The Libertarian Party has apologized after a tweet praising North Korea as having more freedom than the United States. In a series of now-deleted tweets, the official Twitter account of the Libertarian Party tweeted praise at North Korea last week for its marijuana-friendly policies, saying that it was an example of "more freedom" than the United States. On Sunday, the account backtracked and apologized for the tweet, saying that in "no universe" could the totalitarian regime be viewed as a symbol of freedom.
When you smoke weed vs when the weed wears off pic.twitter.com/QmZ19h4PfL
— Ben McDonald (@Bmac0507) August 14, 2017
Both tweets could not be found on the account by Monday, but the same tweet from the New Hampshire Libertarian Party's account was still online.
It's sad that we can look to #NorthKorea for an example of more freedom than the United States. o.O https://t.co/aZQdgmY03b
— Libertarian Party NH (@LPNH) August 7, 2017
(Editor's note: The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire reached out and said that their feed was simply copies of the main party's tweet, and that they do not support North Korea.)
@crousselle The NK tweet was deleted, we have all @LPNational tweets set to auto retweet. That tweet does not reflect the views of LPNH -BCS
— Libertarian Party NH (@LPNH) August 15, 2017
I mean, seriously? While I certainly don't disagree with North Korea's (apparent) liberal policy on marijuana, I'd still rather live in Virginia, where marijuana may be illegal, but other, more important things (such as my religion, the ability to say what I want, and the ability to actually leave the country at my whimsy) are. I think most mainstream people--including members of the Libertarian Party--would prefer to live in the United States rather than North Korea. This isn't too difficult, and it's absolutely absurd to call a country with no basic freedoms whatsoever a "beacon" due to the fact they (might) permit people to grow and smoke a drug. I mean, come on.
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