The following is an edited transcript excerpt from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1922-reasons-for-the-war-in-iran-explained-in-5-minutes">The Michael Knowles Show</a>.
* * *
Many people are debating the war with Iran from an ideological perspective.
You’re an interventionist. 
You’re an isolationist. 
You’re America First. 
You’re a war-monger. 
You’re a peacenik.
And right now, these ideological camps are screaming past each other. The isolationists say we should never get involved in foreign wars under any circumstances. The war hawks say America must confront evil regimes wherever they arise. But neither position settles the matter here.
That’s not what this is about.
The two questions, which most of us outside the government simply do not have answers to, are:
First: Was the threat posed by Iran really that great? 
Second: Can we effectively and efficiently install a friendly regime in Iran?
Those are the two questions. Everything else is noise.
If the threat from Iran was high and we believe we can easily install a pro-Western regime, then obviously, this was an awesome move and Donald Trump will go down as one of the greatest presidents in American history. Replacing this regime in Iran has been a high American priority since 1979.
If, on the other hand, the threat was exaggerated and America gets bogged down in an endless war, Trump will have destroyed his legacy and he will go down in much the same way as George W. Bush. That is a serious risk he is taking based on his confidence in the United States military and his confidence in his own statesmanship.
But even that isn’t enough.
The second question is just as important: Can we pull this off?
Can the United States remove the top of the Iranian regime and replace it with something stable, manageable, and at least not actively hostile? Can this be done efficiently, without becoming another Iraq? Without morphing into an endless occupation, a decades-long counterinsurgency, or a regional quagmire?
If the answer to both questions is yes — if the threat was high and the operation can be executed cleanly — then this could go down as one of the boldest and most successful foreign policy moves of our lifetimes. But if the threat was overstated, and if we get bogged down in an endless war, then President Trump will have risked everything. He will have tarnished the very legacy he built running against the Bush-era regime change disasters. That&#8217;s the gamble.
Notice what this debate is not about. It is not about whether America should ever intervene. It is not about spreading democracy to every corner of the globe. It is not about grand ideological crusades. It is about risk assessment.
And President Trump is a risk-taker.
When he says “no more stupid wars,” many people heard “no more wars.” But the emphasis was never on “wars.” It was on “stupid.” When he said “no more endless wars,” the emphasis was on “endless.”
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1922-reasons-for-the-war-in-iran-explained-in-5-minutes">WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show on DailyWire+</a></h3>
This is not being pitched as Iraq 2.0. It is being pitched as a decisive, overwhelming, time-limited force.
The early days have been extremely successful. Military leadership decapitated. Key targets neutralized. A regime that has openly threatened American interests for decades suddenly thrown off balance.
But early success does not guarantee long-term success. A billion things could go wrong.
It can still spiral out of control. Internal Iranian power struggles could produce chaos rather than stability. Intelligence assessments could prove flawed. The costs could still grow and the timeline could stretch.
The president reportedly believes this will be a four- or five-week operation. Those are famous last words in American foreign policy. Every modern war has begun with confident timelines.
So, we are left with the two questions:
How real was the threat?
How feasible is the outcome?
If Iran’s regime truly posed a grave, escalating danger — and if the United States can remove and replace that regime without creating a vacuum — then this operation may reshape the Middle East in America’s favor. It could reset a declining geopolitical trajectory and reassert American strength.
If not, then this will look less like strategic genius and more like overreach.
The ideological shouting will continue. But the serious debate is narrower and more sober. It is not about whether one is a hawk or a dove. It is about whether this specific intervention meets the threshold of necessity and feasibility.
That is the test.

TOPSHOT-US-IRAN-CONFLICT-DEFENSE

Two Questions Decide Whether The Iran War Is Brilliant Or A Disaster

Conservatives

Donald Trump

Iran

Israel

Libertarianism

Michael Knowles

Middle East

Opinion

Pete Hegseth

U.S. Military

On his first full day in office, President Donald Trump fulfilled a key campaign promise to libertarians by pardoning 40-year-old Ross Ulbricht, the creator and operator of the darknet site Silk Road.
Ulbricht was sentenced to double life imprisonment in 2015 and was convicted for &#8220;distributing narcotics, distributing narcotics by means of the Internet, conspiring to distribute narcotics, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to commit computer hacking, conspiring to traffic in false identity documents, and conspiring to commit money laundering,&#8221; <a href="https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ross-ulbricht-aka-dread-pirate-roberts-sentenced-life-federal-prison-creating" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to the government.
However, libertarians, in particular, have taken up the case to &#8220;free Ross,&#8221; arguing that Ulbricht merely facilitated &#8220;<a href="https://reason.com/2025/01/20/why-trump-should-keep-his-promise-to-free-silk-road-founder-ross-ulbricht/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">peaceful online transactions among consenting adults</a>&#8221; and was made an example of by a government still trying to navigate and understand the online space.
Notably, Ulbricht was sentenced to double life plus 40 years without the chance at parole in a Manhattan federal court.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
ROSS IS FREE
Ross Ulbricht, founder of Silk Road, the largest libertarian marketplace in history—was sentenced to life in prison in 2015.
After spending 11 years behind bars, President Trump has granted him a presidential pardon, finally giving Ross back his freedom. <a href="https://t.co/noU93nBrku">pic.twitter.com/noU93nBrku</a>
— Students For Liberty (@sfliberty) <a href="https://twitter.com/sfliberty/status/1881883431899996388?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 22, 2025</a></blockquote>
&#8220;I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross,&#8221; Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113869112741612092">posted</a> to Truth Social late Tuesday night.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?_gl=1*1lail3r*_gcl_aw*R0NMLjE3MzIyMDEyNDkuQ2owS0NRaUEwZnU1QmhEUUFSSXNBTVhVQk9JSkM0VnNsMFVreURxYXUxVWVEVWdOdjZkNzR2Y1pEeEZQeHVBcGl2R3BLaTdBMjVzT1p5TWFBdG1nRUFMd193Y0I.*_gcl_au*NDUxNDQ0NzYwLjE3MzY3ODI2NDY.*_ga*MTc2NzM0NDQ2NS4xNzI4OTA5Nzkx*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*MTczNjk1NzYwMy4zNDAuMS4xNzM2OTU3NzE2LjYwLjAuMA.." target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?_gl%3D1*1lail3r*_gcl_aw*R0NMLjE3MzIyMDEyNDkuQ2owS0NRaUEwZnU1QmhEUUFSSXNBTVhVQk9JSkM0VnNsMFVreURxYXUxVWVEVWdOdjZkNzR2Y1pEeEZQeHVBcGl2R3BLaTdBMjVzT1p5TWFBdG1nRUFMd193Y0I.*_gcl_au*NDUxNDQ0NzYwLjE3MzY3ODI2NDY.*_ga*MTc2NzM0NDQ2NS4xNzI4OTA5Nzkx*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*MTczNjk1NzYwMy4zNDAuMS4xNzM2OTU3NzE2LjYwLjAuMA..&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1737044212122000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3mp2MZNwEXBk00lKmCtOss">CELEBRATE #47 WITH 47% OFF DAILYWIRE+ MEMBERSHIPS + A FREE $20 GIFT</a>
&#8220;The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me,&#8221; the president added. &#8220;He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!&#8221;
Back in May, Trump attended the Libertarian Party convention — the only nominee to do so — and was loudly booed by some attendees. Still, while attending the convention, Trump promised to free Ulbricht, a promise he fulfilled on his first full day in office.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
Trump went to the Libertarian Party convention last year &#8211; filled with &#8220;FREE ROSS&#8221; [Ulbricht] signs &#8211; and promised to pardon Ross, as part of Trump asking for the party&#8217;s endorsement.
In exchange, he was booed, and they declined to endorse him.
Trump went on to pardon Ross,… <a href="https://t.co/RlFbP4H3HF">https://t.co/RlFbP4H3HF</a> <a href="https://t.co/wpTMmaTBzM">pic.twitter.com/wpTMmaTBzM</a>
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) <a href="https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1881858333885206731?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 22, 2025</a></blockquote>
&#8220;Thank you for honoring your pledge to Ross, to our members, and to libertarians everywhere, [Donald Trump],&#8221; the Libertarian Party&#8217;s X account posted online. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Thank you for honoring your pledge to Ross, to our members, and to libertarians everywhere, <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realDonaldTrump</a>. <a href="https://t.co/9YtQNrOhW9">pic.twitter.com/9YtQNrOhW9</a>
— Libertarian Party (@LPNational) <a href="https://twitter.com/LPNational/status/1881856984556970289?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 22, 2025</a></blockquote>
Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie (R) also praised Trump for keeping his word. &#8220;Ross Ulbricht has been freed by President Trump with a full pardon!&#8221; he wrote on X. &#8220;Thank you for keeping your word to me and others who have been advocating for Ross’ freedom, Mr. President!&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Ross Ulbricht has been freed by President Trump with a full pardon! Thank you for keeping your word to me and others who have been advocating for Ross’ freedom, Mr. President! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/freeRoss?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#freeRoss</a> <a href="https://t.co/wOJVFX1DaA">pic.twitter.com/wOJVFX1DaA</a>
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1881857222353076580?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 22, 2025</a></blockquote>

