Dear Glenn
To be fair with both sides on this issue of "are you or are you not a Libertarian", it's kind of like how one claim’s their sexual orientation, you are what you are and only you really know the truth. So don’t take it personally that a lot of Libertarians especially from the more anarchist people in the Libertarian Party are openly questioning your sincerity in claiming to be a Libertarian. You have to remember, for going on four plus decades, the Libertarian Party has been marginalized and it's only been with the advent of Ron Paul over the last 20 years that Libertarianism has moved from the fringe toward the more mainstream in politics.
The result of this is there is a lot of the Libertarian Party Membership who are to put it mildly distrusting of newcomers, especially newcomers who are public figures. An example of this would be Wayne Allyn Root, who as late as May of 2012, in a room in Las Vegas (that I was sitting in) proclaimed loudly he was never going to leave the LP (Libertarian Party). It was late July 2012 that word got back to me that he had quit the LP and went back to Republicans. There are others I could name, but the point is the LP is not as open as many would like to new people because there have been so many pretenders as it were.
You have to remember people who come to the LP are really dissatisfied with the status quo of the "R's" and the "D's". These are people who have grown weary listening to the platitudes of Republicans and Democrats, promising the world or promising smaller government and delivering nothing on their pledges no matter what direction they are pledging to take it. This is the frustration that you see in the Tea party and what generated the Tea Party. And it's a frustration that's been growing for at least a decade prior to Ross Perot's run for the presidency in the early 90s. And that's the Tea party that is actually causing schism within Republican ranks. The problem is many people who are more aligned with the Tea party, make the mistake of thinking their aligned with Libertarianism. The only thing the Tea Party and the Libertarian Party have in common is the common goal of downsizing the present Federal Government. Other than that to political movements have little in common, and to be honest it was the Tea Party in concert with Republican neocons who drove Ron Paul and his supporters off the floor in Tampa Florida at the Republican national convention in 2012. So as you can see the Tea Partiers seem to have no desire to be associated with true Libertarian ideals.
The result is Libertarians are very touchy about people claiming to be Libertarian. And as such are vehement in their defending the term Libertarian. Your problem is you have made statements that are more in line with the neocons in the Republican Party and then claimed to be a Libertarian, and that is where your and their angst comes from your embracing the term Libertarian.
So do not take the personal slights too personally, in fact I would encourage you, if, you are sincere, to truly embrace Libertarian ideals. But I would also strongly urge you to learn what the Libertarian message is, it's not a Republican or Democratic message it is very much a message of a very different political stripe. It is a political message that incorporates the concepts of self-determination and self-responsibility to build a freer society. One of that respects all individuals’ rights so long as they do not infringe upon any other individuals rights. Also if you deign to join the Libertarian Party just remember, this is the only political organization that to join, you have to take a pledge of nonaggression (that means we work for political change through the ballot box, not through violent acts). If you can buy into that, then you can become a Libertarian. But if you hold to the neocon line that we have to attack Iran in order to eliminate it as a threat, or any similar view, then you're not a Libertarian your merely a Neocon.
Now, if you sincerely want to become Libertarian, it takes more than just reading "Atlas Shrugged". It takes a real embracing of the shortcomings of the present political status quo, and realizing that many things that you and I've been told over the years, may not be as true as you want to think. In fact political lies (from both the R's and the D's) that just like Joseph Goebbels and other tyrants have said, tell them often enough and loud enough, eventually you just take it for granted the lies are true and you believe them. Okay that is a paraphrase, the hard part however is identifying those repetitive lies and separating yourself from the perceptions that you have long held because of those inculcated (ground in) perceptions.
In conclusion, if you're serious, I want you to be a Libertarian. But if you're just out playing some sort of ratings game, like Wayne Allyn Root, I just wish you would go back to the Neocon Republican Party and be done with it.
Herriman, R. (2013, February 23). glenn beck apologizes, critiques and reaches out to libertarians video. Retrieved from http://www.theglobaldispatch.com/glenn-beck-apologizes-critiques-and-reaches-out-to-libertarians-video-51681/ (Herriman, 2013)







