On August 28, 2023, Michael Rectenwald filed a Form 1 at the Federal Election Commission as a candidate seeking the Presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party. Here is the story on Independent Political Report.
This is his webpage on the Mises Institute website, with numerous podcasts hosted by and essays written by Mr. Rectenwald. I have been told by a knowledgeable source, that he is the favorite candidate of the Mises Caucus within the Libertarian Party.
Too many syllables for a Presidential candidate last name. What happened to Dave Smith and Josh Smith? If the LP is not willing to conominate Trump, they would make a good 2024 ticket.
Dave Smith announced that he is not running.
A lot of people are hesitant to get behind Josh Smith since he resigned from being National Vice Chair.
I do not think everyone with the Mises Caucus has jumped on board with Michael Rectenwald as a presidential candidate, but he is being considered.
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Gellert_Grindelwald
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichswald
TREES VS FOREST ???
Dave Smith announced he wasn’t running and per some conversations leaked by recently former LNC member Miguel Duque, as far as activity inside the Libertarian Party national chair Angela McArdle said “Dave Smith for President” was the only thing the Mises Caucus got excited about. National Secretary Caryn Ann Harlos went on a Twitter rant against Smith saying “if you have the chance to be the next Ron Paul, you take it”.
I’m not much familiar with the inner workings of the Mises Caucus on purpose, but I always figured Dave Smith wasn’t running when Joshua Smith said he was running. Joshua Smith was the Mises guy the last few Conventions they put up for Chair against Sarwark and Vice Chair in Reno, which he won. If Joshua Smith doesn’t have Mises Caucus backing, what’s the point of his presidential run other than personal vanity?
I guess I’m surprised this guy would be the Mises Caucus-backed guy when known quantity Jacob Hornberger is out there running if not formally in the caucus himself. Hornberger has a pretty absolute interpretation of libertarianism that Micaucs want, but maybe they want someone of the Caucus to further solidify control of messaging.
Didn’t they pack Hornburger last time?
HOW ABOUT THE DELUSIONAL / UTOPIAN ANARCHISTS IN THE LP FORM THE ANARCHY PARTY ???
AND HAVE NOOO BYLAWS, NOOO ELECTIONS/APPOINTMENTS OF PARTY OFFICERS AND NOOO NOMINATIONS FOR PUBLIC OFFICES ???
— IE JUST TAKE THEIR MIND CHEMICALS IN PRIVATE AND RAVE AT EACH OTHER FOR NOT BEING ANARCHISTIC ENOUGH ???
That sounds like the fake “lpm” commies you are backing.
“Didn’t they pack Hornburger last time?”
He seemed to be but Mises Caucus 2020 were not Mises Caucus 2022 and I don’t think it was to the point the caucus was a unified front on who they wanted to be the presidential nominee.
“Major” and “just underneath Major” Candidates seem to be:
-Chase Oliver, 2022 U.S. Senate nominee in Georgia
-Jacob Hornberger, 2-time runner-up for the presidential nomination in 2000 and 2020
-Michael Rectenwald
-Joshua Smith, vice chair for 6 months
-Lars Mapstead
-Mike ter Maat
Angela McArdle in the leaked conversations when someone was griping about Chase Oliver said someone else was going to enter and Chase may not even be the top choice of the Pragmatist wing of the party.d
The general consensus I hear from inside the Mises Caucus is that pretty much nobody in the caucus wants to back Jacob Hornberger for the presidential nomination again.
Why? Because he lost?
The Rectenwald filing when I saw it struck me as David French filing as the anti-Trump Conservative protest candidate in 2016. Which lasted all of 2 weeks. Not sure the “clearly a backued” leads to much success in this arena.
That last sentence should be: Not sure the “clearly a backup plan after event X happened” leads to much success in this arena. In Rectenwald’s case, I seriously doubt he was running if Dave Smith announced, and he announced less than a week after Dave Smith said he wasn’t.
A lot of people in the Mises Caucus did not like the way Jacob Hornberger campaigned the last time. One complaint against him is they thought he was unnecessarily overly negative toward some of his opponents for the nomination. Some view him as a has been. Others never really wanted him as a presidential candidate in the first place, and they only backed him because nobody they thought was better stepped up to run and because Hornberger has a friendly relationship with some of the people involved with the Mises Institute like Tom Woods.
