Cory Maye, a young father from Prentiss, Mississippi, was asleep in his home when it was invaded by a pack of armed intruders. Maye grabbed a firearm and fatally shot one of the marauders, unaware that the intruders were a SWAT team conducting a narcotics raid on the wrong address.

Despite the fact that the police raided the wrong house, and Maye was acting in what he believed to be self-defense, Maye was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Persistent appeals by Maye resulted in commutation of the death penalty, but he remains in prison, potentially for life.

An individual is within his rights to use lethal force to defend himself when his life is threatened by police who invade a home without a warrant. This is recognized in both law and judicial precedents. Fortunately, Maye will have a chance to make that case: On November 17, the Mississippi Court of Appeals granted Maye a new trial.

After 40 years, you finally captured Congress in ’94. You worked with Clinton to expand the government. You covered up his crimes.

Six years later, you got the presidency. For eight years now, you’ve had it all. You’ve doubled the national debt in less than a decade. You’ve slaughtered a million people. You’ve torn the soul out of the Bill of Rights.

Today, Americans said no to your ridiculous character politics and politics of fear of the other.

Today, Americans decided they didn’t want at least your particular type of sick warmongering.

Today, they said they don’t trust you with their wallets any more than anyone else.

Today, they decided they hated you so much, they’d even prefer the Democrats to you. Hahahahaha.

Sometimes we have forgotten how bad the Republicans are. No matter how bad the future is, let us not forget again.

Some pieces of mine on Republicans:
Government Growth, The Party of Lincoln, and George W. Bush
The evil history of the Republican Party.
The Republican Ideology of the Total State
Their take on civil liberties.
Operation Republican Freedom
Their idea of what liberty is.
Refuse to Fall for Republican Tricks
Their fake love of freedom.
Assault Weapons Symbolism and GOP Totalitarianism
How the Republicans are worse on gun rights than Democrats are.

And here’s Lew Rockwell to remind you of how bloodthirsty, belligerent and nationalist they are.

Let us take account of the general situation.

The administration and Congress have responded to the financial collapses on Wall Street with unprecedented power grabs and staggeringly humungous bailouts. The Fed is taking on a new role in directly propping up businesses. The Treasury now has dictatorial powers over finance. More is promised to come. Both McCain and Obama vow not to continue the supposedly laissez faire approach of the Bush years, which have in reality, even before the "rescue" plan, corresponded to the largest expansion of U.S. government power in two or more generations.

Meanwhile, the war on terror continues. Iraq, including in the north, is still a hotbed of violence. Afghanistan is a mess. U.S. diplomacy toward North Korea has yielded some frightening results. And America's power elite and new prospective rulers promise nothing but more belligerence against the world, from Russia to Pakistan and beyond.

Even after the Supreme Court's encouraging habeas corpus ruling, we see Guantanamo detainees being stripped of their rights in mock trials. The government's wiretapping powers have recently been expanded to never before seen levels of intrusiveness and brazen lawlessness.

Civil liberties as a whole are in the toilet. Martial law is being threatened as a political tool against legislators, and the people. Nearly all constitutional and statutory restrictions against government abuse have been compromised. Torture persists.

And everything we hated about big government even before the nightmarish two terms of Bush remains, or has been increased. The welfare state lives on, only ornamented by Bush's Medicare package. The war on drugs is as terrible as ever. Our prisons are overflowing with peaceful people, more so than in any other nation on earth.

Americans for the most part are looking for hope in Obama, or even, for those who cannot stand him and somehow still tolerate the Republicans and the war, in McCain. But deep inside, most know that the improvements they expect from the next administration are not revolutionary. People desperately want a return to the 1990s, but would settle for less.

And this is where we can find some hope. The state is being discredited ever more. Yes, the news media and court intellectuals, maybe even the majority, are misdiagnosing the problem. They want to blame this on the market.

But there is a realism coming through as well. Obama concedes he can't do all the spending he wants, as he calls McCain's newest mortgage plan a reckless monstrosity. The public agrees.

Almost no one is talking about the global war on terror as they once did. No one seems to think the U.S. can rush in and liberate the world, now that they see the utter folly and deceit in Washington as it concerns their own pocketbooks.

The talking heads are utterly baffled. How can the bailout not have worked? Why is the market continuing to decline? Is another New Deal necessary?

But by "New Deal," they do not mean what the New Dealers did. They might mean subsidies and public works programs - a horrible idea - but few are recommending nationalizing agriculture, comprehensive price floors or the like. There is an awe that even the liberal intellectuals have as they look upon Bush's mega-state and try to keep a straight face as they swear it is too small.

By many polls, Obama is leading, but is in the mid-40s. The average American doesn't expect a whole lot from either man. The conservatives back McCain because they detest Obama's perceived radicalism or for other cultural reasons. But they don't like him. There is more enthusiasm on the left for their candidate, but not as much as there was only months ago.

