Why I Changed My Political Views on Facebook

About six months ago, I decided to change my “Political Views” on Facebook from Libertarian to Libertarian Socialist. Watching the social network last week got me thinking about this again – so I changed it. What follows is my attempt to explain why – as briefly as I know how.

I labeled myself a libertarian almost twenty years ago. Even at that time there were two kinds of libertarians – traditional libertarians and the right-leaning variety popular in the U.S. Since neither was very popular in my circles at the time, I simply explained to my friends that I was a libertarian without the capital L. That was my way of disassociating with the hyper-capitalists.

The term “libertarian” is now becoming synonymous with the “tea party” in this country. Unfortunately, the tea party movement and others like it are anything but libertarian. It has now become necessary to make a stronger distinction. I’ve written about the tea party before and I don’t want to be associated with them in any way.

I know some of you are going to be thoroughly confused that I would choose to “admit” to being a socialist in order to avoid being labeled a “hyper capitalist” since most people equate socialism with state-socialism. In addition, libertarian socialists disagree on a great deal of important issues. I welcome that ambiguity. I am just growing tired of being labeled “one of those tea party guys.”

Stay tuned. This post actually grew into a series of posts which I will publish in the coming weeks.