“One complaint against him is they thought he was unnecessarily overly negative toward some of his opponents for the nomination.”
Well he was very negative to Justin Amash at the very least. I heard some pseudo-inside Libertarian podcasts comment that while Hornberger’s complaints on his late entry led to Amash getting out of the race, it turned everyone away that weren’t backing Hornberger to start with to not back him in later rounds when it was time for eliminated candidates’ votes to get reallocated.
First Round Results:
Jorgensen 24.4%, Hornberger 23.2%, Supreme 16.8%, Other Candidates 34.2%, NOTA 0.8%
Final Round Results:
Jorgensen 51.1%, Hornberger 27.8%, Supreme 20.1%, Other Candidates 0.5%, NOTA 0.5%
Also I think I remember something from watching the convention video of Hornberger or one of his allies saying Adam Kokesh after being ee him, and Kokeshd came on a few minutes later saying he was not endorsing anyone.
…”Hornberger or one of his allies saying Adam Kokesh after being eliminated endorsed him, and Kokesh came on a few minutes later saying he was not endorsing anyone”.
The interesting thing about the Libertarian national convention is that they use what is essentially an “in-person” variant of ranked choice voting. Instead of ranking each candidate on the first ballot, they just drop the least favored candidate on each ballot, and proceed with a new ballot among the remaining candidates.
Jacob Hornberger also did negative campaigning against Jo Jorgensen and Adam Kokesh.
I thought some of what he said about Amash (who dropped out before the convention), Jorgensen and Kokesh was unwarranted.
WZ –
LNC – ONE MORE ELITIST OLIGARCH GANG MEETING
—
ALL MAIL ELECTIONS BY ALL 18 + USA CITIZ PARTY MEMBERS FOR X TIME PERIOD
TO ELECT ALL PARTY OFFICERS AND LP PREZ/VP NOMINEES
P-A-T
“Jacob Hornberger also did negative campaigning against Jo Jorgensen…”
One certainly has to question the judgment of a candidate who negatively campaigns against someone who plays ice hockey (disclosure, I voted for Jorgensen and displayed her campaign sign in my front yard).
Rectenwald seems obscure, but then so did Jorgensen. We’ll see. The other names Ryan cited as major seem pretty obscure as well. Oliver and Smith at least have names that don’t make it worse by sounding obscure on top of that, but I still don’t know who they are, other than what I read here. Therefore, 99.99%+ of voters probably never heard of them either.
All mail elections are a terrible idea, and in any case it shouldn’t be anyone’s business except active party members, unless they themselves choose otherwise and pay all the costs to make it so.
Did you know Jorgensen is a Marxist blm (burn loot murder) supporter?
They really should just contaminate Trump. Most libertarian and overall best President since Andrew Jackson.
You mean conominate? If so, I agree.
Yes, thank you. I don’t think they would contaminate much. Trump is Trump, so their past antics wouldn’t be of much significance. Sure, the libtards would try to exploit those, but people would see that for what it is and Trump would own them like always.
“Jorgensen is a Marxist blm (burn loot murder) supporter?”
Power corrupts, and so almost all government officials that wield power are corrupt — most especially the police. Libertarians would do well to remember that.
So you support burn loot murder also? That’s communist, not libertarian.
As I see it, the best check on police power is transparency (e.g., body cameras) and accountability (e.g., no qualified immunity: https://ij.org/issues/project-on-immunity-and-accountability/). Neither of these increases government control over the economy.
What do you see as the best check on government policing power?
Why do you support Trump? He loves huge tariffs, where governments decide what you should and should not be buying with your own money. That’s socialist, not libertarian.
Nonsense. Tariffs built American industrial might. They were the main source of government revenue for most if this country’s history. They should be again.
There’s nothing libertarian whatsoever about Marxist burn loot murder and we need Trump to save America. You are completely off base.
There’s nothing Libertarian about government revenues from a government tax designed to control what individuals buy. I’ve also never heard a Libertarian saying they want higher government revenues. That’s big-government socialist talk, not libertarian.
What is the best check on government policing power if not transparency and accountability?
We don’t want higher government revenues, we want lower. But there needs to be some. And it should be paid with tariffs, not income tax or fica or corporate taxes. We also need law and order and to back the blue. Commies are trying to defund, defame, and even abolish the police. Crime is out of control. The border is not being enforced. We need Trump to save America.
