The Republican-Lite Positions of the Libertarian Party: Covid

During the Covid crisis, the Libertarian Party had a great opportunity to let the American people know the genuine libertarian position on healthcare: the complete separation of healthcare and the state — that is, the end of all governmental involvement in healthcare, not only at the federal level but also at the state and local levels.

Alas, it was not to be. Instead, under the leadership of the L.P. right-wing, the L.P. ended up presenting a confused, muddled, statist, Republican-lite position on Covid and healthcare to American voters.

Covid mandates

The L.P. right-wing was fiercely opposed to the Covid mandates that the federal government and state and local governments were imposing on people and businesses. That position, of course, was the correct libertarian position.

But lacking a clear understanding of libertarianism, the L.P. right-wing went further than that. They also fiercely opposed Covid policies that private businesses were deciding to implement to address the crisis. For example, a private restaurant might require customers to wear masks. Another private business might decide that its employees had to be vaccinated against Covid.

The L.P. right-wingers claimed that these were illegitimate “mandates” that violated libertarian principles. What the L.P. right-wingers failed to understand, however, is that in a free society, people have the right to make these types of decisions for themselves. Any person or company that adopts these types of policies is making decisions that are within the context of the libertarian philosophy.

Sure, it is entirely possible that a libertarian might disagree with the policies and practices adopted by others. But the problem is that the L.P. right-wing was communicating to people that the L.P. opposed all such private-sector “mandates” as being contrary to libertarian principles.

The anti-vaxxers

It was the same with respect to the Covid vaccine itself. The L.P. right-wing was fiercely anti-vax and made it clear that anyone who took the vaccine was a dumb dolt of the state.

Their position was also that the federal government should harshly punish all federal officials and private-sector physicians who prescribed or advised people to take the Covid vaccine because, they said, the vaccine had killed people.

Some L.P. right-wingers even wanted the feds to transport the Covid offenders to the Pentagon-CIA torture/prison camp in Cuba, which, of course, reflected not only the right-wing support of the national-security state (with its omnipotent, totalitarian powers) but also the indefinite detention and torture of people without due process of law and trial by jury.

Needless to say, that was an incredible picture of libertarianism and the Libertarian Party to give to American voters. It was also a very dumb political move. Around 256 million Americans took the vaccine. How likely is it that any of them would vote for a L.P. presidential candidate whose party had called them a dumb dolt of the state? At the risk of belaboring the obvious, that is not the best way to break out of the standard 0-1 percent of the national vote garnered by L.P. presidential candidates.

More important, what the L.P. right-wing did not — and still does not — understand is that libertarianism is neither pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine. Libertarianism is pro-freedom. It entails the right of people to live their lives any way they want, so long as their conduct is peaceful and non-fraudulent. If people want to take a vaccine, that is their right. If they don’t, that is also their right.

The role of government

The fundamental question, however, is: What role does government have with respect to healthcare? The libertarian answer is: None! Government has no more business dealing with healthcare than it does dealing with religion. That’s why the genuine libertarian healthcare position is the separation of healthcare and the state. Rather than embroil itself in how the state should run its healthcare system, the Libertarian Party should be lifting people’s vision to a higher level — to separating healthcare and the state, just as our ancestors lifted people’s vision to a higher level with separating church and state.

Unfortunately, however, the L.P. right-wing is fiercely opposed to separating healthcare and the state. Instead, like Republicans and Democrats, they want the government to be ardently involved in healthcare. They simply want their people — i.e., right-wingers — to be in charge of the healthcare department and agencies, where they can exercise healthcare power in a right-wing direction.

Supporting RFK, Jr.

Thus, many L.P. right-wingers were — and are — terribly excited about having Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services, as compared to having that department abolished. While Kennedy was an ardent left-winger, his healthcare policies pretty much mirrored those of the L.P. right-wing, especially his antipathy toward vaccines. In fact, many L.P. right-wingers and also some L.P. pragmatists (e.g., prominent and popular L.P. candidate and member Larry Sharpe) became enthusiastic supporters of Kennedy’s Independent presidential campaign, even though he was a deeply committed welfare-statist and gun-control advocate.

One of the fascinating aspects of the L.P. support of Kennedy is that he failed to reward any of them with a position in his HHS department. Recall President Trump’s promise to appoint a Libertarian to his cabinet. That undoubtedly had most every L.P. right-winger, including former L.P. chairperson Angela McArdle, fantasizing about being named “The One” — the first L.P. member in history to serve in a Cabinet position in a statist regime. Imagine the praise! Imagine the accolades! Imagine the publicity! (“Publicity, Jacob! Publicity!”) Imagine the standing ovations at state L.P. conventions! Alas, it was not to be. For some reason, Trump broke his promise and dissed the L.P. right-wing.

But there was still hope among L.P. right-wingers that Kennedy would come through and award them jobs in HHS. Some of them prepared resumes that they excitedly sent to Kennedy. In fact, when party chairman McArdle resigned her position soon after being reelected, stating that she had another “opportunity,” it was commonly believed that the “opportunity” to which she was referring was some bureaucratic position that she was hoping Kennedy would offer her in HHS. Alas, it was not to be. Kennedy ended up dissing the L.P. right-wingers, just as Trump had done, and obviously gave any HHS bureaucratic positions to his Democrat and Republican supporters.

Perverting libertarianism

The worst part of all this is that in the eyes of American voters, the L.P. now has a muddled, warped, and perverted statist position on healthcare. The L.P. now stands squarely in favor of MAHA — the notion that it is the role of government to make America healthy again. This is especially true given that L.P. right-wingers and L.P. pragmatists ardently believe in Medicare and Medicaid and simply want government to reform, fix, and improve these socialist programs. (See my Substack article “The Republican-Lite Positions of the Libertarian Party: Medicare.”)

But MAHA is not a legitimate role of government. Under the libertarian philosophy, government has no more business making America healthy again than it does making America religious again.

Leading America to freedom

It is the moral responsibility of the Libertarian Party to lead America to freedom, at least in the political arena. It cannot do that by advocating statist positions. To lead America to freedom, the Libertarian Party must restore its pure, genuine, founding vision of principled libertarianism. That includes making the principled case for the separation of healthcare and the state.