It was called a writ of assistance.

Unlike a normal warrant, it did not identify a particular person, place, or piece of contraband. It gave customs officers broad authority to search homes, businesses, ships, and warehouses for smuggled goods. The officer holding the writ decided where to search and what counted as suspicious.

There was no requirement to demonstrate probable cause for each search. There was no independent judge reviewing each intrusion. The writ placed enormous power in the hands of individual government agents.

These orders grew from the 1696 Frauds Act, which empowered customs officials to search for goods that had entered the colonies without payment of British duties. When King George II died in 1760, the existing writs approached expiration and customs officials sought new ones.

Boston merchants resisted. James Otis argued their case.

Otis did not merely object to an inefficient customs policy. He attacked the entire concept of unchecked government searches. He called the writ “the worst instrument of arbitrary power” and argued that an official armed with one could enter a home based on personal suspicion, revenge, or simple curiosity.

A person’s home was supposed to be his castle. Under the writs, that castle belonged to whichever customs officer arrived at the door.

Otis lost the legal battle, but his argument helped ignite something much larger. Adams later recalled that “then and there the child Independence was born.” The confrontation became part of the history behind the Fourth Amendment and its requirements that warrants be supported by probable cause and specifically describe what may be searched or seized. Library of Congress

More than 265 years later, the writ of assistance has returned.

It no longer arrives on parchment. It sits on a server.

Automatic license plate readers record vehicles traveling on public roads. Systems such as Flock Safety can capture a plate, location, time, direction of travel, and details about the vehicle. Those observations can be stored and searched later.

This reverses the traditional order of an investigation.

Police once identified a crime, developed probable cause, obtained a particular warrant, and then searched for evidence. Mass surveillance systems collect information about everyone first. Officers search the accumulated data later, once the government decides someone has become interesting.

The search has already happened. The suspicion comes afterward.

The danger is not theoretical. A former Texas police officer has been charged after allegedly using Flock cameras and other law enforcement tools to monitor his former wife. He has pleaded not guilty, but the allegation demonstrates exactly what Otis warned about: place broad search power in the hands of government officials and someone will eventually use it for a personal purpose. Houston Chronicle

Washington has enacted new restrictions on automatic license plate readers, including limits on collection near schools, courts, places of worship, food banks, immigration facilities, and certain healthcare facilities. Those protections are an acknowledgment that location data can expose far more than a license plate. It can reveal where someone worships, seeks medical care, attends a political meeting, or spends the night. Municipal Research and Services Center

But cameras are only one part of the modern general search.

Federal agencies issue administrative summonses demanding records from telephone companies, financial services, and online platforms. These demands may be approved within the executive branch instead of by an independent judge.

DHS recently used a customs statute, 19 U.S.C. § 1509, to seek information about journalists and political organizations. In one case, a judge twice rejected warrant requests for YouTube account information after finding that the government had not established probable cause. DHS then used an administrative summons that required no advance approval from a judge.

The agency also obtained six months of a journalist’s telephone records, covering more than 10,000 calls and text messages, without notifying her beforehand. The Guardian

That is the writ of assistance with Wi-Fi.

The government will argue that license plates are visible, telephone logs belong to a company, metadata is not content, and administrative summonses are not technically warrants. The British government had explanations too. Smuggling was real. Customs revenue mattered. Enforcement was difficult.

None of that answered Otis’s central objection.

Government power must be limited before it is used, not merely audited after the damage is done.

The Fourth Amendment was not written because the founders believed government would never have a legitimate reason to search someone. It was written because legitimate investigations can become the excuse for unlimited searches. It demands particularity because “search everyone now and identify the guilty later” is incompatible with a free society.

This is not a left-versus-right question. Every administration inherits the surveillance powers created by the last one. Every police database built under an official you trust will eventually be operated by someone you do not.

The technology is new. The temptation is ancient.

The founders rebelled against a government that claimed the authority to search any place it wished in pursuit of taxable goods. We should not surrender the same principle merely because today’s writ is automated, networked, and marketed as public safety.

America was partly born from resistance to general searches.

If we recreate them digitally, we should not be surprised when liberty once again becomes the target.

They had a legitimate concern. Concentrated power can be abused, especially when customers have nowhere else to go.

Seattle voters responded in 1902 by approving bonds for a publicly owned hydroelectric project on the Cedar River. Municipal electricity began flowing in 1905, creating a public competitor to the private utility. According to Seattle City Light’s own history, the public utility offered lower rates and spent decades competing against the private company.

Competition worked.

Consumers gained another choice. Rates fell. The private utility could no longer behave as though Seattle belonged exclusively to it.

But the story did not end with competition.

In 1951, Seattle voters approved the purchase of the private company’s remaining electrical operations within the city. Seattle City Light became the sole electricity provider. The private monopoly reformers had feared was gone, but Seattle had not created an open market. It had transferred exclusive control to City Hall.

Monopoly.com had become Monopoly.gov.

This history raises a question that supporters of public ownership rarely answer. If having only one provider is dangerous when private shareholders own it, why does it become harmless when politicians control it?

A private monopoly can overcharge customers, resist innovation, and become unresponsive. A government monopoly can do all the same things. The difference is that dissatisfied customers cannot support a competitor. Their only recourse is navigating a political system shared with hundreds of thousands of other voters.

Seattle City Light has often provided relatively inexpensive and reliable electricity. That should be acknowledged. The point is not that every government utility must fail. The point is that government ownership does not make concentrated power disappear.

Seattle’s early experience actually demonstrates the value of competition. City Light forced the private utility to compete on price and service. The greatest benefit came not simply from public ownership, but from consumers having an alternative.

The lesson should have been to protect competition. Instead, Seattle unified the entire system under a single government provider.

Socialists correctly recognize that concentrated corporate power can threaten consumers. Their blind spot is believing that the same concentration becomes safe when it carries a government seal.

A monopoly does not stop being a monopoly because its address ends in .gov.

Sources: Seattle City Light history, Seattle Municipal Archives, and HistoryLink.

That matters far beyond one legislative district.

Washington currently has 98 members in the State House, with Democrats holding 59 seats and Republicans holding 39. There are currently zero Libertarians. Fifty votes constitute a majority of the chamber. Today, neither major party needs us. But legislative majorities are not permanent. Elections change districts, candidates retire, political coalitions fracture, and margins tighten.

That is where the bigger vision begins.

Imagine a Washington Legislature where neither Democrats nor Republicans control 50 votes on their own. Now imagine three, four, five or six Libertarians sitting between them.

Suddenly the question in Olympia changes from, “What does the majority party want?” to, “What will the Libertarian caucus support?”

Want our votes for a budget? Show us where the spending is going.

Want housing legislation? Tear down the regulatory barriers that make housing more expensive.

Want criminal justice reform? Protect civil liberties.

Want Republican support for a bill? Maybe Libertarians can bring Democrats to the table instead. Want Democratic support? Maybe Libertarians can force Republicans to accept meaningful reform.

A small caucus does not need to control the Legislature to influence it. It only needs the balance of power.

That future does not begin by magically electing ten Libertarians at once. It begins by electing one.

Cobi Clark could be that first domino.

His campaign is particularly important because he is demonstrating something Libertarians desperately need to prove: we can compete when we run serious campaigns built around problems ordinary voters actually care about. Cobi is talking about increasing housing supply, lowering healthcare costs, affordable and reliable energy, taxes and spending, small businesses, government accountability and civil liberties. His platform also includes ideas such as reducing taxes on essentials, reforming building regulations that increase housing costs, restoring advisory votes on taxes, expanding right-to-repair protections and exploring election reforms.

That is a much stronger foundation for growth than simply asking people to vote Libertarian because we are Libertarians.

And voters are responding.

Cobi received more than 8,300 votes and roughly 30% in the primary, finishing ahead of two other candidates and advancing to November against Democratic incumbent Debra Entenman. That is thousands of Washingtonians who already demonstrated that they are willing to walk past the traditional two-party choice.

Now comes the difficult part.

A serious general-election campaign costs money.

Mailers cost money. Digital advertising costs money. Signs cost money. Events cost money. Reaching tens of thousands of voters costs money. And Cobi is competing against a political infrastructure that has been building donor lists, institutional relationships and campaign machinery for decades.

Public Disclosure Commission records show just how real the effort has already become. Clark’s campaign has reported more than $25,000 in contributions and has spent more than $44,000 when campaign loans and other resources are included in the operation. A huge portion has gone directly toward voter contact, including more than $18,000 in postage and mailing expenses.

That is what a real campaign looks like.

But it also shows why this campaign cannot be carried by Cobi alone.

If Libertarians across Washington believe we should eventually have a caucus in Olympia, then we have to start financing candidates who have demonstrated that they can actually reach voters. We cannot complain that Libertarians never win while expecting our candidates to compete against establishment campaigns with pocket change.

A $10 donation is another group of voters reached.

A $25 donation helps buy signs or literature.

A $50 or $100 donation helps put the campaign in front of people who may have never seriously considered voting Libertarian before.

And enough people doing that changes what is possible.

The goal here is larger than one election. If Cobi wins, every future Libertarian candidate in Washington gets to say something we have not been able to say before: we have a Libertarian in the Legislature.

That changes recruiting.

It changes fundraising.

It changes media coverage.

It changes how voters view the party.

And perhaps most importantly, it gives other credible candidates permission to believe that running Libertarian is not simply a protest campaign.

One seat can become two. Two can become four. Four can become a caucus.

Then one election cycle produces a closely divided Legislature and suddenly those few gold seats could become some of the most valuable votes in Olympia.

There is no guarantee that happens. Washington Democrats currently hold a substantial House majority, so becoming the deciding caucus is a long-term objective rather than something one victory immediately accomplishes. But political movements are built by creating footholds and expanding them.

Someone has to be first.

Someone has to prove the model.

Someone has to knock over the first domino.

Right now, Cobi Clark has one of the best opportunities we have had in years to do exactly that.

If you have ever said you want Libertarians represented in Olympia, this is the moment when that belief has to become something tangible.

Donate to Cobi Clark. Volunteer. Share his campaign. Put his name in front of people.

His campaign says its goal is to put its message in front of 65,000 voters. Reaching those voters requires resources, and November is coming quickly.

We don’t turn Washington gold by waiting for the perfect election.

We turn it gold one district at a time.

Help knock over the first domino: cobiclark.com

Sources

Cobi Clark Campaign — Campaign platform and policy priorities
Washington State Public Disclosure Commission — Clark campaign finance reports
Decision Desk HQ — 2026 LD47 primary results
Washington State Legislature — House rules and legislative structure
Ballotpedia — Washington House composition

Smoking. Drinking. Gambling. Vaping. Eating too much sugar. Driving the wrong kind of car. Owning the wrong kind of gun. Building something on your own property without permission. Starting a business without the proper paperwork. Sometimes it even wants to regulate how large your soda can be.

The justification is usually familiar: these things can be dangerous, unhealthy, irresponsible, or costly to society.

Fair enough.

But if bad habits are enough to justify government intervention, maybe we should finally start regulating the biggest repeat offender in the room.

Government itself.