Donald Trump Addresses Libertarian Party National Convention

Trump Makes Good On Promise To Libertarians, Pardons Ross Ulbricht

Crime

Executive

Pardon

Politics

When cable news channels announced the results of the 2016 election, for the most part, they <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/2016-election-results-trump-projected-win-georgia-43406399" target="_blank" rel="noopener">displayed</a> the vote totals for the two major party candidates side-by-side: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. They simply left out the Libertarian Party ticket, which was led by Gary Johnson. It was as if Gary Johnson didn&#8217;t exist.
In a normal election year, that wouldn&#8217;t be a very notable omission. Outside of Ross Perot&#8217;s run in 1992, third-party candidates don&#8217;t exactly put up very big numbers on Election Night, so they&#8217;re not worth talking about. That&#8217;s been especially true for Libertarian Party candidates, who are mostly known for taking off their shirts at conventions and debating the merits of driver&#8217;s licenses.
But in 2016, it was a very different story. Libertarians had their best-ever showing in a presidential race, racking up nearly four-and-a-half million votes. In eleven states, the Libertarian Party vote total exceeded the margin of victory — meaning, you can make a case that Libertarians affected the outcome of the 2016 presidential election by siphoning votes from Hillary Clinton. You don&#8217;t hear that discussed very often — it&#8217;s a lot easier for Democrats to blame Russia. But it&#8217;s true.
Eight years later, once again, there are signs that libertarians might have a relatively strong showing in the upcoming election. Polls show that most Americans are ambivalent about this presidential race — in part because both candidates have already served as president, so there&#8217;s not as much enthusiasm as there normally is. That gives an opening to third-party candidates to attract new support.
Both the Trump campaign and the Biden campaign understand this dynamic very well. They&#8217;re looking at the same poll numbers. But only Trump has decided to appeal to these Libertarian voters directly. On Saturday night, Trump spoke at the Libertarian Party&#8217;s national nominating convention in the nation&#8217;s capital — becoming the first former president to ever do so.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1376-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h4>
The speech marked another moment of stark contrast between Trump and Joe Biden, who would never walk into a venue where he knew that a large portion of the audience would oppose him. We&#8217;re at the point where Joe Biden isn&#8217;t even allowed to give press conferences anymore, much less deliver speeches before a hostile crowd. But Trump had no problem facing his detractors at the convention, who (as predicted) heckled him at various points during his address.
That was the side of the story the media ran with. There were dozens of headlines about how Trump was booed and jeered at the convention. But there were quite a few Trump supporters in attendance as well, and there were several moments where the Libertarians in attendance were clearly on Trump&#8217;s side.
That makes sense, because Trump didn&#8217;t deliver his typical stump speech. Instead, he tailored his remarks for a libertarian audience — hitting topics like lower taxes, cryptocurrency, reducing the size of the federal government, keeping America out of foreign wars, and so on. Trump even promised to commute the sentence of libertarian hero Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the defunct dark web marketplace &#8220;Silk Road.&#8221; Ulbricht is serving a life sentence for facilitating the sale of narcotics, but Trump said he&#8217;d let him out of prison on day one of his second term. Trump made a host of other promises, as well, including a vow to appoint libertarians to his Cabinet. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="005 Trump For Libertarian 1ff" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BMu6yzYE0EU?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
As you could hear during some of those clips, the crowd reaction was mixed at some points and very positive at other points. It was a lot more interesting than the traditional stump speech, and the response was unpredictable at points.
But for their part, the media pretended it was an unmitigated disaster. NBC News <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/andrea-mitchell-reports/watch/trial-is-taking-its-toll-trump-booed-and-heckled-at-libertarian-national-convention-211700293677" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ran</a> this headline: &#8220;Trial taking its toll: Trump booed and heckled at Libertarian National Convention. &#8220;The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/25/trump-loudly-heckled-libertarian-national-convention/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>, &#8220;Trump loudly heckled at Libertarian National Convention.&#8221; Politico reported that Trump had been &#8220;jeered,&#8221; and CNN said he was &#8220;loudly booed.&#8221; And on and on.
As you just saw from the clips I played, this is obviously a total misrepresentation of what happened. The media desperately does not want the Trump campaign bringing in new voters from the Libertarian side, so they&#8217;re lying. The so-called &#8220;defenders of democracy&#8221; want to shame a presidential candidate for reaching out to people who disagree with him.
But the truth is that, even when there was booing during Trump&#8217;s speech, it didn&#8217;t always relate to what Trump was saying. There was, as others have pointed out, the equivalent of a &#8220;Jerry Springer&#8221; episode occurring in the crowd at one point as Trump spoke. Apparently a Libertarian delegate by the name of &#8220;Starchild&#8221; was holding up a sign calling Trump a dictator. And then security dragged him away for some reason, and Starchild&#8217;s associates weren&#8217;t pleased by this development. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="006 Protestor At Trump Speech" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yfbgEiCbUKU?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&#8220;These fascists don&#8217;t get to kick out Starchild! Free Starchild!&#8221; Presumably that&#8217;s Starchild&#8217;s father, Star, but it&#8217;s hard to say. Meanwhile Starchild&#8217;s wig falls off as he&#8217;s dragged away, while a very confused Secret Service agent looks on.
Is this what Ludwig Von Mises had in mind back in the day? Probably not. But it&#8217;s the state of the Libertarian Party in America right now. And if nothing else, it&#8217;s entertaining. 
During his speech, Trump apparently recognized that, and he had some fun at the party&#8217;s expense. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="007 Deroy Murdock 1" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TzIkngnmhzk?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Again, this is something Joe Biden wouldn&#8217;t have the balls (or the brainpower) to do. It certainly wasn&#8217;t written in the teleprompter to taunt libertarians to their faces, at their own convention, about the fact that pretty much no one votes for them. That&#8217;s not the kind of outreach that any campaign advisor would have come up with. But it was both honest and hilarious, which is why it works.
Libertarians (except for Starchild, maybe) are under no illusions that they&#8217;re going to win the White House. What Trump is doing is something the Left normally excels at, which is transactional politics. He&#8217;s basically saying, &#8220;Vote for me, even though you don&#8217;t like me, and I&#8217;ll give you more than the other party will.&#8221; We can assume Trump isn&#8217;t passionate about Ross Ulbricht, for example. But he knows the crowd is, so he says he&#8217;ll get him out of prison.
In that context, it makes sense for Trump to embrace the adversarial relationship he has with the crowd. Trump knew going into the convention that he wasn&#8217;t going to win the Libertarian Party&#8217;s nomination. Instead, his plan was simply to present a viable alternative to the Libertarian Party&#8217;s eventual nominee.
And in that respect, Trump&#8217;s speech succeeded more than he probably even thought possible. It now appears very likely that Trump will indeed win a very large share of the Libertarian Party vote. That&#8217;s because on Sunday — after Trump was determined to be ineligible for their party&#8217;s nomination — Libertarians nominated an HR <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/11/georgia-senate-race-chase-oliver-profile" target="_blank" rel="noopener">representative</a> named Chase Oliver to be their presidential nominee.
Already, right away, this is a win for Trump, because no one in their right mind would ever want an HR representative in the White House. It&#8217;s probably the least sympathetic and appealing profession for a politician that you can imagine. But it gets even worse once you start looking at what Chase Oliver believes. For example, earlier this year, Oliver shot a video at the southern border. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="008 Migrants Just Want Work 1" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oBKP-S0WBtM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
According to Oliver, the United States has no right to enforce its borders against anyone. We have to be open to illegal migrants as well as hostile invading armies, presumably, because otherwise we&#8217;re basically erecting another Berlin Wall. Never mind that the Berlin Wall was intended to lock people inside and prevent them from escaping, while the southern border wall is intended to keep foreigners from entering the country. That&#8217;s not important to Chase Oliver. The point, in his mind, is that walls are always bad. Except, presumably, the walls that form his own home, and keep intruders out.
In that video, Oliver also lies and claims that illegals don&#8217;t use more welfare benefits than American citizens, which is just completely made up. As the Center for Immigration Studies has <a href="https://cis.org/Camarota/NPR-Falsely-Claims-High-Immigrant-Welfare-Use-Myth" target="_blank" rel="noopener">found</a>, &#8220;In 2018, 49 percent of households headed by all immigrants — naturalized citizens, legal residents, and illegal immigrants — used at least one major welfare program, compared to 32 percent of households headed by the native-born.&#8221;
So this guy doesn&#8217;t understand the impact of open borders on the economy, but he wants open borders anyway. This is one of the least-popular positions a politician can have right now, but the Libertarian Party just picked a candidate who firmly believes in unrestricted illegal migration.
As it happens, Chase is also a big supporter of pretty much every other Left-wing agenda item. He doesn&#8217;t want the government to prevent adults from getting naked in front of kids, for instance. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="010 Oliver Okay With Drag 1" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u1yewEXAtiw?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Oliver goes on to say that he doesn&#8217;t prefer to see nudity at Pride parades, where children are attending — but only because it&#8217;s not &#8220;helpful&#8221; to the message of the parade, in his view. He doesn&#8217;t think it should be prohibited. 
Then the interviewer asks a few follow-up questions about drag shows for children. And once again, Oliver pretends that there&#8217;s nothing sexual about these shows. We&#8217;ve all seen the footage of these shows, and what kids are forced to watch. But apparently Chase Oliver hasn&#8217;t. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="009 Chase Oliver Okays Public Nudity" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2GKmHQMceEU?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
As the joke goes, the Libertarians wanted Ron Paul but they got RuPaul instead. 
But it&#8217;s actually disturbing to listen to his reasoning. He compares the Wiggles — the kids&#8217; music group — to grown men with a fetish for wearing women&#8217;s clothing. And he says he has no problem leaving children alone with these grown men. Parents, he says, always know best — and if parents want to leave their children with these people, then who are we to disagree? His only defense is that these drag performers are engaging in &#8220;performance art.&#8221; Therefore, we have to accept it.
Once again, it just so happens that Chase&#8217;s position comports perfectly with mainstream Democratic Party orthodoxy. And there&#8217;s plenty more where that came from. Chase Oliver has also voiced his support for banning Donald Trump from social media, as well as for vaccine mandates (as long as they&#8217;re implemented by private companies and not the government). He also supports legislation that would overrule the Supreme Court on abortion.
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So to recap: The Libertarians nominated a Leftist, essentially. They&#8217;ve picked a Pride-flag waving progressive who supports open borders, has no problem with nudity at Pride parades, loves seeing kids alone at drag queen story hours, supports vaccine mandates for millions of Americans, and also supports abortion on the grounds of &#8220;bodily autonomy.&#8221; This is pretty much the DNC&#8217;s platform, word for word.
It&#8217;s yet more evidence that libertarians are just pot-scented Democrats. They fundamentally agree with Democrats on most things because libertarians and leftists both subscribe to a consent-based morality where anything is okay as long as the people involved choose to do it. And they both make exceptions even to that flimsy moral framework when it comes to children — who are often exposed to drag queens and public nudity without their consent, especially in cities controlled by Democrats. Chase Oliver wouldn&#8217;t be remotely out of place as a Democrat on San Francisco&#8217;s city council.
Then again, Republicans are also just Democrats driving the speed limit, to use Michael Malice&#8217;s phrase. Both parties agree on major issues like funding foreign wars, and they both tolerate open borders. What this means is that there really is no true political alternative to Leftism, at least not right now. Even the &#8220;third party&#8221; doesn&#8217;t really provide it, as Chase Oliver demonstrates.
During his appearance on Saturday night at the Libertarian&#8217;s convention, to the dismay of Starchild, Donald Trump didn&#8217;t promise his audience everything they wanted. But Trump did demonstrate that he&#8217;s willing to break with the Republican Party establishment to win over voters who have been ignored for decades. He made it clear that he&#8217;s willing to make promises that Mitch McConnell won&#8217;t be happy about, in order to secure more votes and political power. Is that a tactic we normally see from the Right? Absolutely not. But ultimately, especially in this election year, it&#8217;s what building a viable alternative to Leftism will require.