Finally, take a look at the big picture. History has no true golden eras. Stagnation, unjust authority, slavery, poverty and oppression are the rule in the story of humanity. It was only though many centuries of intellectual and cultural development that human civilization overcame the tyranny of antiquity and embraced the doctrines of liberalism. Liberty is always in peril. Today is no exception. But it is still hardly the worst time to be alive, for the average person.

Take heart. In the long-term, after all, we are the optimists. The Hobbesians on the right believe humanity is forever doomed to be immoral, thus the need for ever more prisons, police and war. The left finds society dysfunctional when acting on its own without centralized coercive organization. They are both on the side of reaction and pessimism. We on the other hand believe in a flourishing and peaceful tomorrow, thanks to voluntary commercial and cultural exchange.

Even in the short term, we have an opportunity here. The Iraq war is a clear failure, despite the last year of delusions about the "surge." The Bush administration and McCain have discredited the GOP for much of the American right. Obama is a new face and gives hope to many, but most who will vote for him will do so out of default. Even the masses of voters know the election means only so much, the propaganda of both parties notwithstanding.

In the last couple weeks we saw a populist uprising against the bailout. Nothing was so inspiring for libertarians since the mass demonstrations against the Iraq war and the excitement generated by the Ron Paul campaign, a campaign that was on the right side of the twin issues of our day: corporatism and militarism. Those who stood up for liberty in these dark times will be remembered for many years.

Have hope. We are on the right side of history. It will take some time before that fact is clear. But it always does.

Contact your Congressman here. Contact your Senator.

Here’s a sample email, written by me and my friend.

Dear Congressman/Senator (insert name here),

I am writing to urge you to oppose the Treasury Secretary Paulson’s "bank bailout" proposal. Not only will this bill, if passed, force the American people to pay for the reckless behavior of financial institutions, but it will do nothing to cure the root of the economic crisis (in fact, it will only prolong the crisis). Congress must oppose the Treasury’s sinister scheme to give itself unbridled powers and to bailout Mr. Paulson’s friends on Wall Street, all at the expense of the American people. Why should I, as an honest and responsible citizen, be required to bailout the willfully negligent behavior of executives in the financial industry?

Moreover, I find Section 8 of the proposal particularly disturbing:

Sec. 8. Review.
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

This bill in effect makes Secretary Paulson a "Financial Dictator" subject to no Congressional oversight and no judicial oversight. He is immune from any future prosecution with respect to his appropriations of bailout funds. This is not just my opinion, this is also the conclusion drawn amongst many media commentators across the political spectrum, including:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff222.html

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2008/09/now_we_see_it_the_white_house.html#more

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

http://michellemalkin.com/2008/09/22/why-henry-paulson-must-be-contained/

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aZ2aFDx8_idM&refer=home

Finally, as you know, this proposal does nothing to address the root cause of our financial problems - that is, our fiat currency system, whereby the Federal Reserve can create money out of thin air. The Federal Reserve and its printing press creates what economists call moral hazard. Knowing that the government stands to bail them out of any disastrous situation, large financial institutions (those deemed "too large to fail") are thus tempted to make reckless loans and investments. Thus, the machinery of the free market, the feedback process that punishes the incompetent and reckless and rewards the wise and prudent, is destroyed. And an unethical system that socializes risks is put in its place. It is time to end the moral hazard and the looting of the American people. The only way this can be achieved is if we take away the Fed’s ability to create money out of thin air and return to a sound monetary system. This is the responsibility of the Congress, as stated in the Constitution, which you have sworn to uphold.

My local political action group will be monitoring this vote closely, and will make this a campaign issue. As a public servant, either you represent the bankers, or you represent your constituents.

Thank you for your kind consideration.

Respectfully yours,

-insert your name here

Some commentators have pointed out this disconnect, but Schwarzenegger has consistently championed bonds while claiming fiscal discipline. He campaigned in 2003 on a platform including large bonds, and within a month of election he was campaigning around the state for a $15 billion bond.

He's supported bonds since, most notably in 2006 when he backed a bipartisan $42.7 billion bond package for transportation and education infrastructure, housing programs and flood control.

California needs dramatic reforms. The budget crisis is very real, and with the recession kicking in nationwide, the reforms will have to be much more than a temporary cut in state employee pay.

For the last several years, the federal government through the Federal Reserve has been prompting an artificial, inflationary boom in the American economy, particularly among real estate. As the economic laws of gravity reassert themselves, as savings and investment, and supply and demand, fall back into balance with one another, an economic "bust" - recession, depression, downturn, whatever you want to call it - is inevitable. Prices must fall, as they have been in housing. Businesses will have to cut back on production costs. Americans will have to spend less. This is painful but it cannot be stopped through government spending. Delaying it will make it worse.

