Commentary: Argentina’s First-Ever Libertarian President

Voters in Argentina have elected a libertarian as president for the first time in their history. On Sunday, Argentina had its second round of voting, and Javier Milei received 55.69% of the vote against the Peronist Sergio Massa’s 44.31%. In a country that suffers 143% annual inflation and a poverty rate hovering around 43%, Milei has a long and difficult road ahead.

Milei’s win marks the first time in 40 years that someone outside Argentina’s two largest parties was elected. La Libertad Avanza, Milei’s 3-year-old political party, finally broke through the entrenched and archaic political apparatus. In a tweet back in June, Milei stated that Argentina was choosing between the old politics and the new ideas. During his presidential campaign, Milei pledged to tackle Argentina’s inflationary unhealthy economy by dollarizing the peso and minimizing government spending.

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Argentina Makes History, Voters Deliver Clear Mandate with Election of Free Market Libertarian Javier Milei by Double-Digits

Libertarian candidate Javier Milei of the “La Libertad Avanza” (Liberty Moves Forward) party, will become the president of Argentina on December 10. The free market capitalist obtained 55.86 percent of the votes, with 91.81 percent of the polling stations counted, a stunning victory for the right that resulted in the defeat of ruling party candidate Sergio Massa, who only garnered 44.13 percent of the votes.

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Commentary: The Libertarian-Socialist Axis

On the surface, it might seem ridiculous to suggest libertarians and socialists work to further the same political agenda. Their ideologies are diametrically opposed. The extreme version of a socialist system is for all property to be owned and controlled by the government. The extreme version of a libertarian system is for all property to be privately owned. And yet the extremes meet. 

The unwitting consequence of socialist and libertarian movements in the United States has been to assist in the formation of an unprecedented concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a corporatist elite that has perfected its ability to manipulate both movements.

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Libertarian Marc Victor Drops Out of Senate Race, Endorses Blake Masters

Arizona’s Libertarian nominee Marc Victor announced Tuesday his withdrawal from the race, endorsing Republican nominee Blake Masters on his way out the door. Masters said this endorsement.

“Marc Victor joins a growing list of Arizonans from across the political spectrum who are fed up with open borders, big government corruption, and rising crime,” Masters said. “We are building a broad coalition to defeat the worst Senator in America. This is another major boost in momentum as we consolidate our support against the extreme and radical policies of Mark Kelly and Joe Biden. Live and Let Live.”

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TikTok Removes Video by Libertarian Organization Defending Kyle Rittenhouse

Libertarian organization Young Americans for Liberty says it recently posted a video in support of Kyle Rittenhouse that was subsequently censored by TikTok

In early December, the group posted a video in response to reports that members of the Arizona State University student body were protesting Rittenhouse’s online attendance at their university. The protestors called the acquitted teenager a “murderer,” and claimed he posed a threat to the student body.

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Commentary: You Don’t Need a Permission Slip to Go Back to Normal

Group of people together socializing at dinner table

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control did an about-face, announcing that the fully vaccinated among us may resume normal activities. The news came more than a year after California initiated the first lockdown on March 19, 2020.

The CDC’s new posture comes with some narrow exceptions. If you’re traveling on a plane or find yourself in a homeless shelter or in a medical or correctional facility, you still need to wear a mask; and the CDC made sure to clarify, apparently out of great deference for federalism and Hayekian spontaneous order, that its guidance does not predominate over the requirements of federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance.

Before the CDC updated its pandemic guidance, this was exactly the position espoused by libertarian law professor Ilya Somin of George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law. Writing from his regular perch at the legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy, Somin’s argument is summarized nicely in the subheading of his piece, “Free the Vaccinated from COVID Restrictions”: “Doing so will protect constitutional rights, reduce vaccine hesitancy, and increase liberty—all at once.”

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Commentary: Is an Alliance Possible Between the Conservatives and the Libertarians?

In a recent column, I argued that libertarians should stop supporting third-party candidates and join our side in an effort to stand up to the Left. In response, writing for the Orange County Register and Reason, libertarian writer Steven Greenhut contended that although conservatives and libertarians have been allies on many issues in the past, “now we’re like residents of different planets.”