US-POLITICS-TRUMP

Trump’s Showdown At The Libertarian Convention

Trump's Showdown At The Libertarian Convention

Drag Queen story hour

Libertarian Party

Matt Walsh

Readers Pass

Adapted from<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1440-super-tuesday-results-summarized-in-3-mins" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> “The Michael Knowles Show,”</a>  March 6, 2023.
There is a wild card in the presidential race, and that wild card is Bobby Kennedy Jr. — commonly known as, RFK. His father ran for president in 1968 and was assassinated while running, and his uncle was President John F. Kennedy, who was also assassinated. President Joe Biden, by the way, still will not give RFK Secret Service protection, which is just not a good look.
Originally, Bobby Kennedy Jr. was running in the Democratic primary, but he also appeals to some conservatives. He is an “ole timey” kind of Democrat, a 1960s kind who is still liberal, but the country has moved so far to the Left that some conservatives are now happy with 1960s liberalism. (I am not, but some people on the Right are.)
Being correct during COVID also helped Bobby Kennedy Jr. on the Right. Kennedy has focused on vaccines for decades now and has claimed them to not be particularly safe. During COVID, he was skeptical of Big Pharma and the medical industry, and he turned out to be proven correct in his skepticism. So, a lot of Right-wingers like him for that reason.
<div id="attachment_706969" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-706969" class="size-large wp-image-706969" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/03/GettyImages-1993689675-864x576.jpg" alt="GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN - FEBRUARY 10: Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. poses with supporters during a meet and greet after a voter rally at St. Cecilia Music Center on February 10, 2024 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) launched billboards in Grand Rapids on Friday, hitting Kennedy Jr., alleging a Super PAC supporting him, American Values 2024, is receiving donations from a former mega-donor to former president Donald Trump. (Photo by Emily Elconin/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/03/GettyImages-1993689675-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/03/GettyImages-1993689675-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/03/GettyImages-1993689675-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/03/GettyImages-1993689675.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Emily Elconin/Getty Images</div>
That said, he was going nowhere in the Democratic primary. He was polling 20%, but that seemed to be the ceiling, partly because the Democrat Party has much more control over its nomination process. They were not going to let him really advance, which is reminiscent of how they treated Bernie Sanders back in 2016 — except it was going to be ten times worse for Kennedy. So, Kennedy decided to run as an independent candidate because he was pulling so many Right-wing voters anyway.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1440-super-tuesday-results-summarized-in-3-mins" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show</a></h4>
Now, however, there are reports that Bobby Kennedy Jr. is considering becoming the Libertarian nominee for president. 
According to the 2012 and 2016 campaign manager for the Liberty Party presidential nominee, Ron Nielson, there is a lot of buzz going on. There is a lot of interest in Bobby Kennedy. And if he were to say he accepts the nomination of the Libertarian Party, that would probably turn a lot of heads. The Libertarian Party says there are people within the Libertarian movement who would like to help him.
So what does Kennedy say? According to <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4509804-rfk-jr-robert-f-kennedy-jr-libertarian/#:~:text=One%20source%20in%20Kennedy's%20orbit,system%2C%E2%80%9D%20the%20source%20added." target="_blank" rel="noopener">a source</a> close to Kennedy, “There is a willingness of people in the Liberty movement to consider Bobby for sure.” This particular source spoke on the condition of anonymity. The source went on to say, “He is a rogue punk rocker of the political system.” So it seems as though Kennedy is at least open to the prospect of being the Libertarian nominee.
But why would he do it? The Libertarian nominee for president is never going to win the presidency. At least if Bobby Kennedy is running this independent campaign without a political party behind him, it seems as though maybe he would have a chance — because it is unheard of and he is shaking things up. But if he is just going to become the Libertarian Party nominee, it seems as though he is just marginalizing himself.
The reason is that Kennedy wants to appear on ballots around the country, and in order to do that, he must have some party’s support — some kind of operation, a national apparatus — and he currently lacks that. The Libertarian Party is the one vehicle for him to do that, so I think it makes perfect sense for him to become the Libertarian nominee. He’s not going to run as the Green Party candidate, nor as some other party candidate. So, it seems like a natural fit.
He is, after all, a kind of libertarian. The 1960s liberals are generally libertarians today. Granted, libertarians are a very broad group. Some are neo-conservatives and others are more hardcore principled libertarians. It is a big tent. But it is a natural fit for Bobby Kennedy Jr. He is not going to be president anyway, so he might as well get as many votes as he can. Though it’s a losing proposition, I like it because I think he will pull more votes from Biden than he will from Trump.
That has been my contention the whole time, and the polls seem to have proven me correct. So, as much as I hate to say I told you so, I’m happy to do it. Good for the Libertarians, good for Bobby Kennedy, Jr., but most especially, good for the conservatives.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Makes Campaign Announcement

RFK Jr., The Presidential Race Wild Card

2024 Election

Presidency

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

U.S. Politics

Authorities in Germany confirmed last week that they had seized 1,700 bitcoin, currently valued at over $79 million, from a nefarious hacker. There’s only one problem: he won’t hand over the password required to access it.
The debacle raises some serious questions: How does Bitcoin encryption work? What can the police do to regulate cryptocurrency? And to what extent does digital cash render traditional governmental authority irrelevant? 
Where’s the password?
After serving a two year sentence for secretly installing malware and using other people’s  computers to “mine” bitcoin, the Bavarian cybercriminal is refusing to share his password with local authorities. Multiple attempts by police to crack the code have proven futile.
Bitcoin is stored in digital wallets, which are encrypted and entirely secure. Without a password, it is impossible to access contents, and repeated failed attempts can result in a wallet becoming irreversibly locked. “We asked him, but he didn’t say. Perhaps he doesn’t know,” Prosecutor Sebastian Murer told <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-crypto-currency-germany-password/police-seize-60-million-of-bitcoin-now-wheres-the-password-idUSKBN2A511T">Reuters</a> on Friday.
With Bitcoin’s price at record highs, the wallet’s value has skyrocketed since the original arrest, only fueling the urgency of the search for its password and further demonstrating the strength of Bitcoin’s security. It also indicates the lack of power police and local authorities hold over cryptocurrency accounts.
Complete security comes with great risks
It’s not just Bavarian police who have been running into difficulties accessing digital cash. While Bitcoin’s encryption facilitates completely private and secure ownership, it can pose an enormous risk, even to its biggest holders.
Last month, Stefan Thomas, a German programmer living in San Francisco, made headlines as he closed in on the possibility of losing 7,002 bitcoin, valued at $327 million. Thomas’s wallet is locked by password, and he misplaced the paper he wrote it down on.
After eight failed attempts to log in, he only has two tries left. At ten attempts, the wallet will be inaccessible, forever. “I would just lay in bed and think about it,” Thomas <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/technology/bitcoin-passwords-wallets-fortunes.html">told</a> the New York Times, “Then I would go to the computer with some new strategy, and it wouldn’t work, and I would be desperate again.”
Meanwhile in Wales, an IT engineer is in a dispute with local officials in an attempt to recover a hard drive containing over $350 million worth of bitcoin. While cleaning his home in 2013, James Howells accidentally threw the hard drive, which has since skyrocketed in value, into the trash.
 Bitcoin’s secure storage makes accessing a hard drive’s contents possible only with the physical drive in hand. Howells has been able to determine which garbage dump likely contains his hard drive, but he needs permission from the local council to excavate it. His multiple requests to the Newport City Council have all been rejected, citing environmental and funding concerns.
Howells has gone to extraordinary lengths to overturn the decision. He has secured his own funding for the excavation, with backing from a hedge fund, and is even offering to donate 25% of the hard drive’s contents to a Covid Relief Fund for his home city, but all to no avail. 
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/technology/bitcoin-passwords-wallets-fortunes.html">According</a> to the New York Times, 20 percent of the world’s bitcoin is lost on drives or locked in wallets with lost passwords. Most appear to have been misplaced years ago when the value of Bitcoin was a fraction of what it is today. Although the stakes for recovering lost bitcoin are enormous, nothing can be done by police or Bitcoin users alike.
While Bitcoin’s privacy and security is appealing to many, Stephan Thomas <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/technology/bitcoin-passwords-wallets-fortunes.html">warned</a> of the risk that total encryption poses: “This whole idea of being your own bank — let me put it this way: Do you make your own shoes? The reason we have banks is that we don’t want to deal with all those things that banks do.”
The dangers of cryptocurrency
From its inception, Bitcoin was intended to curtail governmental oversight of private transactions by giving users complete control of their assets. No identity check is required to obtain the currency which is regulated by a decentralized network of computers rather than government power.
Anonymity, security, and decentralization have made Bitcoin popular with criminals. A 2019 <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/dark-side-coin-extent-illegal-072631643.html">study</a> revealed that 28 million Bitcoin users, or about 25 percent, are primarily involved in illegal activity. It also found that about half of all Bitcoin transactions are criminal in nature. This has raised concerns among investors and policymakers alike.
In her January confirmation hearing, Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/janet-yellen-consider-limiting-cryptocurrency/">dubbed</a> blockchain-based financial networks “a particular threat,” and pledged to “examine ways in which we can curtail their use and make sure that [money laundering] does not occur through those channels.”
The nontraditional structure of cryptocurrency also makes it potentially dangerous to investors. Both the European Central Bank and Goldman Sachs <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/bitcoin-too-volatile-medium-exchange-goldman-sachs-says-1567705">say</a> Bitcoin is too volatile to be a medium of exchange. And, because it is not backed by any banks, they warn that investors should be prepared for the possibility of losing everything.
Cryptocurrency’s upside
Despite warnings from the financial establishment, bitcoin’s price had surged to a record $47,000 by early February. Part of that surge could be attributed to Tesla, which <a href="https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000156459021004599/tsla-10k_20201231.htm">purchased $1.5 billion</a> in bitcoin “to further diversify and maximize returns on [their] cash.” The company also announced its intention to accept Bitcoin as a payment method, further bolstering confidence in the currency’s legitimacy.
Public endorsements by celebrity figures from Gene Simmons to Snoop Dogg have also helped send the price soaring. Similarly, Elon Musk’s recent <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1357241340313141249">tweets</a> endorsing another cryptocurrency called Dogecoin prompted the coin to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/08/tweets-from-elon-musk-and-celebrities-send-dogecoin-to-a-record-high.html">rally 37%</a> in just 24 hours. As a result, disruptive cryptocurrencies are becoming more and more mainstream.
Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1357241340313141249">touted</a> Dogecoin as “the people’s crypto,” reflecting its ability to provide financial access to any individual. Gabriel Abed, an entrepreneur from Barbados echoes this sentiment. Though he found himself in a similar situation to Stephan Thomas when he lost 800 bitcoin in 2011, he is still an outspoken champion of cryptocurrency.
Before Bitcoin, most citizens of Barbados were unable to access even the most basic financial resources, such as bank accounts or credit cards. Cryptocurrency afforded locals the power to take control of their financial destiny — and even enabled Abed to buy a $25 million property on his home island. 
Abed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/technology/bitcoin-passwords-wallets-fortunes.html">refuted</a> Thomas’ warnings about cryptocurrencies, telling The New York Times, “The risk of being my own bank comes with the reward of being able to freely access my money and be a citizen of the world — that is worth it.”
Some cryptocurrency figureheads have even sought to create a sovereign state on the foundation of a free market and libertarian ideals. The <a href="https://www.freesociety.com">Free Society Foundation</a>, founded by Olivier Janssens, is in the process of “purchasing sovereignty from a government to create the world’s first free society.&#8221;
But there are more tangible examples of how cryptocurrencies are already promoting civil liberties. For instance, Bitcoin has the power to financially liberate individuals living under authoritarian governments such as Venezuela and China, both of which wield the authority to seize assets held by citizens in traditional bank accounts.
Situations like the one in Bavaria serve as a reminder of Bitcoin’s power to disrupt traditional governmental authority. While cryptocurrencies may represent a volatile risk to investors today, they have the power to disrupt the very foundation of traditional finance. They may also hold the key to individual financial liberation, a true free market, and realization of the libertarian ideal.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

