There have been many stupid ideas advanced in the name of libertarianism. Ayn Rand, who hatched more than one of them, infamously supported patents and copyrights—examples par excellence of statist interference in the free market.

It has been reported that Rand is Donald Trump’s favorite novelist and The Fountainhead his favorite novel. That is almost certainly untrue, but if Trump has read The Fountainhead, then there is every reason to presume he enjoyed it tremendously—particularly “that” scene. Trump’s second term as President of the United States is still in its infancy, but already his assaults on liberty around the globe have left an enduring legacy of shame. After he unleashed a barrage of tariffs in honor of “Liberation Day”—an event that “liberated” trillions of dollars in value from the stock markets—it is tempting to argue that of all the stupid ideas put forth by libertarians, the stupidest of them all must be any suggestion that there is a “libertarian case for Trump.”

Libertarians should never forget that there is something far more odious than Trump’s power to decimate markets: his command of a nuclear arsenal capable of destroying all life on earth.

A single nuclear weapon might kill millions of innocent people. Current estimates put the number of American nuclear warheads in the thousands, kept fit and ready for active deployment by the National Nuclear Security Administration’s perversely misnamed “Life Extension Programs.” If anything counts as the stupidest libertarian article of them all, it would be one that promotes the idea of nuclear weaponry as a guarantor of freedom, rather than what it plainly is: an instrument of indiscriminate death and destruction.

This brings me to my nominee for the contested distinction of stupidest libertarian article ever written: “Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation or Monopoly?” by Bertrand Lemennicier.