Libertarian Party Vice Chair Releases Controversial Anti-Military Manifesto

Libertarian Party vice chair Arvin Vohra released a divisive manifesto last night deriding the institution of the military, promising a coordinated effort to counteract “the lies and bluster military recruiters use to dupe young men and women” in the months to come.

“If you were tricked by military recruiters, help prevent the same thing from happening to others. Share your experiences, and speak out boldly,” Vohra said in a Facebook post that immediately generated a polarizing reaction with most of the feedback being resoundingly negative.

“I don’t think someone is innately evil for being in the military, but I think that a lot of the military’s actions have been evil,” Keith Thompson said in response to Vohra’s sentiments. “Seems kind of collectivist to paint with that broad of a brush.”

“As someone who thought you were quite intelligent and informed, your comments remind me why the LP will never be a relevant party,” Rumman Kay replied. “Disappointed in you, bud.”

Pressure is building on Vohra to resign his post, but not every libertarian is up in arms over his comments. Other individuals found the comments to be refreshing, including infamous streaker and perennial sheriff candidate, James Weeks II.

Weeks agreed with Vohra’s statement and followed-up with an even more offensive message to the troops saying, “Sorry fellas, you’re pawns for the military industrial complex, you’re the bad guys, you’re the enforcement arm of the state.”

Commenter Ned Kelley agreed with Vohra as well. He said, “Spot on Arvin. We must counter the glorification of the military. We’ve got our work cut out for us because the story of patriotism/honor/duty is fed to us so young and it is so pervasive.”

Vohra was elected vice chair of the Libertarian Party in 2014, and was re-elected to the position in 2016. He serves under Chairman Nicholas Sarwark, who has come under fire for controversial and divisive comments as well. In his home state of Maryland, Vohra has sought federal office unsuccessfully on multiple occasions.

It remains to be seen if his comments jeopardize Vohra’s future in a leadership role within the Libertarian Party.

56 Comments

    • Really? I doubt you even know what the Military Industrial Complex is. Sounds like something you learned from a draft dodging hippie that became a school teacher and mentored to the first wave of snowflakes.

    • I don’t think we are talking about the warmongering military-industrial complex. We are all against that, I hope. The issue is opposition to the warriors who are necessary to our defense. Self defense is a right and totally necessary. So is defense of others who are unjustly attacked. American military might is necessary to prevent attacks. Being a warrior is an honorable profession that should not be discouraged. The world will not be safer place if we subvert our military. The fact that is the Libertarian Party that is doing it will be the end of the Party.

    • Conscription is the closest thing to slavery we have to slavery on modern history, and one of the most unlibertarian policies ever devised. Almost every war in our nation’s history has been utter bs, so dodging the draft is an act of courage.

    • Ever watch the movie 300? What is your profession?

      “To place any dependence upon militia is assuredly resting upon a broken staff. Men just dragged from the tender scenes of domestic life, unaccustomed to the din of arms, totally unacquainted with every kind of military skill … makes them timid and ready to fly from their own shadows.” George Washington

      “I am persuaded, and as fully convinced as I am of any one fact that has happened, that our liberties must of necessity be greatly hazarded, if not entirely lost, if their defence is left to any but a permanent standing army” George Washington

      “I believe I may with great truth affirm that no man perhaps since the first institution of armies ever commanded one under more difficult circumstances than I have done. To enumerate the particulars would fill a volume. Many of the difficulties and distresses were of so peculiar a cast that, in order to conceal them from the enemy, I was obliged to conceal them from my friends, and indeed from my own army, thereby subjecting my conduct to interpretations unfavorable to my character, especially by those at a distance who could not in the smallest degree be acquainted with the springs that governed it.”

      GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to John Augustine Washington, Mar. 31, 1776

    • If draft dodger isn’t a pejorative in your mind you’re not an American. There’s a difference between a draft dodger and a conscientious objector.

      A Conscientious objector doesn’t deny he has a duty to his country only that he not be in combat.