TOPSHOT-CANADA-ECONOMY-COMPUTER MINING-BITCOINS

20 Percent Of The World’s Bitcoin Is Inaccessible. Now, There’s A Race To Find It.

Bitcoin

&#8220;There are no libertarians in a global pandemic.&#8221; So goes the smug punchline of large-government advocates who point to the necessity of collective action in the face of an unprecedented global crisis. Without government, they say, we&#8217;d all be dead.
Few libertarians would disagree. The hardcore libertarians at Reason magazine aren&#8217;t spending their days fulminating over the evils of government-required lockdown orders in the face of a fast-spreading, deadly disease. That&#8217;s because they, like all other sentient human beings, recognize that collective action is sometimes necessary.
But here&#8217;s the dirty little secret: Institutional failures during this pandemic are more indicative of what our politics should be during nonpandemic situations, not the blunt-force ability of the government to shut down the global economy and force us all to stay home. The question isn&#8217;t whether government has power. Government is power. The question is how and when to apply that power. And what we&#8217;ve seen is that government sucks at everything, even the most basic things it is supposed to do well.
Democrats and the media like to pretend that government&#8217;s failures in this process aren&#8217;t endemic to government control. They like to blame such failures on Republicans, and on President Donald Trump specifically. But that&#8217;s just not the case. Human beings are fallible, stupid, gullible and self-interested. Human beings who have the power of government to back them are not less human for having that power. Their humanity just has direr consequences, which is why in nonemergency circumstances, checks and balances are absolutely necessary.
Take, for example, the early days of the pandemic. Democrats say Trump was slow to respond to the incipient threat. But so were Democrats. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently declared, &#8220;As Trump fiddles, people are dying,&#8221; but in late February, she was walking the streets of Chinatown, encouraging citizens to join her. New York Mayor Bill De Blasio has ripped Trump for his supposed downplaying of the virus, but De Blasio spent a month poo-pooing its threat. When confronted about that simple fact by CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper, De Blasio conveniently suggested that we should stop looking backward.
Why should we trust these people, exactly?
Or take the roots of America&#8217;s inability to provide the health care resources necessary to hospitals across the country. While state and local governments were frittering away billions of dollars on useless government spending, they did precisely nothing to prepare for exactly the sort of black swan events for which governments were presumably invented.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spent a month failing to produce useful tests and prevented physicians in Seattle from performing proper testing, even after President Trump issued a travel ban on China. For years in advance, members of the federal government of both parties had been warned about the need for ventilators and masks. No one produced or stockpiled them. The Food and Drug Administration&#8217;s red tape prevented the quick development of new measures to deal with the novel coronavirus.
Why should these people control our lives, when the threat of the red death isn&#8217;t hovering on our doorstep?
The government is a giant, lumbering idiot. Sometimes we need a giant, lumbering idiot. Almost always, we do not. And those who have used this pandemic response — one of the rare times we need a giant, lumbering idiot to intimidate people into preventing mass infection of one another, and to borrow the money necessary to redress the injuries thus incurred — as a rationale for a government-run &#8220;new politics&#8221; should have their heads examined.
More from Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro:<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/america-needs-a-formula-for-reopening-is-the-government-up-to-the-task">America Needs A Formula For Reopening. Is The Government Up To The Task?</a>

Nancy Pelosi

Stop Pretending Pandemic Politics Are The New Norm

Conservatism

COVID

Tonight brings the year 2019 to a close. Please stay safe, everyone. And for you truly crazy masochists who will be packed like sardines tonight in New York City&#8217;s Times Square — well, as they say in the South, &#8220;bless your heart.&#8221;
This past year was an eventful one, from a political perspective. From the Covington Catholic High School media imbroglio back in January through the unveiling of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller&#8217;s much-anticipated eponymous report in April through a slew of horrific mass shootings over the dog days of the summer through House Democrats&#8217; (<a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1207731722995023872">kind of</a>/<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/us/trump-feldman-impeach.html">sort of</a>) formal impeachment of President Donald Trump, 2019 pretty much saw it all.
As we enter 2020, I have two main substantive political wishes to complement my <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-here-are-three-reasons-why-i-plan-vote-josh-hammer">electoral wish</a> that the president be <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-yes-any-moral-stain-trump-now-mostly-sunk-josh-hammer">re-elected</a>. We need less socialism and we need more law and order.
It is possible that, perhaps above all else in the broader political universe, the year 2019 will be remembered by historians as the year in which unvarnished socialism became truly ascendant on the American Left. Embodied by the harrowing all-freshman congresswoman <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-aocs-squad-will-destroy-democrats-2020-josh-hammer">&#8220;Squad&#8221;</a> of economically illiterate would-be despots, socialism has likely not been this popular since the fall of the Berlin Wall itself. According to <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/257639/four-americans-embrace-form-socialism.aspx">Gallup</a>, an eye-opening four in ten Americans now support some form of socialism. Perhaps even more terrifyingly, MarketWatch <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/for-millennials-socialism-and-communism-are-hot-capitalism-is-not-2019-10-28">reports</a> that more than a third of Millennials approve of communism itself.
It is impossible to overstate how grossly irresponsible this flirtatiousness is with the economic <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/09/capitalisms-triumph-michael-tanner/">fool&#8217;s errand</a> of socialism and the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-bernie-sanders-entire-worldview-grotesquely-josh-hammer">outright evil political totalitarianism</a> to which socialism inevitably leads: Communism. No ideology in human history has ever <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/100-years-of-communismand-100-million-dead-1510011810">killed more human beings</a> than has communism. None. Alas, as it is said, those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. And as we enter 2020, a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/who-will-win-democratic-primary-latest-2020-josh-hammer">leading presidential candidate</a> for the Democratic Party, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Loonbag-VT), is a former Soviet Union-honeymooning, hammer and sickle flag-waving communist who sided with America&#8217;s existential geopolitical foes at the very height of the Cold War. This is utter moral idiocy. Hopefully 2020 sees a resurgence of traditional American skepticism of socialism.
A similarly immensely dispiriting trend, and one that unfortunately has more bipartisan support, is the rise of an all-encompassing culture of lawlessness. From weak-on-sentencing judges to the <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/accused-cop-killer-bragged-prior-releases-jail-offered-bail/">decline of bail</a> to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/09/us/first-step-act-release-alleged-murder/index.html">&#8220;First Step Act&#8221;</a>-style early prison release of violent felons to leftist/libertarian assaults on the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-in-defense-of-prosecutors">integrity of prosecutors</a> to the continued <a href="https://nypost.com/2017/05/07/fbi-confirms-the-deadly-costs-of-a-war-on-cops/">war on cops</a> to the misplaced calls for <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomangell/2019/09/19/beto-orourke-proposes-drug-war-reparations-funded-by-marijuana-taxes/">mass drug liberalization</a> to the neo-Confederate illegality of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-why-no-one-pointing-out-sanctuary-cities-josh-hammer">sanctuary jurisdictions</a>, 2019 was also marked by a general decline in pervasiveness of traditional American support for law and order.
The rule of law is an indispensable piece of the broader puzzle that is the American experiment. Without robust and diligent enforcement of the law, we are nothing. The bipartisan infatuation with mass jailbreak initiatives, the likes of which bamboozled Trump into signing the First Step Act federal <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/11/first-step-criminal-justice-reform-bill-whats-in-it/">legislative catastrophe</a> and which are locally responsible for recent high-profile criminals from <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/anti-semitic-terrorist-new-york-7-arrests-little-prison-time/">New York</a> to <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/texas-church-shooter-massive-rap-sheet-almost-no-prison-time/">Texas</a> being free to roam to streets and wreak havoc upon a vulnerable citizenry, simply must stop. The mentality of mollycoddling criminals and failing to stand for the victims of crime — most emphatically illegal alien crime, but certainly also crime committed from those American citizens who ought to be incarcerated — has long since moved from the realm of the merely pernicious to the realm of the full-on societally ruinous. Along with the<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1373"> inherent lawlessness</a> of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlevi">Supremacy Clause</a>-defying sanctuary cities, the totality of all these attacks on law enforcement and the rule of law is to inculcate a culture of sheer anarchy. Anarchy, much like socialism and communism, is complete moral idiocy. Hopefully 2020 sees a resurgence of traditional American support for law and order.
Surely that isn&#8217;t asking too much for our political environs in the year 2020. Is it?