Tariffs are even worse than income taxes. Income taxes are bad because labor is productive and should be encouraged, but at least income taxes don’t try and restrict individual liberty on what they shouldn’t do.
“Back the blue” is statist talk. Government agents are government agents no matter what color they wear. I don’t think the police should be defunded or abolished, but I also don’t think they need to be stronger. What they need is to be policed (i.e., transparency and accountability).
Stricter immigration controls is also authoritarian, involving *more* government power and influence. Libertarians favor the free flow of goods, services, capital, and labor. Trust individuals, not governments.
Settler nations like the US also have a huge advantage over ethnostates in Europe and Asia which are facing huge demographic issues (i.e., aging populations). The main reason is because our country is far better able to absorb immigration.
Wrong on every point. You are dangerously naive.
To contribute more productively to a discussion, discuss the reasons why you disagree with something that someone else says (rather than insulting them).
I’m not insulting you, and you’ve received more serious consideration and response than you’ve earned. If you find accurate description insulting, stop earning those descriptions.
Well, looks promising hahaha
He makes all of $62 on patreon
Over/under on
40 states?
500k votes?
If “dangerously naive” is not an insult, it is at the very least an ad hominem attack, and although you may not have intended it, in my experience this signals anger and/or an ability to respond more substantively.
Although I am a registered Libertarian, I am also an ideological relativist who views any policy position as theoretically defensible regardless of whether you are conservative, liberal, libertarian, or populist. I simply ask that you be accurate with how you defend a policy. A policy that increases the size and scope of government and/or impinges upon individual liberties may be defensible (assuming you choose to do so), but they are *not* libertarian.
I also view polarization as the biggest threat to the health of this country. As such, I view the most productive political discussions are the ones that focus on what policies you support and why instead of which politicians you hate.
Nope. It’s an accurate description of the nonsense you post here. Responding more substantively is throwing pearls before swine. Max went there with you. I won’t. I’m clear on what policies I support and why. Stick whatever label you want on it. To take just one example, bringing in a bunch of criminal, welfare case, disease spreading alien invaders across the border increases the size and scope of government. Then increases it even more when they and their offspring become big government voting citizens. There’s a lot of other examples of why the crap you support is suicidal for liberty, for America, and for Christian European civilization.
As someone who participated in numerous libertarian conferences in my younger days (FEE, IHS), I think young people fleeing socialist countries are amongst the most ardent and passionate defenders of liberty (which rightfully includes religious freedom under the First Amendment).
Supporting big government policies and toxic political discourse is what is really suicidal for liberty. The former puts power in corrupt institutions that have little reason to ever let it go. The latter turns off too many people from engaging in their civic duty of civil political discourse.
Jorgensen is a Marxist. Not only does she support BLM but also forced masking and lockdowns.
Trump is more libertarian than both Jorgensen and fellow Marxist Chase Oliver.
Jo Jorgensen does not support forced masking or lockdowns. She advocated ending the Federal Reserve System, ending the income tax and replacing it with nothing, ending the welfare state, getting the government out of healthcare and education and repealing all gun control laws, none of which are Marxist positions.
Open borders immigration is a Marxist commie position. Not only do the immigrants bring crime, welfare dependency, and disease which use up taxpayers money now, but the vast majority of them go on to be and or spawn big government voters later, regardless of a few exceptions who attended libertarian meetings. The evil left supports mass turd world immigration because they know it helps their sinister political agenda. Suicidal libertarians support it out of sheer dangerously naive idiocy. Except for the ones who are actually Marxists pretending to be libertarians and spouting a bunch of things they don’t actually believe along with their true agenda revealed by their support for population replacement and burn loot murder Marxism. Such as Marxist Ho Horgensen.
Immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than the native-born.
https://www.cato.org/blog/new-research-illegal-immigration-crime-0
In my experience, using loaded language such as “mass turd” and “dangerously naive idiocy” generally tells readers a lot more about you than it does about the people you are criticizing. Most people find a professional tone more convincing.
CATO is a deep state website run by commies.
Which policy change involves bigger and stronger government and less freedom for individuals, stricter immigration or looser immigration?
