Andreas Tank: LiquidZulu’s Attempt to Debate Dave Smith

by Stephan Kinsella on June 2, 2026

Murray N. Rothbard, “Confiscation and the Homestead Principle,” The Libertarian Forum 1, no. 6 (June 15, 1969): 3–4, available online at Panarchy and also in Murray N. Rothbard, ed., The Complete Libertarian Forum: 1969–1984 (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute; 2012)
——, “Massacre at People’s Park,” The Libertarian Forum (June 15, 1969): 1, in The Complete Libertarian Forum: 1969–1984
——, “Right Wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo Movement.” Rothbard-Rockwell Report (Jan. 1992; pdf), also in Rothbard, The Irrepressible Rothbard: The Rothbard-Rockwell Report Essays of Murray N. Rothbard (Center for Libertarian Studies, 2000)
Rothbard on the “Original Sin” in Land Titles: 1969 vs. 1974 (Nov. 5, 2014)
Justice and Property Rights: Rothbard on Scarcity, Property, Contracts…, Libertarian Standard (Nov. 19, 2010)
Mises, Rothbard, and Hoppe on the “Original Sin” in the Distribution of Property Rights
On “Unowned” State Property, Legal Positivism, Ownership vs. Possession, Immigration, Public Roads, and the Bum in the Library
- Libertarian Answer Man: Eminent Domain and Ownership of State Monetary Payments
- Libertarian Answer Man: Chains of restitution and potentially-infinite regression
LiquidZulu’s Free Course: “The Fundamentals of Libertarian Ethics”
Haman vs. Zulu: Martians, Stealing Candy Bars, Rights, Law, Morality
Haman: David Friedman, LiquidZulu, and two errors in understanding the Non-Aggression Principle
“My Years with the Mises Institute,” Property and Freedom Journal (May 2, 2026)
Tank translations of Kinsella, The Universal Principles of Liberty and of various Hoppe publications

Interesting commentary by Tank. I have not yet heard the whole thing but wanted to chime in a few things Tank mentioned. I append the transcript below. So for now, a few initial and quick comments:

Objectivism vs. Libertarianism

First, I agree that Objectivism cannot be squared with libertarianism. According to its own proponents, it is a complete and closed system, and in any case it is pro-state and pro-IP and those two positions alone mean it cannot be squared with libertarianism which is anarchist and anti-IP.

Missing “Confiscation and the Homestead Principle” (1969)

Second: regarding the inability to find Rothbard’s “Confiscation and the Homestead Principle” (1969) at Mises.org: though I have criticized Mises Institute and its website, ¹ I suspect it is not hidden, it is just incompetence or a mess. It’s just hard to find. It is in fact available at mises.org in The Complete Libertarian Forum: 1969–1984. ))

“Confiscation and the Homestead Principle”: Liberating Property from a Thief

As for this part:

says, quote, “Suppose, for example, that A steals B’s horse. Then C comes along and takes the horse from A. Can C be called a thief? Certainly not, for we cannot call a man a criminal for stealing goods from a thief. On the contrary, C is performing a virtuous act of confiscation, for he is depriving thief A of the fruits of his crime of aggression, and he is at least returning the horse to the innocent private sector and out of the criminal sector. C has done a noble act and should be applauded. Of course, it would be still better if he returned the horse to B, the original victim. But even if he does not, the horse is far more justly in C’s hand than it is in the hands of the thief and criminal.

It is true that a thief A has no property right in B’s horse. It does not violate his rights if C takes it. But I have criticized Block’s confusion on this issue before, when he uses the Ragnar example, in arguing against preventing bums from using public libraries in the immigration and other contexts, to argue that liberating stolen goods is legitimate when Ragnar did it to return stolen goods to the owners, but since each part of an action is must be legitimate, then the liberator still has a better claim than the thief and thus owns it. The problem is that, as I point out in On “Unowned” State Property, Legal Positivism, Ownership vs. Possession, Immigration, Public Roads, and the Bum in the Library, the original owner is still the owner and the reason the liberator is not committing aggression or theft when he takes it is the presumption that the owner would consent to this. I elaborate in that post. ²

Homesteading “Unowned” State Property

Continuing on a related issue: regarding enlisting Rothbard in support of the idea that state property may be taken by anyone since it is not really “owned”: See my comments in Rothbard on the “Original Sin” in Land Titles: 1969 vs. 1974 and Justice and Property Rights: Rothbard on Scarcity, Property, Contracts…. Borrowing liberally from those posts: ³