      “I acknowledge that such a debt [of service to my fellow-citizens] exists, that a tour of duty in whatever line he can be most useful to his country, is due from every individual. It is not easy perhaps to say of what length exactly that tour should be, but we may safely say of what length it should not be. Not of our whole life, for instance, for that would be to be born a slave–not even of a very large portion of it.” –Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1793. ME 9:118

      “I do not mean… to testify a disposition to render no service but what is rigorously within my duty. I am the farthest in the world from this; it is a question I shall never ask myself; nothing making me more happy than to render any service in my power, of whatever description. But I wish only to be excused from intermeddling in business in which I have no skill, and should do more harm than good.” –Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Osgood, 1785. ME 5:163, Papers 8:590

      A conscientious objector stands in front of his fellow citizen a gives testimony to his beliefs.

      A draft dodger is a coward who’s actions should render his citizenship null.

  1. Great thinking! If only we can dismantle the military and leave us vulnerable to invasion then we will be free to exercise our God given liberties! Makes total sense! Highly logical!

    • You can have an army and don’t kill millions of civilians, and then ask for more tax money to defend yourself agains those that you bombed. Yeah, you can. Switzerland does that.

    • There be a rifle behind every blade of grass but no general to lead them. No centralized command structure to rapidly relay changing conditions on the battlefield or coordinate offensive efforts. No one ready.

    • Ever watch the movie 300? What is your profession?

      “To place any dependence upon militia is assuredly resting upon a broken staff. Men just dragged from the tender scenes of domestic life, unaccustomed to the din of arms, totally unacquainted with every kind of military skill … makes them timid and ready to fly from their own shadows.” George Washington

      “I am persuaded, and as fully convinced as I am of any one fact that has happened, that our liberties must of necessity be greatly hazarded, if not entirely lost, if their defence is left to any but a permanent standing army” George Washington

      “I believe I may with great truth affirm that no man perhaps since the first institution of armies ever commanded one under more difficult circumstances than I have done. To enumerate the particulars would fill a volume. Many of the difficulties and distresses were of so peculiar a cast that, in order to conceal them from the enemy, I was obliged to conceal them from my friends, and indeed from my own army, thereby subjecting my conduct to interpretations unfavorable to my character, especially by those at a distance who could not in the smallest degree be acquainted with the springs that governed it.”

      GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to John Augustine Washington, Mar. 31, 1776

  2. I don’t understand the controversy here. Are some people saying that the LP should be pro-military?

  3. Lol, if you don’t think the military industrial complex is real, then I recommend reading Rollback but hat old “hippie leftist” Tom Woods and see how it’s easily among the most wasteful and perverse government programs there is, if not the single worst.

  4. It seems like Arvin Vohra is following in the footsteps of other Libertarian rabble rousers. What do you think of these seditious statements?:

    “Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
    War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
    In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.
    The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manner and of morals, engendered in both.
    No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
    War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will, which is to direct it.”

    • Because you identify as “Conservatives” I will assume that you don’t recognize these words as those of one of our Founding Fathers, James Madison.

    • Interesting take.

      “To place any dependence upon militia is assuredly resting upon a broken staff. Men just dragged from the tender scenes of domestic life, unaccustomed to the din of arms, totally unacquainted with every kind of military skill … makes them timid and ready to fly from their own shadows.” George Washington

      “I am persuaded, and as fully convinced as I am of any one fact that has happened, that our liberties must of necessity be greatly hazarded, if not entirely lost, if their defence is left to any but a permanent standing army” George Washington

      I know Madison was more knowledgeable in the endeavor of war than Washington but perhaps Washington should of understood that war against the crown would of been against the liberty of his fellow majority English men who wanted to remain loyalist.

  5. It seems like he is following in the footsteps of other Libertarian rabble rousers. What do you think of these seditious statements?:

    “Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

    War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.

    In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.

    The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manner and of morals, engendered in both.

    No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

    War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will, which is to direct it.”

    Because you identify as “Conservatives” I will assume that you don’t recognize these words as those of one of our Founding Fathers, James Madison.

