a sense, it might be the least appealing of our options because even as libertarian momentum grows, even if the number of people who have been introduced to libertarian ideas grow, the US population grows maybe even more rapidly. When I first got into libertarian thought in the late 80s, early 90s, the population was 280 million or thereabouts. Well, now it's 320 million. So if we've added 10 million libertarian since then, but we've added 40 million to the general population, it's getting to be, you know, you just got to look at the numbers. So if somebody wants to withdraw from the fight and just enjoy their life as much as possible and lead their life in a way that seems right to them as opposed to beating their head against the wall in politics or whatever it might be, I say more power to them. I mean, what is what is liberty really about at the end of the day? It's really about living your life as you see fit. So for people who try to make that happen to the extent it's possible in the in the current climate, I say more power to them. Yeah, I feel like this option revolves a lot around personal choices instead of kind of group decisions. That's one thing I kind of like about it. But let's go on to the next one, which is the winning hearts and minds option, a kind of the education option. Right. And that's really what a lot of organizations like the Mises Institute consider, you know, our mission. Our mission is educational. We don't engage in politics or public policy. We don't fret about this piece of legislation that we're strictly here to promote libertarian ideas, the ideas of Austrian economics and try to hopefully spread those as far and wide as we can. And we do that in the old days. You did that with physical conferences and sending people video tapes in the mail and that sort of thing. And in today's world, obviously, it's largely a digital effort, digital outreach to spread ideas. And from my perspective, obviously I'm biased, but I think the educational model, winning hearts and minds is in many ways the most practical, tactical approach to us because the cost of disseminating ideas has never been less and the ease of the ease with which we disseminate ideas across, you know, the entire globe has never been easier. It's now possible for people to talk to one another across borders, across time zones in a way that was just unthinkable even 30 years ago. And I think one of the biggest sea changes you can recognize out there is that, you know, now you read an article in The New York Times, well, there's a comment section. Now some official or some big shot or some celebrity makes a pronouncement or says something. Well, there's a million responses on social media. So it's the digital revolution has been the biggest leveler, I think, for libertarians and for all, you know, for all people of all political stripes to sort of fight against the power structures that existed. So, you know, we should never, we shouldn't look this gift horse in the mouth. We should realize that, you know, 30 years ago, you were NBC and you had to spend millions of dollars on studios and you had all these costs. And then Walter Cronkite came out and gave the evening news and Americans may have agreed or disagreed, but they pretty much swallowed it. And, you know, if you didn't like what your newspaper said, maybe you mailed in a letter to the editor by physical mail and maybe they printed it. Well, that's all changed. You know, today we have instantaneous responses and rebuttals and communication. We have thousands and thousands of seminal books that are available completely free online to read. You know, the information revolution has not been friendly to the powers that be in society. Let's let's be honest, it's been the great leveler. So I think that if I had to choose one of the four, I would choose education because I don't, you know, nobody wants to see change accompanied by violence. So rather than try to beat people about the head with stuff, we'd rather try to present them with superior ideas. And that's just a lot easier today than it used to be. No, it is. And our choice is largely education as well. Hence why we're doing this show, which is largely an educational endeavor. But the education option does have some cons to it, does have a downside. How would you describe the downside of the education option? Well, sure, there's lots of downsides. One is that it's slow. It's a generation by generation process. And as I mentioned earlier, the population might be growing faster. So it's it's very it can be very tough for for people, especially younger people who, you know, really want some results and really want to see things happening. Say, well, you know, that's great. You've got a 900 page book. But, you know, I'd like to see something more actionable in my lifetime now. So, you know, there's definitely there's definitely an inertia there, a time lag that can be distressing some people. There's also a divide intellectually, right? I mean, even though we've never had more information or fingertips than ever before, I mean, you're walking around with a smartphone, you've basically got every dictionary that ever existed. You've got world history, you've got math, science, language. I mean, it's unbelievable. But yet our reading comprehension, our willingness to read 900 page books, for example, as it is going down. So in some ways, access to information is not making people smarter or harder working. It might be making them dumber and lazier. So it's, you know, it's it's it is it is a double edged sword and it doesn't it doesn't yield the kind of instant results that, you know, we might think, well, if we just go out and elect Ron Paul or something, we'll have