In the June 15, 1969 issue of The Libertarian Forum, in an article “Massacre at People’s Park,” Murray Rothbard writes:

The cry has gone up that all this was necessary to defend the “private property” of the University of California. In the first place, even if this little lot was private property, the bayoneting, gassing, torturing, and shooting of these unarmed park-developers would have been “overkill” so excessive and grotesque as to be mass murder and torture and therefore far more criminal than the original trespass on the lot. You do not machine-run [sic] someone for stealing an apple; this is punishment so far beyond the proportion that “fits the crime” as to be itself far more criminal than the original infraction. So that even if this property were legitimately private the massacre is still to be condemned.

Secondly, it is surely grotesquerie to call the muddy lot “private property”. The University of California is a governmental institution which acquires its funds and its property from mulcting the taxpayers. It is not in any sense private property then, but stolen property, and as such is morally unowned, and subject to the libertarian homesteading principle which we discuss below. The people of Berkeley were homesteaders in the best American—and libertarian—tradition, taking an unused, morally unowned, muddy lot, and transforming it by their homesteading labor into a pleasant and useful people’s park. For this they were massacred.

This has hints of the leftist and left-libertarian view of property rights—that if there is “taint” or “original sin” in the origin of title to current possessed resources, then the title is not legitimate, and the resource may be regarded as “unowned” and is legitimately subject to homesteading. Why something that is stolen is to be regarded as unowned, as opposed to owned by some dispossessed claimants and original owners, is not clear, and seems to contradict later writing by Rothbard. And note here Rothbard is referring to locals who have something to do with the college as having a better claim to it than the state. He is not saying it is actually unowned or subject to homesteading by just anyone with no connection at all to the state, country, or university.

And see also “Confiscation and the Homestead Principle,” in the same issue. Here Rothbard writes:

Let us now apply our libertarian theory of property to the case of property in the hands of, or derived from, the State apparatus. The libertarian sees the State as a giant gang of organized criminals, who live off the theft called “taxation” and use the proceeds to kill, enslave, and generally push people around. Therefore, any property in the hands of the State is in the hands of thieves, and should be liberated as quickly as possible. Any person or group who liberates such property, who confiscates or appropriates it from the State, is performing a virtuous act and a signal service to the cause of liberty. In the case of the State, furthermore, the victim is not readily identifiable as B, the horse-owner. All taxpayers, all draftees, all victims of the State have been mulcted. How to go about returning all this property to the taxpayers? What proportions should be used in this terrific tangle of robbery and injustice that we have all suffered at the hands of the State? Often, the most practical method of de-statizing is simply to grant the moral right of ownership on the person or group who seizes the property from the State. Of this group, the most morally deserving are the ones who are already using the property but who have no moral complicity in the State’s act of aggression. These people then become the “homesteaders” of the stolen property and hence the rightful owners.

Take, for example, the State universities. This is property built on funds stolen from the taxpayers. Since the State has not found or put into effect a way of returning ownership of this property to the taxpaying public, the proper owners of this university are the “homesteaders”, those who have already been using and therefore “mixing their labor” with the facilities. The prime consideration is to deprive the thief, in this case the State, as quickly as possible of the ownership and control of its ill-gotten gains, to return the property to the innocent, private sector. This means student and/or faculty ownership of the universities.

As between the two groups, the students have a prior claim, for the students have been paying at least some amount to support the university whereas the faculty suffer from the moral taint of living off State funds and thereby becoming to some extent a part of the State apparatus.

Note here the scare quotes on “homesteaders,” as Rothbard seems to recognize this is only analogous to homesteading of actually unowned resources. It does not imply the property is actually unowned, nor that just any outsider (such as a foreigner) has the right to homestead it, nor that it violates the outsider’s rights if he is excluded from the resource. Rothbard goes on:

The same principle applies to nominally “private” property which really comes from the State as a result of zealous lobbying on behalf of the recipient. Columbia University, for example, which receives nearly two-thirds of its income from government, is only a “private” college in the most ironic sense. It deserves a similar fate of virtuous homesteading confiscation.