2020 goals on notepad

HAMMER: A Political Wish For 2020: Less Socialism, More Law And Order

2020 Election

Capitalism

Jail

Law Enforcement

Leftism

Police

Prison

Socialism

The ushering in of the Trump presidency has caused many conservatives to pause and soberly reflect upon both the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-path-forward-conservative-movement-josh-hammer">future of American conservatism</a> and <a href="https://americanmind.org/post/our-constitutional-order-prioritizes-justice-not-procedure/">what it even means</a> to be a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-national-conservatism-conference-josh-hammer">conservative</a>, in the first instance. The intramural conservative dialogue reached a crescendo earlier this year when New York Post Op-Ed Editor Sohrab Ahmari declared his opposition to pluralistic/values-neutral &#8220;<a href="https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/05/against-david-french-ism">David French-ism</a>&#8221; and his preference, instead, to &#8220;fight the culture war with the aim of defeating the enemy and enjoying the spoils in the form of a public square re-ordered to the common good and ultimately the Highest Good.&#8221;
The recent hullabaloo on the Right over pornography regulation/banning, a dialogue that owes its elevation in no small part to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-at-first-things-porn-is-not-a-blessing-of-liberty">those of us</a> <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/knowles-the-porn-debate-isnt-really-about-porn">here</a> at <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-every-child-exposed-to-internet-pornography-is-an-abuse-victim-there-should-be-laws-protecting-them">The Daily Wire</a>, is a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-every-child-exposed-to-internet-pornography-is-an-abuse-victim-there-should-be-laws-protecting-them">proxy fight</a> that represents an apotheosis of the <a href="https://constudies.nd.edu/news-and-events/events/2019/09/13/trumpism-what-is-conservatism-in-the-age-of-trump/">ongoing</a> Ahmari/French dialectic. And that intellectual divide, which is multifaceted but might be simplified as pitting the centrality of classical liberal procedural norms (French) versus the centrality of a morally assertive vision of justice and the common good (Ahmari), is of course itself a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/david-french-sohrab-ahmari-and-the-battle-for-the-future-of-conservatism">proxy fight</a> for the future of conservatism.
On Friday, Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro weighed in with an incisive <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shapiro-the-problem-with-common-good-conservatism">essay</a>, &#8220;The Problem With &#8216;Common Good&#8217; Conservatism,&#8221; that bifurcates between &#8220;common good&#8221; conservatives and &#8220;rights-based&#8221; conservatives. Working within the framework of this dichotomy, Ben made a powerful argument in favor of the latter.
I&#8217;d like to offer a reply.
America&#8217;s negative rights-based framework of government takes its most recognizable form in the Declaration of Independence, wherein Thomas Jefferson famously <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript">asserted</a> (emphasis added) that &#8220;We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. &#8212; That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.&#8221; To be sure, the Declaration deserves much in the way of <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2809272">admiration</a> — for Abraham Lincoln, the greatest statesman in the history of the republic, <a href="https://online.hillsdale.edu/document.doc?id=279">it served</a> as the &#8220;apple of gold&#8221; for  which the Constitution merely served as the surrounding &#8220;picture of silver.&#8221; The Great Emancipator rhetorically invoked and substantively <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-salon-attacks-declaration-independence-josh-hammer">relied upon the Declaration</a> throughout his political career — culminating in his helping shepherd the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiii">13th Amendment</a> through Congress and his seeing through the Union to victory in the Civil War itself.
At the same time, Jefferson, who was undoubtedly influenced by Lockean theory and other Enlightenment ideals, held many deeply heterodox views that were in no small degree of tension with his contemporaries. The insatiable revolutionary who <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/105.html">thought</a> that &#8220;the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants&#8221; held an intensive disdain for Burkean-style epistemological humility and incrementalism. Jefferson disagreed with those, such as <a href="https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Adams%2C+John">John Adams</a>, who believed that America&#8217;s inheritance of the unique English common law system — a rich tradition of common law thinkers including William Blackstone, John Selden, and John Fortescue — was Americans&#8217; more tangible safeguard of their rights. Indeed, one need only take a cursory glance at the <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/england.asp">English Bill of Rights of 1689</a> to recognize just how strongly that charter came to influence our own Bill of Rights.
Alas, ever the Francophile and gallivanting off at the time in pre-revolutionary Paris, the author of the Declaration was actually not even present at the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. And suffice it to say that the men who actually crafted the Constitution held slightly different viewpoints as to the reasons why governments are instituted among free men.
In perhaps the most famous Federalist Paper of them all, <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed51.asp">The Federalist No. 51</a>, Jefferson&#8217;s fellow Virginian James Madison quite bluntly stated (emphasis added): &#8220;Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society.&#8221; Similarly, in <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed57.asp">The Federalist No. 57</a>, Madison announced the Constitution&#8217;s ultimate intention with unmistakable clarity — and, in so doing, he directly used the phrase that has elicited so much recent consternation (emphasis added): &#8220;The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society.&#8221; Similarly still, the <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/preamble">Constitution’s Preamble</a> enumerates the substantive purposes of &#8220;establish[ing] Justice&#8221; and &#8220;promot[ing] the general Welfare&#8221; before it asserts the goal of &#8220;secur[ing] the Blessings of Liberty.”
In other words, as I <a href="https://americanmind.org/post/our-constitutional-order-prioritizes-justice-not-procedure/">wrote</a> in September for the Claremont Institute&#8217;s American Mind online journal: &#8220;[T]he Founders did not put the procedural norms of English common law first. On the contrary, they built our regime directly on the foundation of the substantive political virtues: Justice, human flourishing, and the pursuit of the common good.&#8221;
The upshot is that America&#8217;s Founders did not view the governmental pursuit of justice, <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/">Aristotelian human flourishing</a>, and the common good as in any way whatsoever being in conflict with the Declaration and Constitution&#8217;s over-arching procedural framework of securing negative rights. The two concepts are directly related to one another. As scholars Ryan T. Anderson and Robert P. George <a href="https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-baby-and-the-bathwater">wrote</a> in the most recent issue of National Affairs, there are &#8220;what Aristotelians call eudaimonistic (or human flourishing) grounds for the limitation of certain governmental powers — and, not unrelatedly, the protection of certain civil liberties. The judgment is that these limitations tend, overall and in the long run, to best protect integral human well-being.&#8221;
It is the pursuit of justice, not the promotion and excessive expansion of liberty above all else, that most animated the Constitution&#8217;s Framers. For the Framers, expansions of liberty beyond a bare-bones natural law threshold could generally <a href="https://americanmind.org/features/why-the-new-right-rises/the-american-founding-was-not-libertarian-liberalism/">only be justified</a> if they were conducive to the pursuit of justice and the common good. These men were familiar with Aristotle’s <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.3.three.html">wisdom</a> that &#8220;a state exists for the sake of a good life, and not for the sake of life only&#8221; — and with Burke&#8217;s <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=2Tu3bScwKKAC&amp;pg=PA200&amp;lpg=PA200&amp;dq=men+are+qualified+for+civil+liberty,+in+exact+proportion+to+their+disposition+to+put+moral+chains+upon+their+own+appetites;+in+proportion+as+their+love+of+justice+is+above+their+rapacity.&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=xwTUBDS16s&amp;sig=ACfU3U3yIo4SPFCI5bOZVZ5ZPot2cxYPgA&amp;hl=en&amp;ppis=_c&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwitucuVhLvmAhXVLc0KHat9BoIQ6AEwBHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&amp;q=men%20are%20qualified%20for%20civil%20liberty%2C%20in%20exact%20proportion%20to%20their%20disposition%20to%20put%20moral%20chains%20upon%20their%20own%20appetites%3B%20in%20proportion%20as%20their%20love%20of%20justice%20is%20above%20their%20rapacity.&amp;f=false">admonition</a> (emphasis added) that &#8220;men are qualified for civil liberty, in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity.&#8221;
Similarly, the Framers loathed licentiousness and were extraordinarily careful not to recklessly conflate liberty, properly understood, with licentiousness. They were invariably terrified of the possibility of liberty sliding toward licentiousness. George Washington himself <a href="https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/circular-to-the-states/">warned</a> in 1783 that &#8220;arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of Liberty abused to licentiousness.&#8221; And almost eerily foreshadowing today&#8217;s staunch libertarians who oppose even the most anodyne attempts to <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/11/how-to-regulate-pornography">regulate pornography</a>, Founding Father Oliver Ellsworth <a href="https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-landholder-iii-connecticut-courant/">warned</a>: &#8220;It is not strange that the licentious should tell us a government of energy is inconsistent with liberty, for being inconsistent with their wishes and their vices, they would have us think it contrary to human happiness.&#8221;
But a more muscular and morally assertive form of government <a href="https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-baby-and-the-bathwater">can be consistent</a> with liberty, justice, and human flourishing alike. At the time of the American Founding, blasphemy and obscenity were generally jail-able offenses. And contra classical liberal/civil libertarian historical revisionism and the nostrums espoused in the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-conservative-network-claims-leftists-josh-hammer">erroneously decided</a> 1964 Supreme Court case of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the <a href="https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/natural-rights-and-the-first-amendment">First Amendment is perfectly consonant</a> with the robust common law of defamation.
Jeffersonian idiosyncrasies aside, the Founding Fathers were therefore not overly inspired by Lockean classical liberalism and high-minded Enlightenment theorizing. They were Anglo-Saxon Christians who inherited a unique cultural and common law tradition from their English forebears and sought to incrementally improve, in distinctly <a href="https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2016/04/edmund-burke-and-the-american-revolution-the-whole-story.html">Burkean fashion</a>, upon the political work of those forebears. In so doing, they were not per se averse to prudential statesmen wielding the levers of governmental power to nudge the citizenry toward the pursuit of justice and the common good — especially, of course, within the <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed45.asp">police power ambits</a> of the various states.
In short, my reading of history is that America&#8217;s Founding Fathers would have been baffled by the notion that the pursuit of justice or the common good is a governmental priority in any substantial state of tension with a governmental priority of securing negative rights. Our political leaders were expected to pursue &#8220;the common good of the society,&#8221; as Madison framed it in <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed57.asp">The Federalist No. 57</a>, while also being sure to protect and secure the preexisting negative rights of a free citizenry.
Knee-jerk promotion and expansion of liberty run amok toward libertinism, which, much to the chagrin of Objectivists and strict libertarians, has never been the sole and exclusive political priority of any serious political thinker, was utterly rejected by the Founders as a preeminent goal whose pursuit and attainment justified the establishment of governments among men. Instead, it was justice and human flourishing that most animated them — and the pursuit of justice and human flourishing quite naturally fit within the Declaration and Constitution&#8217;s over-arching framework of negative liberty. In the specific context of the pornography debate, there is, of course, no natural or First Amendment <a href="https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/10/10998/">constitutional &#8220;right&#8221;</a> to smut.
The Founding Fathers were thus both &#8220;common good&#8221; conservatives and &#8220;rights-based&#8221; conservatives. Which is what we should want our political leaders today to be, as well.