this instant result. And of course, electing Ron Paul actually is a trailing action. First, you have to change some hearts and minds to even consider having people vote for Ron Paul. So that's why I I do prefer education. I think everything else is downstream from from the hearts and mind strategy. But I certainly understand people who say, hey, I don't have the patience for this. Another one of the strategies was resistance and kind of the mind of civil disobedience. What can you tell us about that? And I mean, this is one that I kind of I like. But what what can you tell us about it? Well, it's it's a time honored strategy across across human history to to resist state power. And and the late great Sam Conklin used the term algorithm to describe black market transactions. We tend to think of black market transactions as you know, drug dealing or or you know, things things that have a a less than excuse me, things that are have a sinister bent to them. But but in fact, algorithm exists in a million different forms. The idea, you know, that one form of civil disobedience is to go out and have a march and occupy a campus building or something like that. That's very physical and tangible. But there are a million smaller hidden ways that people engage in resistance and civil disobedience and what we might call algorithm or black markets every day. If you, you know, decide to build that shed behind your house and you don't go ask the city for the permit that you're supposed to ask for and pay them. Well, that's a form of algorithm. If you have a an Airbnb long term tenant living in your house, but you're but they're paying you cash and you're not telling the IRS about it, that's a form of algorithm. If you are, you know, paying the local kid to mow your lawn and he's just taking that cash and not claiming any income tax on his or his parents tax return, that that's a form of algorithm. So there's there's really a million things we all do every day to sort of impose ourself against the state's will. And maybe the most obvious of all is that on major freeways, we all just kind of collectively decided we want to go about 80. We don't really want to go 55 or 65 because we're in a hurry. And for the most part, we do that just fine and safely. And and so if police don't really start pulling you over till about 85, then the sort of de facto agorist speed limit is 80 or 82 or whatever it is, right? It's not 65. 65 is the rule. That's the law, but it's being ignored. It's being flouted. So there's a million ways in our in our lives. We don't always think about it. You know, it doesn't mean you have to go out and be a drug dealer for God's sake or or engage in in, you know, a massive open tax resistance or other things that are going to bring you attention from people with guns very quickly. There's a million a million small ways you could do this. And Sam Conklin, who's kind of the father of algorithm, he wanted to take it in his personal life and encourage people to take it to an extreme in their personal life, you know, don't have a driver's license, don't pay taxes, you know, try to try to live off the grid so you're not paying, you know, state involved utilities, that sort of thing. You know, for most people, there's a there's a whole range of choices of things they can do short of that. And, you know, when you when you buy something on Amazon and they don't charge you income tax because the seller doesn't have any kind of physical building or presence in the particular state you live in. Well, in theory, at the end of the year, you're supposed to fill out what's called a use tax form and send it to your state. Not too many people do that. And it's awfully hard for states to track every transaction that occurs on Amazon. So, you know, resistance and algorithm is all about finding the cracks where they are and filling them and, you know, benefiting your life as a result. And I absolutely loved what you said about kind of the de facto law changing depending on what people do. And it's it's so true, you know, some politicians or some government official can say, oh, well, this is the way the world works. Well, if everyone just decides that, no, we're just going to do it our way. Well, then that's the way it is. You know, it doesn't matter what some random politician says or what some random law says, if everyone decides they're going to do it a certain way, then that's the way it's going to be done. Yeah, it's absolutely true. And there's a great term for that called Irish democracy. And as you can imagine, the Irish have a historical reputation for having their backup sometimes when when authority exceeds itself. So I think Irish democracy is something we all need to practice when we can and say when government does really stupid or really harmful things and tries to impose them on it, oftentimes that the easiest solution is just for the for the population to sort of collectively shrug their shoulders and say no thanks. And it's happened many, many times in human history is happening all around us in subtle, but to me anyway, very interesting and powerful ways. Right. So for the remainder of the interview, or at least most of the remainder of the interview, I want to turn our focus to the political options. So first of all, what is the political option and what are the pros and cons? And then secondly, what is the reality of the political situation that libertarians face in the present day? Well, the political option is using old fashioned politics, running candidates for office and working on promoting or opposing, you know, certain pieces of legislation at any level, state, local, federal, and sort of trying to use the mechanics of politics. And it's a very practical