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 |  Subject: Anarcho-Capitalist NEWS: An Interview with Adam Kokesh  Fri Nov 22, 2019 4:17 am | |
| As Adam Kokesh describes on his campaign website, he is “running for Not-President of the United States” on the Libertarian ticket. Adam is a veteran of the marines, activist, and former leader of Veterans Against the Iraq War. The Politic spoke with him about his platform, his motivations, and the current state of Libertarianism in America.
Bellah: Tell me about your campaign–running to abolish the federal government–what has it been like vying for the libertarian nomination on this platform?
Kokesh: Well it’s been an amazing journey so far, getting to travel a lot and meet amazing people all over the country–hearing their ideas, their concerns, and talking to them about issues. Especially libertarians, both inside and outside the party, who are very passionate about what we do–they’ve been great to talk to.
I do have to point out from the start that while it’s true that I’m technically running for president–it’d be more accurate, in a sense, to say that I’m running to turn the presidential election into a referendum: whether or not the federal government should be allowed to exist at all. I kind of throw up in my mouth a little bit every time that I have to introduce myself as a presidential candidate, because honestly you really have to be some kind of psychopath to think that you’d be a good fit for president of the United States. To wield this unjust power over other people, that system really shouldn’t exist in the first place. And to have the intellectual arrogance to think that you can run and mandate authority over other people’s lives better than they can is shocking–even if you think something has to be done–doing that violently and coercively through a monopoly on power is atrocious. It has always been ridiculous to me that someone out there could think that they can make decisions on behalf of communities better than they can do for themselves.
Being able to get out and spread this idea, of dissolving the federal government through this mandated and organized process, has been really amazing. It shows people that we have an alternative here, having merged the idealism of libertarianism with the pragmatism of how do we actually start moving in that direction from our current political framework in a way that can get the majority of America on board. More often than not, we don’t have to argue with people on what government should or shouldn’t be, when we simply take the position that it shouldn’t be anything you don’t want it to be. We call it the “everybody-gets-to-say-what-they-want” strategy of running a campaign, if you’re a liberal living in a liberal state or a conservative living in a conservative state, we’ve endured the government forcing us into a one-size-fits all solution that doesn’t work for everyone–in most cases not really anyone.
There are corrupt forces in Washington, government profiteers, special interests, and if we as voters recognize them we can start to see ourselves as friends, rather than enemies, who have been cheated by this corrupt system. We can say “Look, we don’t have to fight over this. I can see your opinions and I can see how you feel about this or that, but I can also see your right to live that way–and I hope you enjoy living that way.” Hearing that resonate with people has just been amazing in this journey.
More: https://thepolitic.org/an-interview-with-adam-kokesh/
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