School Of Athens By Raphael

HAMMER: Government Exists To Establish Justice, Not Promote Liberty

Constitution

Federal Government

Nationalism

Over the past two weeks, a fascinating intellectual conflict has broken out on the Right over pornography, of all things. The debate was prompted by a letter from four Republican congresspeople to Attorney General William Barr, calling on Barr to “declare the prosecution of obscene pornography a criminal justice priority.”
This, on its face, should be unobjectionable. There is no fundamental First Amendment right to pornography — it is not merely an aspect of free speech, as the Supreme Court has explicitly ruled, and as Founding-era philosophy makes clear — and there are clear externalities to certain aspects of pornography. So, for example, it’s hard to imagine why any conservative, even a conservative with libertarian leanings, would oppose banning the dissemination of pornography to minors, or the ability of local communities to bar the posting of pornographic images in public spaces, or a legal crackdown on sex trafficking (I’m not aware of many libertarians, even socially liberal libertarians, who oppose any of these things).
But the issue of pornography quickly morphed into a more general argument about the role of government in American life, the right to do wrong, and the differences between federal and local government. Those arguments have purchase far beyond the rather contained area of pornography — an area where, again, you could easily make the case for regulation of aspects of pornography without violating libertarian and small government precepts, and without redefining the nature of American government. The arguments articulated for generalized pornography regulation, however, have consequences for issues as far-ranging as free speech and economic regulation.
But here’s how the debate has broken down so far.
What Is Government Here To Do?
The conflict over pornography has highlighted a split between so-called “common good” conservatives and “rights-based” conservatives.
“Rights-based” conservatives articulate a vision of government that mirrors the language of the Declaration of Independence. According to the Founding vision, we have certain rights that pre-exist government. Those rights are negative rights — rights we have against all other human beings, including the right to speak and think freely, the right to engage in free market activity, and the right to defend our lives. Government was instituted, in Founding theory, in order to protect those rights; violation of those rights by government made the government fundamentally illegitimate.
“Common good” conservatives articulate a vision of government steeped in pre-Enlightenment tradition. In this view, government is there to promote virtue, justice, and the common good. Government plays the role of teacher. Terry Schilling, executive director of the American Principles Project, <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/11/how-to-regulate-pornography">argued</a> recently in First Things that “a new conservatism is being born — one less interested in managing our nation’s decline than in using political power to promote virtue, public morality, and the common good. &#8230; Conservatives need to overcome their fear of governing the nation that elected them.”
For rights-based conservatives, such language is anathema. Who defines the “common good?” What makes “common good” conservatives believe that in maximizing the power of government to be “teacher,” they will be the ones who wield that power, especially given the fact that the Left has both grown and wielded such governmental power for decades? By throwing rights out the window and instead focusing on the “common good,” the only question is who controls the government gun. “Rights-based” conservatives promote the idea that duty is to be provided by culture, and liberty is to be protected by government.
For “common good” conservatives, rights-based conservatism neglects the fact that power can be used to shape cultural mores. “Common good” conservatives believe that focus on rights rather than protection of tradition, including protection via government, leads to the degradation of rights into wrongs, and leads to the slide from liberty into libertinism. “Common good” conservatives promote the idea that duty is to be inculcated by government, even if that means the massive growth of government. “Common good” conservatives, in other words, do not harbor the grave mistrust of government the Founding Fathers did — or the grave mistrust of government they should, given that the Left has typically wielded government far more effectively, and with far more damaging effects, than the cultural Right.
The consequences of this difference are grave for a variety of issues. Take, for example, economics. It is no surprise that “rights-based” conservatives are increasingly wary of “common good” conservatives on free markets; “common good” conservatives have taken to using language more typical of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, suggesting that we must “make markets work for the American people” and “curb the excesses of the free market.” This isn’t the language of social fabric-building, but economic compulsion. “Common good” conservatives respond that free markets are actually immoral in many cases — many such conservatives have claimed that the government must prevent companies from shutting down production in certain areas of America in order to stop job loss, and thus social fabric loss, in those areas. This amounts to government compulsion of high order, and the brutalization of the economic freedom agenda that has historically characterized American conservatism.
The same holds true for freedom of speech. “Common good” conservatives have made “drag queen story hour” their cause celebre. These events are indeed morally perverse, and involve the inevitable sexualization of children. The question is whether libraries can be forced not to allow such events without allegations of child abuse. If the answer is yes, the question becomes why libraries can’t ban Bible events — and just as importantly, which is more likely in today&#8217;s culture, banning drag queen story hour or banning Bible events? The last several decades have shown us the answer to that question. Free speech can be abused. But at least free speech provides a guarantee of free speech.
What About Consent Of The Governed?
The “rights-based” conservatives and “common good” conservatives have significant disagreements about what sort of government control human beings consent to when they live in a society. “Rights-based” conservatives say that you consent only to the government defending your rights; you do not consent to a government cramming down its vision of virtue in contravention of your rights. Furthermore, your representation is required in order for government to act in all areas.
Neither aristocratic nor majority rule, in this view, is an ultimate good: Protection of rights is the ultimate good when it comes to government. Majorities are necessary in non-rights-based areas; no majority can override rights. This means that even when fundamental rights are not in question, a government acting without the consent of the governed can still threaten a separate fundamental right to representation.
This is why the Founders relied so heavily on the Montesquieu-backed notion of subsidiarity. Localities are more ideologically homogenous; they are also local, which means that if you don’t like their rules and regulations, you can leave. Consent is far more likely and government involvement more justifiable in areas in which fundamental rights are not infringed upon. Federal governments ought to be granted very narrow powers, and checks and balances ought to narrow those powers even further: There is no place to run if the feds point their gun at you.
What about “common good” conservatives, and the role of republicanism? “Common good” conservatives say you consent to be part of a society governed by historic law and tradition, and that your rights are defined only by that law and tradition. This leads to a far murkier relationship between individuals and the government. Can a majority redefine fundamental rights, since majorities routinely redefine tradition? It’s unclear. Is tradition formalized in any way, such that a majority cannot infringe upon it? It’s unclear. This leads to a sort of goalpost-shifting in governance philosophy in “common good” conservatism: “Whatever is necessary” becomes the standard. It’s actually rather easy to slide from the traditionalism of Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk into the Leviathan of Thomas Hobbes under this sort of logic. That doesn’t mean that “common good” conservatives have to go along with such a slide. But their philosophy certainly doesn’t forestall it. If you’re citing Plato’s definition of good government, you shouldn’t be surprised to find yourself gradually drifting toward Plato’s Republic.
“Power is as power does” views of government are inherently immoral. A government big enough and unanswerable enough to do your bidding is also big enough and unanswerable enough to destroy you. When the government completely loses touch with those it represents, it becomes a tyranny — even if it’s a tyranny promoting policies you like or find moral. “Consent of the governed” is indeed a moral principle, not just a pragmatic stance in favor of republicanism.
Is Culture Upstream Of Politics? 
The question of the role of government, and the role of consent, quickly slides into a question about culture versus politics. “Rights-based” conservatives have made the case that culture is upstream of politics — that we must change the culture to change our politics. “Common good” conservatives make the case that politics is part of culture, and that politics can change culture. “Common good” conservatives aren’t wrong here — but their point is far less powerful than they believe. Terry Schilling writes, “Politics is a key part of culture, and often drives it. The law can serve as a teacher and a guide to encourage positive behaviors and discourage negative ones.” But the law cannot provide a bulwark against social change. Law can be used to deepen already-extant social movements; it cannot defeat burgeoning social movements. The history of the last century should have taught us at least that much. Marriage laws didn’t defeat the same-sex marriage movement; by the same token, liberalized abortion laws haven’t defeated the pro-life movement.
This means that the heavy work to be done must be done in the cultural sphere. But because conservatives have watched their chief cultural institution — church — wane in influence, and have provided no alternative methods of cultural purchase, abandoning Hollywood and the media in large measure, they are left with government as their only tool. This means that conservatives — who, it turns out, are quite good at elections — have become a hammer in search of a nail. The problem is that the nail, cultural change, isn’t actually a nail, it’s a thimble of nitroglycerin — and hitting it with a hammer will lead to an explosion. You can’t solve cultural change with politics.
But you can solve politics with cultural change. And this is where conservatives ought to be putting their focus: On minimizing the size of government, growth of which threatens both liberty and conservative culture, while simultaneously changing the cultural milieu through cultural engagement.
The Founders, at least with regard to the federal government, sought a society of Burke-ians ruled by a government of Mill-ians. Danger lies in a libertarian society of self-described Mill-ians who don’t understand the concept of social fabric, and make light of it; danger conversely lies in a society of self-described Burke-ians who don’t understand the concept of “rights-based” government. The happy medium was a moral and religious people with a limited government devoted to the protection of rights. The Founders weren’t wrong. Everyone else is.