and, you know, I understand the appeal of this. A lot of people say, look, whether we like it or not, governments tend to crop up throughout human history, we're probably going to have a government in America for whether we whether we care to have one or not, or whether we care to have one as large as it is or not. So what we need to do on a practical and realistic level is we need to engage in politics. We need to get a libertarian minded people into office. And even if they aren't perfect or what we might want them to be, you know, someone like a Gary Johnson, nonetheless, that's the way to go. And and we're, you know, we'd rather have Rand Paul in the Senate than just some hack, I guess, Republican, well, probably Republican congressman from Kentucky or Congresswoman. And so we, you know, we chip away at the state by fighting it within the system. And this is this is something people have debated the wisdom of for years and years, I guess, from my perspective, what I hate about it is just the the the amount of time and money and human energy and man hours that go into it for so little gain. I mean, depending on who you talk to, supposedly the Koch organizations, the various Koch brothers organization spent about $400 million on the 2014 election cycle in the House and Senate. Obviously, it wasn't a presidential year. And and some of the things that they were hoping to get out of that, some of the victories would be, well, that a more Republican House or Senate would, for example, vote against funding the Export Import Bank. And the Export Import Bank, for any of your listeners who don't know, is a really, really bad, really naked crony capitalist system. Taxpayers are required to back loans. If the loans go bad, taxpayers have to bail them out. Taxpayers are required to back these loans that are given to foreign countries or foreign businesses to buy US goods. So it's this naked, it's this naked form of cronyism. And one of the chief beneficiaries of it is Boeing. So taxpayers in the US give a taxpayer funded loan to a Middle Eastern country like Qatar or something. And Qatar buys 50 Boeing airplanes for their national airline. And so, you know, this is the kind of thing that's so open and obvious, the cronyists that the Kochs to their credit oppose it and say, hey, this isn't what capitalism is or what it's supposed to be. Boeing should compete on the strength of its airplanes and the quality of its airplanes, not on taxpayer subsidized loans. But yet, even though the Senate voted against reauthorizing the Export Import Bank in a standalone vote, you know, it was kind of with a wink and a nod. And later on, the Export Import Bank reauthorization, the money for it, was snuck back in and reauthorized through a larger appropriations bill, where it was just one small part of it and the senators say, well, I can't vote against the whole bill just because there's one bad thing in it. So, you know, after spending four hundred million dollars to try to elect slightly more liberty minded people to the House of Senate, now it's debatable whether that means Republicans. You know, at the end of the day, even a small, mostly symbolic victory, like getting rid of the Export Import Bank was beyond the reach of these dodos in the Senate. You know, it just seems like the amount of time and money that people spend on campaigns. And when I see a young person, a really smart young person, and they're spending their time and energy going around, you know, putting up signs or something for some slightly libertarian-ish person running for Congress, who most of the time doesn't even win anyway, I think to myself, well, maybe it would be better for liberty in general, if that young person had spent that time in an exerted that effort, learning a foreign, excuse me, energy, learning a foreign language or developing a small business that would make them wealthy or or traveling the world and enriching themselves and seeing that, you know, America is not the only country on earth. That's what gets me is what is the opportunity cost involved. There's there's an awful lot of time and money and efforts spent on politics for a very, very, very little return. And again, I'm biased, but I think organizations like the Mises Institute are actually more effective in a narrow sense in terms of what we do or purport to do, that we're actually more effective than the people who say, oh, you guys just want to talk about theory and we're out here actually involved in the game of politics and we're actually putting it all in the line. So look, I'm, you know, I'm ecumenical. I understand all of these arguments that I so I think people should do what they're best at, what motivates them. If someone really likes politics and it just it excites them and engages them. And they just say, oh, I love it. I want to go try to get this, you know, I want to go try to get Rand Paul elected as president. Knock yourself out. It's not what I choose to do. It's not what I counsel most young people to do. But I get it. I get it. But, you know, you mentioned, what are we really up against? What's the what's the real state of affairs? You know, people, I think a lot of people don't really understand the way that the two parties have set themselves up for just perpetual power. I mean, there's nothing in the Constitution about parties. The Constitution says, well, the House and the Senate will operate by the rules that they make. Okay. So over time, that turned into a system of spoils and patronage whereby whichever party controls the most seats in the House, let's say where I worked gets to control the committee chairmanship. And so the committee chairmanship determined what kind of money gets doled out to what