And Ben Powell makes the cogent economic argument here, addressing several myths like their impact on crime and jobs, and has this to say regarding welfare even if you doubt the statistics provided by Cato:
https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2010/Powellimmigration.html
“Ludwig Von Mises argued that each intervention in the market would have secondary and undesirable consequences that would cause policy makers to either eliminate the intervention or create another intervention to deal with the secondary consequences. However, that intervention would also lead to other undesirable secondary consequences. Thus, Mises believed that a mixed economy was unstable and middle-of-the-road policies would lead to socialism if policy makers continued to intervene.
Supposed classical liberals who advocate restricting immigration because of the welfare state are running the wrong way down the road Mises describes. When government socializes health care, as it has been busy doing since the mid-1960s, people have an incentive to take less care of themselves because they expect the government to cover some of their health-care costs. Some people advocate, therefore, that the government restrict what we can eat and what we can smoke. If classical liberals who want to restrict immigration because of the welfare state followed the same logic on health care, they would favor such restrictions on people’s freedom to eat and smoke. But they don’t. They still say that what people smoke and drink is none of the government’s business. The same logic applies to immigration. Some would say that it’s not realistic to repeal the welfare state. But the likelihood of repealing it would certainly increase as immigrants put a greater strain on it.
Finally, few people who object to immigration because of the welfare state are willing to endorse the logical conclusion of their objection. If I have a cousin in Ireland who wants to move into my home in the United States, they would say that he should not be allowed to because he might be a burden to other taxpayers. Consistency would demand that I should also be restricted from freely deciding to have a baby, as well. After all, children are likely to be a net tax burden for their first 18 years and possibly afterward. The problem is not immigration per se. The real problem is that in the midst of a welfare state, immigration, like having children, lets some people push the costs of their decisions onto others.”
As you can see, it’s a piece arguing from the basis of individual liberty and free markets. To view any of these arguments as Marxist indicates a very strange view of communism. How do you define communism and socialism?
The Libertarians should just nominate Trump.
Dangerously naive idiocy is just that, and there’s nothing wrong with pointing it out. Fairus, VDARE, and many other sources show the error of the cooked stats you’re using to falsely claim illegals don’t bring crime and terrorism. Calling things what they are is not loaded language. You’ll have to look up the links, the comments don’t post when I include them.
I agree with Bob and Jake.
Looser immigration means more government and less freedom. Immigrants soak up tax money, and then when they or their offspring go on to vote, it’s usually for bigger government. Duh. It’s suicidal libertarianism at best, and undercover communism at worst, to naively advocate for open borders in the name of smaller government. The Mises Institute is much better on this issue than Mises himself was. I’m a conservative, but non-suicidal libertarians exist .
Let’s see if it will let me post one link. If it does, it contains links to some other good ones.
Nope, instant memoryhole. Look up libertarianheathen. Then search for the article titled “Communists are not libertarian. So why do communists control the LP?” It was written before the Mises Caucus improved that party, but a lot of work remains to be done, as you’ll see if you find and read the article .
Here’s an example of what the Mises Institute says on immigration (and unsurprisingly, it’s far better than what most politicians say):
https://mises.org/wire/more-protectionism-and-regulation-wont-fix-economy
“On April 20, Trump announced… he was unilaterally suspending all immigration to the United States….
…
As a response to the economic calamity, the immigration suspension was ludicrous. Americans lost their jobs not due to an influx of immigrants, but because of government-imposed lockdowns in response to COVID-19. Obviously, companies forced to shut down are not in the business of hiring anyone.
For those companies that are hiring, an immigration suspension would only make it more difficult to provide vital products. Agricultural firms, such as farms and meat-packing plants, rely on immigrant labor. Immigrants also make up a disproportionate share of healthcare workers; nearly thirty percent of all physicians in the United States are foreign born. In the middle of a pandemic, what sense would it make to prevent the healthcare industry from recruiting more migrant doctors?
…
[T]he administration’s ban does not bode well for the future of immigration policy. Tepid though it might be, by stripping American businesses of the right to hire whom they please, the ban represents a major step toward granting the federal government more control over the labor market.”
Atypical example. The caucus improved the party. I still like the Trump wing of the GOP better. Now the libertarianheathen article, that was pure gold. Did you read it?
Organizations like FairUs and VDARE were explicitly created with the goal of opposing immigration, so they face a clear conflict of interest when it comes to objective analysis. Both Mises and Cato, in contrast, aim to further libertarian ideas, just with different perspectives. So I find their output to be higher quality.
