Jill Stein: The Rothbardian Candidate

In case you haven't noticed, my political beliefs are kind of all over the fucking map. Most of them seem to fall under the generally anti-statist left-wing umbrella of libertarian socialism but it's a pretty big umbrella. When it comes to philosophy, I turn to Young Marx. However, when it comes to political solutions, more often than not, I turn to Karl's mortal enemy, Mikhail Bakunin. When it comes to big business, I'm a hardcore syndicalist. When it comes to small business, on the other hand, I'm much more of a mutualist. When it comes to big government, I'm definitely a social anarchist. Then again, when it comes to small government, I generally air closer to the side of council communism. But my political influences aren't even relegated solely to the radical left. Over my years of reclusive research, I've pulled inspiration from some pretty odd places, even some elements often considered to be on the radical right.

Sounds scary, right? Well, let me explain. I've always been fascinated by extremes and since middle-school I've considered myself to be a part of the radical left. This dichotomy naturally led me to seek to understand my perceived enemies on the other side. What I found, quite frankly, shocked me. While there certainly existed more than a fair share of malignant fuck-heads, Your Nazi's, your racists, your elitist charlatans and your Christian wack-jobs, there was also a fair share of common ground on the fringes as well. Try as I might, I couldn't help but draw comparisons between thinkers like Oswald Spengler and Karl Marx or tragic heroes like Che Guevara and Yukio Mishima. But my favorite new frenemy was probably right-libertarian iconoclast, Murray Rothbard. Who, in many ways, changed the way I looked at politics completely.

Rothbard was a character after my own heart. An ideological renegade who took great pride in shaking the system and spitting in the eye of doctrinaire orthodoxy in all its many forms. Getting his start as the new voice of the Old Right, Rothbard first broke bad when his beloved Grand Old Party ditched the relatively peaceful isolationism of Taft for the hyper-statist Cold War hawkishness of the Rockefeller's. Rothbard came to the harsh conclusion that the state itself was the problem and that the whole stale left-right paradigm only served to legitimize it. While the rest of his former comrades toasted Tricky-Dick and Victory With Honor, Rothbard was busy breaking bread with their dope-smoking, long-haired enemies in the antiwar movement. Along with his fellow Republican renegade, Karl Hess, Murray sought to build bridges between the disaffected anti-interventionists of the Old Right and the young anti-imperialists of the New Left. Defending the Black Panthers, meeting with members of the Students for a Democratic Society and eulogizing the late Che Guevara after his execution at the hands of the CIA, Rothbard devoted himself entirely to upending every conservative convention that he could get his fucking hands on. I didn't agree with the man on everything, not by a long-shot. But few American wonks remained as consistently antiwar over the decades as Murray Rothbard. During no time was that principled stance more true than during election season and it's Rotbard's basic philosophy on responsible antiwar voting that has had the most lasting impact on my own world view.

The Rothbardian philosophy on voting is basically a sane, moral version of the lesser-evil principle. The notion goes that a true pacifist should vote for the least interventionist candidate available, regardless of their over-all political ideology, because there is no problem more severe than the need for world peace, especially in the belly of the beast of history's deadliest empire. Rothbard believed that the source of all the woes of the state could be traced back to a nations foreign policy. I personally believe in that old Marxist theory that imperialism is the highest and deadliest incarnation of capitalism. Either way, our goal remains the same, Bring peace to the White House by any means necessary, whether that means electing a libertarian or a socialist.

The Rothbardian choice for president has never been easier than it is this year because sadly there is only one anti-interventionist candidate running and that candidate is the Green Party's Jill Stein. As Donald Trump and Killary duke it out over who can be a more repulsive tyrant, even the so-called Libertarian alternative, Gary Johnson, is singing the praises of drone strikes and foreign bases. Regardless of how you feel about Jill Stein's other policies, it is undeniable that she is not only the most anti-interventionist candidate running, she is the ONLY anti-interventionist candidate running. She stands alone in her call for a cut of at least 50% in military spending and shuttering every last American base on foreign soil from Thule to Riyadh. Both Killary and Trump call for drastic increases in military spending and global intervention and Gary Johnson's latest flip-flop has him cutting a measly 20% while continuing support for NATO. The choice is clear. Regardless of whether you consider yourself to be right or left, whether your a Marxist, a libertarian, an anarchist, a conservative or any mix of the above, their remains only one choice for peace. Jill Stein is 2016's Rothbardian candidate and this crazy, mixed-up, radical officially endorses her.


Come together, dearest motherfuckers, right now, over Jill.



Peace, Love, Empathy and Anarchy- CH