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Rep Justin Amash, Who Recently Left GOP, Says He’s Not Ruling Out a Presidential Bid

by Chuck Ross   Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, who announced July 4 that he is leaving the Republican party, said Sunday that he is not ruling out a run for president. “I still wouldn’t rule anything like that out,” Amash told CNN’s Jake Tapper when asked if he is considering a presidential bid. Amash did not give a timeline for when he will decide whether to run, saying that “it’s not something that’s right on my radar right now.” Amash, an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, announced in a July 4 op-ed in The Washington Post that he was “declaring my independence” from the GOP. “I’m asking you to join me in rejecting the partisan loyalties and rhetoric that divide and dehumanize us. I’m asking you to believe that we can do better than this two-party system — and to work toward it. If we continue to take America for granted, we will lose it,” he wrote.  On May 18, Amash became the first Republican in Congress to call for Trump to be impeached in the wake of the special counsel’s investigation. Amash said that Trump engaged in “impeachable conduct,” and that Attorney General William Barr had “deliberately” misrepresented special counsel…

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Michigan U.S. Rep. Amash, a Trump Critic, Quits Republican Party

  U.S. Rep Justin Amash of Michigan is quitting the GOP. The only Republican in Congress to call for President Donald Trump’s impeachment, Amash said in an op-ed published in the Washington Post Thursday – July 4th – that he was declaring his independence from the Republican Party because the two-party system is failing. “Today, I am declaring my independence and leaving the Republican Party,” Amash wrote. “No matter your circumstance, I’m asking you to join me in rejecting the partisan loyalties and rhetoric that divide and dehumanize us. I’m asking you to believe that we can do better than this two-party system – and to work toward it. If we continue to take America for granted, we will lose it.” Amash in May joined Democratic colleagues in calling for Trump’s impeachment after special counsel Robert Mueller released a report on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and allegations that the president tried to obstruct the probe. Amash also criticized fellow Republicans for not holding Trump accountable. “The parties value winning for its own sake, and at whatever cost,” he wrote Thursday. “Instead of acting as an independent branch of government and serving as a check on…

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Ex-Massachusetts Governor Weld to Seek 2020 Republican Presidential Nomination

Former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld announced his candidacy on Monday to challenge President Donald Trump for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination. Weld, 73, who served two terms as governor, from 1991-1997, enters as a long-shot candidate against an incumbent president who has remained popular within his party. Weld in February had said that he planned to challenge Trump. “I really think if we have six more years of the same stuff we’ve had out of the White House the last two years that would be a political tragedy,” he said on CNN. “So I would be ashamed of myself if I didn’t raise my hand and run.” Weld’s challenge marks the first against Trump by a member of his own party. Other Republicans have publicly flirted with their own challenges, including former Ohio Governor John Kasich, one of the many Republican candidates whom Trump defeated for the party’s presidential nomination in 2016. But Republican leaders have signaled little tolerance for intra-party fights as Trump gears up for a potentially challenging bid for a second term. “Any effort to challenge the president’s nomination is bound to go absolutely nowhere,” the Republican National Committee said in statement responding to Weld’s announcement, noting…

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There’s a New Tea Party Brewing… in Moscow

by Vera Kichanova   As Moscow celebrated its 870th anniversary, a futuristic $245 million Zaryadye Park was inaugurated in the heart of the capital — a generous present from Mayor Sergei Sobyanin to his citizens. The 32-acre park includes a ‘floating bridge,’ a piece of tundra, and even an ice cave. The miracle was designed by architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, creators of the iconic High Line in New York, who describe Zaryadye as a piece of “wild urbanism.” Moscovian Politics Is Still Outdated “Wild urbanism” sounds like an ideal description of Sobyanin’s policy. Since he was appointed by Vladimir Putin in 2010, the Moscow mayor was trying to make the Russian capital look like any other modern capital — by flagrantly unmodern, Soviet/USSR-like means. To bring “order to city planning,” he bulldozed hundreds of kiosks overnight, leaving some one thousand citizens unemployed. More recently, he ordered to tear down 10 percent of Moscow’s housing stock and, in a Stalin-like manner, relocate 1.6 million inhabitants against their will. Last weekend, while Sobyanin was cutting the ribbon of Zaryadye Park, his administration was preparing another “present” for the citizens. Bloggers published a video where the deputy head of a local council in Moscow teaches her colleagues the…

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