But if Columbia University, what of General Dynamics? What of the myriad of corporations which are integral parts of the military-industrial complex, which not only get over half or sometimes virtually all their revenue from the government but also participate in mass murder? What are their credentials to “private” property? Surely less than zero. As eager lobbyists for these contracts and subsidies, as co-founders of the garrison state, they deserve confiscation and reversion of their property to the genuine private sector as rapidly as possible. To say that their “private” property must be respected is to say that the property stolen by the horsethief and the murdered [sic] must be “respected”.

In any case, later writing by Rothbard, as of 1974 at the latest, seems to reject any such implications. As I noted in my post Justice and Property Rights: Rothbard on Scarcity, Property, Contracts…, Rothbard published his article “Justice and Property Rights,” 1974, and in two forms: first, in Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays, which is available online here; and also, a second version, in Property in a Humane Economy, Samuel L. Blumenfeld, ed. (the second version is also included as a chapter in The Logic Action One, which is not online, and in Economic Controversies, which is available online). The two pieces seem identical but the latter version, from the Blumenthal collection, appends an important concluding paragraph that is not present in the earlier version:

It might be charged that our theory of justice in property titles is deficient because in the real world most landed (and even other) property has a past history so tangled that it becomes impossible to identify who or what has committed coercion and therefore who the current just owner may be. But the point of the “homestead principle” is that if we don’t know what crimes have been committed in acquiring the property in the past, or if we don’t know the victims or their heirs, then the current owner becomes the legitimate and just owner on homestead grounds. In short, if Jones owns a piece of land at the present time, and we don’t know what crimes were committed to arrive at the current title, then Jones, as the current owner, becomes as fully legitimate a property owner of this land as he does over his own person. Overthrow of existing property title only becomes legitimate if the victims or their heirs can present an authenticated, demonstrable, and specific claim to the property. Failing such conditions, existing landowners possess a fully moral right to their property.

It appears that language was added by Rothbard to combat the arguments of some, such as some left-libertarians, who want to argue that existing property titles are illegitimate because of their non-immaculate origins and, presumably, ought to be wrested from current nominal owners, especially the wealthy, and I suppose redistributed to the proles.

Or, as Rothbard wrote in ch. 9 of The Ethics of Liberty (1982):

To sum up, for any property currently claimed and used: (a) if we know clearly that there was no criminal origin to its current title, then obviously the current title is legitimate, just and valid; (b) if we don’t know whether the current title had any criminal origins, but can’t find out either way, then the hypothetically “unowned” property reverts instantaneously and justly to its current possessor; (c) if we do know that the title is originally criminal, but can’t find the victim or his heirs, then (c1) if the current title-holder was not the criminal aggressor against the property, then it reverts to him justly as the first owner of a hypothetically unowned property. But (c2) if the current titleholder is himself the criminal or one of the criminals who stole the property, then clearly he is properly to be deprived of it, and it then reverts to the first man who takes it out of its unowned state and appropriates it for his use. And finally, (d) if the current title is the result of crime, and the victim or his heirs can be found, then the title properly reverts immediately to the latter, without compensation to the criminal or to the other holders of the unjust title.

In other words, Rothbard does not view state property as actually unowned, but merely as illegitimately owned by the state; and that taking it from the state is a good thing, if it is done by someone with some kind of connection to or claims on the property (such as students using it, or taxpayers funding it), and if it cannot be returned to the original owners or the original owners compensated because they cannot be found, only then does the new “homesteader” acquire good title. This is fully consistent with my view that state property is not unowned and that certain people (such as US citizens, local residents or users, taxpayers) are the actual owners, not random outsiders. Just because Ragnar, or some third party taking the property from the thief, doesn’t violate the thief’s rights, does not mean that he has the right to own and homestead it superior to the claims of certain rightful owners, if they can be identified and found. So it is consistent with my views noted here that the reason the liberator may take the resource from the thief is that he has a better claim than the thief (if he also has “clean hands”—as Rothbard recognizes in this comment: “the most morally deserving are the ones who are already using the property but who have no moral complicity in the State’s act of aggression”) ⁴ and if we recognize that certain people have a better claim to be “rightful owners” than others; and if we recognize that the liberator has the right to take the resource because of the implied consent of the rightful owner which is conditioned on the owner retaining title and having the right to get it back from the liberator; and with Rothbard’s later views on immigration (and those of Hoppe).