Habit #1: Spending Money It Doesn’t Have

If you consistently spent more money than you earned, piled up debt, and solved every financial problem by borrowing even more money, most people would call that irresponsible.

When government does it, we call it a budget.

Politicians routinely promise programs today while leaving taxpayers tomorrow to figure out how to pay for them. New spending gets announced with press conferences and ribbon cuttings. The bill arrives later.

Maybe government needs a spending limit.

You know, for its own good.

Habit #2: Taking Other People’s Money

Government loves discouraging unhealthy behavior through taxation.

Smoke too much? Tax it.

Drink too much? Tax it.

Use gasoline? Tax it.

Buy cannabis? Definitely tax it.

Apparently taxes are supposed to encourage better behavior.

So here’s an idea: every time government raises taxes unnecessarily, perhaps we should tax the government.

Unfortunately, that money would probably come from us too.

Government has discovered one of the greatest business models ever invented: take money from people whether they want to pay or not, spend it, and then tell them they aren’t contributing enough.

Try that business model in the private sector and see how long you stay out of jail.

Habit #3: Surveillance

Government officials constantly warn us about privacy and cybersecurity.

Meanwhile, government agencies increasingly have access to cameras, license plate readers, facial recognition systems, databases, location information, and enormous amounts of personal data.

If your neighbor installed cameras around town to track where everyone’s vehicle traveled, you’d probably have some questions.

When government does it, we’re told it’s for public safety.

Maybe government needs to work on its screen time.

Or at least stop watching everyone else.

Habit #4: Using Force to Solve Everything

Government has one solution that sits behind almost every law it passes: compliance.

Don’t comply with the rule? Fine.

Don’t pay the fine? Bigger consequences.

Continue refusing? Eventually someone with a badge may show up.

That doesn’t automatically make every law wrong. Society obviously needs rules against violence, theft, fraud, and other violations of people’s rights.

But government has developed a habit of reaching for coercion even when peaceful alternatives exist.

Don’t like what someone is doing?

Ban it.

Don’t like what they’re selling?

License it.

Don’t like what they’re consuming?

Tax it.

Don’t like what they’re building?

Require a permit.

Don’t like what they’re saying?

Start talking about regulating that too.

Maybe government should try something radical:

Leave peaceful people alone.

Habit #5: Making Rules It Doesn’t Have to Live Under

Government loves accountability.

For everyone else.

Businesses face compliance rules. Workers face licensing requirements. Property owners face inspections. Citizens face penalties for missing deadlines or filing paperwork incorrectly.

Government agencies, meanwhile, can waste millions of dollars, miss deadlines, lose records, approve failed projects, or dramatically exceed budgets without anything remotely resembling the consequences an ordinary person or business would face.

Imagine telling the IRS:

“Sorry, I went 300 percent over budget this year. We’ll conduct an internal review.”

Good luck.

Habit #6: Trying to Protect Us From Ourselves

This may be government’s favorite habit.

Many regulations aren’t designed to stop you from harming someone else. They’re designed to stop you from making choices officials think are bad for you.

Some of those choices really are bad.

People smoke too much.

People drink too much.

People gamble away money.

People eat terribly.

People buy things they don’t need.

People make stupid decisions.

That’s called being human.

Liberty doesn’t mean every decision is smart. Liberty means peaceful adults generally get to make their own decisions and live with the consequences.

There is an enormous difference between saying:

“You probably shouldn’t do that.”

And saying:

“You aren’t allowed to do that.”

Government has become very comfortable confusing the two.

What About Owning Guns?

This one is especially strange because government increasingly treats exercising a constitutional right like a dangerous personal habit.

Waiting periods. Purchase restrictions. Magazine limits. Carry restrictions. Fees. Mandatory training requirements. Bans on certain firearms.

Government’s message often seems to be:

“We’re worried about what you might do with that weapon.”

Coming from an institution with police, prisons, tactical teams, drones, armored vehicles, and the military, that concern deserves at least a little skepticism.

The question isn’t whether firearms can be dangerous. Of course they can.

The question is whether peaceful citizens should lose rights because government believes someone might misuse them.

Liberty becomes meaningless if rights only exist when government feels comfortable with you exercising them.

Maybe Government Needs an Intervention

Here’s the funny thing.

Politicians constantly tell us restrictions are necessary because people cannot always be trusted to make responsible decisions.

But politicians are people too.

So are bureaucrats.

So are police officers.

So are regulators.

If human beings are imperfect, putting some human beings in charge of everyone else doesn’t magically remove that imperfection.

It concentrates power around it.

That is exactly why limited government matters.

The argument for liberty isn’t that everyone will make good decisions.

They won’t.

The argument is that giving government enormous power doesn’t suddenly produce perfect decisions either.

Ban Government’s Bad Habits

Maybe instead of banning another product, taxing another activity, regulating another lifestyle choice, or requiring another permit, we should focus on government’s habits.

Stop spending money we don’t have.

Stop treating taxation as the answer to every problem.

Stop tracking peaceful people.

Stop criminalizing behavior that doesn’t violate someone else’s rights.

Stop requiring government permission for ordinary life.

Stop treating adults like children.

And most importantly, stop assuming that every human problem requires a government solution.

People have bad habits.

Government does too.

The difference is that when you make a bad decision, you usually hurt yourself.

When government makes one, millions of people can get the bill.

Maybe it’s time for government to quit.

But when trees maintained by the city began damaging sidewalks, Lacey found a considerably less complicated solution.

Cut them down.

On Monday, August 3, the Lacey City Council approved a contract of roughly $1.08 million to repair sidewalks in the Jubilee neighborhood, a 55-and-older community in Hawks Prairie. The project is scheduled to begin in September and includes the removal of 185 mature street trees whose roots have lifted and damaged sections of pavement.

Deputy Mayor Malcolm Miller and Council members Lenny Greenstein, Nicolas Dunning and Ryan Siu voted in favor of the contract. Council members Carolyn Cox and Maren Turner abstained. Mayor Andy Ryder was absent.

There is no question that damaged sidewalks create a legitimate safety problem. Jubilee has many older residents, including people who may use walkers, wheelchairs or other mobility devices. Uneven pavement can cause serious falls, and the city has a responsibility to maintain safe public infrastructure.

But there is a considerable distance between repairing dangerous sidewalk sections and removing nearly 200 mature trees from an entire neighborhood.

That distance is apparently where Lacey stores its Tree City USA signs.

A Proud Tree City, Until the Trees Become Inconvenient

Lacey was among the first Washington communities to receive Tree City USA recognition. The city celebrated its 30th consecutive year in the program in 2021, meaning it has carried the designation since the early 1990s. Lacey reported in 2020 that it had invested more than $7.5 million in tree planting and care since receiving the designation and had distributed approximately 33,000 free tree seedlings to residents.

The city’s own urban-forestry material describes trees as providing cleaner air, wildlife habitat, summer shade, reduced stormwater runoff and other environmental benefits. It says conserving, protecting and expanding the urban forest benefits the entire community. Lacey’s 2020 canopy assessment found that trees covered approximately 28.3% of the land within city limits.

Those benefits are real. Mature trees can contribute substantially to the character and comfort of a neighborhood.

They also become much easier to discount when their roots crack government concrete.

The construction specifications for the Jubilee project call for the removal of the existing trees, including their stumps and root systems. Stumps generally must be removed completely. Grinding is allowed only when complete removal is impossible and an engineer specifically approves it.

This is not selective pruning or a minor adjustment to the urban canopy. The city is specifying how thoroughly the roots must be extracted.

Tree City USA, now with fewer trees and smoother sidewalks.

Tree City USA Does Not Force Lacey to Do This

It is important to separate the Tree City USA recognition program from the regulations Lacey has adopted locally.

Tree City USA is a voluntary annual recognition program operated by the Arbor Day Foundation in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and the National Association of State Foresters. Its purpose is to encourage basic urban-forestry standards and publicly recognize participating communities.

Communities generally qualify by maintaining a tree board or responsible department, having a tree-care ordinance, spending at least $2 per resident on community forestry and holding an Arbor Day observance. Applications are free.

The program does not directly order Lacey to impose a particular permit fee, require a specific number of trees on residential lots or reserve a fixed percentage of private developments for tree tracts.

Those are local policy choices.

That distinction matters because the city can hardly blame a national recognition program for the cost and complexity of regulations it adopted itself.

The Tree City USA label is useful branding. The expensive parts are found in the municipal code.

The Rules Private Property Owners Face

Lacey’s tree regulations reach far beyond preventing reckless clear-cutting.

Developed single-family lots of at least 7,500 square feet that do not meet the city’s required tree density may have to replant removed trees. The underlying density standard is four trees for every 5,000 square feet.

That means a 10,000-square-foot property may be expected to maintain eight qualifying trees.

Larger developments face more substantial requirements. Every commercial project larger than one acre and every land division larger than two acres must generally designate a tree tract to advance the city’s goal of maintaining tree canopy with no net loss.

The required tract is generally at least 5% of the project’s gross area.

Five percent can sound insignificant when presented as a percentage during a public meeting. It sounds different when translated into land.

On a 10-acre project, 5% equals half an acre. On a 20-acre project, it equals a full acre.

That land has value. Depending on the project, it might otherwise accommodate housing, commercial space, parking, utilities or other uses. Sometimes the tree tract can overlap with other open-space requirements, and its actual financial effect will vary by site. But the cost does not disappear merely because the city gives the land a pleasant environmental label.

It is ultimately absorbed through fewer buildable lots, redesigned infrastructure, reduced project feasibility or higher prices for the people who eventually buy or rent the finished product.

In a region already struggling with the cost of housing and construction, even well-intended requirements deserve scrutiny.

The Permit Is Only the Beginning

Lacey’s current fee schedule charges $131 for a minor land-clearing permit and $399 for land clearing without another permit. City forester review is charged at $150 per hour.

For property owners requesting professional review of trees, the city’s own form states that the applicant may be responsible for the $150 hourly cost in addition to regular permit fees.

Those figures alone are not likely to make or break a large construction project. The more meaningful cost comes from the full process surrounding them: arborist reports, surveys, tree inventories, protection fencing, redesign work, additional professional reviews, delays and the possibility that usable portions of a site must be preserved.

There does not appear to be a credible study isolating exactly how many dollars Lacey’s tree rules add to the average new home. Any claim that they add a specific amount would therefore be speculative.

But it is equally unreasonable to pretend that these requirements cost nothing.

Land is not free. Professional time is not free. Redesigning roads, buildings and utilities around mandated preservation areas is not free. Months spent navigating additional approvals are certainly not free.

City officials frequently discuss housing affordability as though it were an unexplained weather pattern. Then cities layer fee upon fee, review upon review and restriction upon restriction onto new construction.

Each requirement may sound small and defensible in isolation. The future resident receives the combined bill.

The City Has Broader Authority Over Its Own Trees

The contrast becomes sharper when looking at Lacey’s rules for public trees.

The city code gives Lacey the right, though not the obligation, to plant, prune, maintain and remove trees in public rights of way when officials consider it necessary for public safety or for the appearance of public spaces.