Declaration of Independence

SHAPIRO: The Problem With ‘Common Good’ Conservatism

Economy

First Amendment

Supreme Court

Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer has the following piece today at <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/12/porn-is-not-a-blessing-of-liberty">First Things</a>, the conservative journal of religious and political thought. 
Last week, four Republican congressmen <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/exclusive-u-s-representatives-call-on-barr-to-prosecute-obscene-pornography/">sent</a> a <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/12.6.2019-Obscenity-Letter-to-AG-Barr.pdf">missive</a> to U.S. Attorney General William Barr. This one-page letter beseeched Barr to actually enforce extant obscenity law as it applies to legally relevant hardcore pornography. It would be prudent for Barr to “declare the prosecution of obscene pornography a criminal justice priority,” the congressmen argued. Accordingly, Barr ought to urge federal prosecutors to “bring prosecutions against the major producers and distributors of such material.”
My colleague at The Daily Wire, Matt Walsh, wrote a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-a-group-of-republicans-want-the-government-to-start-fighting-hardcore-pornography-theyre-right-heres-why">column</a> arguing for regulating or banning pornography. “At some point conservatives decided that government should not be used to advance the common good,” my coworker <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1203797995805904900">tweeted</a>. “And at that point conservatism became limp, shallow, and ineffectual.”
For these grievous sins of calling for government to play a greater role in regulating a noxious industry complicit in human trafficking, retarding children’s sexual development, and destroying marriages, the libertarian mafia on Twitter went haywire. “If you don’t like porn, don’t watch it,” <a href="https://twitter.com/thecjpearson/status/1203424973630722049">tweeted</a> high school activist CJ Pearson. “Social conservatives need to realize that we can handle pornography and other social ills without turning America into a Christian version of Saudi Arabia,” <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-misguided-war-on-pornography-and-the-return-of-right-wing-puritanism">warned</a> Casey Given. “We must never let lazy moralizing force us to surrender our freedom to the government.” Only libertarians understand “how the Founders wanted our government to run,” the Libertarian party’s official Twitter account <a href="https://twitter.com/LPNational/status/1203802510693191683">hectored</a> yours truly.
What <a href="https://americanmind.org/features/why-the-new-right-rises/the-american-founding-was-not-libertarian-liberalism/">utter</a> <a href="https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/natural-rights-and-the-first-amendment">tripe</a>.
Once upon a time, opposition to the spread of pornography was a unifying political principle for self-described conservatives. Alas, it seems that in our increasingly liberalized conservative movement, such opposition is no longer unifying.
For those who erroneously conflate liberty with libertinism, it is easy to focus on the <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/preamble">Preamble’s</a> avowed dedication to “secure the Blessings of Liberty” to the exclusion of its equally clear vows to <a href="https://americanmind.org/post/our-constitutional-order-prioritizes-justice-not-procedure/">“establish Justice”</a> and “promote the general Welfare.” The result is that many on the so-called “right” now issue apologia for an industry whose lofty denizens were recently <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdca/pr/girlsdoporn-owners-and-employees-charged-sex-trafficking-conspiracy">charged</a> by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California with “forc[ing women] to perform certain sexual acts they had declined to do, or they would not be paid or allowed to leave.” It is embarrassing just how far, in 2019, are the depths to which some wings of the conservative movement have plunged.
Knee-jerk classical liberal <a href="https://twitter.com/thecjpearson/status/1203424973630722049">urging</a> to merely “[<a href="https://twitter.com/thecjpearson/status/1203424973630722049">l]et parents do their job</a>” is sophomoric in the context of our pornography <a href="https://apnews.com/9c91cfd28a7b461b87948f36117a432e">public health crisis</a>. Rote sloganeering about rebuilding the culture from the ground up is an inadequate remedy for a systemic national emergency. The sheer ubiquity of and ease of access to pornography renders hollow meager pleas for civil society-centric solutions. Libertarians and classical liberals fail to recognize that using political power in the pursuit of national solidarity and wholesomeness can be both just and necessary.
<a href="https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/12/porn-is-not-a-blessing-of-liberty">Read the rest here</a>.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-a-group-of-republicans-want-the-government-to-start-fighting-hardcore-pornography-theyre-right-heres-why">A Group Of Republicans Want The Government To Start Fighting Hardcore Pornography. They&#8217;re Right. Here&#8217;s Why.</a>

Close-Up Of Porn Text On Computer Monitor

Hammer At ‘First Things’: Porn Is Not A Blessing Of Liberty

Internet

Liberalism

Religion

On Wednesday, Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, who is a constitutional attorney by training, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvpfIAdvldI">joined</a> &#8220;Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler&#8221; on One America News Network to discuss freshman <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-aocs-squad-will-destroy-democrats-2020-josh-hammer">&#8220;Squad&#8221;</a> member Rep. Ayanna Pressley&#8217;s (D-MA) harrowing new &#8220;criminal justice reform&#8221; bill. As <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pressley-transgender-inmates-prison">reported</a> by Fox News, Pressley&#8217;s bill would &#8220;allow &#8216;transgender individuals to be housed in a facility that conforms with their gender identity&#8217; &#8230; [and] would also give incarcerated people the right to vote, repeal federal laws that criminalize illegal immigration, require inmates who are working to be paid no less than federal minimum wage, and increase support for inmates transitioning back into society.&#8221;
Hammer, who identifies as a traditional <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-dont-let-kim-kardashian-fool-you-america-josh-hammer">law-and-order</a> conservative with little in the way of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-in-defense-of-prosecutors">sympathy for criminals</a>, joined Wheeler to discusss Pressley&#8217;s far-reaching bill.
Wheeler began by asking Hammer whom, exactly, Pressley claims to represent when she says she wants to make our criminal justice system safer and more humane. Hammer responded by lamenting how there oftentimes seems to be strong bipartisan agreement to model criminal justice policy away from the victims of crime and toward the criminals themselves:
<blockquote>There is a bipartisan, across-the-political spectrum problem in our criminal justice political and legal discourse. We are always talking about that the victims of crime are the criminals — and not the victims. On the left, it speaks for itself — that&#8217;s what&#8217;s going on here [with Pressley]. But on the Right, there&#8217;s a lot of libertarian, &#8220;criminal justice reform,&#8221; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-dont-let-kim-kardashian-fool-you-america-josh-hammer">Kim Kardashian</a>-flirting about letting violent people out of prison.
You know, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) in 2016 was not very popular when he said this, but he was absolutely correct: We actually have an <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/tom-cotton-under-incarceration-223371">under-incarceration problem</a> in this country. We have a lot of people in prison, but you know what? We&#8217;re also a very violent society. Nineteen percent of property crimes in America, we actually find the perp. Forty-seven percent of violent crimes — less than half of violent crimes in America — law enforcement can identify the perp. So we actually really need to be locking up more people and not letting people out, but you know — right here. Ayanna Pressley, she&#8217;s the Ringo Starr of the &#8220;Squad,&#8221; I mean, she&#8217;s auditioning for the John Lennon Paul McCartney role, I guess.</blockquote>
Wheeler responded by pointing out the possibility that Pressley&#8217;s plan does not attempt to find a happy median in criminal justice policy; rather, &#8220;she just straight-up wants to release anybody who is in prison for any reason.&#8221; Hammer replied by pointing out how there has been a recent rise in violent crime, thus paring back the gains made during the Reagan and Clinton tough-on-crime decades:
<blockquote>[I]t&#8217;s just over the past, really two to three, maybe four, years that the FBI crime statistics are starting to show an increase again [in violent crime]. This is pretty harrowing. I mean, you know what, a lot of these people on the libertarian-leaning Right were talking about &#8220;criminal justice reform&#8221; three, four, or five years ago. Maybe it made a lot more sense then; the statistics today just tell a very different story.</blockquote>
WATCH:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Dems Want To Do Away With Life Sentences" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AvpfIAdvldI?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-dont-let-kim-kardashian-fool-you-america-josh-hammer">Don&#8217;t Let Kim Kardashian Fool You. America Has An UNDER-Incarceration Problem.</a>

Hammer OANN screen grab 11.20.19

WATCH: Hammer on ‘Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler’: Far-Left Democrats Love Criminals