And here’s what the Mises Caucus has to say on immigration. I disagree with a lot of what they have to say, but even they understand that it makes no sense for a Libertarian Party caucus to advocate for bigger government.
https://lpmisescaucus.com/uncategorized/libertarians-on-immigration/
“I used to refer to my position on borders as favoring open borders. Unfortunately, that term has been hijacked… Thus, I changed the term… to that of full privatization of borders. This should be the goal of every libertarian.
…
The alt-right might be one of the greatest threats to the future of the libertarian movement. They have a rudimentary understanding of property rights, enough to make their beliefs sound libertarian enough to take in those with existing right-wing biases and a weak understanding of property rights. Once these ideas are inculcated in their minds, they can become ardent anti-libertarians while simultaneously thinking they are the ‘true’ libertarians.
…
Socialized defense cannot work for the same reason socialized agriculture and industry is a failure everywhere it is tried. Government employees are incentivized to fail, success is punished, and budgets are always increasing. In The Private Production of Defense, Hans-Hermann Hoppe writes: ‘the idea of a protective state and state protection of private property is based on a fundamental theoretical error, and…this error has had disastrous consequences: the destruction and insecurity of all private property and perpetual war.’… Socialized services are irrational, and their resource allocation is necessarily chaotic. This was logically proven by Ludwig von Mises in Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth. As such, those who argue for socialized defense are arguing for less defense of that which they claim to hold dear. They may be right that immigrants, as a group, tend to have more statist tendencies. But even if this were a good excuse to keep them out, those who advocate for socialized border defense don’t have a plan to do so.”
You have it completely backwards. Your cherrypicked quotes are amusing though.
Do you disagree with anything that I quoted?
Certainly, I don’t intend to paint it as a stance favoring looser immigration restrictions or open borders. On the whole, it argues for other policies that should have the impact of reducing immigration (e.g., ending wars and getting rid of welfare), but it clearly opposes stricter immigration controls much as I have here, recognizing it as big-government socialism (i.e., “socialized defense”).
But if you think my interpretation is inaccurate, please explain it to me.
“Now the libertarianheathen article, that was pure gold. Did you read it?”
Yes, it’s a lot of what you find here, a lot of negative words (“Communists,” “disgusting hypocrisy,” “scum”) fear-mongering (“child molesters and murderers”) and not much of a substantive argument. What little is there was already addressed by the Ben Powell article I previously linked.
Here’s the Mises Institute again in a more nuanced take on immigration:
https://mises.org/wire/legacy-immigration-its-complicated
“However, economists in a slew of new studies are arguing that immigration fails to degrade economic institutions in America. In a 2020 paper, Meg Tuszynski and Dean Stansel examined the proposition that immigrants transfer bad institutions and policies from their country of origin into the host country and concluded that immigration is not associated with a decline in economic institutions in the United States. Their analysis shows that immigrants are likely to relocate to countries with better institutions than their home country.
The primary message… is that high-quality institutions tame the corrosive effects of immigration from countries with defective institutions. Invariably, good governance in richer countries incentivizes immigrants to become more productive and law abiding…”
The piece also admits that most immigrations assimilate to American culture, and that immigration even curbs the level of taxation, but it goes on to argue (with little evidence) that “there has been a campaign to smear American culture as racist and hostile to the interests of non-white.” Presumably, they are referring to CRT, but having done a lot of research on the topic, I don’t find that accusation accurate.
Still, I won’t argue with its measured conclusion: “Immigration has benefits, but not all immigrants contribute to our economy and society equally.”
I don’t know of anybody who argues they do. After all, not all native-born contribute to our economy and society equally either. So, kind of a strawman at the end, but it’s still a much more reasoned and evidence-based argument than that of libertarianheathen.
Yes. I disagree with pretty much everything you wrote. Aside from that , it doesn’t merit nearly this much of my attention. You are as tiresome as you are wrong.
“After all, not all native-born contribute to our economy and society equally either.”
Exactly. You cannot generalize either way. Many immigrants work hard, some don’t. Many native born Americans also work hard, and some don’t.
“After all, not all native-born contribute to our economy and society equally either.”
Exactly. You cannot generalize either way. Many immigrants work hard: some don’t. Many native born Americans work hard; some also don’t.