Tank Transcript

Introduction

[0:00]

So, Liquid Zulu made a three and a half hour video about Dave Smith. With that, he is probably the first libertarian ever to tell another libertarian that he is not a real libertarian. I love this. And since I’m a German libertarian who recently made his first English video about how Dave is not a real libertarian, I’m going a little bit deeper. And since Dave Smith already said that he has no interest in debating Liquid Zulu and for a lot of people it feels like a waste of time to watch a three and a half hour video about true libertarianism straight from the ivory tower. I thought to myself, why not give it a try and summarize the whole video by getting into the most important details. But before I’ll do that, let me introduce myself for about 2 minutes.

Self-Introduction

[0:52]

My name is Andreas Tank and I translated important works like America’s Great Depression and A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism from Murray Rothbard and from Hans-Hermann Hoppe from English to German and most recently I translated the Critique of Causal-Scientific Social Research, one of Hoppe’s earlier works in German from 1983 to English for the Mises Institute and for StephanKinsella.com who I recently met at the Free Cities Conference in Prague. I spent the last weeks and months summarizing the works of Oskar Graf, Cyprian, Christopher Hansen, Hans Hoppe, Jörg Guido Hülsmann, Bob Murphy and others against Philip Bagus who is backing up wrong Austrian theory that closing down the central bank would cause hyperinflation, which is most definitely not what Ron Paul thought about when he wrote End the Fed, but we will get to Ron Paul a little bit later.

Engagement with Dave Smith

[1:52]

Also, I once engaged with Dave Smith on Twitter when I asked him what he meant in a podcast with Michael Malice where he said he doesn’t like false libertarian narratives like good ideas don’t require force. Since I used that phrase frequently, I asked him kindly how I was supposed to interpret this and he answered something like that if he or his family is held hostage that he would very openly use force. I answered that in this situation he is speaking out of self-defense. But I thought that pretty much every libertarian is crystal clear about the phrase good ideas don’t require force that they mean the initiation of force. Dave answered, “Well, if you really like to split hairs, I guess you’re right about that.”

Reasons for Sharing the Exchange

[2:42]

And I’m telling this for two reasons. First, it is obviously possible to talk to Dave or ask him a question if you’re not a dick about it. I answered him that I want to be sure what he meant since I just translated Getting Libertarianism Right from Hoppe and that I always make sure I am talking about the initiation of force and not defensive force. And Dave liked my comment. Second, I think all Liquid Zulu does in the whole video is taking slightly ambiguous statements of Dave over hours and hours of podcasts and blaming him to totally not get anything about the philosophy of libertarianism. I found this really embarrassing to watch.

Dave Smith’s Appeal and LiquidZulu’s Focus

[3:26]

What I actually like about Dave Smith and what I think made him so successful is that he is not an academic who teaches economics at some university, but that he’s a stand-up comedian who can explain libertarianism to people who wouldn’t understand or wouldn’t be interested in a deep dive into philosophy. But unfortunately, this is all Liquid Zulu cares about. One of the first things he shows in his video is Dave Smith standing in front of the Mises Caucus and telling the crowd that he is a child of the Ron Paul movement and that the only way of getting votes for the Libertarian Party is by spreading the ideas of libertarianism. This was a new way of looking at the LP which was until then ruled by pragmatists.

LiquidZulu’s Black-and-White View

[4:05]

Now, Liquid Zulu has this really black and white view of separating in his eyes real libertarianism from pragmatism, which is pretty much statism. I think it’s ironic that Liquid Zulu would never go so far to blame Ron Paul for being not a real libertarian, even though Ron Paul is a Republican and a constitutionalist, which is very obviously some kind of pragmatic way to look at libertarianism. So, like I already said, I don’t want to react to the whole video and waste everybody’s time with like a 7 hours video. I will now focus on five main points out of Liquid Zulu’s video.

Overview of the Five Main Points

[4:49]

First, we will look into this bum on a public playground in New York story which will lead us to homesteading and Liquid Zulu’s interpretation of Murray Rothbard’s strategy of libertarian Leninism. I’ll explore in a little bit more detail what Rothbard probably meant when he talked about implementing pure libertarian theory by strict adherence and move from there to the podcast between Dave and Andrew where they talk about principles like conscription and incest. Then I want to look a little bit closer into the Libertarian Party of 2024 and Michael Rectenwald before discussing the issue of open borders. Finally, I will try to point out how Liquid Zulu is trying to sneak objectivism into libertarianism while he is disregarding the flaws of objectivism. So, let’s go.