Ayanna Pressley

Transgender

The &#8220;<a href="https://nationalconservatism.org">National Conservatism Conference</a>,&#8221; which I attended last week after having <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48154/hammer-national-conservatism-conference-2019s-most-josh-hammer">previously billed it</a> as &#8220;2019&#8217;s most important intellectual gathering,&#8221; came to a close last Tuesday. Organized by the <a href="https://burke.foundation/">Edmund Burke Foundation</a>, a new group <a href="https://burke.foundation/people/">led</a> by Yoram Hazony and David Brog, the Conference featured an <a href="https://nationalconservatism.org/conference-schedule/">ambitious agenda</a> that sought to build off Hazony&#8217;s <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?459062-1/isi-conservative-book-year-award">award-winning</a> 2018 <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Virtue-Nationalism-Yoram-Hazony/dp/1541645375">tome</a> on nationalism and promulgate a forward-looking intellectual paradigm and substantive agenda for a rejuvenated, nationalist-inspired Right. The choice of the great British statesman Burke as the eponymous symbol of the Conference&#8217;s organizing Foundation was intentional: The <a href="https://www.lawliberty.org/2019/07/19/burke-and-the-nation/">conservatism advanced here</a> was of a distinctly traditionalist hue that put much of the post-1950s right-of-center American political consensus squarely in its crosshair.
The Conference received no shortage of media attention — representing the <a href="https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/national-conservatisms-time-has-come/">full</a> <a href="https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2019/07/55245/">gamut</a> of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/arts/trump-nationalism-tucker-carlson.html">political</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/7/17/20696543/national-conservatism-conference-2019-trump">viewpoint</a>. And pushback from all the traditional targets of Hazony&#8217;s philosophical ire — be they leftists, libertarians, neoliberals, or neoconservatives — was certainly expected.
But by any measure, the Conference was markedly successful. And it is important to understand why.
The modern American conservative &#8220;three-legged stool&#8221; consensus of fiscal, social, and national security conservatism, forged out of the depths of Cold War necessity and expounded upon at the time by the likes of Russell Kirk and William F. Buckley Jr., frayed during the 2016 Republican Party presidential primary. While it was always debatable whether Frank Meyer&#8217;s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusionism">&#8220;Fusionist&#8221;</a> paradigm of laissez-faire economics and traditionalist social mores was promulgated due more to intellectually compelling or to merely electorally convenient purposes, the undebatable reality is that the most authentically Fusionist candidate in 2016 — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) — was ultimately defeated by the far more populist Donald J. Trump.
The extent to which Trump&#8217;s primary victory over Cruz represented a watershed substantive moment for American conservatism, as compared with the extent to which it merely represented a triumph of brute force of personality and a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/upshot/measuring-donald-trumps-mammoth-advantage-in-free-media.html">surfeit of free media</a>, remains an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42234/hammer-path-forward-conservative-movement-josh-hammer">ongoing source of debate</a>. But a much-ballyhooed <a href="https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publication/political-divisions-in-2016-and-beyond">election postmortem</a> put forth in 2017 by <a href="https://www.voterstudygroup.org/participants/lee-drutman">Lee Drutman</a> and the <a href="https://www.voterstudygroup.org/about">Voter Study Group</a> provides some clues.
Drutman&#8217;s study attempted to analyze the specific substantive and attitudinal issues that divide voters for the two parties, and he charted out all data accumulated from the Voter Study Group&#8217;s underlying Views of the Electorate Research Survey into a convenient <a href="https://www.voterstudygroup.org/assets/i/uploads/reports/Graphs-Charts/1101/figure2_drutman_e4aabc39aab12644609701bbacdff252.png">scatterplot</a>. The respondents&#8217; data agglomerated in the scatterplot can be separated into four quadrants, in a basic two-axis analysis:
<blockquote>We can break the electorate into four types, based on their position in the four quadrants of <a href="http://www.voterstudygroup.org/assets/i/uploads/reports/Graphs-Charts/1101/figure2_drutman_e4aabc39aab12644609701bbacdff252.png">Figure 2</a>:
Liberal (44.6 percent): Lower left, liberal on both economic and identity issues 
Populist (28.9 percent): Upper left, liberal on economic issues, conservative on identity issues 
Conservative (22.7 percent): Upper right, conservative on both economic and identity issues 
Libertarian (3.8 percent): Lower right, conservative on economics, liberal on identity issues</blockquote>
Drutman&#8217;s study thus attempts to demonstrate that a whopping 73.5% of voters hold &#8220;liberal&#8221; views on economic issues, whereas only 26.5% are &#8220;conservative&#8221; on those same issues. In Drutman&#8217;s model, Hillary Clinton won overwhelmingly among &#8220;liberal&#8221; voters, Donald Trump won decisively among both &#8220;populist&#8221; and &#8220;conservative&#8221; voters, and the tiny minority of &#8220;libertarian&#8221; voters were almost perfectly split among Trump, Clinton, and &#8220;other.&#8221;
Drutman&#8217;s study ought to be an earth-shattering wake-up call for institutional movement conservatism — what some of the more populist/<a href="https://freebeacon.com/columns/making-sense-of-the-new-american-right/">paleoconservative</a> elements of the broader coalition have long derided as &#8220;<a href="https://www.theamericanconservative.com/2009/07/23/conservative-inc/">Conservatism, Inc.</a>&#8221; It ought to finally put to rest the notion, advanced in the not-so-distant past in the form of the Republican National Committee&#8217;s post-2012 election &#8220;<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/what-you-need-to-read-in-the-rnc-election-autopsy-report/274112/">autopsy</a>,&#8221; that moderating on social/cultural issues provides the best political/electoral path forward for the GOP — which is, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, America&#8217;s sole viable political organ representing something approximating conservatism.
Rather, it is libertarianism and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47839/hammer-limited-defense-sohrab-ahmaris-assault-josh-hammer">classical liberalism</a> — an innate hostility to government interventionism in any and all areas of life — that lack a core base of popular political support and electoral relevance. Though celebrated in many college dorm rooms and advocated by venerable right-of-center institutions such as The Wall Street Journal&#8217;s editorial page, it is increasingly clear that a morally ecumenical &#8220;live and let live&#8221; mentality that takes the form of a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47964/hammer-conservatives-must-make-their-arguments-josh-hammer">reflexively hands-off, value-neutral politics is unsuited</a> to America&#8217;s present social crisis of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Alienated-America-Places-Thrive-Collapse/dp/0062797107">despondency</a>, fractured communities, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49616/hammer-why-no-one-discussing-drug-trafficking-josh-hammer">drug overdose epidemics</a>, and decreasing church attendance.
Enter the National Conservatism Conference. In his opening remarks, Hazony — who has spent decades subscribing to the late Irving Kristol&#8217;s quip that &#8220;the three pillars of modern conservatism are religion, nationalism, and economic growth&#8221; — declared national conservatism&#8217;s &#8220;independence&#8221; from libertarianism, classical liberalism, neoliberalism, globalism, and neoconservatism. Yet Conference co-organizer Brog, in clarifying that the new national conservatism movement operates within the broader confines of the <a href="https://www.lawliberty.org/2019/07/19/burke-and-the-nation/">broader Anglo-American liberal tradition</a>, solemnly renounced <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Why-Liberalism-Failed-Politics-Culture/dp/0300223447">illiberalism</a> in his opening remarks.
So what exactly is this ascendant &#8220;national conservatism&#8221;? Numerous conference speakers and attendees with whom I spoke seemed to be grappling with this very question. One prominent conference speaker confided to me that &#8220;the policy piece of this&#8221; broader puzzle &#8220;will take a lot of time to flesh out.&#8221; And regarding Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), the wunderkind conservative/populist senator who was the only elected official to speak at the Conference and who I have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47899/hammer-senator-josh-hawley-most-important-freshman-josh-hammer">previously lauded</a> as the most important freshman conservative since Ted Cruz, National Review Editor Rich Lowry <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/07/22/the-left-smears-a-senator-for-calling-out-elite-ideology/">writes</a> that &#8220;filling out a plausible policy agenda to give expression to Hawley’s [anti-elitist] worldview is very much a work in progress.&#8221;
But as far as beginning to shift the intellectual paradigm as to what a forward-looking conservative agenda looks like, the Conference was an immensely important opening salvo. The Conference, held at the tony Ritz-Carlton in Washington, D.C., featured a palpable sense of optimism resonating all throughout. Conservatives of a Burkean stripe tend to be natural pessimists, but the Conference seemed to buzz with cheeriness — both about the future of the conservative movement and, ultimately, about the American republic. The sense of attendees, many of whom were staunch supporters of President Trump, the thunderous nationalism that was 2016&#8217;s Brexit vote, and nationalist foreign leaders such as Viktor Orbán, was that the conservatism advanced at this Conference was the vanguard of a conservatism that can ultimately win.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">If I had one takeaway from the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NationalConservatismConference?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NationalConservatismConference</a>, it would be this: The vibe is very optimistic. Optimistic, that is, about the future of both conservatism and the future of the republic.
In short, the conservatism articulated here is a conservatism that can win.
— Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1150893420770148352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 15, 2019</a></blockquote>
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National conservatism means a politics concretely focused on the mutually interdependent bonds of human loyalty upon which a society ultimately depends — as opposed to the atomization espoused by hyper-individualistic doctrinaire libertarianism. National conservatism means a politics focused on national solidarity and reinforcing the shared customs, traits, norms, and mores that establish America not merely as an idea but also as a tangible people — as opposed to the <a href="https://americanmind.org/essays/defend-america-defeat-multiculturalism/">existential scourge of divisive multiculturalism</a>. National conservatism means viewing America as a nation-state with an economy — as opposed to viewing America as but one border-less abstraction within a globalized economy. National conservatism means the articulation and advancement of all domestic and foreign policy alike through the lens of national self-interest — as opposed to policy advancement based on transnational considerations or the needs of foreigners. National conservatism means a hardened immigration system that <a href="https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/was-amy-wax-speech-racist-immigration/">prioritizes cultural assimilation above all else</a> — as opposed to a laxer immigration system that prioritizes the cheap labor needs of the Fortune 500. National conservatism means a foreign affairs approach premised on <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45699/hammer-america-needs-re-think-its-global-alliances-josh-hammer">narrow alliances with like-minded, self-sufficient nations</a> who share America&#8217;s core national security concerns — as opposed to a foreign affairs approach premised on a tendentiously moralistic, sovereignty-undermining transnational agenda. National conservatism means a world order of sovereign nation-states — as opposed to the soft tyranny of the unelectable transnational bureaucrats in Turtle Bay and Brussels. National conservatism means a domestic affairs approach that, while undoubtedly market-oriented, resists the vestigial temptation to shirk the levers of political power as a means to advance the conservative cause in the realms of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49361/hammer-josh-hawleys-bill-taking-big-tech-josh-hammer">Big Tech</a>, higher education, and other private spheres that increasingly pose just as dire a threat to our way of life as does over-zealous Big Government itself. National conservatism means a conservatism that works for the American heartland and for all rungs of the economic ladder — as opposed to a purist anti-regulation agenda that merely speaks for the economic interests of the bi-coastal elite.
Sen. Hawley of Missouri, the only elected official to speak at the Conference, is perhaps positioned as the political figure most closely attuned to this political moment. Hawley is likely too infatuated with trust-busting President Theodore Roosevelt and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47141/hammer-blown-opportunity-justice-kavanaugh-quickly-josh-hammer">antitrust law</a> for my own taste, but he is a brilliant young statesman whose biography, <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/june-web-only/age-of-pelagius-joshua-hawley.html">substantive beliefs</a>, and approach to our national politics alike all position him perfectly to lead ascendant national conservatism on the home front. His <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49681/watch-josh-hawley-defends-americas-heartland-molly-prince">rousing Conference speech</a>, which was the final of four keynote presentations, is well worth watching in full:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe loading="lazy" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DkIapXCfPGE" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div>
Hawley&#8217;s domestic platform, if coupled with <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43151/hammer-ted-cruzs-non-interventionist-hawk-foreign-josh-hammer">Cruz&#8217;s signature &#8220;non-interventionist hawk&#8221; foreign policy approach</a>, would be one embodiment of the future of the conservative movement in America. As I <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42234/hammer-path-forward-conservative-movement-josh-hammer">wrote</a> in January:
<blockquote>If conservatives can channel their &#8220;virtuous&#8221; fealty to nationalism and promote policies that galvanize a moral spark for a disaggregated citizenry that begin to heal the wounds of our bitterly fractious politics, that is one possible distillation of the future of the conservative movement. So long as we do so without <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1083555344989573120">throwing the free enterprise baby out with the surrounding bathwater</a>.</blockquote>
Organizers, speakers, and attendees alike left the Conference with no shortage of questions. Indeed, there are many, many unanswered questions as to the precise form that this upstart national conservative movement will take as applied to any number of issues. But conservatism is unquestionably healthier now than it was before the Conference began — we are moving the ball in the right direction. A paradigm shift has begun.

HAMMER: The ‘National Conservatism Conference’ Represented The Future Of Conservatism. Here’s Why.

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