Dear Libertarians,

I empathize with you, not only because I remain critical of both major parties, but largely because I tend to romanticize indigenous life...

From what I can tell, a lot of the Libertarian intent goes back to what that way of life had to offer. (including lack of centralized authority). 

My support of Bernie Sanders is not a devaluation of those ideals we have in common--it is based on the context of our ongoing collective adjustment to the conditions of civilization---which tend to lack the (immediate) checks and balances present in those 'natural' systems.

The Libertarian argument tends to focus on maximizing free will... and maximizing individual rights. Criticism is directed toward the government, but, here's the thing, we both know the government is not the only dominant power structure in society... 

So the difficult question is.... as a Libertarian, is one interested in minimizing the role-of-the-state specifically?----or minimizing the role of tyrannical influence in general? And the answer depends on which type of Libertarian you ask.

So here are some very general thoughts on our deviation from indigenous living, followed by Noam Chomsky's take on Libertarianism, followed by “The Libertarian Case For Sanders” (in this coming election).

Deviation From Indigenous Living:

Maybe, like me, you have considered this Tao De Ching quote: “Mastery of the world is achieved by letting things take their natural course. If you interfere with the way of Nature, you can never master the world.” 

And that works for indigenous peoples and creatures everywhere. What makes indigenous cultures work, however, is a set of natural checks and balances.

In Oregon, invasive species (English Ivy and blackberry) have been removed from original context----and that is what allows them to chase out many indigenous plants.... to take over. (In Maryland, think Zebra Mussel and Johnson Grass). 

Of course defining natural is tricky business, since what isn't natural? Over time these systems will naturally self balance, but in applying this logic to civilization, what will be left of us?

For example, lets look at what happened when we removed checks and balances with regard to our food supply. 

(Modern) agriculture led to overpopulation which changed the game, allowing the tangle we find ourselves in... later including the use of fossil fuels... and an ability to live above carrying capacity—for a time...

And as Jared Diamond says 'highly populated societies tend toward stratification'. So, to oversimplify, we've grown out of our indigenous orders into specific jobs and layers of social worth... with people further and further from power... 

We've taken one another over--- and this has been aggravated by our living beyond the carrying capacity of the land... The idea that we need solutions specifically applicable to our context is evidenced by all we see. 

Tribal people live beside us today, but also we are those tribal people, under new conditions—checks and balances removed--left alone to become what we see—all the problems in front of us.... 

However, being someone that has vision and tends to be idealistic.... I embrace the heart of much of that original way of life---I admittedly tend to romanticize it---and I stress the importance of certain aspects of it continuing to resurface in a modern context as well.... 

However the catch is that this idealism often asks people to be immediately better. It requires, like so many belief systems, that we become something new, something better than we are.

Maybe with the right consciousness we can evolve and be aware enough to replicate those freedoms---without sub par artificial checks and balances. 

Maybe with enough time we will integrate new ways of doing things. Maybe we will have systems that grow as we do---and reflect our consciousness at that point. It is worth being continually open. Meanwhile, a lot hangs in the balance.

For now, it remains that people have fought for democratic representation as a solution... to keep us from oligarchy (situations all through history where power lay in the hands of the few... stratification left alone.... without checks and balances... a history of dominance and coercion.... 

In other words, we are in a situation where what would-have-worked in a tribal scenario ceased to work in the exagerrated situation of modern society. We are in-a-sense an invasive species, not only in reference to our population growth, but in reference to living without default built-in checks and balances in general.

Still, we may differ on where to go from here.... for example, as to what level those checks and balances could be put in place..... Maybe I need to give it more thought myself.... 

However, small communities and even states (and countries) have ceased to have strong self defining boundaries, as their natural resource use and ecological impact have far reaching consequences that require common (centralized?) agreement. The world is getting smaller.

Anyhow, where I think we agree is on this point.....Our representation has been undermined, largely by corporate entanglement in the electoral process (and by the unconscious vote of the consumer). People like Bernie Sanders are fighting to get it back.

Where Bernie Sanders Fits Into the Libertarian Viewpoint Depends On Which Type of Libertarian you ask:

We can easily agree that the government is far from perfect....but “the government has a defect... it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect. They are pure tyrannies.” 

Noam Chomsky, who considers Sanders the best candidate in this election, actually identifies as being Libertarian... (well, specifically a Libertarian Socialist.)

Chompsky's 'Libertarian' is different than American Libertarian---In fact it differs as much as Sanders' Democratic Socialism differs from Socialism. Brace yourself for Chomsky's generalizations, as he doesn't pull any punches:

"So here [in the United States] the term Libertarian means the opposite of what it has meant to everyone else all through history. 

So what I was describing was the real Adam Smith and the real Thomas Jefferson and so on..... who were anti-capitalist and called for equality and thought that people shouldn't be subjected to wage labor, because that's destructive of their humanity... 

And the real Adam Smith who said that-- in any civilized society--something has to be done to prevent division of labor [stratification], because it will turn people creatures as stupid and as ignorant as it is possible for a human to be... and advocated markets only on the grounds that they---under perfect liberty---would lead to perfect equality....

Here [in the U.S.] Libertarian means extreme advocate of total tyranny... It means power ought to be given into the hands of private unaccountable tyrannies even worse than state tyrannies... but there the public has some kind of role [beyond enlightened consumer choice and directed intent]. 

The corporate system---especially as its evolved in the 20th century... is pure tyranny, completely unaccountable. You are inside one of these institutions.You take orders from above. You hand it down to below. You are outside the institutions. Under what the 'Libertarians' want, there's nothing you can say.