The Bum on the Playground Story

[5:45]

The first thing Liquid Zulu starts into this debate with Dave Smith and where they probably don’t agree is this story about the bum on the playground in New York. Dave Smith told this story in podcasts and interviews where he is with his kid on a playground in the middle of New York and there is a bum laying on a bench with a fentanyl needle next to him and he called the cops that they removed the bum so his child is no longer in danger. And Liquid Zulu actually really makes the point regarding property rights that Dave Smith is not a true libertarian because he called the cops which is a statist thing and he calls the state to remove the bum so that his child is no longer in danger. And he considers this to be unlibertarian.

Defense of Dave Smith’s Position

[6:36]

And I think Dave Smith is absolutely right to tell people that this is not the point of libertarianism and even if it would be then I would myself consider no longer to be a libertarian and I think this is pretty valid. So we have different theories. The one Liquid Zulu is making is that state property is not property at all. So far so good. Libertarians agree with that principle at least basically.

State Property and Homesteading

[7:11]

But the question now arrives since the state is the owner of the playground and of government property. It might not be the legitimate owner, but it is an owner. And the alternative to respect every property as completely open to homesteading is a theory that has not really worked out in theory. But let us go to the point where Liquid Zulu gets this from. And this is you can find it actually on mises.org. I looked for it and it’s called Confiscation and the Homestead Principle of Murray Rothbard from the year 1969.

Rothbard’s 1969 Quote

[8:28]

And I won’t go through the whole article. I will just scroll down a little bit and make the point a little bit clear for everyone what Murray Rothbard is actually arguing. He says, quote, “Suppose, for example, that A steals B’s horse. Then C comes along and takes the horse from A. Can C be called a thief? Certainly not, for we cannot call a man a criminal for stealing goods from a thief. On the contrary, C is performing a virtuous act of confiscation, for he is depriving thief A of the fruits of his crime of aggression, and he is at least returning the horse to the innocent private sector and out of the criminal sector. C has done a noble act and should be applauded. Of course, it would be still better if he returned the horse to B, the original victim. But even if he does not, the horse is far more justly in C’s hand than it is in the hands of the thief and criminal.”

Critique of the 1969 Argument

[9:20]

So I’m normally really not someone who disagrees with Murray Rothbard, but we can actually look at that and this doesn’t seem really that logical, is it? I mean, we are all for retribution. We want justice, like ethics, like a legal moral system. But this is not because there is no retribution in this example. Let’s just for a short moment look at the time when this was actually written by Murray Rothbard. 1969. Well, this was one year after Woodstock and the hippies and these people from the left who claim to get into houses and homestead them.

Context of 1969 and Left-Wing Ideas

[10:08]

This happens actually a lot. I’m from Germany. I know these projects where leftists are sitting in houses and the state actually let them be but it doesn’t really work this way. This is not completely thought through and I think this is the reason why it was never at least not yet published at mises.org but I find it on panarchy.org because this reminds me more of a leftwing idea. So the idea of like this is called libertarian Leninism.

LiquidZulu’s Perspective vs. Right-Wing Libertarians

[10:41]

What Liquid Zulu actually does, he’s coming from a left-wing perspective and a completely leftwing perspective. But like Dave Smith and Jeremy Kaufman and a lot of other of these people we call ourselves right now right-wing conservative libertarians. And this is a huge difference. Liquid Zulu always does this trick that he makes it seem like there’s only one objective true answer, but everything else is just pragmatism and consequentialism. But this is hardly the case.

Rothbard’s 1992 Right-Wing Populism

[11:31]

Let’s look at another text of Murray Rothbard and this is called Right-Wing Populism and this is much later from January 1992 and this is called a right-wing populist program. I’m not going through the whole article. You can find it if you just search for right-wing populism and he has several points. First, taxes. All taxes, sales, business, property, etc. But especially the most oppressive, politically, and possible, the income tax. Everything must be abolished. Second, welfare. Third, abolish racial or group privileges. So this means no affirmative action whatsoever. Fourth, take back the streets, crush criminals.

Key Points from Right-Wing Populism

[12:15]

This is again later what Hoppe says in Getting Libertarianism Right with the famous slogan crush the anti-fascist mob and now the important part comes five take back the streets get rid of the bums. A little bit deeper again unleash the cops to clear the streets of bums and vagrants where will they go who cares hopefully they will disappear that is move from the ranks of the petted and coddled bums class to the ranks of the productive members of society and six abolish the Fed and seven America first.