The government too, at all levels, must cut spending, in fact. It is only fitting that the public sector, which brought on this mess, should have to take a hit as well as the private sector and the millions of families and businesses throughout America.

State governments have no wealth of their own - only what they forcibly confiscate through taxation, forfeiture, and eminent domain; or borrow on behalf of future generations, without their consent, through bond schemes, but that can't persist forever. Unlike the feds, state governments can't just print more money - a blessing, because that is the cause of inflation.

So something has to give. Libertarians have always argued that the government should do virtually none of what it does today - that the best solutions to society's problems and needs come from private enterprise, community, family, and individuals cooperating voluntarily, without a politician's gun to their head.

This agenda might seem quite radical. Well, so will a much more modest vision of slashing government, at least compared to the budget-busters currently running the state. But we need relatively radical reforms for this severe budget crunch.

The state should sell off its extraneous assets. According to economist William Shughart at the Independent Institute, "California is sitting on a gold mine of surplus property that could be sold for ready cash. According to the real estate division of the Department of General Services, the state government's landlord, on Jan. 2, taxpayers owned 22,727 buildings and more than 6.7 million acres of land at 2,313 sites."

At last count, the state had 55 "surplus" properties. It should have none. And, as Shughart continues, this "is just a starting point. State and local governments nationwide own and often operate professional sports venues, convention centers and other public facilities that could produce billions in revenue if sold or leased to the private sector."

Another way to save billions: End the war on drugs and the other wars on victimless crime. In the early 1930s, partly to deal with the Depression, the United States ended alcohol prohibition, which resulted in more tax revenue and, despite the economic hardships, lower crime. An economic slump is not the time for costly self-righteous crusades against vice.

The governor initially considered the early release of 22,000 minor offenders from the overcrowded prison system, but then backed off. Instead, he should immediately release all persons in the state criminal justice system who were convicted solely of drugs or other victimless crimes. He should cut police spending dramatically and stop wasting resources going after peaceful people. This would save billions of dollars. Even better, the freed prisoners and discharged officers would then enter the private, productive sector, where they could help build the economy rather than living off the taxpayer.

Yes, even these proposals will seem drastic to many Californians. But we can't afford such luxurious public enterprises and a war on drugs. Even if you think government has a right to finance sports arenas and jail potsmokers, the state is going broke and will have to cut - and cut much - and soon, if we want to weather the recession.

Yes, it’s frustrating. Maybe this will be a good thing about an Obama presidency: His fascism won’t be blamed on free enterprise. On the other hand, no matter how many Arabs he slaughters, the rightwing will say a "peaceful" foreign policy is leading to our problems, just as Bill Clinton’s "neglect" supposedly led to 9/11.

On the other hand, Kennedy is terrible on the drug war, the 4th amendment rules on searches and seizures, and the federal government’s authority to override local marijuana law. But he’s the best we can do, folks. Carlin might be right about the public.

When the liberal justices retire, let’s hope there’s not a Republican president to put another Roberts or Alito on the bench*. It is a delicate balance now, with Kennedy holding the sway between the fascists and commies. Too many commies or too many fascists, and there goes the formula. Of course, when Kennedy retires, we can expect to see the whole delicate balance screwed regardless.

* One hope: The Democrats will fillibuster a fascist Republican appointment, and the Republicans will fillibuster anyone who will overturn Heller. Gridlock under Reagan got us Kennedy. Let’s hope for more judges who are only totalitarian on relatively minor issues like privacy, prohibition, and the right of dying people to use medicine.

Saving the Planet

Don’t Vote!

Airport Security

Baseball vs. Football

Airport Jargon

Fear of Germs

Common Sayings

PC Euphemisms

Seven Dirty Words

As Scott says, read Glenn.

Well, toward the end of a recent interview of Barr by Glenn Beck, Waco came up — his first public mention of it, as far as I know, since the LP campaign began. He wasn’t asked about Waco, but rather 9/11 conspiracy theories. Starting at about 37:20 in Glen Beck’s interview, he and Barr have this exchange:

Glenn Beck: "When Ron Paul was running I had several run-ins with these people called the 9-11 Truthers. They say we blew up the World Trade Center. You?"

Bob Barr:"I don’t pay any attention to that. None at all. I’ve heard the same thing. We heard it when we did some investigations of Waco, the same sort of stuff. We gotta move beyond that. I mean there are real problems facing us and the world that we can actually do something about without worrying about conspira[cies] of times past."