Private owners must navigate density rules, permits and professional reviews.

The city reserves the right to decide that removal is necessary.

That does not mean Lacey has no legitimate reason to remove dangerous or badly placed trees. It means residents are justified in asking whether the city is applying the same spirit of preservation to itself that it demands from everyone else.

Apparently, tree protection is a shared community obligation right up until the government owns the chainsaw.

Residents Asked for Less Destructive Alternatives

Jubilee residents have objected to the project for months. They have asked the city to consider tree-preserving sidewalk repair techniques and more targeted approaches rather than clearing nearly an entire neighborhood at once.

Residents pointed to methods used elsewhere, including sidewalk designs intended to accommodate roots or repair pavement while preserving more of the existing canopy. The city responded that temporary solutions would not prevent roots from causing future damage.

The city may be correct that some of the existing trees cannot reasonably remain. Some may be the wrong species for narrow planting strips. Some root systems may have caused damage too extensive to solve without removal.

But that does not automatically establish that all 185 trees should be treated alike.

Council member Carolyn Cox abstained from the vote, saying she could not support the wholesale destruction of so many trees. Ryan Siu also expressed discomfort with the scale of the removal before ultimately voting yes because of the safety concerns.

Those concerns deserve more than a sympathetic statement before the equipment arrives.

A genuine tree-preservation process should evaluate the affected locations individually. Some might require removal. Others could potentially be addressed through selective root work, sidewalk realignment, narrower pavement, raised surfaces, flexible materials or other location-specific solutions.

That approach may be more complicated than one large contract.

Government generally becomes much less interested in complicated preservation requirements when government must pay for them.

New Trees Are Not Mature Trees

The project calls for more than 170 replacement trees from approximately 15 species, including maple, parrotia, hornbeam, crabapple, dogwood, hawthorn, lilac and maackia. Most must be at least 10 feet tall when planted, although some varieties may be eight feet tall. More than 5,000 feet of root barrier will also be installed.

Replacement planting is better than leaving the neighborhood bare permanently.

But 171 young trees are not an immediate replacement for 185 mature trees.

A newly planted tree does not offer the same canopy, shade, habitat, stormwater absorption or neighborhood character as a mature tree. Those benefits may take decades to recover, assuming the replacement trees survive and are properly maintained.

Lacey’s own urban-forest report acknowledges that newer developments have less canopy because young trees need time to grow.

That reality becomes strangely easy to forget when officials announce replacement totals.

On a spreadsheet, one removed tree minus one newly planted tree may equal zero.

Outside City Hall, residents will notice the difference.

Apparently, “no net loss” works like government budgeting: today’s loss is considered balanced as long as officials promise a future benefit decades from now.

This Is Also a Planning Failure

Trees damaging sidewalks are not an unforeseeable act of nature.

The conflict often results from placing species with large or aggressive root systems into planting strips that are too narrow to support them. It can also result from inadequate root barriers, poor soil conditions or years of deferred maintenance.

In other words, this situation may not be evidence that mature trees and safe sidewalks are incompatible.

It may be evidence that the wrong trees were planted in the wrong places.

Lacey’s bid documents estimate extensive reconstruction, including sidewalks, curbs, gutters, curb ramps and driveway entrances, along with tree and root-system removal and the installation of new root barriers. The city’s original project estimate was between $1.3 million and $1.5 million before the contract was awarded.

The city is now spending more than $1 million to address a conflict that developed over many years.

Residents should be permitted to ask who approved the original planting plan, whether the selected species were appropriate and why the problem was allowed to reach the point where mass removal was presented as the practical answer.

When private development creates a foreseeable infrastructure problem, government demands accountability.

When government planning creates one, taxpayers receive the invoice.

Lacey Is Changing Its Approach After Jubilee

City officials have said this will be the final sidewalk project that treats an entire neighborhood at once. Future repairs will reportedly follow a “worst-first” approach, concentrating on individual locations that present the greatest danger.

That sounds more targeted, more economical and more compatible with preserving trees that are not creating an immediate hazard.

It also creates an obvious question.

Why was that approach not used in Jubilee?

If worst-first is the better policy for future neighborhoods, Jubilee residents deserve an explanation for why their community must experience the old mass-removal method one final time.

The city cannot undo every planning decision made decades ago. It can, however, make a more transparent case for each removal and demonstrate that reasonable alternatives were seriously evaluated rather than dismissed because they were less convenient.

Safe Sidewalks and Property Rights

This issue does not require choosing between absolute tree preservation and ignoring dangerous sidewalks.

Safe, accessible sidewalks are important. So are private property rights, housing affordability, responsible spending and honest government.

Lacey should be free to maintain public infrastructure and remove trees that present genuine hazards. Property owners should likewise have greater freedom to manage trees on their own land without navigating unnecessary permits, density formulas and professional reviews.

A reasonable policy would focus on actual harm rather than imposing broad preservation mandates. It would prevent owners from damaging neighboring property or public infrastructure, while allowing greater flexibility over trees that do not create those problems.

The city should also reconsider regulations that consume buildable land or add unnecessary cost to new housing. A 5% tree tract may sound environmentally responsible, but officials should acknowledge the tradeoff when that land could otherwise support homes or businesses.

Environmental benefits are not costless merely because government prefers them.

The Real Contradiction

The problem is not simply that Lacey belongs to Tree City USA while removing trees.

Cities sometimes must remove trees for safety, disease, infrastructure repair or responsible long-term management. Tree City USA recognition does not require preserving every tree under every circumstance.

The contradiction is broader.

Lacey has built a civic identity around tree preservation. It requires private owners and developers to bear real costs in support of that identity. It maintains density standards, land-set-aside requirements, permits, inspections and professional-review charges.

Then, when the city encounters a difficult conflict between mature trees, money and infrastructure, it approves the removal of 185 trees in one neighborhood.

Perhaps many of those removals are necessary. Perhaps some are not. But residents deserve more than branding, replacement-tree arithmetic and assurances that the next neighborhood will be handled differently.

Tree City USA should not become an excuse for expensive land-use restrictions. Nor should it become a decorative title the city displays while exempting its own decisions from the standards it promotes.

If Lacey wants to reduce the cost of construction, it should reconsider whether every tree mandate is necessary.

If it wants residents to accept those mandates, it should show the same restraint when managing public trees.

Instead, Lacey appears to have settled on a simpler philosophy:

Private property owners get regulations.

Developers get fees.

Future residents get higher costs.

And the city gets the chainsaw.

Washington voters legalized adult use cannabis in 2012, but legalization still depends heavily on where you live. Across the state, local governments continue to block licensed cannabis businesses through outright bans, temporary moratoria, restrictive zoning, large buffer requirements, and arbitrary store caps. In some communities, cannabis is technically legal under state law, but there is no realistic place where a retailer, producer, or processor can operate.

That is not meaningful legalization. It is local prohibition by another name.

Nearly Half of Local Governments Studied Prohibited Retail Sales

The best available statewide estimate found that about 43 percent of the 281 local governments reviewed prohibited adult use cannabis retail sales, representing roughly 121 jurisdictions.

The true level of restriction is likely even higher. That estimate mainly reflects direct retail bans. It does not fully capture cities that allow cannabis on paper while limiting businesses to tiny industrial zones, imposing one or two store caps, or creating overlapping buffers that leave no usable property.

A business can be technically permitted and still be functionally banned.

Bans Do Not Eliminate Demand

Local bans do not stop people from buying cannabis. They push consumers into neighboring cities, toward unlicensed sellers, or back into the underground market. That undermines one of the main reasons voters supported legalization in the first place.

Licensed stores are required to verify age, sell tested products, follow labeling rules, track inventory, and comply with state inspections. Unlicensed sellers do not operate under those same standards.

When local governments block legal stores, they do not remove the market. They simply make the legal market less available.

Jobs, Property Rights, and Entrepreneurship

Cannabis businesses create jobs, lease commercial property, hire contractors, and contribute to local economies. Local bans prevent willing property owners and licensed businesses from entering into ordinary agreements.

A property owner should generally be free to lease or sell to a lawful business. An entrepreneur who meets state licensing and safety standards should not be shut out because local officials dislike the industry.

Store caps create another problem. When a city allows only one or two businesses, those businesses receive government protected positions while everyone else is excluded. That is not a free market. It is a government created privilege.

Medical Access Matters

Cannabis policy is not only about recreation or business. It also affects patients and families.

Washington patients have used cannabis to manage pain, nausea, seizures, anxiety, cancer treatment side effects, and end of life symptoms. Ryan Bartell’s experience helped inspire Ryan’s Law after medical cannabis reportedly allowed him to spend more meaningful and conscious time with his family near the end of his life.

Government should not stand between patients, families, and compassionate care. Local restrictions can make access harder for people who cannot easily travel, including older residents, people with disabilities, medical patients, and people without reliable transportation.

Cannabis Is Treated More Harshly Than Alcohol

Washington communities routinely allow bars, breweries, liquor stores, and restaurants serving alcohol while sharply restricting cannabis retailers. A legal cannabis store may be blocked because it is too close to a park, library, transit center, childcare facility, or recreation center, while alcohol remains widely available throughout the same community.

If local governments want to impose special rules, they should be required to show a clear public safety reason. Lingering stigma is not enough.

Some Communities Are Reversing Course

Several Washington communities have moved away from bans or moratoria and toward regulated access. Pacific, Lynnwood, Redmond, Burlington, Auburn, Centralia, and Cle Elum have all taken steps to allow or expand cannabis businesses.

These examples prove that cities can enforce building codes, fire codes, age restrictions, odor standards, and other neutral rules without banning peaceful commerce.

Regulation does not require prohibition.

Local Control Has Limits

Libertarians support local decision making, but local control is not unlimited power. A city should not be able to nullify a statewide vote, eliminate an entire lawful industry, or claim a business is legal while making it impossible to operate.

Local government is still government. It should address direct harms, not peaceful conduct between consenting adults.

Washington Should Finish the Job

Washington should end blanket local bans, put strict limits on moratoria, reduce excessive buffers, eliminate arbitrary store caps, and require every jurisdiction to allow commercially realistic locations for licensed cannabis businesses.

Legal under state law should mean legal in your hometown.

The purpose of legalization was not to replace one statewide prohibition with dozens of local versions. Washington should finish the job.

McMahon’s argument is simple: membership creates the people, money, candidates, and local organization needed to influence public debate and public policy. Without members, the party is little more than a name on a ballot. With enough members, it becomes a visible political force that the major parties can no longer ignore.

That is why McMahon has made membership growth his top priority. His stated goal is to grow the Libertarian Party to 66,000 dues-paying members by February 2028, doubling its previous high of roughly 33,000. He also wants the party to build approximately $4 million in recurring annual revenue. Those are ambitious goals, but he does not describe them as vanity metrics. He sees them as the minimum foundation needed to support candidates, organize communities, and sustain political action.

As McMahon explained, membership drives nearly everything else. Members become volunteers. Volunteers become candidates, organizers, donors, petitioners, and county leaders. They show up at rallies, knock on doors, write letters, attend public meetings, and introduce Libertarian ideas to people who may have never seriously considered them before.