Rothbard’s Adaptation Over Time

[12:59]

So just in short what are we looking at here? We are looking at different time zones where at the first part Murray Rothbard was in a time which was at all more conservative more on the progressive side and at the later point he is more taking the side of conservative point when the public is more progressive and this is pretty much the point. Liquid Zulu now does this in a way where he says everything that is not pure theory and this is quoting Rothbard he is exactly making this point in right-wing populism itself he says we have to look at cadres like from the Lenin perspective they had socialist cadres and we need libertarian cadres so people propagating the pure theory of libertarianism. But this is not crystal clear. Not at all.

Consequentialism on Both Sides

[14:04]

At all points Liquid Zulu will step into this points and say well this is consequentialist and so we have to deny it. But if you take a deeper look it is consequentialist at both sides. So the homesteading principle of the bum in New York City is as consequentialist as the other part of the right-wing populism part where he actually involves the statist cops. So, Liquid Zulu always tries to make points and make them seem that this is totally obvious. And this kind of thinking comes from objectivism.

Objectivism and Its Flaws

[14:55]

Objectivism, the theory of Ayn Rand and now more of Leonard Peikoff always has this thing where he says there’s truth and there are consequences from action and you cannot ignore the consequences. You have to adhere to truth always. I kind of accept some of these positions, but not in all regards. Especially objectivists do a lot of mistakes. And maybe even Liquid Zulu would agree with me that for example he’s not for intellectual property like Leonard Peikoff and Ayn Rand are but he would say okay well this is not a closed philosophy but we are taking these parts that are correct and disregard other aspects that are incorrect.

Disagreement with Objectivism’s Rigidity

[15:55]

And I would agree again to that, but objectivism has always the point that this is truth and there goes nothing beyond this point. And I completely disagree with that. And guess who else does? Ron Paul. Two weeks ago, I was at the Free Cities Conference in Prague and Yaron Brook, the head of the Ayn Rand Institute had a speech and he said freedom is not enough or liberty is not enough. I’m not quite sure but doesn’t matter. And other people asked, well, what is the most important thing? And he said, happiness.

Lifeboat Scenarios and Subjective Values

[16:34]

And then he made this example of a lifeboat scenario where he said, “Look, would you rather save your children or would you save the neighbor’s children?” And of course, everyone answers, well, my own children instead of the neighbor’s children I would save, obviously. But when you come up with the same scenario, but you would ask a mother with a child, would you rather die yourself and save your child or would you rather throw your child into the ocean and survive yourself? Then I think almost 99% of all mothers in the whole world would say I would sacrifice myself. And you can’t get this idea into an objective theory that always comes out as true.

Dave Smith, Family, and Conscription

[17:39]

But in the conversation between Dave Smith and Andrew, it was pretty much the same. Dave Smith is a family father and he argues that his wife and his children are worth more to him than his own life. And Andrew disagrees with that. And this is the part where the conscription comes in. Andrew a lot of people argued in comments on Twitter about this topic with the conscription and they never came close to the point where saying well where is the point where Dave Smith actually is for conscription. He hadn’t made a single example. He just said okay conscription is incredibly evil. But he didn’t say where he would actually make an excuse for conscription. He had no point.

Subjective Value Theory

[18:43]

So he says conscription bad. But maybe he could think of an example. And the whole reason for that is because he thinks my life is worth sacrificing for my children, for my wife who I care actually more than for my own life. And Andrew disagrees with that. And that’s the basic reason I think you cannot get objectivism into libertarianism as a whole because it would fail in this attempt of the virtues of selfishness. And Ron Paul disagrees with this as well. Some things in the world from a subjective value theory might be worth it to sacrifice your own life and Dave agrees with that and Liquid Zulu would completely deny that and said you are wrong always in every detail.

LiquidZulu’s Anarcho-Capitalism

[19:36]

So, and this is the main point. Liquid Zulu has this weird form of anarcho-capitalist with sneaking objectivism into it and he’s just not always correct. He just assumes that there’s always this completely 100% true libertarian perspective. But regarding the subjective value theory, this is critical to a huge amount of topics where people actually disagree with each other. So I think Dave does the by far more important job of right-wing populism. He pretty much does this perfectly in the regards of Murray Rothbard and of Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

Ron Paul and Practical Libertarianism

[20:31]

And I think he actually gets these ideas out and I think I’m myself completely contributing to theory and I’m sitting in the ivory tower and I’m not really a pragmatist who says well we can do A but we can’t do B. But pretty much every libertarian in the United States and worldwide think Ron Paul is completely right. And why is that? Because Ron Paul always said no excuses for where we get a little bit of more freedom but a little bit less freedom in that point. And this is pretty much the principles Dave Smith agrees on.

