The Slatest

Florida Senate Candidate Admits Voters Might Find It Odd That He Killed a Goat, Drank Its Blood

Augustus Sol Invictus
Libertarian Florida senate candidate Augustus Sol Invictus.

Screenshot/YouTube

A libertarian Florida candidate for U.S. Senate killed a goat and drank its blood during a “pagan ritual,” the Orlando Sentinel reports. Thirty-two-year-old Augustus Sol Invictus (it means “majestic unconquered sun” and no, it’s not his given name) admitted to the paper that he had committed the act after a vision quest in the Mojave Desert:

“I did sacrifice a goat. I know that’s probably a quibble in the mind of most Americans,” he said. “I sacrificed an animal to the god of the wilderness. … Yes, I drank the goat’s blood.”

The chairman of Florida’s Libertarian Party—Adrian Wyllie, who got 3.8 percent of the vote in last year’s governor’s race—resigned to protest Invictus’ candidacy.

If you’re interested in reading further about Invictus, his Web page includes an FAQ, which answers questions such as “Why are you using Mussolini’s symbol if you’re a Libertarian?” and “How can Augustus Invictus run for US Senate if he renounced his US Citizenship in 2013?”

For all his campaign’s insane trappings, though, the funny thing is that Invictus’ stated policy positions are actually a fairly reasonable mix of small-government economics, civil libertarianism, and common-sense acknowledgments of reality on subjects like immigration and the environment. (His list of favorite books includes work by Bill McKibben and Rachel Carson, and he writes that “the freedom of Americans to pursue their business interests should not mean that we can no longer drink our own water.”) But will Invictus’ sensible platform be enough to persuade Florida voters to forgive his past history of having killed a goat so he could drink its blood?