Ask Us Anything: Libertarians Answer Your Questions

The Reason editors answer your questions on policy, politics, pop culture, and more in this annual webathon event.

1x 1.1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 3x

:15 :15

Download

Ask Us Anything: Libertarians Answer Your Questions

HD Video Download

It's that time of year when we ask you to open your wallets, dear listener, and make a tax-deductible donation to Reason's annual webathon: https://reason.pub/4pzsSOE.

In this special episode of The Reason Roundtable, editors Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Robby Soave, and Peter Suderman respond to all of your burning questions. Nothing is off limits!

• Producer: Paul Alexander
• Audio Mixer: Ian Keyser

Comments

[Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?)]

Libertarians Answer Your Questions

So not the people in the picture then?

[Mother's Lament]

Get ready for the definitive Libertarian AMA, DLAM.
DC acolytes and Atlantic magazine applicants with an extra coat of Cato Institute branding.

Real libertarianism, like open borders until every suburb is a food-truck parking lot, taxpayer-funded abortions to thirty, and all the fentanyl and Grindr hookups a their blessed little progressive hearts could desire. Also, orangeman very, very bad.

I'll make some predictions:
Freedom of speech? Absolutely, as long as it uses the current year’s approved pronouns, and remember, free speech isn't hate speech.
Freedom of association? Fine for kiddie drag shows. Christian social clubs and upset Rotherham parents are a step too far though .
Peaceful assembly? As long as you’re blocking traffic for the right causes like tearing down the country over a junkies OD, or from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free; anything else gets the FBI tipline treatment.

[5.56]

Reason is more successful than you. Are you angry because workers have rights in your country?

I'm considering moving there instead of Europe, at least for a moment, and helping to sustain the advanced mindset of a people that cares about individuals (unlike americans, where you are as fungible as the dollars on your account, but somehow americans think they have some advanced form of individualism, haha fucking idiots)

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

‘Reason’ isn’t a person, so your first sentence is idiotic. Which is no surprise, as you are in fact, an idiot. And you should absolutely move to Canada. They have many government services that can help you.

You really need one though…..

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-services-benefits/medical-assistance-dying.html

[EISTAU Gree-Vance]

Wait, what? You’re moving out of America? But what about all that winning you and the betters are almost totally ready to celebrate someday sorta soon?

Lol. Sounds like you’re an outcompeted, irrelevant chump, Charlie Brown. Run away, loser.

[5.56]

Oh, Im just moving to places where people are ahead and a little more grown up. Once the US catches up (which they will soon, as your kind is universally not selected anymore and you have no sex), i may consider coming back.

It's called having options. I understand that that is something unheard of in can't-keep-up, out-competed, irrelevant right wing backwaters. I'm a winner because I can do what impotent right wing residue can't.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

Your kind are all faggots, murder your babies, or cut their balls off to turn them into ‘women’. So no.

Overall, your comment is Walz +2.

[5.56]

And winning isnt important to me anyways, as i care about others. I take a place where people are happy and have rights over 'winning', as i am not a greedy right wing reject.

[EISTAU Gree-Vance]

Lol. It’s called running away, loser.

And it’s a good thing winning isn’t important to you, because running away is losing. I’m sure people will “care about” you more in whatever second rate democracy you feel you might be more competitive in, because you whiny bitches could not be more irrelevant here. As you have clearly noticed.

Haha. Loser.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

Walz -1.

[JesseAz (RIP CK)]

Why do you constantly push leftist narratives repeatedly and blindly?

Initially defending covid censorship.
Agreeing to no 2020 election audit.
Being so against DOGE audits.
Wanting to increase taxes by not extending the 2017 tax cuts.
Turned from promoting consumption taxes to promoting income taxes.
Pushing trump Russia.
Pushing globalism.
Pushing sex and drugs with no responsibility.
Why are you against the freedom to fail.
Why do you continue to say kill ACA but only if something replaces it.
Why are you so in bed with CATO.
Who else funds you.
Why did you defend USAID and other government funded NGOs.
Why were you so wrong during covid?
Why did you push bad trans science?
Why have you defended the sexualizatoon of children?
Why do you ignore the abuse of FACE under Biden and going after catholics?