Self-Ownership Demonstration

[21:17]

And so what Liquid Zulu does, and I think this is really embarrassing in his whole video, he does this like the Naked Gun things where Dave Smith is not saying the 100% true things, but he’s like waving around in this conversation with Andrew. Andrew asks Dave, prove to me that you own your own body. And Dave Smith like irritated saying I’m doing this right now. And I thought every libertarian who watched Liquid Zulu’s video made himself this. Oh my god, Andrew Liquid Zulu, what are you actually talking about? Dave Smith is what he’s trying to say here is look, I’m completely in control of my own body.

Practical Proof of Self-Ownership

[21:58]

I’m sitting in this podcast with you. I’m not leaving. I’m answering. I’m using my mouth. I’m using my muscles. I’m listening to you. This is the proof that I’m owning my own body. And Andrew doesn’t want to get that. Liquid Zulu doesn’t want to get that. The other person they took into this podcast, he just wants to get this textbook Stephan Kinsella homestead principle of your own body. And I think this is kind of ridiculous because we are talking about semantics about stuff like yeah I want my words to come out of your mouth and I think this is actually a problem that most libertarians have.

Ego and Subjective Value Theory

[22:38]

We have too much egos and well we are too selfish. We want to hear everything in our own words and we don’t care that much about does this work for other people. Do they describe it this way which Liquid Zulu wants to be taken down as pragmatism which is not or consequentialism which is actually not but all the times there are because of subjective value theory. Pretty much everyone has a little bit of deviation of how he thinks and how he would describe actual things instead of another person. So we will never get to this result where everyone agrees on basic theories. We always make a little bit deviation in how we say these things.

Open Borders Discussion

[24:06]

I think this was especially ridiculous when the topic came to open borders because what Liquid Zulu did was getting a video of Ron Paul of 1988 out and says well Ron Paul doesn’t actually speak a lot about open borders. He just says that well in a free society if we open the borders then people come from A to B where there is more work from where there is less work and everyone would be happier and Liquid Zulu and I think this must not be a mistake but he actually did this on purpose he just completely neglected how Ron Paul said in a free society well we don’t live in a free society.

Welfare State and Practical Priorities

[24:48]

You can’t talk about open borders and neglect the welfare state. So this makes borders the first principles because people are more interested in security and safety for their people and their neighborhood before they can even say well how am I supposed to live when my property rights are in theory there but I’m not sure if they are enforced. So I need this order and this order must be actually here. So we much rather would live in some kind of a socialist society where we are not robbed than to live in complete freedom but in absolute chaos because everyone is robbing each one every all the time. This is the difference between anarchism and complete chaos. And it seems to more people that Liquid Zulu actually likes chaos. He doesn’t like anarchy. Anarchy is order. But you have to enforce these orders. And Murray Rothbard agrees with that. And Hoppe disagrees with that and a lot of other people as well.

Michael Rectenwald and LP 2024

[26:22]

So, and with that being said, I want to come to a last short part and of Michael Rectenwald within the Libertarian National Convention of 2024 because I really like Michael Rectenwald and I thought this was such a huge win for the Libertarian Party. They never had such a great success ever before. And I don’t think that Liquid Zulu has ever read one of the books of Michael Rectenwald and I think he’s probably much better writer than he is a speaker. I haven’t read a lot of his I think 19 books or what it is but I read The Google Archipelago and it was a pretty good book.

The Edible Gummy Bear Story

[27:50]

And I thought this edible gummy bear was one of the most badass things that ever happened. I mean, look, I imagine this situation somehow Dave Smith wants to enact within the Libertarian Party and make a little bit of pressure on Donald Trump to integrate more libertarian values in the Trump regime and the Republicans. And then he says, “Well, come on, president, candidate for the Libertarian Party. That gets me nowhere. I’m a stand-up comedian and much more successful when I do my own stuff than being the official candidate for the Libertarian Party. I’m never going to be president.” So, this left a gap completely understandable.