kind of interest and that affects how those interests vote and donate money and do all kinds of things. So, you know, there's nothing. There's not there's no self interest on the part of our political class that, you know, it's against their self interest to yield power. It's in their self interest to to consolidate power. So, you know, running, running, you know, somebody once said that Ron Paul running for president is like an atheist running for Pope. And there's something to do that. I think it was it was a it was a very unique way of saying, you know, it's it's awfully hard for liberty minded people to run politically for to evolve themselves in a system that is designed for ill libertarian gains to consolidate and expand political power. So I see it both ways. And I'm certainly glad that Ron Paul was in Congress. I'm glad that Rand Paul's in the Senate. I'm glad that there's people like Thomas Massey and Justin Amash in the House. I'd rather have them than than someone else. So, you know, I don't want to be too hard on it. But but we see a lot of young people at the Mises Institute. That's sort of our forte is high school, college kids, postgraduate kids shouldn't call them kids. They're oftentimes adults. But you know, it's it's very easy for them to get excited about a political campaign and then be sort of dashed against the rocks when they see that, you know, maybe we can't just maybe we have to change people's hearts and minds first. And then their voting patterns will change as a result. So that's my take anyway. Well, and even within the fairly grim reality of the political situation, the political situation that you laid out there, there is something very appealing about knowing that on a certain day and a certain year, there's going to be a tangible result and a quantifiable way of viewing libertarianism or any other ideology through a percentage through a number of votes that there is something appealing about that. And there also could be an argument to be made that if this political process is going to be played out, and these elections are going to happen, and this is going to be the only situation in which a large percentage of the population even considers any of these issues, then there is something to be said for having a libertarian or at least libertarianish voice in the mix when you have all these other voices in the mix, promoting other ideologies. Well, there's no question that that's true. And that's why I wish Gary Johnson was just a better speaker and a better spokesman and a more ideological guy and a better voice for this because, you know, you're right. Politics gives you a very concrete metric. You can measure your success. The libertarian party could say a success for us this year is Gary Johnson getting 10 percent or 5 percent or whatever it is of the general the popular vote, you know, it's tough with the Electoral College to win the state. You know, that that's a tangible metric trying to have Rand Paul win a primary or two. That's a tangible metric. And that's that's appealing. I mean, we're results based America is a results based country. There's no doubt about it. But you know, we're not getting the results from politics that we want. And can we change that? I certainly hope so. But I think we missed a big opportunity and no one could have foreseen that it was going to be Trump and Hillary. I guess we could have foreseen it would be Hillary. But you know, even a year ago, 18 months ago, it was very hard to figure it'd be Trump and Hillary. So on that in that sense, it seems like like a real opportunity loss for the libertarian part of this year, because I don't think Gary Johnson is is and you know, no offense to the guy. He's a very nice man, but I don't think he's he's particularly effective with the message. So for a libertarian who's wishing to engage in politics in some form or fashion, how would you evaluate the merits of doing that through the Libertarian Party versus doing that through some other way, whether it be the Republican Party, the Democratic Party and independent campaign starting some new third party, another existing third party. What do you think about all that? I think if you're looking at a political race, I think you should choose the party that's most likely to win in that district or region or state or whatever it is. I mean, the whole country has been gerrymandered to the point where oftentimes these especially congressional districts at both the state and federal level are so, you know, 65, 35 or 70, 30 or a certain especially in certain minority districts, they're like 95 five, you know, one party or the other. So if you're going to engage in politics by definition, you're saying to at least to an extent, I'm going to play the game as it is. So if there's some people who view that as a tremendous compromise in and of itself, I don't necessarily share that whatever, but if you're going to play the game, play it to win or at least play it to have as much impact as you can. So Ron Paul would have said the exact same things to every audience he faced, no matter who was in the audience. He never tailored or catered his speeches to, you know, appeal to younger people or older people, Republicans, Democrats, white folks, black folks, he always gave the same message. So and it would not have mattered if he was a libertarian, a Republican, a Democrat and independent. So to me, you know, just I would love to see libertarians running as Democrats. You know, there's no reason we should view libertarianism as some sort of offshoot of conservatism or the GOP because it's not. So, you know, if you're going to play the game, play it to win and playing it to win or at least do some damage means playing