A single person holding a sign on a street corner can be dismissed. A hundred organized people showing up around the same issue cannot be ignored so easily.

That visibility matters because Libertarian influence is not limited to winning elections. Libertarian candidates can force Republicans and Democrats to address issues they would otherwise avoid. They can change the direction of debates, expose contradictions, and push major-party candidates toward policies that protect more freedom.

McMahon gave a strong example from Indiana’s 2012 gubernatorial race.

Libertarian candidate Rupert Boneham ran against Republican Mike Pence and Democrat John Gregg. During the campaign, the Republican and Democratic candidates relied heavily on familiar tough-on-crime rhetoric. Boneham instead spoke about second chances, rehabilitation, and the damage caused by trapping people in a revolving criminal-justice system.

He argued that people who had served their sentences needed a real opportunity to rebuild their lives rather than being permanently locked out of employment, housing, and normal participation in society.

According to McMahon, Pence later formed a committee to study criminal-justice reform. Indiana subsequently created an expungement program that allowed some people with a felony record to have it cleared after a period of time. McMahon said Pence credited Libertarians with helping change his thinking, eventually adopting the language that Indiana should be the worst place to commit a crime but the best place for a second chance.

That is real influence.

The Libertarian candidate did not win the governor’s office, but the campaign still moved policy. It introduced a different way of thinking, forced the major candidates to confront the issue, and helped produce a reform that affected real people.

This is why dismissing third-party candidates solely because they are unlikely to win misses much of the point. Winning is important, but elections are also opportunities to shape the conversation, build an organization, recruit new people, test messages, and pressure those who do hold office.

The major parties understand this better than they admit. McMahon noted that Republicans and Democrats sometimes spend substantial money and effort discouraging people from voting Libertarian, challenging Libertarian candidates’ ballot access, or warning voters that a Libertarian could affect the outcome. The opening story of the interview describes Democrats sending mailers, texts, and phone messages specifically asking people not to vote for a Libertarian candidate—while continuing to claim Libertarians do not matter.

They cannot have it both ways. If Libertarians truly did not matter, the major parties would not spend resources trying to stop them.

But influence requires organization, and organization requires members.

McMahon also recognizes that growing membership will require the party to change how it welcomes people. Too often, newcomers are greeted with ideological tests, reading assignments, demands for money, or lectures about why they are not libertarian enough.

That approach drives away the very people the movement needs.

Instead, McMahon wants the party to begin with conversation. Why did someone register Libertarian? Which issue brought them to the movement? What freedom do they care about most? Where are they starting from?

He describes this as the difference between “destinational” and “directional” libertarianism. Destinational libertarianism demands that everyone arrive at complete agreement immediately. Directional libertarianism welcomes people who are moving toward greater liberty, even when they are beginning from different places.

That does not mean abandoning principles. It means understanding that people rarely adopt an entire philosophy at once. They grow through discussion, experience, and involvement.

That growth is more likely to happen when people are invited to participate rather than told to pass a purity test.

For the Libertarian Party, increasing membership is not separate from influencing policy. It is the mechanism that makes influence possible.

More members mean more candidates raising neglected issues. More candidates mean more debates where Libertarian solutions are heard. More volunteers mean more doors knocked, more public meetings attended, and more voters introduced to an alternative. More local organizations mean more opportunities to pressure officeholders and shape policy between elections.

The lesson from McMahon’s interview is that Libertarian success should not be measured only by the number of offices won. It should also be measured by the policies changed, the debates shifted, the people recruited, and the political ground gained for the future.

The path to that influence begins with membership.

Not passive names on a list, but active people who are willing to show up, organize, run, speak, and build.

That is how a political movement grows from having good ideas to having real power.

Every election, Americans are told that this one is too important to vote their conscience. We are warned that voting for a third-party or independent candidate will “waste” our vote, help the worse major-party candidate, or threaten democracy itself. Then the election ends, the promises are forgotten, government grows, spending increases, civil liberties shrink, and the cycle begins again.

I am no longer interested in participating in that cycle.

When someone genuinely holds Libertarian principles, I believe they should run as a Libertarian. They should openly defend individual liberty, limited government, personal responsibility, free association, and opposition to unnecessary state power. They should not hide those principles behind a Democratic or Republican label simply because the major parties offer an easier path to the ballot or a better chance of winning.

I understand the argument for “playing the game.” The political system is structured to protect Democrats and Republicans. Major-party candidates receive more attention, easier access to donors, stronger political networks, and automatic credibility from voters who rarely look beyond the letter beside a candidate’s name. Running under one of those labels may appear practical.

But there is a cost to that strategy.

When Libertarians continually run as Republicans or Democrats, the Libertarian Party remains invisible. Voters never see how much genuine support libertarian ideas have. The major parties continue absorbing libertarian votes without having to adopt libertarian policies. Candidates may gain influence inside the system, but the independent political movement outside that system remains weak.

A movement cannot grow when its strongest advocates are always campaigning under someone else’s banner.

Running openly as a Libertarian may mean losing elections. It may mean being excluded from debates, ignored by the media, and dismissed as unrealistic. But political change has never begun by waiting for the establishment to make it convenient. It begins when people are willing to stand publicly for what they believe, even when the odds are against them.

Voting is not merely an attempt to predict the winner. It is an expression of political support. When I vote for someone, I am helping strengthen that candidate, that label, and the political organization behind them. I am no longer willing to lend my vote to parties that repeatedly expand government power while claiming that the other side is the only real threat.

Democrats and Republicans disagree loudly, but their governments continue accumulating debt, expanding surveillance, funding foreign intervention, protecting entrenched institutions, and increasing control over ordinary people. They may offer different justifications, but both parties have contributed to the same concentration of political power.

That is why I intend to vote for Libertarians, other third-party candidates, or candidates with no party affiliation. When no candidate represents my principles, I would rather leave a race blank than reward a party merely because it is considered the lesser evil.

Others will make different choices, and I respect that. Some Libertarians believe working inside a major party is the most effective way to influence policy. Others support strategic voting in close races. Those debates are legitimate. This is simply where I have drawn my own line.

I do not expect the two-party system to disappear because of one ballot. But every political movement begins with people refusing to accept that the existing choices are the only choices possible.

Democrats and Republicans have had generations to prove that they can restrain government and protect liberty. I am done waiting for them to become something they have repeatedly shown they are not.

From now on, my vote will support political independence, third parties, and candidates willing to stand under their real principles.

I am not voting out of fear anymore.

To be precise, the Republican club did not produce the video. I also cannot say that every member agrees with every statement in it. But placing something on an organization’s Resources page is not neutral. It tells visitors that the material is useful, credible, or worthy of promotion.

That makes the content fair game for public scrutiny.

A legitimate debate buried beneath propaganda

There are serious questions worth discussing about gender-related medical treatment for minors.

What should the minimum age be? How strong is the evidence? How should possible effects on fertility and sexual development be explained? What role should parents have? How should doctors evaluate other mental-health conditions? Should taxpayers be required to pay for these treatments?

These are legitimate questions.

Different medical systems have reached different conclusions. NHS England changed its youth gender services after the Cass Review and stopped routinely prescribing puberty blockers to minors, while the Endocrine Society continues to support carefully evaluated treatment for some adolescents under defined clinical criteria.

That disagreement should encourage more careful research, better informed consent and open debate.

It does not justify making up a new definition of addiction.

Long-term treatment is not automatically addiction

The Washington Parents Network repeatedly claims that children are being made “addicted to toxic Trans drugs.” Its supporting material accuses politicians of helping drug companies addict children, calls medical providers “drug pushers” and describes the issue as a “Trans Drug Cult.”

But addiction has an actual medical meaning.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse defines addiction as compulsive drug seeking and use despite harmful consequences. It is not simply taking a medication for a long period of time.

People may take insulin, thyroid medication, blood-pressure drugs, psychiatric medication or replacement hormones for years or even for life. That does not make them addicts.

A person may also experience physical changes when stopping a medication. That can be physical dependence or the return of the condition being treated. Dependence, continued treatment and addiction are not interchangeable terms.

Testosterone can be abused, but that does not prove the video’s claim

Testosterone deserves some additional context because it is a Schedule III controlled substance and can be misused, particularly at excessive doses.

The FDA’s prescribing information distinguishes ordinary medical treatment from abuse. It describes abuse as intentional nonmedical use for rewarding effects and identifies addiction-related behavior such as taking more than prescribed, continuing despite medical or social harm, prioritizing the drug over other obligations and being unable to stop despite trying.

The same FDA label states that drug dependence in people using approved testosterone doses for approved indications has not been documented. Gender-related prescribing is often off-label, so that statement does not settle every question about its use. It does, however, demonstrate that medical authorities do not define every person taking testosterone as an addict merely because treatment continues over time.

Could testosterone be abused? Yes.

Does taking prescribed testosterone automatically constitute addiction? No.

Estrogen, puberty blockers and testosterone also have different effects, risks and prescribing rules. Throwing all of them into a category called “Trans drugs” and declaring patients addicted is political messaging, not meaningful medical analysis.

You can oppose treatment without misrepresenting it

Someone can believe that puberty blockers should not be prescribed to minors.

Someone can believe cross-sex hormones should require parental approval, a higher minimum age, extensive counseling or stronger evidence.

Someone can advocate against public funding or argue that government should not force insurance companies to cover particular procedures.

Those are political and ethical positions that can be argued honestly.

But calling every transgender person receiving long-term hormone treatment a drug addict is no more medically accurate than calling a diabetic an insulin addict.

That language is designed to produce disgust and fear. It turns patients into victims of a supposed cartel and transforms disagreement over medicine into a battle between good families and an evil cult.

It also makes productive discussion nearly impossible.

Parental rights require honest information

I support the right of parents to know what is happening with their children. I support informed consent. I oppose government agencies hiding relevant information from families or pretending that legitimate medical uncertainty does not exist.

But parental rights are not strengthened by misinformation.

Parents cannot make informed decisions when political organizations deliberately blur the difference between treatment, dependence, side effects, misuse and addiction. You do not protect families by frightening them with terminology that is medically inaccurate.

Skepticism toward government and large medical institutions is healthy. No claim should be accepted simply because an agency, pharmaceutical company or professional association makes it.

That same skepticism must also be applied to activists who tell people what they want to hear.

“Do your own research” cannot mean accepting every alarming claim from someone on your political side.

The Republican club should correct the record

The Thurston County Women’s Republican Club should reconsider presenting this video as an unqualified resource.

At minimum, it should add a disclaimer explaining that it did not produce the presentation and does not necessarily endorse every claim. Better yet, it should publicly correct the misuse of the word “addiction” and host a serious discussion that includes qualified professionals representing the competing medical viewpoints.

Parents deserve evidence.

Children deserve compassion.

Voters deserve arguments based on accurate definitions rather than fear-driven propaganda.

There is room for intense disagreement over gender medicine, parental rights and the proper role of government. But if your argument depends on calling ordinary long-term medical treatment “drug addiction,” your argument is not as strong as you think it is.

Parental rights deserve better than this.