How Rectenwald Became the Candidate

[28:43]

And now I imagine Angela McArdle actually get into this pressure to find a new candidate. She’s head of the Mises Caucus and she was like phoning around and asking everyone she could get of like maybe people like Tom Woods, don’t you want to be the candidate? And they said no. And so she found Michael Rectenwald and they had a phone call and he was actually like, “Yeah, Michael, do you want to be the president of the Libertarian Party?” And he’s like, “Wait, wait, wait, wait. What? What is in there for me?” Oh, nothing much. But yeah, well, if we win, then you could become president. Yeah. Well, I think this is off the table. Yeah. Okay. Most definitely.

Rectenwald on Stage

[30:05]

But we have certain arrangements. We want Donald Trump to free Ross. We want him to leave Bitcoin unregulated. I think we might get that. And maybe there is one libertarian. He get into his cabinet. And this could be you since you are the candidate of the Libertarian Party if you want to do it. You mean I could get on board of the Trump regime? Well, with which board would that be? Maybe education. Okay. I’m not sure. What do I actually have to do? Well, standing on stage next to what is this guy’s name? Chase Oliver, I think. And then I was in this conversation with Dennis Pratt of the Free State Project in New Hampshire and he actually told me this story of the edible and I thought this was one of the most badass things I’ve ever heard.

The Gummy Bear Incident

[30:28]

Normally Michael Rectenwald before he goes on stage he has a vape pen to calm a little bit down his nerves and he wasn’t allowed to do that because Donald Trump and the security agents were everywhere and they took his vape pen and someone said no problem here you got a gummy bear and he ate that and he was far too strong and so he went on stage and he was just high and stoned out of his mind and he still well he wrecked and got wrecked but I don’t know if he expected anything more of that but it was into the show and he was just standing on stage and making democracy and everything of these parties completely ridiculous and I thought actually this was a part where you can say like Dave Smith is saying look at the debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump or Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. You will never see this again.

Changing Political Landscape

[31:56]

Donald Trump was fact-checked on stage in there was commercials on TV at the presidential debate and we will never see this again. And social media is getting far bigger right now. And now we have this situation where a president can no longer hide from everyone else, but you have to be present and be in contact to actual people. And so the Libertarian Party National Convention where Michael Rectenwald as this candidate for the LP and Donald Trump on the other side, they shake hands and they are people ready for taking over the power of the United States of the most important and dangerous state that has ever existed and it becomes like a farce. It is getting into the heads of the people that this will no longer this form of democracy you were used to the last decades it’s no longer the point of the future.

Cultural Freedom Within Principles

[33:00]

And I think these progresses everything that is involved in there has to be part of the mindset of people that they actually think ah this is no longer a concept for our future and I don’t think adhering to 100% libertarian principles that they are carved into stone. I think there is a basic libertarian principle but within this principle there is a very free range of how people want to live culturally. And as I mentioned in the beginning at the Free Cities Conference I met Stephan Kinsella and Stephan Kinsella published this short part of the universal principles of freedom and I translated this part from English to German. You can already download it at stephankinsella.com, the universal principles of freedom. And you can find it, of course, in the video description. And this is pretty much the baseline.

Conclusion on Division and Ego

[34:26]

So why are we dividing? Well, because of the virtues of selfishness. Liquid Zulu is an ego who wants to get the from his perspective so deserved attention because he’s making so much for libertarian theory. And Dave Smith is like, I don’t care that much about the strict form of theory. I want to get the basic idea to everyone out there. So, long story short, I think Dave Smith does a much more interesting and successful job than Liquid Zulu actually does. I don’t think Liquid Zulu is a bad person and I don’t think he is wrong at everything. But I think if Liquid Zulu would just not making himself such an ass with such ridiculous demands and such crazy examples, then they could better be learning from each other. They could seriously debate each other and said, “Look, Dave, this is a bad way to put things, but you could better get it with this sentence, the complete message out there.” I think that’s what they could actually achieve. But yeah, I’m used to that. Nobody listens to anyone else, not because they don’t agree with each other. They don’t think it’s true. They don’t think it’s actually libertarianism, but they think this has to be about me. This has all about to be about me. And I think this objectivist virtue of selfishness is wrong. Ron Paul disagrees with Ayn Rand on this as well. And I think all in all Dave Smith does a better job of this. So, I want to leave it with that.