Editors note: The following article is a transcript of a a speech given by Libertarian Institute Managing Editor Keith Knight in Omaha, Nebraska on March 7, 2026.

One of the most absurd features of the political and media establishment, is how they have impossible standards for the voluntary sector—the free market—and virtually no standards for the political class.

One example of impossible standards for the voluntary sector, include voters criticizing low prices as “cut throat competition,” high prices as “price gouging,” and prices similar to a company’s competitors as “collusion”—all of which we are told are reasons the state should step in and regulate. The concept of “price gouging” also never seems to be applied to the trillions of dollars spent annually on military measures which make us less safe, and poverty programs which fail to alleviate poverty.

Another example of absurd standards in the free market. If people in the voluntary sector seek “profit,” they are seen as greedy and nefarious. But in the coercive sector of politics, government employees are not unpaid volunteers, and the federal government coercively collects trillions of dollars annually.

When it comes to the concept of greed, certainly the government official who profits from taxes taken without the consent of the population is far greedier than the businessman who seeks to gain profit by offering consumers products they find value in purchasing.

And, one more example, to illustrate the point that most people have impossible standards for the free market and no standards for the political establishment.

We are told that the reason the government has a right to issue taxes—a right no other organization has—is because of the “social contract.” This social contract implies that the government gets a unique right to collect money by force, and in exchange they provide us with protection.

Herein lies the double standard: If we don’t pay taxes, or uphold our end of the contract, we go to jail. Yet, what happens when the government doesn’t hold up their end of the contract, and protect us? What if you or a loved one, gets robbed, assaulted, or murdered? What if—hypothetically—the government provokes a war unnecessarily which leads to Americans getting killed?

We still have to pay taxes. Government officials do not go to jail for failing to uphold their end of the social contract. Yet, academics insist on insulting our intelligence by claiming this arrangement is a “contract” just as you contract with any other group in society.

These blatant contradictions, held by the vast majority of political activists, imply that very little if any critical thinking is being applied to the political realm by most voters, political commentators, academics, and politicians.

Now, the question is, how is it that Democrats and Republicans can claim to be so passionate about politics, when they clearly have put so little thought into the very concept of politics?

It seems, the average person does not engage in politics in order to develop a consistent philosophy, or to change the world for the better. But instead, the average person engages in political activities in order to achieve a sense of purpose and community.

The reality is, the costs of getting informed are extremely high, and after all that reading, researching, and debating, we only have one vote out of millions to hopefully affect the outcome. Thus, people have very little incentive to get informed, admit when they are wrong, and develop a consistent world-view.

While the libertarian movement has been promoting valuable ideas since Frédéric Bastiat’s 1850 publication of The Law, we have not seen the popularity one may expect in the realm of politics. With this in mind, I want to look at a competing political movement in America today that is exceedingly popular, and see what lessons we can extract from it and explain why it has failed to achieve its desired ends.

A recent movement that has managed to obtain popularity while inflaming the passions of millions of people is the America First movement.

Briefly, the America First movement claims it wishes to see the American government stop allocating scarce time and resources in a futile attempt to improve the well-being of other countries; and instead, serve its legitimate function by serving the interests of the American people. Instead of focusing on nation-building, or spreading democracy, or getting bogged down in endless, pointless, stupid wars that are not in our interest, we should be focused on protecting American jobs, reducing crime, and keeping our border secure.

Immediately, we see two glaringly obvious issues with this position.

The America First mindset assumes that politicians have first, the knowledge of how to bring this situation into existence. And second, the mindset assumes that even if politicians did have the knowledge of how to bring peace and prosperity through domestic interventionist legislation, that those politicians have the incentive to make this idea a reality.

Knowledge and incentives are both necessary—not sufficient, but necessary—to achieve any objective. Knowledge is important because it takes a long time to learn how to do important things, such as fixing a plane’s engine. Incentives are also important, since I may know how to clean your house, but why would I spend time doing that when I can spend that time achieving other objectives?

An example displaying the knowledge deficit of the America First movement: consider the remarks by President Donald Trump in September 2024, when he was debating then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Keep in mind, Trump first announced he was running for president in June 2015, nine years prior to this debate.

In the 2024 debate, moderator Linsey Davis asks Trump to present his proposal on how to improve the health care system in America, asking, “So just a yes or no, you still do not have a plan?”

President Trump responds by saying, “I have concepts of a plan. I’m not president right now. But if we come up with something I would only change it if we come up with something better and less expensive. And there are concepts and options we have to do that. And you’ll be hearing about it in the not-too-distant future.”

Ah yes, I have a plan, I won’t tell you about it, give me political power first, then you’ll hear about it.

Here we have, the now elected president, the unequivocal leader of the America First movement, and he doesn’t even pretend to have the knowledge of how to improve health care, or increase health care access to Americans.

You might think, “Oh this will be slam dunk. This is a catastrophic issue for most Americans, and since he’s the head of America First, he’s gonna have a great answer given that he’s had nine fucking years to prepare for it.”