Recently, I raised concerns about whether Lacey City Councilmember Nic Dunning was living at his gym, West Coast Fitness, inside Lacey city limits while also owning a house outside the city limits. My concern was simple: elected officials should have to follow the same zoning, residency, occupancy, and permit rules that regular people and small business owners are expected to follow.

As libertarians, we can oppose heavy-handed zoning rules while still demanding equal treatment under the rules politicians support, enforce, or benefit from. If ordinary people are expected to navigate permits, occupancy rules, and city regulations, then elected officials should not get a special exception.

Nic reached out and sent me the full hearing packet from the voter registration challenge. I appreciate that. He did not dodge the issue, he did not just throw insults, and he did not refuse to engage. He provided the documentation he had and handled the conversation professionally.

After reviewing the packet, the situation is more detailed than the simple version being passed around.

According to the documents, Nic’s position is that he does not merely “sleep in the back of a gym.” His declaration states that, as part of his lease, he rents an additional on-site apartment or suite at 5823 Lacey Blvd SE with a bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen area. The packet also includes photos of the space, along with statements that his driver’s license, auto insurance, tax records, and other documents list that address as his residence.

The packet also explains that the house outside Lacey city limits was purchased in November 2025 as a possible future home or investment property, but that it needed significant repairs, including HVAC, gas line, plumbing, septic, drainage, and other work. According to the documents, he and his wife have stayed there at times, but his position is that it has not been their permanent residence.

That matters.

It does not mean every possible zoning or occupancy question is automatically answered, but it does mean the public conversation should be accurate. Based on the documents Nic provided, he has a serious factual basis for saying he resides at the Lacey address. The Thurston County Auditor also dismissed the voter registration challenge because the challenger did not meet the burden of proof.

That does not mean people are wrong to ask questions. Public officials should expect scrutiny, especially when residency determines eligibility for office. But scrutiny should be grounded in facts, not assumptions.

I still believe the broader issue matters: local governments create complicated rules around zoning, occupancy, housing, and business use. Those rules often hurt regular people, renters, property owners, and small businesses. When questions come up involving elected officials, the standard should be the same for everyone.

But I also believe in giving credit where it is due. Nic provided information, answered the concern, and engaged directly. That is how public officials should respond when voters have questions.

So my position after reviewing the packet is this:

The voter residency issue appears to have been addressed with documentation. The claim that he has an on-site apartment or suite at the Lacey address is supported by the materials he sent. The remaining question, if any, is not whether he produced evidence of residence, but whether the city’s zoning and occupancy records fully reflect that use.

That is a city records question, not a rumor question.

I have asked for information from the City of Lacey regarding zoning, permits, certificates of occupancy, and any records related to residential or live/work use at that address. If the city provides records showing everything is properly permitted and recognized, then that should settle the matter. If there are gaps, then the city should explain them clearly.

Either way, I appreciate Nic being willing to engage professionally and provide the relevant information instead of letting the issue spiral into speculation.

We need more of that in local politics.

Ask hard questions. Demand equal treatment. Challenge bad rules. But when someone answers honestly and provides documentation, acknowledge it.

Nic Dunning is a Lacey City Councilmember. To serve on the Lacey City Council, you have to be a resident of the city. That requirement exists because the people making decisions for Lacey are supposed to actually live under the rules, taxes, zoning, policing, fees, and ordinances they vote on.

Recently, questions were raised about where Nic actually lives. According to public reporting, his voter registration lists his residence as West Coast Fitness, the gym he owns in Lacey. A voter registration challenge was filed alleging that he does not actually reside at that address and instead has a home outside Lacey city limits. The Thurston County Auditor dismissed that challenge, saying the challenger did not meet the burden of proof.

That decision may answer the voter registration challenge for now, but it does not answer the bigger question.

Can someone legally live inside a commercial gym in Lacey?

That is what I want to find out.

I have already submitted a public records request to the City of Lacey asking for records related to the zoning, permits, occupancy approvals, certificates of occupancy, inspections, code enforcement records, and any approval for residential, live/work, caretaker, mixed-use, or sleeping occupancy at that property.

This is not about spreading rumors. It is about records.

If the gym is legally approved as a residence or live/work space, then the city should be able to show that. If it has a certificate of occupancy allowing residential use, show it. If permits were issued, show them. If the property was inspected and approved for someone to sleep there, show the records.

But if there are no records, no permits, no legal residential occupancy, and no live/work approval, then the public deserves to know that too.

Here is where the hypocrisy matters.

As a libertarian, I do not believe government should micromanage where peaceful people live. I think zoning laws are often abusive, expensive, arbitrary, and used to control property owners, renters, small businesses, and working-class people. These rules make housing harder to build, make life more expensive, and give bureaucrats power over basic human decisions.

But Democrats and establishment politicians in these cities support these systems. They vote for zoning restrictions. They defend permitting rules. They empower code enforcement. They make regular people beg for permission to use their own property. They tell small business owners what they can do with their buildings. They tell families what counts as a legal dwelling. They tell builders, renters, and homeowners to follow every rule, pay every fee, and wait in every line.

So if one of the people operating inside that system is using a commercial business as a residence to stay eligible for office, then the question is simple:

Did he follow the same rules everyone else is forced to follow?

That is the standard.

Not special treatment because he is an elected official.

Not a wink and a nod because he owns the business.

Not one set of rules for regular people and another set of rules for insiders.

If a regular person tried to live in a commercial space without the right zoning or occupancy approval, would Lacey allow it? If a small business owner slept in the back of their shop because housing was too expensive, would the city look the other way? If a working-class person used a gym, office, warehouse, or storefront as their home without the proper approvals, would they be protected, or would code enforcement show up?

That is what this issue is really about.

I am not asking the city to punish someone for living differently. I am asking whether the city applies its own rules equally.

And frankly, this is one of the best arguments against these rules in the first place. When zoning laws are so restrictive that even politically connected people have to maneuver around them, maybe the problem is the system. But until those laws are changed, the people who support and benefit from that system should not be exempt from it.

The public has a right to know:

Was the property legally approved for residential use?

Was it legally approved as a live/work unit?

Was any sleeping area permitted?

Was there a certificate of occupancy allowing someone to live there?

Were building and fire codes followed?

Did the city know?

Has code enforcement ever reviewed it?

Are regular residents treated the same way?

That is what I am trying to uncover.

This is not personal. This is about transparency, equal treatment, and political accountability. If politicians are going to make rules for the rest of us, they need to live under those same rules too.

The problem is that mutual aid is supposed to be community-driven. It is supposed to mean neighbors helping neighbors, people pooling their resources, and communities developing their own ways to care for those in need. Yet too often, organizations that use the language of mutual aid still look to government intervention and government funding as the ultimate solution.

That contradiction became especially visible in Thurston County recently.

On June 16, the Thurston County Board of County Commissioners voted 3-2 to delay approval of approximately $15.3 million for 49 homelessness and housing contracts involving 17 nonprofit organizations. The contracts supported food, shelter, rental assistance, tiny homes, basic needs, and other services. The delay came after Tumwater officials raised questions about transparency, allocation methods, expected results, and how the funding affected different jurisdictions.

Several local organizations and mutual aid supporters were understandably upset. They warned that services could be interrupted and urged people to pressure commissioners to release the money.

The contracts were ultimately approved one week later. That is good news for the people who currently depend on those services. But the fact that the money returned does not erase the lesson. It reinforces it.

For one week, the future of dozens of programs and millions of dollars depended on a handful of elected officials. One objection, one procedural delay, or one change in political priorities placed an entire network of services into uncertainty.

That should frighten anyone who cares about the people receiving those services.

A Promise Is Not a Foundation

Government funding always comes with political risk.

Budgets change. Officials lose elections. Revenue falls. Agencies change their rules. Grants expire. New reporting requirements appear. Programs that were considered essential one year become bargaining chips the next.

Government can promise support today and withdraw it tomorrow. The people who suffer most are rarely the politicians making the decision. They are the people living outside, families facing eviction, individuals struggling with addiction or mental illness, and the volunteers and frontline workers suddenly expected to do more with less.

This is why I struggle to understand why some mutual aid groups push so aggressively for deeper government involvement without also confronting the danger of dependence.

If losing a government contract could immediately threaten your organization’s ability to operate, then government is not merely assisting your work. It has become the foundation beneath it. Once that happens, the work is vulnerable to every election, budget negotiation, bureaucratic decision, and political dispute.

A community cannot call itself independent while waiting for five commissioners to decide whether its support network survives another year.

When Mutual Aid Becomes Government Contracting

There is nothing inherently dishonest about a nonprofit accepting a government contract. Organizations need money, workers deserve to be paid, and large-scale shelters and housing programs are expensive.

But we should be honest about what that relationship means.

An organization funded primarily through government contracts is operating less like traditional mutual aid and more like a government contractor. It may still do compassionate and necessary work, but its survival is connected to the political system.

Even Olympia Mutual Aid Partners describes how its predecessor’s encampment work originally operated through volunteers and community donations. As the organization expanded, it sought larger sources of funding, incorporated, and eventually became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit running multiple programs.

That history illustrates the challenge. Small volunteer networks can only accomplish so much. But institutional growth often brings institutional dependence. The more staff, property, contracts, and programs an organization acquires, the more money it needs simply to keep functioning.

Eventually, preserving the organization can become as important as serving the community.

The answer is not to abandon people or demand that every service be operated from someone’s garage. The answer is to recognize government money for what it is: temporary, conditional, and politically controlled.

It should never be mistaken for permanent security.

Government Often Takes Credit for Repairing Its Own Damage

There is another reason some of us resist treating government as the primary answer to homelessness.

Government is not an outside observer arriving to rescue people from a crisis. Government policies have helped create and intensify that crisis.

Zoning restrictions limit where and what kinds of housing can be built. Permitting requirements increase construction costs and delay new homes. Occupational licensing prevents people from earning income without government permission. Criminal records follow people long after they have completed their sentences. Drug prohibition pushes addiction into dangerous underground markets. Taxes and regulations raise the cost of living while officials congratulate themselves for creating programs to offset a fraction of that burden.

Government restricts housing, work, treatment, and economic opportunity. It then takes money from the public, passes that money through several administrative layers, awards some of it to approved organizations, and expects credit for addressing the resulting hardship.

When the funding is delayed or eliminated, communities are told to mobilize and demand that the government restore what it previously promised.

This creates a cycle of dependence. Government contributes to the problem, funds organizations to manage the consequences, threatens the funding, and then receives praise when it restores it.

We should stop treating that cycle as compassion.

Build Something That Cannot Be Taken Away by One Vote

The funding pause should be treated as a warning. Local organizations now have an opportunity to ask a difficult question: What would happen if the money did not return next time?

What happens if a future commission cuts the program permanently? What happens if state or federal funding disappears? What happens during a recession when tax revenue declines? What happens when grant requirements change or political support shifts?

If the answer is that vital services would collapse, then we need to begin building alternatives now.

That could include recurring community donations, membership-supported assistance funds, partnerships with local businesses, faith communities, civic associations, unions and neighborhood groups. It could include cooperatively managed housing, community land trusts, volunteer medical and legal networks, decentralized supply distribution, private sponsorships, direct cash assistance, employment networks, and emergency reserves that do not depend on an annual political vote.

