Mondays With Murray: Rothbard On The Two Party Charade

Welcome once again to another edition of "Mondays with Murray"! This week we go back to the liberty well that is the footage of Murray Rothbard's speech at the 1989 Michigan Libertarian Party Convention.  This speech and the subsequent question and answer session has proven to be a valuable resource for nuggets of libertarian wisdom from "Mr. Libertarian". I found this particular clip interesting as it sums up my feelings on how libertarians need to shift the focus away from the currently mainstream "Democrat vs. Republican" or "left vs. right" mentality.  Instead, we must frame the conversation as, as Rothbard puts it, the "rulers" vs. the "ruled". Those that understand free markets, Austrian economics, and the ideas of liberty are generally well educated on these ideas and are able to make effective arguments.  The problem is that it isn't enough to simply be able to make a good argument for something.  One must first make others care and understand why there is even an argument to be had in the first place.It is one thing to have an intellectual debate about how government is inefficient, irrational and unable to make proper economic decisions due to the lack of a free market competitive pricing system.  It's important to expose the fact that this system is not just run by well intentioned people who mistakenly fell into running an inefficient, yet benign government.  Many of the people that run the various power centers of government make quite a decent living off of the looting of the citizenry, and many are in fact not well intentioned.  Rothbard argues that pointing this out rightly gets people "hot under the collar" when they realize that not only is a certain government policy bad in the sense that it's inefficient and illogical, but that it's a straight up rip off!As I've learned to adapt and develop my arguments over the years, I've come to understand that it's important to wield the double barrel shotgun of both a sound intellectual argument, as well as a consistent moral argument.  We will slowly see others begin to listen closer to our intellectual arguments when they break out of the left-right paradigm, and instead learn to view the real battle as the "rulers" vs. the "ruled".Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon![amazon_image id="0814775594" link="true" target="_blank" size="medium" ]The Ethics of Liberty[/amazon_image]    [amazon_image id="B0022NHOSE" link="true" target="_blank" size="medium" ]Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market: The Scholar's Edition (LvMI)[/amazon_image]    [amazon_image id="0814775594" link="true" target="_blank" size="medium" ]The Ethics of Liberty[/amazon_image]    [amazon_image id="1933550201" link="true" target="_blank" size="medium" ]The Left, The Right and The State[/amazon_image]    [amazon_image id="0945466382" link="true" target="_blank" size="medium" ]Speaking of Liberty[/amazon_image]