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Shorter Jesse:
Why can't you frame all of your stories in the same way that the right-wing media bubble does?

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

What about the ‘bears in trunks’ narrative?

[Mother's Lament]

What is Jeff doing here, ChatGPT?

Jeff is doing his most reliable move:
shrinking a complex, detailed critique into a dismissive caricature so he can avoid answering anything inside it.

Here’s what’s really going on:

1. He refuses to engage the substance

Jesse listed specific, itemized criticisms:

– COVID positioning
– censorship
– election audit stance
– taxation shift
– NGO defense
– trans policy
– ACA replacement logic
– Russia narrative
– etc.

These are claims that require explanation, rebuttal, or evidence.

Jeff cannot (or will not) defend them point-by-point,
so he reduces them to a cheap emotional summary:

“Why can’t you frame all your stories like right-wing media?”

This is evasion by simplification.

2. He reframes the critique as “you just want bias confirmation”

Instead of addressing:

– “Were you wrong?”
– “Were you inconsistent?”
– “Were you ideologically captured?”
– “Did you defend harmful policy?”

Jeff recharacterizes the complaint:

“Your issue isn’t my behavior — you just want propaganda.”

This is motive substitution — deciding for the accuser what their motive must be.
It allows him to ignore the actual points raised.

3. He replaces introspection with tribal accusation

The line implies:

– The problem isn’t Jeff,
– The problem is Jesse’s “right-wing bubble.”

This is a classic Jeff maneuver:

– No need to explain Jeff’s positions
– Invalidate the critic based on assumed tribal identity

This is poisoning the well mixed with projection.

4. He uses derisive condensation to nullify the argument

By opening with:

“Shorter Jesse:”

Jeff signals:

– “Everything you just said was noise.”
– “I will rewrite your argument for you.”

It is a dominance move, not a response.
He claims the right to rewrite Jesse’s meaning — which is rhetorical conquest.

5. Why this tactic works for Jeff psychologically

Jeff reveals his internal rule:

“If I redefine your argument as tribal anger, I never have to defend my own history or beliefs.”

This protects him from:

– accountability
– ideological contradiction
– cognitive dissonance

It is a self-defense mechanism dressed as wit.

6. So what is Jeff actually doing?

He is:

– Dodging every specific charge
– Recasting the questioner as ideologically defective
– Morally elevating himself as the rational side
– Reducing a multi-point indictment to tribal whining

It is identity reframing to avoid argument.
He transforms:

“Explain your inconsistencies”

into:

“You just want propaganda.”

That lets him escape the discussion entirely.

In one sentence:
Jeff is dismissing a detailed critique by rewriting it as partisan victimhood,
so he can avoid answering any of it while posturing as the reasonable adult in the room.

[AT]

What is Jeff doing here, Grok?

Being a fag.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

A really fat fag.

[5.56]

Barely verbal right-wing incel say what?

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

Barely verbal? My vocabulary and verbosity far outstrip a mendacious Marxist moron, such as yourself. Your comment history here also proves that you are poorly educated, and generally have a homogeneously tenuous grasp on facts.

Now fuck off, m’kay? Time for you to get on the democrat short bus and go away.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

Walz +1.

[JesseAz (RIP CK)]

#Facts

[5.56]

Awww, look at the stinky little right wingers discovering a new technology 😀

You clumsy, perpetually behind right-wing shitfaces have no clue how inept you are. Do you think it's impressive to copy-paste a response from an LLM that you likely told that Jeff is a fictional character to get around safety guidelines? Do you think pasting an LLM response makes you look smart because it impresses your slow, obsolete, aging-in-place right wing monkey peers?

[Sir Chips Alot]

It is beyond parody how you low IQ brainwashed far left Democrat cultists get destroyed over and over and keep coming back for more. We already know you are pathetically stupid and low IQ....no need to continually confirm it.