the percentages like in baseball, putting the odds, you know, putting your best foot forward using the odds. So if you're running, you know, if you're in a heavily Democratic district, run as a Democrat and then just say, I want to get out of Iraq, I want to end the Federal Reserve, whatever, you know, you could say the same things you'd say if you were running as a Republican. And that kind of brings us into issue libertarianism and focusing on single issues. And one thing that Adam brought up was the fact that, you know, politics sometimes gives you a microphone and that sometimes people don't think about things, except for, you know, once every four years, they think about the issues and that's the only time they do. And I think it's kind of interesting because on the one hand, you kind of just want to scream out all of libertarianism and be like, hey, like, this is libertarianism, you should love it. This is why it works. This is why it's important. But I feel like if you just kind of lay it all out on the table, sometimes people are like, whoa, like this is too much. Whereas if you just focus on one thing, like marijuana legalization or war and peace issue, people say, well, you know, I understand that. And I know that I know how that affects me. And then from there, you can maybe grow on more ideas. So what do you think about single issue libertarianism? And on top of that, too, I'm going to add another question. The willingness to elect people who are running on single issues that maybe might be libertarian single issues, even when the candidate themselves might not be very libertarian. So someone who, yes, they may promote the single issue of marijuana legalization, that might be the center point of their campaign. But the candidate themselves as a whole might not be so libertarian. So what do you think about all those things? Well, let me address the latter question first. Yeah, that can be tough. It can be very tough to say, hey, this candidate's really good on an issue that's near and dear to my heart. And they're very libertarian of this issue, like, let's say they really want to bring marijuana decriminalization to a state that doesn't have. But if on everything else, they're terrible. I mean, that, you know, they want to put people in concentration camps or something. That's obviously a joke. But I mean, you know, you have to balance it. You have to weigh the pros and cons. That can be a very tricky thing to do. And that can lead you, you know, down a road, you don't want to go down. But I very much believe in issue libertarianism. I believe in coalitions. You know, take the Iraq war. In my opinion, from my perspective, it's one of the biggest blunders in US foreign policy history, not only because of the lives it costs and all the people with with lifetime injuries, also the cost of that war it added trillions of dollars to our debt, but also the future costs it, you know, the VA veterans who are going to need lifetime care and the anger and hostility it created in the Middle East towards America. How do we ever calculate that? How long will it take for that to wash away? Wow, you know, hard to say. But if we go back to that early 2000 period 2001 2002, when the Iraq war was being ginned up, look, there were two very different factions. There was that kind of Code Pink, you know, socialist left wing faction with Cindy Sheehan people on the left. And then there was that kind of Pat Buchanan, what is smeared as the isolationist wing of the GOP. And those two groups are very different culturally, politically, in terms of their worldview. But nonetheless, each one of them opposed the Iraq war and opposed it strongly. And, you know, if there is a way to bridge that divide to bring those two groups together, you know, and gerrymandering has made this tough, because oftentimes candidates don't need to worry about the fringe of your groups represented or fringe of your voters represented in their districts, they can stay elected with the mainstream adults. But, you know, if there was a way to harness that energy between these two groups who are very, very different and say, look, we can come together on the single issue and say, we don't think it's our job to roll tanks and planes into Iraq and try to remake that country in our image as a constitutional democracy or whatever. You know, it's a cobbled together powder keg of Sunni and Shia and somehow Saddam Hussein has been doing it. He's a bad guy. But, you know, if that argument could have been made coherently to the American people, you know, maybe a disaster could have been, I don't know, I don't know if you two agree that Iraq was a disaster, but from my perspective was maybe a disaster could have been averted using issue libertarianism. So that's just an example that pops to mind. Sure. Yeah. And, of course, we agree that the Iraq war was a disaster. But I want to turn our focus to the libertarian party for a moment. You discuss this at great length at a speech in San Antonio, I believe it was. And we'll link, of course, to this talk on the show notes page at wakeupcallpodcast.com slash strategy. But what do you think the goals and strategy of the libertarian party should be and how would you describe the current state of the libertarian party? Well, I think they ought to change their goals and strategy. Yes. Look, if you're going to run a presidential, a big presidential campaign, and this is a perfect year to do it, then I think you should not run any other candidates. I think you should have no state and local candidates, no congressional candidates. This idea of having a slate of candidates is absurd. They don't have the money. They don't have the manpower. Get every libertarian in the