    • Actually i did not recognize the exact words but the style is Madison’s. He must have been an intellectual powerhouse in his day. I ‘m proud to live in Madisonville Kentucky, one of many towns, counties, cities etc named for his honor.
      With the advent of wmd’s I’m not sure real war will ever be experienced again if warriors are given the weapons. Its kinda like going to a gun fight, laying all the guns under a tree and then boxing and wrestling with your enemies to determine which side has the most force but in a very limited fashion. Todays wars, with their proportional responses, gloat over weakening and destroying infrastructure. And terrorism as an enemy is very hard to identify. War as a concept is evolving, and hopefully so is the human race, one by one and on an individual basis,
      I paraded my horse, buggy and flag in the largest Veterans Day Parade in Kentucky a few years ago, they even took a picture of me and the rig and made a decopage on the wall of our Applebee’s.
      I had been given some words for that day that were read as I paraded in front of our courthouse,

      I share them now as a reminder to honor those who have preserved our freedoms to this generation by use of military force.

      I thank the soldier for his courageous fight.

      I thank the prayer warrior for the proper battle plan.

      I thank God alone for the Victory.

      Perhaps it was ironic that my rig was an Amish doctors buggy, known for there pacifism. I don’t think sane people ever want war. But I do think prudent people will always be prepared for it when it comes. My Scottish ancestors were mercenary fighters, our crest, bears the insignia ” Nunquam Non Paratus” which means “Never Not Ready”

  6. All of the people taking it for granted that the United States will get invaded and conquered without its present military system should invest a little time studying Switzerland.

    • Our your own country.

      “It is the duty of every good citizen to use all the opportunities which occur to him for preserving documents relating to the history of our country.” –Thomas Jefferson to Hugh P. Taylor, 1823. ME 15:473

      “To place any dependence upon militia is assuredly resting upon a broken staff. Men just dragged from the tender scenes of domestic life, unaccustomed to the din of arms, totally unacquainted with every kind of military skill … makes them timid and ready to fly from their own shadows.

      GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to the President of Congress, Sep. 24, 1776

    • Or Afghanistan. They’ve essentially bankrupted the two most powerful militaries in world history in one generation through decentralized guerrilla warfare. The amount of resources needed for defensive vs. offensive warfare are several orders of magnitude apart.

  7. I am a retired veteran libertarian parish executive committee vice chair. I understand the LP viewpoint of being not hyped about the military industrial complex, because it proliferates the USE OF FORCE in political, social, economic, individual goals as a combination effect on not just our nations history, but our future as well. Those goals make people rich and get our own people killed in the process.
    We train foreign nation enemy combatants we recently defeated in combat our tactics of military and police in their roles. Worst stupid decision ever made.
    There is nothing wrong with being glad and thankful for your present living conditions being in a safe secure nation, but we must also realize that destabilizing many other nations intensifies a myriad of emotions that are taught to their children and grandchildren. They get taught how to use hand grenades and rocket launchers, make IED’s, while we are trying to suspend kids from school for eating a Pop Tart into a gun shape.
    We give them tax payer money to fund their nuclear ambitions .
    They turn around and threaten us with annihalation.
    Dang, let a Muslim kill a Muslim for losing ground. But you do not arm and train them. To me, that is Treason.

  8. It would appear that “Liberty Conservatives” are not, and do not understand, true libertarianism.

  9. War is a racket and we should have sympathy for those soldiers fooled into being recruited. Harsh words alert them to how they are being fooled. Want to see some harsh words? See the 1870s Mothers Day Proclamation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother's_Day_Proclamation

    Don’t worry, if we actually were invaded by foreign troops, there would be more sympathy for troops. It’s more likely misuse of troops will just lead to a nuclear attack on the US where soldiers only job will be to help the survivors. Not that the US govt has any real post-nuclear war civil defense plans. ha ha ha

    • The most powerful vote you have is in September. If you live in a safe Democrat district, people who wise up vote in that primary. Otherwise, the Republican primary is where the action is. September 11, 2018. You can spend the summer learning who the candidates are.

  10. I’ve had qualms with this website before, but I’m not exactly sure the Liberty Conservative is “up in arms” for reporting on this like most of the commenters below might think. This is a weird subject because it seems like on opinion is split up within the libertarian big tent. I’ve seen Republican Ancaps against Arvin, Libertarian Party members on both sides, etc.

  11. isnt it in the party platform that they support the military?? the veterans cannot decide where to or not to go

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