Organizations could publish clear lists showing what specific amounts accomplish: what $25 provides, what $100 provides, and what it costs to support one person for a week or operate a shelter bed for a month. People are more willing to contribute when they can see where their money goes and what measurable difference it makes.

Local groups should also avoid allowing one large government contract to become so dominant that losing it threatens the entire organization. Diversified support is not merely a financial preference. It protects the people being served.

These alternatives will not appear overnight, and they may not immediately replace $15 million in public contracts. But that is not an excuse to avoid building them. Dependence developed over time, and independence will also take time.

The work has to begin somewhere.

Keep Mutual Aid Mutual

My criticism is not directed at people experiencing homelessness or at frontline workers trying to keep people alive. They should not be punished for the failures of government, nonprofit leadership, or political institutions.

My criticism is directed at a model that calls itself community-based while repeatedly placing the community’s future in the hands of government.

Real mutual aid should distribute power. It should strengthen relationships between people, build local capacity, and make communities less vulnerable to institutions that have failed them. It should not simply become another channel through which tax money travels from government agencies to approved organizations.

Advocating for the restoration of funding during an immediate crisis may be understandable. But restoring the money cannot be the end of the conversation. The harder and more important task is ensuring that one future vote cannot create the same crisis again.

Government made a promise. For one week, that promise became uncertain. This time, the money came back.

Next time, it may not.

Let that be the warning. Build voluntary networks. Diversify funding. Create reserves. Remove political barriers to housing and employment. Ask the community to participate directly. Develop systems that belong to the people helping and the people being helped.

Keep mutual aid what it is supposed to be: neighbors helping neighbors, voluntarily and directly, without waiting for government permission.

The two major parties have built an entire system around fear. They do not simply disagree with each other. They teach their voters that the other side is dangerous, evil, insane, and coming for them. The left is told to picture a crazy redneck with a gun. The right is told to picture some radical mob trying to destroy their way of life. Every issue gets filtered through that same machine. Every person becomes a symbol. Every disagreement becomes a threat.

That is not politics. That is psychological warfare for fundraising emails.

And it works because chaos is useful to people in power. When people feel afraid, they become easier to control. When crime spikes, politicians use it as an excuse to invade your privacy. When disorder spreads, they use it as an excuse to expand police power. When people distrust their neighbors, they become more willing to hand power to the state.

That is the trap.

Libertarians have to reject that trap, but we also have to be smart enough to understand the battlefield we are on. We cannot just say “identity politics is bad” and call it a day. The two major parties are already using identity every single day. They are using it to sort people, scare people, shame people, and herd them back into the same broken system.

So we need our own answer.

Not the collectivist version. Not the grievance version. Not the government-must-fix-my-life version. Our version has to be rooted in individual liberty, dignity, and real human connection.

That means showing people what the two-party narrative tries to hide.

If the left has been trained to see gun rights as nothing but angry extremists, then we should show peaceful LGBTQ people exercising their Second Amendment rights. Not as a stunt. Not as pandering. As reality. Because peaceful people own guns. Gay people own guns. Trans people own guns. Black people own guns. Women own guns. Immigrants own guns. Working-class people own guns. People who do not fit the lazy stereotype own guns, and they have every right to defend themselves.

That image breaks the script.

It shows that gun rights are not about one tribe. They are about human beings having the right to protect their lives. It shows that liberty is not owned by the right. It shows that self-defense is not extremism. It is basic human dignity.

That is the kind of identity politics libertarians should understand. Not identity as a demand for government favoritism, but identity as a way to meet people where they are and show them that liberty already belongs to them.

We have to speak people’s language. We have to understand what they fear, what they value, and what they have been told about us. If someone thinks liberty means “you are on your own and nobody cares,” then we have failed to explain ourselves. Liberty means you are free to live, speak, build, defend yourself, raise your family, help your neighbors, and organize your community without politicians constantly inserting themselves into your life.

At the Jo Jorgensen event today, that message came through clearly from the speakers: we cannot build a movement by yelling at people from a distance. We have to go to where people are. We have to show up with respect. We have to offer peaceful solutions in a political culture addicted to conflict.

But being respectful does not mean being weak.

The two major parties will not give up their power willingly. They benefit from the division. They benefit from the fear. They benefit when Americans are too busy hating each other to notice that both parties keep growing the debt, expanding surveillance, restricting choices, protecting insiders, and taking more control over our lives.

So yes, we need unity. Yes, we need respect. Yes, we need better messaging. But we also need to be firm.

The Democrats and Republicans have had decades to fix this system. They have not fixed it because the chaos serves them. Every crisis becomes a campaign ad. Every tragedy becomes a power grab. Every group of people becomes a pawn.

Libertarians have to be different.

We should show peaceful people solving problems without the state. We should show communities organizing without coercion. We should show people from different backgrounds standing together for the same rights. We should show that liberty is not chaos. Liberty is the alternative to chaos.

The two-party system wants you afraid of your neighbor.

We want you free enough to talk to them. Free enough to work with them. Free enough to defend yourself. Free enough to disagree peacefully. Free enough to live your life without being used as a prop in someone else’s political game.

That is how we break the stranglehold.

Not by pretending identity does not matter to people. It does. But by refusing to let the state, the media, and the two parties define people by fear.

Our message is simple: your rights do not come from your party, your identity, your zip code, or your government.

They are yours.

And it is time we started showing everyone exactly what that looks like.

That is why Juneteenth should be an easy win for Republicans. It marks the moment in 1865 when enslaved people in Texas finally learned they were free. It is a celebration of emancipation, the destruction of slavery, and the moral truth that no human being should ever be owned by another. For a party that constantly talks about freedom, liberty, individual rights, and American greatness, this should be one of the easiest holidays in the world to celebrate.

Instead, too many modern Republicans see the word Juneteenth and immediately short-circuit. They hear someone mention slavery, emancipation, or black history and instantly assume it must be some Democratic plot. They call it woke. They mock people for celebrating it. They act like anyone who mentions it is a liberal, a race-baiter, or some “Democrat libtard.” It is bonkers. They are getting mad at a celebration of one of the greatest freedom victories their own political ancestors helped make possible.

That is what happens when politics becomes nothing but team warfare. People stop asking whether something is true, good, or worth celebrating. They only ask which side they think mentioned it first. If Democrats celebrate Juneteenth, then Republicans think they have to oppose it. If the media talks about emancipation, it must be a trap. If black history enters the conversation, they assume they are being scolded. That is not principle. That is reflex.

The worst part is that emancipation is exactly the kind of story Republicans claim to care about. It is a story about human beings being denied their natural rights by law. It is a story about government protecting an evil institution. It is a story about people being treated as property instead of individuals. It is a story about the moral necessity of ending a system built on coercion, violence, and political power. Anyone who claims to believe in liberty should be able to celebrate that without flinching.

But if Republicans cannot carry that message anymore, libertarians should. If the party of Lincoln is now too busy yelling at Juneteenth to celebrate emancipation, then libertarians should take the torch. We should be the ones saying clearly that slavery was the ultimate violation of self-ownership, individual liberty, and human dignity. We should be the ones reminding people that no person belongs to a master, to the state, to a political class, or to a collective.

Juneteenth should not be awkward for libertarians. It should not be treated like some culture-war trap. It is one of the clearest examples in American history of why our principles matter. Slavery was legalized coercion. It was the state enforcing ownership of human beings. Emancipation was a victory over that evil. It was a victory for the idea that every person owns themselves and that no law can make injustice moral.

That does not mean we have to buy into every modern progressive idea about race. It does not mean supporting the Democratic Party. It does not mean turning Juneteenth into a guilt ritual or a government program. It simply means having the moral clarity to say that slavery was evil, emancipation was good, and the day enslaved people learned they were free is worth celebrating.

Republicans constantly complain that Democrats control the narrative, then hand them the narrative for free. They say schools do not teach the Republican role in ending slavery, then refuse to talk about it when the whole country is paying attention to emancipation. They say they are the party of freedom, then act annoyed when people celebrate one of the clearest freedom victories in American history. You cannot win a messaging fight by refusing to tell your own story.

Juneteenth is not a Democrat holiday. It is not a Republican holiday. It is a freedom holiday. And if Republicans are too politically broken to celebrate it, libertarians should step into the space they abandoned. We should celebrate emancipation proudly, tell the truth plainly, and remind people that liberty is not just a slogan for campaign signs. For millions of people, liberty meant the difference between bondage and personhood, between being owned and being free.

Republicans had the historical win. They could have carried the torch. They could have made Juneteenth their moment to talk about liberty, abolition, human dignity, and the fight against tyranny. But if they would rather yell about it, fine. Libertarians will carry it.

That is what political identitarianism does. It turns every position into a loyalty test. Your view on taxes, guns, schools, policing, speech, war, or welfare is no longer treated as an argument. It is treated as proof of what kind of person you are. Once someone decides which tribe you belong to, they stop listening. The right has its cartoon leftist, and the left has its cartoon right winger. Sometimes those people exist, but most people are more complicated than that. A person can hate socialism and still oppose Trump. A person can support gay marriage and still support gun rights. A person can distrust police power without hating police officers. A person can oppose welfare bureaucracy without hating poor people. A person can want less government because they have watched government fail normal people over and over again.

This is especially important for libertarians because we do not fit cleanly into the culture war boxes. We believe in gun rights, free speech, lower taxes, property rights, and less regulation, so the left wants to call us right wing. We believe in privacy, criminal justice reform, antiwar politics, drug legalization, marriage freedom, and civil liberties for unpopular people, so the right wants to call us left wing. The truth is simpler: we believe people should be free, even when they are not part of our tribe. That is exactly why both sides struggle with us. They like freedom when it protects their people. They get nervous when it protects someone else.

But libertarians also make a mistake when we act like identity does not matter at all. People do not experience politics as abstract philosophy. They experience it through their lives, families, jobs, communities, fears, frustrations, and the groups they feel connected to. That does not mean we should embrace left-wing identity politics or right-wing tribal politics. It means we should understand how real people think. If occupational licensing hurts women trying to start a small business, say that. If gun control leaves gay people, minorities, or abuse survivors less able to defend themselves, say that. If zoning laws hurt young families, renters, and working-class people, say that. If drug laws destroy poor communities, say that. If government schools trap kids in failing systems, say that. Ignoring identity does not make us principled. It just makes us bad communicators.

The goal is not to divide people into permanent victim groups or promise special rights. The goal is to show how liberty applies to real people in real life. Normal people do not wake up thinking about “regulatory capture” or “state coercion.” They think about rent, work, safety, their kids, their business, their neighborhood, and whether anyone in politics understands what they are dealing with. If we only talk in generic theory, we lose people before they ever hear the message. Liberty has to be made relatable, not watered down.

The two-party system wants every issue reduced to us versus them. The left says, “Give us power so we can stop the right.” The right says, “Give us power so we can stop the left.” Then both sides use that power against everyone. Libertarians should reject that game, but rejecting the game does not mean ignoring how people identify. It means meeting people where they are and showing them that government power is hurting them too.