country, every LP libertarian in the country focused on improving the prospects for Gary Johnson in your state. That's it. Just lay down the law, have some party discipline, say nobody else is running for anything. We cannot afford to siphon a single ounce of energy or a single campaign dollar or a single pack dollar away from Gary Johnson's efforts. We've decided collectively as a party that, you know, every presidential year, that's what we're going to do. So that's that's my first piece of advice. The flip side would be it, you know, really from the get go, it probably would have made a lot more sense for the LP to be a state and local party from its inception. I mean, the party was born out of frustration with Nixon in the 70s, what he was doing with the gold standard, the lingering Vietnam War. So actually the LPs was was birthed in a very ill libertarian time. And as a result with some very libertarian principles, antiwar, a pro sound money. So, you know, it really has wonderful origins. A man named David Nolan, who's now passed away was was really one of the founders. But, you know, it's when you're running for even even in kind of a minor congressional seat today, if you want to run a decent race for a U.S. House seat, it's a minimum of 500 K. I mean, that's that is really a minimum to run any kind of reasonable contested contested race. If you're not contested that or you're barely contested in a gerrymandered district, that's different. But to run a real race takes 500 K minimum, that's sort of just buying in it might take a million. So, you know, and you have to win maybe 150,000 votes, roughly 125 to 150,000 votes out of a congressional districts which are mostly around 700,000, a little more than 700,000 people. So, you know, that's that's pretty heavy lifting. But if you get involved in a local race for school superintendent, let's say, first of all, it might be nonpartisan. So you don't have to have the libertarian label necessarily. And it might be something where you can win with 10 or 20,000 votes and a budget of $50,000 for your entire campaign in it, you know, in a county or a smaller town or whatever. So if you do the math and say, well, first of all, what what where can I have a bigger impact and affect my own life? Well, that's probably at the local level. And then number two is work. Where am I more likely to have some actual success? That's probably at the local level. I mean, winning winning 150,000 votes and raising 500 K. That's a lot. That's that's a lot tougher thing to do. And at the presidential level, I mean, come on, Barack Obama spent seven hundred and fifty million dollars in 2012. Hillary might end up close to a billion dollars. You know, that that's Gary Johnson can run a competent campaign with TV, etc. Although TV matters less in the Internet age. It's still for from my perspective, for Gary Johnson to run a competent campaign, he'd need a minimum of 50 million bucks. And that that means people on the ground who are actually receiving a paycheck because they're professional you know, people with professional campaign experience. So that's that's a big enchilada. That's a lot to ask. And so if you're going to run a national campaign, run a national campaign only and cut out all the state and local. But otherwise, you know, if I could go back in time and try to tell the LP what to do since the 1970s, I would say become a state and local party because, you know, we don't have a parliamentary system in the US. We have we have this two party system of spoils. And so small parties, minor parties have a very difficult time getting any traction in the national legislature. So it sure seems to me that it's a much easier sell at the state and local level. So just a couple more questions before we wrap up. And since we've been mentioning Gary Johnson here and there over the course of this interview, I want to focus on the libertarian parties, presidential and vice presidential ticket for a moment, which obviously in addition to Gary Johnson also includes Bill Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts, who as far as I can tell is very few, if any, libertarian tendencies. What do you make of that ticket? What sort of ticket should the LP be looking to nominate if they are to engage in presidential politics? And what does it say about this ticket that they might be endorsed by the likes of Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush or someone of that. The possibility of which has been floated several times in recent weeks all over the mainstream media. I guess I'll believe that when I see it. That's an interesting thought. I think Bill Weld, former governor, longtime trial attorney, I think he was he was installed. I think he was installed by Republicans who want to have what they see as an adult in the room overseeing the process because they figured he's probably not good. Gary Johnson is not going to win the general. He might he might take some votes away from one side of the other. And I but I really think he was he was sort of put there to be a hall monitor and to watch over things and make sure that the LP that the ticket didn't spend its time, you know, getting too far in the weeds on on what they would see as silly or goofy libertarian issues. I think he was also probably put there for his fundraising prowess, but I'm yet to see that. And and frankly, I don't see what the, you know, from a fundraising perspective, people, if Rand Paul couldn't raise the money, I guess I have a hard time seeing how Johnson and Weld will. What's what's the appeal that they hold that ran didn't? I guess, you know, ran couldn't continue. He didn't have the money to continue in the GOP primary. So I understand that. But