But no. The leader of the America First movement didn’t even care to do a cursory Google search in order to have three or four bullet points on how to effectively address the astronomical costs of health care in the country he claims to love.

All he had to do was look around. Look around and ask, what things have improved in quality, and decreased in price in the last forty years, and why did that happen? Well, the reasons microphones, printers, clothing, computers, televisions, cell phones, airline flights, furniture, computer software, and children’s toys have fallen in price in the past decades, has been the result of free trade, the profit incentive, deregulation, and marketplace competition. These same principles will make housing, health care, and education accessible to the masses.

The “right wing” knows this. They constantly blame capitalism for creating an abundance of affordable products and services that are available to the masses, not just the rich, but the average person; but they criticize such abundance produced by capitalism as ‘materialistic’.

Trump didn’t even care to mention the fact that the government already funds 47% of all health care expenditures, he didn’t even mention how medical licensing artificially restricts the supply of doctors and nurses which drastically increases medical costs, nor did he mention how thirty-five states have Certificate of Need Laws which legally restrict the number of hospitals which can be built.

The reason the previously mentioned products and services became more widely accessible to the average person today is not because the investors in those industries are not “greedy,” they’re just as greedy as anyone else. The difference is that marketplace competition incentivizes producers to lower their costs and expenditures knowing their consumer base has the option of spending their money on alternative producers. What protects the consumer from high prices is not regulation, but competition.

Apparently, the billionaire president of America did not know this simple fact that libertarians have been saying for decades.

Now, let’s assume President Trump is given this knowledge tomorrow. I explain how deregulation will decrease housing prices, health care prices, and how computers have given people more of a free education that any state university ever could dream of.

Mr. America First still faces an incentive issue. What incentive does he have to tell us the truth, then enact deregulation measures which weaken the amount of power the state has?

To get an idea of the type of person leading the America First movement, consider Trump’s Joe Rogan appearance in October 2024.

Now, finally, Trump is going around the Fake News media, and having a three hour unedited, unrestricted conversation, where he can give us all the details of how the 2020 election was stolen from him by the democrats.

Joe Rogan says, “So, I want to talk about 2020, because you said over and over again that you were robbed in 2020.”

Trump: “Yea totally.”

Rogan: “How do you think you were robbed? Everybody always cuts you off. I’m gonna allow—”

Trump interrupts, “They do. Well, they not only cut you off. Well, what I’d rather do is we’ll do it another time, and I would bring in papers that you would not believe. So many different papers. That election was so crooked. It was the most crooked election.”

The man claimed to have documented evidence of a stolen election, but either forgot to bring it, forgot what the documents said, forgot to post the documents online since the interview, or was unable to summarize them.

In short, Trump didn’t have the incentive to either admit he was wrong about the 2020 election, or he has the evidence but isn’t in the mood to prove it.

We have every reason to believe, even if the leader of the America First movement had the knowledge of how to solve our issues, he cares more about his transient aggrandizement than the well-being of the nation.

And one final note on Trump, I figure it’s worth spending time on him since he was seen as the outsider who was gonna save us, and he monopolized political discussions for the last decade—he’s now saying America First means starting a war with Iran, then claims we’ve been at war with Iran for forty-seven years and he’s actually ending a war.

You’d think if we were at war with Iran for forty-seven years, he would have mentioned it during his first term. But what should we expect? Look at the reasons he said he opposed war.

Wars are stupid, pointless, never ending, and “not in our interest.” This is how he talks about war—which is a euphemism for mass murder and destruction of cities? So in other words, mass murder could be a good thing, if there were a scheduled end date, a smart plan, and was “in our interest”? Every murderer murders for his own self-interest. These are pathetic reasons to oppose murdering people and traumatizing survivors for life.

If he had any courage he’d say, “War involves murdering innocent people. America is a Christian nation, God commands us, Thou Shalt Not Murder, end of story. That’s why America First opposes war.”

The fragile ground of the America First movement made it inevitable that even if they got everything they asked for, their leaders would not make good on their promises. America First thought they had a power deficit—if only they controlled the executive, legislative, and judicial branch they’d be successful—but in reality, they have a knowledge and incentive deficit that is inherent in politics.

This is why increasing the popularity of libertarian ideas is paramount.

People concede, in retrospect, that we’re right. They admit the terror wars were unjustifiable, they admit banker bailouts and government spending didn’t solve the 2008 recession, they admit lockdowns didn’t save lives, they admit Ukraine is going to have to negotiate a settlement in the East and not fight to the death, they admit the original USDA food pyramid encouraged childhood obesity, etc.

This is not just a coincidence. Libertarianism has three unique strengths.

First, libertarians understand human nature. Second, libertarians understand the nature of politics, and third, libertarians have a concise principle most people agree with most of the time.