Not every Trump critic is a socialist with TDS. Not every government critic is a fascist. Not every person on the left hates America. Not every person on the right hates humanity. Sometimes people just disagree. Sometimes they have a reason. And if we want to persuade them, we have to speak to the person in front of us, not the cartoon our tribe told us to hate.

If you own your home in Washington, why do you have to keep paying the government forever just to stay in it? Property taxes are not a one-time fee. They are permanent rent to the state. You can pay off your mortgage, do everything right, live quietly, bother nobody, and still lose your home if you cannot keep up with the taxes. That should bother people across the political spectrum. It does not matter whether you are a conservative worried about government overreach, a progressive worried about seniors being priced out of their homes, or a libertarian worried about the basic meaning of ownership. If the government can take your property because you stopped paying rent on something you supposedly own, then ownership is not as secure as politicians pretend it is.

The same question applies to your paycheck. Washington politicians talk constantly about helping working people, but every session seems to bring another fee, another tax, another payroll deduction, another mandate, and another cost passed down to ordinary families. They act like your earnings belong to the state first, and whatever is left over is what you are allowed to keep. That is backwards. Your paycheck is not a public resource. It is the result of your time, labor, risk, skill, and effort. When the state treats that money as something it has a first claim on, it is really making a claim on your life, because your money represents hours you will never get back.

This is where the old idea of property rights still matters. Property is not just land or buildings. Property starts with self-ownership. You own yourself, which means you own your labor, your time, your choices, and the honest results of your work. That is the foundation of a free society. Without that, every other right becomes negotiable. Free speech means less if the state can punish you through licensing boards, permits, or selective enforcement. The right to defend yourself means less if the state prices, delays, or regulates that right into a privilege. The right to build a life means less if zoning laws, fees, and bureaucracy make it illegal or unaffordable to create housing, start a business, or use your own property peacefully.

Washington is full of examples. We have a housing crisis, but much of the state still makes it difficult to build enough homes. We have small businesses struggling, but we keep layering rules and compliance costs on top of them. We have families being crushed by the cost of living, but the answer from Olympia is almost always another program funded by the same people already falling behind. We have people who say they support the working class while defending systems that make food, fuel, housing, childcare, and basic services more expensive. At some point, we have to stop judging government by what it claims to care about and start judging it by what it actually does.

The question “Who owns the law?” matters too. In theory, the law is supposed to protect the rights of the people. In practice, too often, it protects the power of the state. When ordinary people break the law, they face punishment. When government agencies violate rights, waste money, abuse authority, or enforce bad rules, the consequences are usually slow, weak, or nonexistent. That creates a dangerous imbalance. A free society cannot survive if the people are expected to obey every rule while the government gets to excuse every failure.

This is not just a national problem. It is local. It is county councils, city councils, state agencies, school boards, zoning boards, and unelected bureaucracies making decisions that shape people’s daily lives. Sometimes the most frustrating forms of government power are not dramatic. They are boring. They are hidden in permit rules, land-use restrictions, licensing requirements, public records delays, tax assessments, compliance letters, and “public input” meetings where the decision already feels made before anyone speaks. That kind of power does not look like tyranny in a movie. It looks like paperwork. But the result is still the same: regular people are forced to ask permission to live their lives.

A lot of modern politics tries to redefine rights as things the government gives you. A right to this program. A right to that benefit. A right to have someone else provide something. But real rights do not come from government. Real rights are the things government is supposed to be forbidden from violating. You have the right to speak, not because Olympia allows it, but because it is yours by nature. You have the right to defend yourself, not because politicians grant it, but because your life belongs to you. You have the right to own property, build, trade, work, worship, associate, and live peacefully because those things flow from self-ownership.

That does not mean there are no consequences for harming others. Liberty is not a license to steal, assault, defraud, pollute, or violate someone else’s rights. A free society still needs justice. But justice is different from control. Protecting people from force and fraud is not the same as micromanaging peaceful choices. Government has a legitimate role when someone’s rights have actually been violated. It does not have a legitimate role in treating every person like a subject, every business like a suspect, every property owner like a tenant, and every taxpayer like an unlimited funding source.

Washington needs a serious shift in how we talk about politics. The question should not always be, “What new thing should government do?” The question should be, “Who owns this decision?” Does it belong to the state, or does it belong to the individual, the family, the property owner, the worker, the customer, the neighborhood, or the voluntary community? Before politicians create another rule, tax, mandate, or agency, they should have to answer one basic question: by what right?

Because once you understand self-ownership, a lot of political debates become much clearer. The government does not own your paycheck. It does not own your home. It does not own your business. It does not own your children. It does not own your conscience. It does not own your future. Government exists to protect rights, not to convert those rights into permissions.

That is the fight in Washington state. It is not left versus right as much as it is control versus ownership. It is bureaucracy versus real life. It is political management versus human freedom. And every time the state reaches deeper into our homes, wallets, businesses, schools, and communities, we should be willing to ask the question out loud.

Who owns you?

The claim going around is that our page has basically turned into nonstop “gay posts.” Some people are saying over 50 percent of our posts in the last two weeks were LGBTQ-related. That is not true. It was 5 posts out of 74.

Five out of seventy-four is not a takeover. It is not a rebrand. It is not proof that we abandoned libertarianism. It is a small handful of posts saying the same thing libertarians are supposed to believe: individual rights belong to every individual.

That is what makes this whole thing so revealing. The outrage was not really about the number of posts. The number was easy to check. The outrage was about the fact that we said gay people, trans people, and LGBTQ people have the same rights as everyone else. Not extra rights. Not special rights. The same rights.

Then Brandi Kruse jumped in with wild claims before getting our side of the story. Criticism is fine. We are libertarians. We can take criticism. But there is a difference between asking what our position is and deciding in advance that we must be pushing some left-wing agenda.

Our position is simple. We believe in individual rights, not group rights. We believe private people, businesses, churches, clubs, and organizations have freedom of association. We do not believe in compelled speech. We do not believe words are violence. We do not believe self-defense means using force over hurt feelings, political arguments, bathroom debates, sports debates, or culture-war drama. We believe self-defense means defending yourself from actual threats, actual violence, and actual harm.

That should not be controversial in a libertarian party.

But some people seem to want a version of liberty that only applies to people they like. They support gun rights until the person holding the gun is gay. They support individual rights until the individual is trans. They support freedom until freedom gets uncomfortable.

That is not principle. That is tribalism.

The truth is, some people are not mad because we changed our values. They are mad because we applied them consistently. We refused to turn personal disgust into party policy. We refused to pretend that acknowledging LGBTQ people as human beings is the same thing as endorsing every bad idea pushed by the progressive left.

Libertarians should be able to say two things at once: the state should not force private association, and bigotry is still ugly. The government should not compel speech, and we can still freely speak against cruelty. Nobody gets special rights, and nobody loses their rights because someone else dislikes them.

That is the message.

There are a lot of people in Washington who feel politically homeless. They are tired of Democrats using them as campaign props and Republicans treating them like threats. Libertarians have a different message: you do not need the state to own your identity, you do not need politicians to manage your life, and you do not need permission to exist.

That message can reach people, but not if the loudest voices in the room scream “pandering” every time we talk to someone outside the usual clubhouse.

We are trying to build something. We are making posts, printing handouts, organizing events, supporting candidates, and reaching people who may have never heard a libertarian message that was not filtered through cable news. That work is messy. It gets criticism. It makes people uncomfortable. Good. A movement that never makes anyone uncomfortable probably is not doing anything important.

So no, we are not going to apologize for 5 posts out of 74. We are not going to let bad-faith outrage define our message. We are not going to stop saying that liberty belongs to individuals.

Not just the individuals you like.

All of them.

And if that scares off the bigots, maybe that is not a loss.

You see it every election cycle. A candidate shows up somewhere, talks to people, listens to concerns, shakes hands, and tries to understand a community. Then someone takes a picture, slaps a partisan label on the event, and suddenly we are supposed to pretend that showing up is some kind of scandal.

That is now happening in the Thurston County Sheriff’s race with Derek Sanders.

The latest attack seems to be that Sanders attended a “No Hate in Washington State” fundraiser. That is apparently the whole case. He went to an event with a name some people do not like, or with people they have decided are on the wrong political team, and now we are all supposed to act like that tells us everything we need to know about him.

I’m sorry, but that is ridiculous.

A sheriff is not elected to serve one faction, one party, one Facebook group, one ideology, or one neighborhood. A sheriff serves the whole county. That means conservatives, liberals, libertarians, independents, people who never vote, people who vote every time, people in Olympia, people in Yelm, people in Lacey, people in Rochester, people in Tenino, people who love the sheriff’s office, people who distrust the sheriff’s office, and everyone in between.

If you are running for sheriff and you refuse to attend events where people disagree with you, you are not proving your principles. You are proving you are not serious about the job.

And let’s be honest about the specific event too. “No Hate in Washington State” is not exactly a slogan that should make normal people run for the hills. Are there people who may use anti-hate language in ways I disagree with politically? Absolutely. Are there activists under that umbrella who may have views I do not share? I’m sure there are.

But attending a fundraiser does not mean you sign a blood oath to every opinion held by every person in the room. It means you showed up.

That distinction matters.

There is a huge difference between pandering and outreach. Pandering is when you change your beliefs depending on the audience. Outreach is when you are willing to talk to people who may not already agree with you. A county sheriff should absolutely be doing the second one.

Sanders does not only attend one kind of event. He goes to all kinds of events. Community events. Public meetings. Local gatherings. Places where people across the political spectrum are present. That should be seen as a strength, not a liability.

We have spent years complaining that politicians only talk to their own side. Then someone actually goes out and talks to people outside the usual comfort zone, and suddenly the same people complain about that too.

At some point, we have to decide what we actually want from public officials.

Do we want elected leaders who only perform for their base? Do we want candidates who hide from half the county because someone online might get mad? Do we want a sheriff who treats political labels as walls he cannot cross?

Or do we want someone who is willing to walk into the room, answer questions, take criticism, and be visible?

For me, the answer is simple. I want the sheriff to show up.

That does not mean I have to agree with every person at every event Sanders attends. It does not mean every group he talks to gets my endorsement. It does not mean he becomes whatever label someone wants to stick on the room he walked into.

It means he is doing the work.

In fact, I would be more concerned if a sheriff candidate only attended events where everyone already agreed with him. That would tell me he is more interested in applause than leadership. Thurston County does not need a sheriff who only knows how to preach to the choir. It needs someone who understands the whole county.

And yes, that includes people on the left.

It includes people on the right.

It includes libertarians, moderates, independents, and the large number of people who are tired of the two-party food fight and just want basic competence from local government.

This is especially true for law enforcement. Trust is not built by press releases alone. It is not built by campaign slogans. It is built by being present, being accessible, and being willing to have uncomfortable conversations before there is a crisis.

A sheriff who only talks to people who already trust him is not expanding trust. He is just maintaining a fan club.

Sanders seems to understand that. He has been visible. He has been active. He has been willing to engage with the community in more than one lane. That matters.