so, you know, he's one his one appeal is that he's in the race and presumably going to be on all 50 ballots. So but from a from an ideological or policy position, I actually see them in many ways as less libertarian than Rand. And and when Gary Johnson says low tax liberalism, when he says I agree with Bernie Sanders on 70 percent of the issues, you know, I just cringe. I don't I don't think libertarianism should be presented as a left and right issue. And I think it's it's not only confusing to people, it's actually boring to people if it's not presented as as a principled and ideological perspective. If it's kind of presented as a mushy version of of right winger meets left wing or well, they're they're OK with marijuana, but they want lower taxes. And then I guess they're against the Iraq War. To me, that that just devolves into in a mushy headed thinking. And I don't think that that's what people want to hear. And you know, Trump demonstrates this. People want to hear harder, more black and white rhetoric. And and frankly, it's the I think the ideology, the principle behind libertarianism is the appeal to many people. So in a lot of ways, I think by being more radical, you actually end up with more votes, not fewer. I think that's the fundamental flaw of the Johnson Weld ticket, is that they think that if they triangulate and they soften the message, they'll get more votes as a result. I actually think they'll get less. I think if you stick to easy, popular sounding sound bites like, look, let's get out of the Middle East. It's not in our interest. It's growing government. It's getting people killed. And the Middle East is getting worse, not better. Let's get out. I mean, that doesn't take that. That's a that's something that can appeal to an average person, an average voter. If you say, look, you know, the Fed is not your friend. We ought to end this thing. It just serves a bunch of fat cats on Wall Street and makes a bunch of bankers rich, but it doesn't really create an economy. And we can see that because the Fed has pumped trillions of dollars into banks since the crash of 08. And they're still not lending. And the economy is still not growing. You don't have to you don't have to make it more complex. I mean what the Fed does is very complex. There's no, there's you know, we shouldn't we shouldn't criticize an average busy person who's got a job at a family and all that for not understanding the mechanics of the Fed. Most economists don't understand the mechanics of the Fed. It's no crime. So you have to you have to sort of present these things in a palatable fashion. And but you have to do it with some conviction and some belief and some fire. Bill Weld always looks like he's about ready to fall asleep. Kind of kind of like Dean Martin. And Gary Johnson is, you know, some people don't like the peace symbol t shirt under the jacket. I like that. I actually kind of like that. I could live without the sneakers that, you know, the signaling that oh, look how hip I am or whatever. But, you know, I just don't see the fire in the belly. I would love to see I just imagine in a Trump Hillary year, if we had a Tom Woods or, you know, gosh, got, you know, rest rest in peace if we had a Harry Brown. Man, it just it just feels like a missed opportunity to me. So do you think Daryl Perry would have been a better option or even John McAfee of the people who actually did run this time? You know, I just heard a little bit about Perry. I wasn't I wasn't up on him. So I can't speak to him. I really like McAfee. I you know, when you looked at the guy, he just was, you know, you could tell he was a legitimate guy, not a con man. He had he had, I think a face and particularly his eyes. I really, to me anyway, evoked honesty and a guy who's not professing to have all the answers or to be slick or sound bitey. I thought he had tremendous appeal and I thought he would do better at the convention, especially with the younger, you know, Gen X. I thought he would resonate better with them because he said, you know, he's a tech guy. And and he's a guy who's lived his life his own way. And I loved him. But would he get chewed up pretty bad in in a general? Yeah, maybe he would have. And so maybe it's maybe it's best for him. He can he can he can keep on being John McAfee, which is what we want him to do. So what do you think the best strategies for libertarians is politically or otherwise? And what are you? What are some reasons to be optimistic for the future? And what are some reasons to be pessimistic? Well, the biggest reason to be pessimistic is that if you look at human history and you look at the history of governance in Europe, it was probably the best model for us, but but now in the US, it oftentimes to really pull people out of their complacency, that it requires some sort of economic shock or some sort of unpleasantness, a war, an upheaval, civil unrest, you know, otherwise, as long as Facebook's working and ESPN comes on every day and we haven't, you know, we have some kind of job and you know, it's just it takes a lot. There's just something very human. There's a there's an inertia to being human that makes us sort of OK with things as they are, provided they're not too bad. Now, as Americans were softer, we have we have all the comforts of modern capitalism provides. So we're but I think if if if Facebook or, you know, was to just to go dark for 48 hours, let's say, which in the in the in the course of human events seems like a pretty small emergency relative to things like the Great Depression or whatever. But America would have a collective meltdown. I think that's how soft we become. So I fear and I hope it's not the case, but I fear it might be the case