Tyrannies can do what they feel like. They are global in scale. I mean this is the extreme opposite of what has been called Libertarian everywhere in the world since the enlightenment and that's what's been called Libertarian here. 

So, yeah, it is hard to talk here b/c you can't use words like Libertarian or conservative or anything because they've taken on their opposite meaning.

As for Adam Smith and Wealth of Nations..... First of all, the idea of unsubsidized capitalism....it has existed. It exists in a good part of the 3rd world-----which is why the 3rd world looks the way it does. 

It has never existed in any developed society for a simple reason. The wealthy and the powerful won't allow it... They will use the levers of power to make sure that state power subsidized them.” [Here I'm sure we can both agree].

In some mythical world would I like to see laissez-faire capatilism?.... Well only under conditions described by Adam Smith.... 'that under conditions of perfect liberty, markets will lead to perfect equality'. That's why markets are good.... they will not force people to subject themselves to outside orders..... 

Yeah, if that were possible, maybe so..... But the goal [of Libertarians] was clear... the goal was a society based on enlightenment values.”

"What has been created by this half century of massive corporate propanganda.... is what's called anti-politics.... So anything that goes wrong... you blame the government... 

Well Ok, there's plenty to blame the government about... but the government is the one institution in which... that people can change.... it's the one institution you can affect by participation----without institutional change."

"That's exactly why all the anger and fear is directed towards the government. The government has a defect... it's potentially democratic. 

Corporations have no defect. They are [in general] pure tyrannies. So therefore [the power structures at hand] want to keep corporations invisible and focus all anger on the government. 

So you don't like something... you know... your wages are going down... You blame the government.... You are not going to blame the guys in the fortune 500, because you don't read the fortune 500.... You just read the thing that they tell you in the newspapers.

Its obvious why big corporations----who are fighting the everlasting battle for the minds of men---would want that to be the picture you had... If the government is your enemy....... When 83% percent of population think the economic system is inherently unfair... that's supposed to mean they are angry at the government. 

If you can take that view, then those who run the private institutions are quite well off.”

Chomsky goes on to say that the anger and the fear are real---and that is easy to empathize with.... but that "People are not focussed on what is doing it.". 

And I'll point out here that simple vilification in general---whether of people or governments or corporations or what-have-you---should be given careful consideration. Thus my hesitation in broad criticisms and in posting certain quotes.

Anyhow, public funding of elections would be helpful... but for now there is a difference between a small citizen donation and a large donation. Corporation donations (and billionaire donations) without limits are not the same as individual citizen donations, and they equate (on some level) to an exagerrated vote... exaggerated representation of special interests.

The amounts to a small group making a choice for a large group. So this is something I would assume we agree on... with some disagreement as to whether to work from the outside or the inside... and I say both, which leads to this....

Is There A Libertarian Case For Bernie Sanders?

"According to the libertarian Fraser Institute’s preliminary 2015 Human Freedom Index, which combines measures of personal, civil, and economic freedoms, here are the top ten freest countries in the world: 

Hong Kong, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Ireland, The United Kingdom, Sweden”

“The libertarian case for Bernie Sanders is simply that Bernie Sanders wants to make America more like Denmark, Canada, or Sweden … and that the citizens of those countries enjoy more liberty than Americans do. 

No other [contending] candidate specifically aims to make the United States more closely resemble a freer country. That’s it. That’s the case.” (By the way, the article goes on to criticize Hong Kong's place on the list).

"The important thing to note, in this case, is that the scholars making these assumptions, Ian Vásquez and Tanja Porčnik, former Cato Institute colleagues......are Libertarians who understand freedom as “the absence of coercive constraint.”"

"And when they apply that notion of freedom and stick all their Koch-funded assumptions into an index and add everything up, Denmark which [regardless of how it identifies itself] is what Bernie Sanders thinks of as a model of “democratic socialism,” comes out a lot freer than the United States. 

Canada, which has precisely the sort of single-payer health-care system Bernie Sanders wants, comes out a lot freer than the United States—on a libertarian index of freedom.” (Note that Canada is not Sander's only reference point & this is said in context).

“Bernie Sanders wants to make the United States more like countries that are significantly more free than the United States, according to an index of overall freedom built on libertarian assumptions about the nature of freedom, and no other candidate does. 

That’s the libertarian case for Bernie Sanders. As long as you’re not allergic to starting with data rather than theory, it’s really pretty strong.”

This article goes on to critique Sanders, and I'll add a quote from a past post that focuses on what Sanders means by "Democratic Socialist"

“Sociology professor Lane Kenworthy thinks Sanders’s use of the word socialism is causing much more confusion than it is adding value. 

Mr. Kenworthy suggested a more fitting term for Sanders would be “democratic socialist capitalist,” which essentially means very liberal.” (Christian Science Monitor).

Even the word liberal though is in context, as Sanders largely emulates FDR and, frankly, his tax ideas seem less liberal than those under Eisenhower, who he calls a good republican. 

We have to take into account the radical shift to the right, for lack of better words.

So that's it. Maybe you disagree. And maybe I need to learn more about your particular belief system. However, at the very least, perhaps you'll know that Sander supporters do not necessarily disagree with the heart of your ideals.... 

Maybe you'll know that Sanders supporters are not as easily tossed off as sheep, as a number of Libertarian memes have suggested—no offense to actual sheep by the way:) 

Yes, we have all---self included----been endoctrinated into systems we aren't even fully conscious of. So it is healthy for all of us, self included, to entertain a certain amount of self doubt. And context is everything.

Thank you for your time.

*Note that I did not elaborate on the important subject of military action here, including the context of Sanders' votes---This can be found in other comments I have made... which I will eventually link to here.