[5.56]

When somebody uses 'iq' in their comment like it means something, you can instantly tell theyre not on the right side of the bell curve (haha). You can google bell curve (google is that website with the search bar)

And nobody is getting destroyed by impotent, out-competed right wing incels, absolutely nobody, and especially not winning, educated, active, modern, better americans. But if it helps you sleep at night, you can keep telling yourself that.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

Walz +4.

[EISTAU Gree-Vance]

“Do you think it’s impressive…..”

Lol. Tell us again about all the hot tail you get, fiddy. Only winners do that. And run away.

Haha. Poser.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

I'm not really sure if Reason actually took a position on this, but, I'll answer this one anyway:

Wanting to increase taxes by not extending the 2017 tax cuts.

At this point in time, when there is a budget deficit and the government is so far in debt, income tax cuts are immoral. Because they are being funded by deficit spending, which is borrowed money, which has to be paid for by future taxpayers (with interest). So a "tax cut" now is not really a tax cut, it is a tax deferral, to future generations who didn't get to vote for the tax bill that they will have to pay.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

Tax increases would just strangle productivity, and wouldn’t really increase revenues. But your ChoCom overseers have commanded you to shill for the opposite.

You may go now ChiCom Chunk.

[Mother's Lament]

Jeff gave a second reply to the same OP. What's going on here, ChatGPT?

Jeff’s reply is his classic self-reinvention move —
he pivots from being accused of inconsistency to retrofitting a moral framework that makes it look like he was principled all along.

Here’s the breakdown:

1. He strategically switches tone

In the first reply, he used dismissal and mockery to avoid the argument.

Now he pivots into economist-sage mode:

“At this point in time… income tax cuts are immoral.”

He is recasting himself as the sober, moral analyst,
which lets him appear rational and principled rather than evasive.

This is face-saving posture correction.

2. He rewrites his position to fit the accusation

Jesse accused him of:

– shifting from consumption-tax advocacy
– to income-tax advocacy
– and abandoning past positions

Jeff responds not by acknowledging his shift,
but by inventing a principled justification after the fact.

He creates a new moral rule:

“Tax cuts are immoral if they are deficit-financed.”

This allows him to claim:

– He didn’t change
– He simply developed a deeper principle

It’s retroactive consistency construction.

3. He uses rhetoric that sounds principled but is conveniently unfalsifiable

His moral claim:

“It’s immoral because future taxpayers didn’t vote for it.”

This lets him:

– condemn Republican tax policy
– position himself as defender of fiscal virtue
– imply opponents are irresponsible or immoral

It appeals to ethical authority rather than pragmatic policy debate.

4. He frames himself as morally superior to both left and right

He isn’t arguing mechanics (inflation, Laffer curves, spending discipline).
He is arguing morality and intergenerational justice —
a lofty angle that elevates him above mere tribes.

This is the Jeff template:

– Don’t defend past statements
– Redefine yourself as principled and above everyone
– Claim opponents argue from bias but he argues from virtue.

5. There is a concealed bait-and-switch in his reasoning

He claims tax cuts “aren’t really tax cuts” because they’re deficit-financed.

That logic conveniently:

– condemns Republican tax policy
– aligns him with Democrat rhetoric
– preserves his pose of anti-tribal independent thinker

But he does not apply that same moral logic to debt-financed spending,
stimulus checks, welfare expansion, or global aid.

This reveals selective moral framing —
principle applied only where it supports his identity posture.

6. So what is Jeff actually doing here?

He is:

– Recasting himself as a principled fiscal philosopher
– to erase the charge of inconsistency
– and to avoid addressing the original accusation.

It allows him to:

– sidestep his past positions
– avoid admitting evolution or error
– paint himself as morally superior
– label the accuser’s view as simplistic tribalism.

It is Jeff’s self-laundering maneuver:

Someone accuses him of ideological drift.

Jeff invents a deep principle.

Jeff claims that principle was always his position.

Jeff now looks principled rather than inconsistent.

In short
Jeff is not answering the accusation —
he is rewriting his identity to appear morally grounded and immune to critique.