On human nature, libertarians realize human beings are self-interested actors, and have no illusions that we need to locate the selfless humans, give them control of the state apparatus, and expect the outcomes to be desirable. For those in denial about this reality, consider the fact that almost everyone has eaten expensive food, knowing they could live off rice and beans and donate their surplus dollars to starving people in Somalia. Anyone who has watched Netflix or YouTube instead of spending time at a soup kitchen is a self-interested actor. If you’re still not convinced, compare how you felt when you heard about one close friend or relative dying, versus how you feel thinking about the three million people who perished in the Napoleonic wars. The reason you care more about one person instead of three million, is because you too are a self interested actor.

When it comes to the nature of politics, the first rule when analyzing anything is to define your terms. Libertarians accurately see the state as a monopoly on violence, while other political camps tend to see the state as either a neutral tool, sometimes good, sometimes bad, or even worse, many people see the state as the central caretaker in society representing the true will of the masses.

On the third point that makes libertarianism uniquely beneficial, is the concept of the non aggression principle. This principle asserts that given that we live in a society, the practice of voluntary social cooperation is morally superior to a system which grants one group—the government—a monopoly on the right to initiate violence to achieve their ends.

The libertarian focus on the concept of voluntaryism is widely accepted by most people in most circumstances. It’s the reason people generally give as to why rape differs from sex, trade differes from theft, work differs from slavery, and voluntaryism is what differentiates murder from killing in self-defense.

With such a clear, consistent world-view, why don’t we have more victories?

One of the things libertarianism is lacking is a proper understanding of the class war we find ourselves in today.

When I refer to “class,” I am referring to “A set or category of things having some property or attribute in common and differentiated from others by kind, type, or quality.”

When I say “war,” I am referring to, “an act of force to compel a person or group of persons to the will of another.”

The libertarian theory of class war distinguishes people based on whether or not they are violent or peaceful when they attempt to achieve their ends in life.

One class of people, referred to as the cooperators, use the techniques of persuasion, incentives, and voluntary exchange to achieve their goals in life.

The other class of people, referred to as the barbarians or the psychopath class, use the initiation of violence, promote the use of violence or threats thereof to achieve their desired ends; while being unable or unwilling to engage in civilized common sense empathy for the suffering they unnecessarily impose on others.

To specify, some people you may know in the psychopath class include, Senator Linday Graham (R-SC), President Trump, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former President Joe Biden, columnist Paul Krugman, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, author Nikole Hannah-Jones, Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT), former Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, President George Bush Jr., and television host Mark Levin.

What do these people have in common that productively distinguishes “them,” the psychopathic barbarians, from “us,” he cooperators? They use their scarce time on this earth advocating the state, defined as a monopoly on violence, drastically increase its power at the expense of those of us who wish to cooperate with our fellow citizens voluntarily.

With very little hesitation, the psychopath class advocates the use of violence, knowing the costs imposed on innocent people are extraordinarily high, and the outcomes are completely unforeseeable.

Notice, unlike the leftist class war theory, our theory does not arbitrarily discriminate against people based on their income, or assets, or monetary achievements. The leftist class theory does not differentiate between wealthy people who gain wealth by pleasing consumers and practicising voluntary contracts to improve the lives of others, and rich people who acquire wealth through fraud and theft. The leftist theory sees no difference between a wealthy dentist and a wealthy person who mugs people and sells stolen assets.

Leftist class theory also does not oppose rapists, murderers, looters, arsonists, kidnappers, wife beaters, pickpockets—if they are “poor” or part of the “working proletariat class” or part of the “99%.”

The libertarian class war theory also rejects the concept that everyone in the “private sector” is on the good side, considering there can be non-state actors who engage in violations of the non-aggression principle, and recognize that many in the private sector—at all income levels—consistently use the state’s coercive apparatus to benefit themselves at the expense of society at large.

Ever since Cain killed Abel, in every country, since the beginning of time, the coooperators have been at war with the barbarians. The cooperators have sought to trade, while the barbarians sought theft and conquest. The cooperators sought love making and family values, while the barbarians practiced rape and enslavement.

Today the cooperators in society seek free trade and diplomacy, while the barbarians seek to use the state to restrict trading partners and provoke wars knowing full well that innocent people will die as a causal result.

To summarize, progressives, conservatives, and the America First movement largely consist of well-meaning people of goodwill who seek to live in a world where peace and prosperity are accessible to all, yet all three movements have failed to properly analyze the the reality of human nature, the truth about the nature of the state, and have consistently attempted to have different moral standards for politicians which has yielded Democrats and Republicans united in a barbaric mindset justifying wars of aggression, poverty programs which do not help the poor, and social programs which disincentivize economic growth, and diminish the value of the extended family, the backbone of civilization.

Voters will continue to be disappointed with the politicians who led them astray every two, four, and six years until the American people see the psychopath class for what it is, and refuse to endorse psychopathic behavior, and actively choose to disassociate with those advocating barbarism regardless of their gender, nationality, or financial status.