The Mises Institute, the Ron Paul Institute, and the Libertarian Party do not at all exhaust the libertarian movement. There are many other institutions that also comprise it. Preeminent amongst the remainder are the Cato Institute, the Reason Foundation, the Independent Institute, the Liberty Fund, the Foundation for Economic Education, the Free State Project, FreedomFest, some 50 state libertarian think tanks such as the Pelican Institute in my home state of Louisiana, Anti-war.com, the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion & Liberty, and the international libertarian movement.
However, the three aforementioned organizations are certainly prominent leaders in the attempt to understand, expand, extend, apply and promote the libertarian philosophy. For the uninitiated, libertarians are "right wing" on economics, favoring if any government at all an extremely limited one insofar as the dismal science is concerned. Followers of this viewpoint are very "left wing" on personal liberties, supporting the legalization of drugs, gambling, pornography, homosexuality, prostitution, etc. Critics maintain that libertarianism is logically inconsistent since it is all over the map of the typical political spectrum. Libertarians maintain we are the only ones who favor liberty and freedom in all realms.
I have been a Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute for more than just a few decades. This honor has been recently stripped from me; speaking invitations from them have been withdrawn. The President of the Mises Institute, Tom DiLorenzo was instrumental in this demotion. I have been an Advisor to the Ron Paul Institute for many years. This prestigious position is no longer mine. Daniel McAdams, Executive Director of the RPI has notified me of this fact. I have been a member of the Libertarian Party since 1969. Recently, I was an economic advisor to Michael Rectenwald, who came in second in the recent Libertarian Convention to select this year's presidential candidate. Rectenwald fired me from that position.
Why have I been stripped of these associations of mine with these leading libertarian organizations? That is because I strongly, unambiguously, and fervently support Israel in its present defensive war against the Hamas terrorists. These groups all take the opposite point of view. Speaking of the top of the ticket of the LP, Chase Oliver, he is also a bitter critic of Israel and a supporter of Hamas.
Philip Berger is an eminent and staunch progressive of many years standing. But he, too, supports Israel vis a vis Hamas. He has also been canceled by many of his former colleagues. He now calls himself a PEP: Progressive Except for Palestine. He writes: "My decades of activism—including vocal support for a Palestinian state—apparently don't matter to my academic colleagues, who have cut me off for being a Zionist." He and I have thus had somewhat parallel experiences. I am tempted to call myself a LEP (Libertarian Except for Palestine) except for the fact that libertarians are divided on this issue, unlike hard left "progressives" (they are actually regressive) who all have seemed to fallen in line in their hatred and denigration of Israel.
Here is a case of strange bedfellows: libertarians and extreme left liberals.
Cancel culture is justified in the libertarian philosophy. It is all a matter of private property rights and free association. If the Mises and Ron Paul Institutes wish to sever connections with me, if I can no longer be an economic advisor to a libertarian politician due to my Zionism, they all have the full right to do so.
However, it is of interest to realize that an important element of the libertarian movement has, along with the left, embraced this practice of cancelation. I am not complaining. I have not been physically attacked for my views as have been Charles Murray and now Donald Trump, amongst many others. But it is more than passing curious that important elements of the libertarian movement should have embarked on this process: we are after all properly and positively known for being open to internal debate, divisiveness, intellectual diversity. After all, we disagree not only on Israel, but also on abortion (Ron Paul is pro-life, Murray Rothbard, pro-choice; others favor evictionism), immigration, voluntary slavery contracts, reparations to blacks for slavery, even conscription (most libertarians oppose it, but not Ludwig on Mises).
Sadly, my example demonstrates that this openness is no longer the case, at least on the part of several notable libertarian organizations.