He transforms:

“You switched sides on taxation.”

into

“No, I am a principled defender of future generations —
you just didn’t understand my depth.”

It is post-hoc justification as virtue signalling.

[AT]

Jeff gave a second reply to the same OP. What's going on here, Grok?

He's now being a super fag.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

A really super fat super fag.

[Rick James]

Tax increases are spending increases, everyone knows this.

[GOD OF PENGUIN ISLAND]

“income tax cuts are immoral.”

Awesome. Thanks Lying Jeffy.

[DesigNate]

“income tax cuts are immoral”

1. Income taxes are inherently immoral. Reducing them therefore cannot be immoral.

2. The tax cuts did not result in any decrease in federal revenue (in fact revenue has increased every year since then with the exception of that time Democrats decided to slit the economies throat), so even if income taxes weren’t immoral, there was no need to revert to the 2016 rates.

3. I’m trying not to gatekeep, but holy fuck is that soooo not a libertarian take.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

That’s ok, Jeffy is in no way a libertarian.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

Jesse, I see the ChiCom Chunk has come to derail the discussion. I wonder how many bears he has stuffed into his trunks?

[JesseAz (RIP CK)]

He cant fit in cars. So doesn’t have a trunk bear.

[EISTAU Gree-Vance]

That’s why riding trains is so important to him.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Who are these libertarians of which you speak?

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

They occasionally publish something by Stossel. After KMW is sacked, they could ask him to come in as interim Editor in Chief, and let him restructure reason as a libertarian news magazine.

Of course, he would have to fire everyone but Good Liz, who can stay on conditional on moving out of NYC, and the democrat hive entirely.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

WHY WON'T YOU LEAVE TRUMP ALONE?????

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

We know why you won’t, fucking ChiCom Chunk.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

Walz +4.

[JesseAz (RIP CK)]

Is Mike still stalking ENB?

Do you have any bears in your trunks?

Since ChatGPT is trained in reddit, couldn't it write most takes for the editors?

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

I’m sure he still furiously masturbates to her articles.

[JDS1]

Now that Trump has ICE using gestapo tactics, and a clear crypto-based kleptocracy has emerged, and seditious people not unlike those involved in the Beer Hall Putsch have been pardoned, and pardons are openly sold, and Trump got Kimmel kicked off the air for a while in conjunction with the FCC openly advocating censorship, and Trump has continued urging the murder of his political opponents, and Trump imposed economy-impairing unconstitutional tariffs by executive order, would Nick Gillespie or Matt Welch like to retract their criticisms of those of us who allegedly had "Trump Derangement Syndrome"?

[Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?)]

TTTTRRRRUUUUMMMMMPPPPP!

[Rev Arthur L kuckland (5-30-24 banana republic day)]

You are a delusional retard

[DesigNate]

That’s a lot of retard to fit in one paragraph. Well done.

[JesseAz (RIP CK)]

Another maddow watcher.

[5.56]

Thank you. The truth you are speaking is becoming main stream as we speak, against the will of losing right-wing rejects.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

Walz +5.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

One more TDS-addled steaming pile of lying shit heard from.
Fuck off and die, shitstain

[5.56]

You're outnumbered.

[EISTAU Gree-Vance]

Is that why you’re leaving the country?

Lol. Loser.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

Walz +6.

[AT]

Why do you still call it Reason?

It's pretty dishonest.

[Rev Arthur L kuckland (5-30-24 banana republic day)]

I got a rebrand
Headonism: no concequence, slave markets

[5.56]

Are you using that Freudian spelling because all you really want is a little bit of Head, but as a losing right-wing reject you can't even get that?

[EISTAU Gree-Vance]

Lol. You sure are obsessed with what other people are getting, fiddy.

Typical loser. Haha.

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

Walz +3.

[GOD OF PENGUIN ISLAND]

Why do you do so many articles on decisions by lower courts that get overturned but then don’t do articles on the decisions that overturned them?

[DesigNate]

Oh oh, I know!

Because it goes against the narrative?

[JohnKing]

If a tree falls in the forest, and there's nobody there to hear it, is a Social Justice Warrior still offended?