A Manifesto for Libertarian Nationalists (2025 Revised Edition)

by Austin Petersen, October 2025

Editor's Note

When I first wrote this manifesto in 2024, the world stood on the edge of something new. Trump had returned to the center of American politics. Javier Milei had risen in Argentina with a chainsaw and a promise to tear down the state. The spirit of liberty was stirring again, but so were the forces determined to snuff it out.

A year later, the terrain has shifted dramatically. Trump's second-term revolution met the brick wall of Washington bureaucracy. The DOGE reforms to decentralize federal agencies stalled. Milei, having faced sabotage and betrayal, now fights for survival in the October elections that will decide the future of Latin liberty itself. Yet the dream has not died. It has matured.

This revised edition was written not to chase headlines, but to endure beyond them. It is meant to outlive the news cycle, to serve as a guide for future generations who will carry the banner of liberty when we are gone.

And so, with both gratitude and resolve, I announce that the Libertarian Nationalist Movement will officially launch at my speech in Denver, Colorado, on October 18th, at the Libertarian Party of Colorado's annual convention—fittingly, in the same state where the party itself was born.

This is our chance to rebuild liberty from the ashes of failed idealism, and to plant it again in the soil of strength, nation, and civilization.

I. The Collapse and the Opportunity

For too long, libertarianism has been a beautiful philosophy stranded in the clouds. It debated purity while losing power. It praised freedom in theory while surrendering it in practice. The Libertarian Party became a clown car of fringe radicals and unserious thinkers, mocked even by those who once loved it.

Meanwhile, the populist tide of MAGA—messy, raw, but undeniably patriotic—proved that millions of Americans still crave liberty, even if they no longer call it by that name. They despise bureaucracy, globalism, and the arrogance of Washington. They love enterprise, faith, and flag.

MAGA revealed something libertarians forgot: that liberty cannot live without loyalty. A nation that despises itself cannot stay free. A people ashamed of their heritage cannot defend their rights.

Libertarian Nationalism arises from this realization. It does not reject the populist revolt of Trump or the moral courage of Milei—it completes them. It takes their energy and weds it to principle, order, and philosophy.

We are not anarchists. We are not pacifists. We are not nihilists. We are Americans, and we are libertarians who have learned that liberty without discipline is suicide.

II. What Libertarian Nationalism Is (and Is Not)

To know who we are, we must first say who we are not.

Libertarian Nationalism rejects the delusion of a stateless utopia. Civilization demands law. Freedom without structure is chaos. The anarchist may dream of markets without borders, but without a nation strong enough to defend them, markets burn.

We also reject the pacifism that hides behind the Non-Aggression Principle. The NAP is a fine moral sentiment but a terrible governing rule. Nations that refuse to act until attacked soon vanish from the map. Liberty must sometimes strike first to survive.

Finally, we reject the cultural hedonism that consumed modern libertarianism—the obsession with fringe causes and moral relativism. A society that cannot tell right from wrong cannot be free.

Libertarian Nationalism stands for order, property, family, merit, and nation. It honors the Founders who built a republic of laws and the pioneers who expanded it across a continent. It embraces decentralization without surrendering unity. It loves peace but will never kneel before those who despise civilization.

III. The Libertarian Nationalist Code

We believe in these principles:

• Liberty rooted in moral strength, not indulgence.

• A nation bound by shared ideals, not tribal division.

• Government that governs least but defends best.

• Free enterprise as the lifeblood of human dignity.

• The Constitution as the covenant of our civilization.

• Borders as the guardians of sovereignty.

• Families as the foundation of liberty.

• Property rights as sacred and enforceable.

• Civilization over barbarism, without apology.

• Leadership through merit, courage, and service.

This is not theory. It is a creed to live by, fight for, and pass to our children.

IV. Policy Prescriptions for a Free and Strong Republic

Libertarian Nationalism is not a spectator's philosophy. It is a governing agenda for the restoration of the American Republic.

1. Government and Law

• Sunset outdated federal agencies and return powers to the states.

• Require every major regulation to be explicitly authorized by Congress.

• Relocate departments out of Washington to break the Beltway monopoly.

• End civil-service tenure that shields incompetence from accountability.

• Audit every federal agency; abolish those failing constitutional review.

2. Economy and Independence

• Pursue sound money and balanced budgets.

• Cut corporate welfare and foreign aid before touching a dime of earned income.

• Decouple critical industries—energy, medicine, semiconductors—from China.

• Promote onshoring and hemispheric trade with trusted allies like India and Argentina.

• Replace the income tax with a simplified consumption-based system.

