by: Kate Shawhan, LPNC Secretary

I have a confession to make: Though most of my friends would define me as some kind of quirky intersection of cats, Star Trek, and libertarianism, I am at times a bad libertarian. I won’t repost a Killdozer meme, nor will I join certain folks on twitter who revel in the deaths of war hawks like John McCain. I wouldn’t grab a beer with Bush or Obama, but not because I think they’re monsters – I just don’t like beer. Sure, I will moan and groan about the uniparty and politicians and how corrupt they are and how government intervention is tyrannical, and I mean it. But will I condone the LPNH declaring the assassination of a sitting Vice President heroic? Of course not, violence isn’t the answer.

I understand that while most libertarians value the non-aggression principle almost as much as they value arguing around a campfire about how well it holds up to scrutiny, that does not make libertarians pacifists with a commitment to non-violence. We oppose aggression - the initiation of violence. Self-defense is another matter. We don’t keep gun ownership rights nearly sacrosanct just because guns are fun to take to the range. I understand that not only do we have the right to defend ourselves against individuals with deadly force if necessary, but that we have the right to protect ourselves against the aggression of a tyrannical government if all else fails.

Libertarians are not abjectly opposed to violence. But I have lived as if I am. I can’t help but be disturbed as I watch the political violence escalate. Last summer there were two separate attempts to kill our once and (at the time) future president. The second attempt fizzled out in the news cycle so quickly that you would think Trump dodged a shoe rather than a bullet. By late fall, an insurance CEO was killed in the early hours by a man whose face and presumed cause inspired countless young ladies to swoon. Recently, a man in Minnesota impersonated a police officer to gain entry into the homes of two different state legislators. He managed to shoot both lawmakers and their spouses; one couple survived, the other did not. If we’re going to bring the ‘70s back, I request better music to match.

It horrifies me when I see people I respect talk about this violence so casually, at times as if there could be merit to it. They begin quoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that, “Riots are the voice of the unheard,” and I counter with my own pedantic explanation about how that is taken out of context and that the power behind Dr. King was his deep commitment to non-violence. Because, of course, violence isn’t the answer. My response is predictable and consistent. Whether the conversation moves to Marvin Heemeyer, Luigi Mangione, or even Gary Plauché – a man whom I am thoroughly convinced would have been the personification of “not a jury in the world willing to convict him” if he had gone before a jury – I faithfully recite my creed. My tired and tepid admonitions that, “violence isn’t the answer,” seep into the room and end conversation like the verbal equivalent of a particularly awful fart. It isn’t just the words, but how I say them – righteous but empty, with conviction perhaps, but no courage. 

I have spent my entire adult life telling everyone who will give me five minutes of their time that our government is corrupt. That the Republicans and Democrats are equally bad, that the problem is that the government is too powerful, too big. Too tyrannical. I bombard them with lectures about the second amendment, about the racist roots of gun control and how if we want to talk about systemic oppression, it does not get much more systemic than the sprawling conglomerate of bureaucrats and politicians nested in Washington D.C. with tendrils touching every facet of our day-to-day lives. That democracy is an illusion, that “the game” is real and the system is rigged, and our votes don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. That the state is the primary aggressor in our lives. I know all of this, I live all of this, and in my cowardice I have accepted all of this. Because as much as I want to believe it is charity at the heart of my aversion to political violence, the true shameful confession is not that I am a bad libertarian but that I am a coward.

In all of these discussions, my brain manages to draw an arbitrary line somewhere in history to delineate between political violence, and revolution. I do not tsk at George Washington, nor do I scold John Brown. Why would I when they are so fundamental to the history of my country, a place that I honestly love to call home? I get to go tuck my children safely into bed and count my country among my blessings as I mentally prepare for July 4th – do we need more hotdogs? Glowsticks? Tiny American flags? But tonight I can’t ignore a truth that I usually allow to melt away in mousy cognitive dissonance. Our country is built on political violence and our revered founding fathers knew this truth, that *actually* – sometimes violence is the answer. 

Sometimes there is no justice to be found even in a legal system that truly aims to be just; some crimes are too heinous.

Sometimes, there is no justice to be found because a system has, quite naturally, turned away from the guiding principles of its foundation and towards perpetuating its own interests where the rights of the one individual don’t measure up to the needs of…well, the few people at the top who profit from playing a glamorous game where they claim to represent the will of the (many) People. I like to think that those few truly believe their own claims that they’re in this nasty business of running a government out of a genuine call to serve. That doesn’t change the reality of their impact on our lives.

Sometimes, an overwhelming and impossible force takes your land. Every day, it takes your money. It can take your freedom of movement and lock you away in a cage if you enter into a consensual agreement to buy or sell the wrong thing – if you consume the wrong thing. Fail to fill out the correct form. That force can even take your life, your children, or even the lives of your children, often in the name of protecting those children. Children whom you dutifully and faithfully raised to believe that this, the land of the free, home of the brave, is our land and that they are free and safe here. Hell, that force can even accept your children as tribute into its military and then deport you if it notices your paperwork isn’t in order.
So what can I do in the face of such force? Count my blessings, of course; we have Netflix, and Door Dash. That force might control a lot of things, but at least we have relatively free speech compared to other countries. Healthcare is costly but modern medicine sure is nice. So are climate-controlled buildings, for that matter. Half a world away, mothers tuck their children in and pray that they will all wake up in the morning – but now, I need to dance away from the uncomfortable reality that too often that is in part thanks to what my government does with my tax dollars.

I’m not Dr. King with a stalwart commitment to non-violence. I’m a woman who wants to do the right thing, who values freedom and bravery, who of course doesn’t want anyone to get hurt - but who above all of that clings to her comfortable life and tries to ignore that the very foundation of this beloved country rests on violence, specifically political violence. The empire would not bow to reason and allow us the liberty that is the natural birthright of every human being, and so our nation was born out of the aftermath when reasonable people turned to violent revolt as their last resort. We can hope that today’s empire will reach deep down and find the last vestiges of its soul and relinquish its hold on our lives – however, I can no longer ignore the reasonable conclusion that it probably won’t. And if that stranglehold on liberty tightens enough, I must leave room for that last resort to be all too defensible.