that it's it's going to take some sort of real material hardship or some kind of conflict in America to make a sort of wake up and clean house in Washington, not that we necessarily install a libertarian government, we might install a worse one, you know, strongman type situation. But to sort of wake up and say, hey, things can't just continue the way they've been going. I guess the reason I'm optimistic is because the digital age makes it what you know, it takes more than communication. It takes, you know, change requires a certain public figures, people who are respected, people who are widely known to sort of come our way and start accepting libertarian, promoting it. And I think I think we're really making some some great strides in that area. I think that, you know, as people see more and more the state, the Western governments can't do what they say they do. They can't provide entitlements to vast numbers of people over 65, especially with life expectancy expanding. And they can't win wars to remake the Middle East or anyplace else. So there are two big reasons for existing war and welfare they're they're failing at quite badly. And it's going to unravel. It's going to get worse. People are not going to be receive Social Security in any meaningful fashion. They might receive it nominally, but in terms of what it's going to take to to, you know, give them a Social Security check that that still has purchasing power, I think, is a very dubious proposition. So I think as, you know, governments, governments can't even keep the potholes out. Are they really going to remake the Middle East? And are they really going to come to grips with the entitlement gap, the 200 trillion dollar gap between our future expected entitlement layouts and our future expected tax revenues? And is the rest of the world just going to paper that over by buying US Treasury debt forever and ever? The answer, that's no. So as governments begin to fail, I think there's two ways we can go. We reach a tipping point. We can go towards an unpleasant sort of police state model to maintain order or we can tip away, tip the other way towards non governmental solutions to our problems. And and I think with technology accelerating and I think with our ability to communicate, it's harder to keep people in the dark about what's going on. And it's harder for the for the powers that be to have media gatekeepers and to have academic gatekeepers. You know, I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic because, yeah, you know, we can bitch about the way things are, but let's face it compared to our ancestors. I mean, we're not talking, we're not living through the war of 1812. We're not living through the Great Depression. We're not living through the civil war. You know, I mean, when I think my own German great grandparents had no money came here from Germany with with with nothing worked their way up through trade school, you know, it was literally one of those things my great grandfather literally did one of those things that was on a matchbook cover there. You know, your listeners won't know this, but there were there were like ads on the back of matchbook covers for some electrical correspondence course training. So that's what he did. So, I mean, for us to sit here with all these tools at our disposal and kind of bitch and wail and and and moan about the state of things, I mean, look, the future is unwritten. We're not fatalists. We're not determinists. We're libertarians, right? So we have a million tools at our disposal. The future is unwritten and it's up. It's up to us to go do it. It's not it's not our place to to moan about it. So, you know, I'm positive at that since I've got kids and, you know, it's my job to hopefully do a some small part of improving the landscape for their future. So that, you know, that's, you know, color me optimistic, but in a but not in a not in a fake way, more in just a pragmatic way. We're not we're not that bad off. I'm sure most of us all got up today and had electricity and running water and a roof of our heads, you know, go from there compared to our ancestors. We were softies. All right. Well, I'm glad we can conclude on on an optimistic note that's not always something we're able to do. So I'm glad that's the case with this topic. And thank you so much for joining us and being so generous with your time. What readings or resources do you recommend someone take a look at if they want to learn more about the topics we've been discussing today and what are the best ways to follow your work? Well, I think if you're if you're interested in economics and the education of things, just come to Mises.org. We've got a lifetime worth of free books on PDF, HTML format, ePubs. We have a lifetime's worth of videos and lectures. We have a lifetime's worth of articles. If that's what interests you, if you know, if you're not that well read or well versed in economics, we have a boot camp class available on our website. It's just it's just a couple hours of your life, three hours of your life taking an online course. It's actually fun, interactive and you will know more about economics than 99 percent of the population. Even if you never read another book again. So I would recommend our Mises boot camp to people and I would also recommend to anyone just trying to get started. I would recommend Economics in One Lesson by Henry Haslett. It's a short read. It's an easy read. It's available, you know, free online. And there's I think there's no better starting point for people who are interested in these ideas. And, you know, people are looking for something new. They're looking for something different. The two parties aren't working out. So let's let's change it.