Truly principled libertarians don’t go to bat for the most fascist President in modern U.S. history.

Full disclosure: I used to be a libertarian myself and voted for this guy (Gary Johnson) in ‘12 and ‘16.

Ron Paul’s vigorous and brave denunciation of the Iraq War in his GOP primary run in ‘08 had a big influence on my early political development.

I drifted away from libertarianism once I soured on the selfish, dog-eat-dog economic philosophy and I was always opposed to unfettered gun rights.

Nevertheless I was pretty sanguine about Trump’s presidency until the flagrant incompetence and abuses of power became impossible to ignore. For me that was around Summer ‘19, all of which makes me a pretty late-comer to the Democratic Party.

But having witnessed the GOP’s full-on implosion into hate and nonsense in this era of fake news, I reckon I’m not going back any time soon.

And throwing my vote away on a 3rd-party candidate is no longer an option I feel comfortable with.

Are you telling your life story or mine? Main difference is I didn't vote Libertarian even though that was my leaning. The pandemic is one of many lessons that government is vital to coordinate a response so it has a place. I've shifted my focus to abolishing deep capture of the financial system as a primary means for social justice. How to do that is a very tricky business.

Also what a great meme. Succinct yet provokes thought. Love it.

Wasn't Gov. Johnson in favor of legalization of pot? I could be wrong, but I thought he was.

I used to think that Libertarians were the "real" conservatives.

But now, I've come to think that Libertarianism is mostly just coded racism. It didn't show up as a philosophy until 1971 in Virginia. Why is that important?

The Civil Rights act of 1968.

The "small government/low taxes/I need mah guns" thing is, essentially, a giant flounce saying "fine, if you're going to use the government to force me to accept Black people, I won't pay my taxes, get rid of the people who collect them, and possibly shoot some people."

Libertarians are a whole mishmash of different beliefs. The label itself doesn’t mean a whole lot until you actually talk to them. They struggle with the concept of unifying behind a single platform as you might guess.

There are saner, softer libertarians (which I consider Gary Johnson one of) as well as total Covidiot/Plandemic/Alex Jones conspiracist nutbags.

Very few of them have actually held office under the affiliation of any Party (again Gary Johnson and his running-mate William Weld being an exception: They were former Governors of New Mexico and Massachusetts respectively).

So who the hell knows. I haven’t looked too deeply into Jo Jorgenson’s beliefs because nothing she could possibly say erases the imperative to be rid of Donald Trump’s “leadership” as quickly as possible which means voting for Biden.