You can disagree with Sanders on policy. You can ask hard questions about budgets, staffing, priorities, civil liberties, public safety, transparency, and the future of the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office. You should. That is what voters are supposed to do.

But attacking him because he attended a “No Hate in Washington State” fundraiser is not serious politics. It is lazy tribalism.

And honestly, it is exactly the kind of thinking that keeps local government broken. People scream about division, then punish anyone who tries to cross the divide. They say they want leaders, but what they really want is a mascot for their team.

The sheriff’s office is too important for that.

Public safety is not a red issue or a blue issue. Response times are not partisan. Domestic violence is not partisan. Property crime is not partisan. Addiction, homelessness, mental health crises, and emergency response are not partisan. Civil liberties are not partisan. Accountability is not partisan.

These are county issues. They affect real people. They require real leadership.

That kind of leadership requires talking to everyone.

So when I see people going after Sanders for attending a “No Hate in Washington State” fundraiser, I do not see a scandal. I see a weak attack from people who have forgotten what the job actually is.

The sheriff should be visible in the community. The sheriff should be willing to listen. The sheriff should be able to walk into any room in Thurston County and say, “I am here because this county is my responsibility too.”

That is not liberal. That is not conservative. That is the job.

And in a time when too many candidates are terrified of being seen with the wrong people, I will give credit where it is due.

Derek Sanders is showing up.

That should count for something.

We believe in free speech. We believe people should be allowed to say unpopular things. We believe the government should not be in the business of policing opinions, punishing dissent, or deciding which views are acceptable. That is not just some cute slogan we put on a campaign flyer. It is a core part of what makes libertarianism different.

But there is a problem we have to be honest about.

Some people do not come into libertarian circles because they love liberty. They come in because they got chased out of everywhere else.

They were too racist for the conservatives. Too homophobic for polite company. Too bitter, too obsessed, too cruel, too addicted to shock value. They burned every bridge in normal political spaces, then discovered that libertarians defend free speech and thought, “Perfect. I can hide here.”

And for too long, some of them did.

That does not mean libertarianism is bigotry. It is not. In fact, libertarianism at its best is one of the clearest rejections of collectivist thinking. We do not believe your rights come from your race, sexuality, religion, gender, class, or tribe. We believe your rights belong to you because you are an individual human being.

That should make bigotry impossible to square with libertarianism.

A person who actually believes in individual rights cannot honestly judge someone by the group they were born into. A person who actually believes in freedom cannot demand liberty for themselves while treating others like they are lesser. A person who actually believes in self-ownership cannot look at another peaceful person and say, “You do not deserve the same dignity, rights, or protection that I do.”

That is not liberty. That is just authoritarian trash wearing a “don’t tread on me” shirt.

The problem is not that libertarians support free speech. We should support free speech. The problem is that some people confuse opposing government censorship with giving every loud bigot a microphone, a table, a platform, and a welcome mat.

Those are not the same thing.

Free speech means the state should not throw you in jail for your opinions. It does not mean a political party has to promote you. It does not mean activists have to share your posts. It does not mean local organizers have to pretend your garbage is “just another viewpoint.” It does not mean people are obligated to tolerate you ruining their work, their events, their messaging, or their movement.

You can have the right to say something and still be an embarrassment. You can have the right to speak and still be told to leave. You can have the right to be wrong and still not be owed a place in someone else’s organization.

That distinction matters.

The Libertarian Party has spent years trying to explain to normal people that we are not Republicans who smoke weed, not Democrats who hate taxes, and not internet edgelords who discovered economics from a meme page. We are supposed to be the people saying the state should not control your body, your business, your speech, your money, your property, your relationships, or your life.

That message is powerful.

But it gets buried every time some anonymous account with a porcupine avatar uses “liberty” as cover to rant about gay people, immigrants, women, Jews, Black people, trans people, or whoever their obsession of the week happens to be.

They are not building anything. They are not winning elections. They are not recruiting serious people. They are not persuading their neighbors. They are not showing up at city council meetings, handing out literature, helping candidates, or doing the boring real work of growing a movement.

They are just poisoning the well and calling it principle.

And yes, some of this is finally starting to get pushed out. Slowly. Not perfectly. Not everywhere. But it is happening. More libertarians are willing to say, “No, this is not us.” More people are starting to understand that defending free speech does not require us to be human shields for every bitter creep online. More organizers are realizing that if we want normal people to take liberty seriously, we cannot let anonymous trolls define the brand.

That is a good thing.

But the problem still exists, especially online.

Online spaces reward the worst version of everyone. Anonymous accounts can say things they would never have the courage to say in a room full of actual people. They can hide behind fake names, fake bravado, fake intellectualism, and fake concern for “Western civilization” or “tradition” or whatever costume their prejudice is wearing that week.

And because libertarian spaces tend to be open, those people find little corners where they can survive. They learn the language. They say “free association” when they mean exclusion. They say “property rights” when they mean discrimination. They say “free speech” when they mean consequence-free cruelty. They say “individualism” while obsessing over groups.

That is not philosophy. That is a laundering operation.

They take real libertarian ideas and twist them into excuses for being awful.

We should not let them.

A serious liberty movement has to be able to say two things at the same time: the government should not censor bigots, and we do not have to build a home for bigots.

That is not hypocrisy. That is basic self-respect.

There is no contradiction between defending someone’s legal right to speak and refusing to associate with them. There is no contradiction between opposing hate crime speech laws and telling a racist to get lost. There is no contradiction between believing in free expression and refusing to make your movement a dumping ground for people who cannot behave like decent adults.

Freedom of association cuts both ways.

They have the right to say what they want. We have the right to say, “Not here.”

And we should say it more often.

Because bigotry is not just morally ugly. It is strategically stupid. It shrinks the movement. It drives away good people. It hands our opponents an easy attack. It makes every outreach table harder, every campaign harder, every coalition harder, every conversation harder.

Most people are not looking for a perfect political party. They know politics is messy. But they are looking for basic signs of sanity. If the loudest voices they see from libertarian circles are obsessed with attacking minorities, mocking people’s personal lives, or turning every issue into some culture war sewer fight, they are not going to stick around long enough to hear our argument about taxes, housing, guns, schools, privacy, or war.

And honestly, why would they?

Nobody wants to join a movement that looks like it hates their neighbors.

Libertarianism should be the opposite of that. It should be the philosophy that says your life belongs to you. Your choices belong to you. Your speech, your body, your labor, your home, your defense, your family, your future all belong to you.

That message should appeal to people who have been bossed around by the state, punished by bureaucracy, priced out by bad policy, spied on, overtaxed, overregulated, ignored, mocked, or treated like they need permission to exist.

That includes a lot of people.

It includes gun owners. It includes gay people. It includes small business owners. It includes immigrants. It includes parents. It includes renters. It includes religious people. It includes atheists. It includes people in cities, suburbs, farms, and small towns. It includes anyone tired of being managed by people who think political power gives them moral authority.

That is the movement worth building.

Not a clubhouse for rejects who confuse cruelty with courage.

The Libertarian Party does not need to become softer. It needs to become clearer.

Clearer that individual rights mean individual rights.

Clearer that free speech is not forced association.

Clearer that liberty is not a shield for collectivist hatred.

Clearer that if your politics depends on treating peaceful people like they are less than you, you are not a libertarian. You are just another control freak who has not found the state power to enforce your preferences yet.

And maybe that is what bothers me most.

A lot of these people are not anti-authoritarian. They are only anti-authority when they are not the ones holding it. Give them power, and many of them would absolutely use it to punish the people they hate. They do not oppose control. They oppose being controlled.

That is not liberty.

That is resentment.

Real libertarianism requires discipline. It requires consistency. It requires defending rights even for people you do not understand, do not agree with, and do not personally relate to. It requires saying the same rule applies to everyone: do not initiate force, do not use the state to control peaceful people, and do not demand special power over someone else’s life.

The bigots hiding in libertarian spaces fail that test.

They can keep the memes, the fake names, the edgy posts, and the persecution complex. The rest of us have actual work to do.

We are trying to build a liberty movement for real people.

And that means making one thing very clear:

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from being told your bullshit does not belong here.

In a free society, private property matters. A business owner should be able to set rules for their own property. A platform should be able to decide what kind of service it wants to offer. A newspaper does not have to print every letter. A restaurant does not have to host every event. A website does not have to publish every opinion. The right to exclude is part of ownership.

But that principle only tells us who owns the property. It does not automatically tell us that every decision is wise, honest, fair, or above criticism. There is a difference between saying someone has the right to make a choice and saying that choice is good. Libertarians should understand that difference. Defending property rights does not mean defending every excuse made by every business.

The problem gets worse when government gets involved. The state can block competitors, restrict alternatives, regulate industries into submission, punish dissent, pressure companies behind closed doors, or make it nearly impossible for people to walk away. Then, when a private company acts, everyone pretends it is just a normal market decision. But it is not normal when the government has already broken the market.

A real free market requires exit. If a company treats people badly, they can leave. If a platform censors too much, users can move somewhere else. If one service becomes hostile or useless, competitors can step in and offer something better. That ability to walk away is one of the most important checks on abuse. Without exit, “take it or leave it” becomes a hollow phrase.

That is why state-created monopolies and captive markets are so dangerous. The company may still be privately owned, but the surrounding environment is no longer free. Customers may technically have a choice, but the government has made that choice expensive, risky, or unrealistic. The state does not have to own the company to control the outcome. It only has to control the exits.

This is how censorship often works in the modern world. Government does not always need to ban speech directly. Sometimes it pressures private actors to do the dirty work. Sometimes it creates rules that make businesses afraid to allow controversial speech. Sometimes it makes compliance the safest option. Then the public argues about the company while the state quietly gets what it wanted.

That does not mean the answer is to violate the company’s property rights. If a business did not create the government barriers, forcing that business to surrender control of its property does not fix the original problem. It just creates another violation. The state broke the exits. The solution is not to make private owners carry the burden forever. The solution is to remove the state interference that trapped people in the first place.

At the same time, people are not wrong to criticize companies that hide behind private property language while benefiting from government distortion. If a business enjoys protection from competition, special rules, subsidies, regulatory barriers, or government pressure against its rivals, then it should not pretend it is simply winning in a free market. That is not the free market. That is political privilege.

Peaceful backlash is also part of liberty. Customers can complain. Users can boycott. People can withdraw their attention, their money, their labor, and their trust. They can criticize bad decisions and organize around better alternatives. None of that violates property rights. A company has the right to set rules, and the public has the right to respond.

This is the balance libertarians need to get right. Private property matters. Free speech matters. Freedom of association matters. Competition matters. Exit matters. When one side of that equation is destroyed by the state, the whole system becomes distorted.

The real villain is usually not the person trying to leave or even the business trying to survive. The real villain is the government power that destroyed the alternatives, narrowed the choices, and turned normal private decisions into part of a larger system of control.

That is why liberty requires more than saying “private company.” Liberty requires real ownership, real competition, real alternatives, and the real ability to walk away. Without that, the state can break the exit door, trap everyone inside, and then tell us we are still free because the building has a private owner.