3. Culture and Education

• Reinforce the family as the central institution of liberty.

• Abolish federal involvement in education; return it to parents and localities.

• End government funding for ideological nonprofits and activist NGOs.

• Protect children from sexual exploitation and gender experimentation.

• Celebrate Western civilization in schools rather than apologize for it.

4. Immigration and Sovereignty

• Secure the border with technology, manpower, and law.

• Make English the official national language.

• Eliminate dual citizenship for elected officials.

• Require civics proficiency for all naturalization applicants.

• Suspend entry from nations that sponsor or excuse terrorism.

5. Defense and Foreign Policy

• Maintain the most powerful military on Earth, but deploy it only for defense of our people and our civilization.

• End the forever wars of globalist adventurism.

• Strengthen alliances that defend liberty; withdraw from those that do not.

• Reject both isolationism and empire.

• Prepare for new theaters of conflict in cyber, space, and economics.

Libertarian Nationalism aims not for utopia, but for stability, prosperity, and moral clarity.

V. America First, Civilization United

Some accuse us of contradiction—how can we be nationalists and international allies at once? The answer is simple: because civilization is a team sport.

We support Israel not out of sentimentality, but because it stands as a shield between barbarism and the West. It fights the same enemies that once sent pirates to the shores of Tripoli. It upholds the same principles of law, industry, and individual conscience that define our civilization.

But our loyalty is first and last to America. America First means that every alliance must serve the defense of our own people. Israel deserves our friendship when that friendship strengthens the free world and deters radical Islam. When it does not, we owe them honesty, not blank checks.

A free people has no duty to spread democracy by force. Yet we have a moral right to stand beside those who refuse to be slaughtered by savages. The choice is not between empire and retreat, but between civilization and chaos.

The Libertarian Nationalist Foreign Policy Doctrine:

• America's military exists to defend our people, our allies in civilization, and our interests.

• We reject isolationism and globalism alike—strength with restraint.

• We support Israel's right to exist and defend itself as a fortress of Western civilization.

• We oppose funding any state or movement that seeks America's destruction.

• We engage abroad only when it secures liberty at home.

VI. Civilization Without Apology

Libertarian Nationalism refuses to apologize for progress, conquest, or civilization itself. We know that Western civilization, for all its sins, remains the greatest force for freedom in human history.

Modern libertarians infected by leftist guilt have adopted the language of our enemies. They tear down statues, sneer at our Founders, and praise tyrants abroad because it feels rebellious. But rebellion without virtue is decay.

We honor the Founders in full. Jefferson's ideal of an empire of liberty. Hamilton's insistence on national strength. Washington's warnings against entangling alliances—but also his readiness to lead armies when liberty was threatened.

Libertarian Nationalists reject secessionism and despair. We believe in a united America that expands freedom, not fractures it. We dream not of breaking away, but of breaking through—of adding new states, new frontiers, and new worlds.

Our Manifest Destiny is not dead. It extends to the seas, the stars, and the digital frontier. A free civilization must always build, explore, and dare. Stagnation is death.

VII. The Birth of a New Libertarianism

In Trump's first administration, not a single declared libertarian sat in his Cabinet. That failure was not his fault—it was ours. We had thinkers, not leaders. Philosophers, not generals.

Milei proved what happens when a libertarian decides to lead. He took the torch of liberty and set fire to a corrupt establishment. He reminded the world that ideas are nothing without courage.

Now the torch passes to us.

Libertarian Nationalism calls for a new generation of liberty leaders—doers, not talkers. People who build companies, raise families, win elections, and take responsibility. The era of think-tank libertarians is over. The era of libertarian statesmen begins.

This movement is not a retreat from principle but a return to purpose. It is Jefferson's dream fortified by Hamilton's structure. It is individual liberty defended by national strength. It is localism bound by loyalty to a civilization worth saving.

VIII. The Call to the Vanguard

The time for theory has ended. The age of action begins.

The Libertarian Nationalist movement will not wait for permission from the old guard. We will take the field, organize, and win. We will infiltrate the Republican Party where it can be saved, and build new institutions where it cannot. We will raise candidates, fund creators, teach craftsmen, and forge families.

This is a call not to purity but to power—the moral power to govern ourselves and defend our posterity.

The Founders fought a revolution not to end authority, but to reclaim it from tyrants. We must do the same. Liberty is not a spectator sport. It demands warriors, builders, and believers.

When future generations ask what we did when liberty faltered, let them read these words and know we fought. Let them know that in the age of chaos, some still believed that freedom could be strong, moral, and proud.

The arena awaits.

—Austin Petersen
Founder, 4Liberty Network