Well. This is interesting. What "same sort of stuff" were people saying about Waco? That the government killed those dozens of men, women and children? That it planned an unconstitutional PR siege on the Branch Davidians instead of just arresting David Koresh, waged a propaganda campaign based on lies regarding meth labs, guns, and a hundred other things, conducted psychological warfare on them, cut off their water and access to lawyers, the media and family, threw flash bang grenades at those who tried to leave, got fed up after 51 days and so ran a tank through the home, pumping the building with poisonous and flammable CS gas and fired incendiary devices? Because, so far as I see it, government aggression against the Davidians was severe and homicidal even if we believe the Clintonistas that it was an "inside job" - that the Davidians set the fires - for surely at least some of them were killed, and all of them aggressed against, before the home went aflame.

Barr’s comparison of condemnations of government conduct at Waco and 9/11 is most disturbing, for one does not have to believe some of the more controversial claims about the ATF, FBI and military’s behavior at Waco to consider it essentially governmental mass murder. Not so with 9/11 — though of course that was at least blowback and a massive intelligence failure resulting from criminal negligence, no matter how you look at it.

Another irony: This interview exchange happens right after Barr takes the marginalized "conspiratorial" view of the North American Union, one that I personally thinks puts far too much stock in shadowy internationalist and foreign interests and not nearly enough attention on the nationalist expansionists in DC who have wanted to conquer much of the Western hemisphere since the founding of America.

Whatever he thinks of NAU, I am saddened by his comments on Waco, for he had no need even to bring it up, and in the 90s I loved how he stuck up for truth there, despite respectability and popular opinion.

Also posted on LewRockwell.com

People often look upon those of us who choose to defend liberty with some curiosity. What could be our motivation? Those who see everything political purely in terms of economic motivations and personal gain have some trouble grappling with our ideas for society. They look at our position on Social Security and they think we must not care about the elderly. They know we want to slash taxes and promote free markets in a hundred directions, and they assume we must want to coddle the rich and big business. They think we are naive about threats to national security, or that we are un-American, all because we favor peace, not just in Iraq, but as a general rule. For decades, some have associated libertarians with an obsession with drugs.

But of course, economic determinism is not an immutable fact of life. Karl Marx was wrong, and thank goodness. People don't only respond to narrow class or self-interest. Were this not so, it would be impossible to account for the work done by political activists of all types, not just among us, but those of all political movements. The pro-life movement is not only interested in narrow self-interest. Neither is the pro-choice movement. The environmentalists, the gun rights advocates, antiwar protesters, conservatives and socialists of all stripes have among their ranks millions of people dedicated to their vision and determined to make the world better, not just for themselves but for others. Ideas are important. Principle motivates people to make all sorts of sacrifices to promote their version of justice, to make their abstract ideology a reality.

We see this even in the nightmarish general election process every four years. Not every single person is voting solely out of narrow self-interest. People are horrified by everything the other side is perceived to stand for. They believe they themselves are standing for something.

Even libertarian elements come into play here. Some Democrats naively vote against Republicans, out of a concern about war - not narrow economic self-interest alone. Republicans, too, sometimes find their inspiration in abstract concepts of justice.

Surely, what excited the Ron Paul movement - an unprecedented libertarian grassroots uprising - was ideas: the ideas of liberty.

So why is liberty the idea we choose to defend?

We choose to defend liberty because, in a sense, we have very little choice. It's a matter of right and wrong. It's a fundamental struggle. Looking at our world, we can see why.

We favor economic freedom because the alternative is to favor a slow enslavement. The state's attacks on free enterprise lead to stagnation, impoverishment, inflation and wealth destruction on a horrific scale. It has brought this economy to this most precarious point we're facing right now. It's becoming more expensive to buy food. Health care is a mess. The unfunded liabilities in the entitlement state are going to cripple this country unless something fundamental changes. Subsidized easy credit has created a bubble and now the laws of gravity are kicking in.

The socialist, regulatory corporate state that has been fastened onto the economy for more than 100 years has come to the point now where Social Security is a bigger program than almost any government on earth. Eminent domain has taken on life in a particularly insidious way. This isn't sustainable. It's dividing people. It's causing social conflict. It's killing our country.

We defend personal liberties because the same principles apply. They used to say we were utopian about the drug war and victimless crimes, but what kind of real world have their policies created? The United States has the largest prison population on earth. We have more peaceful people in prison than almost any other nation has criminals in prison. This is supposed to be law enforcement but these prisons are totalitarian hells of lawlessness. People are raped, beaten and treated like slaves on an unspeakable scale. Half a million people are behind bars for drugs alone - and surely this is a human rights issue that should concern anyone wanting a civil society.

The Bill of Rights was made a mockery far before 9/11, as the government increasingly took on the role of using police force to make people into model citizens. Conservatives who think they oppose social engineering but support the drug war must not see the irony. They wanted to create a drug-free America. They instead created a police state where the 4th Amendment, economic freedom, and any semblance of the rule of law had to be left behind.

And now the police state has invaded every conceivable sector of society. It locks people up for hiring illegal aliens. It is targeted toward some of the most defensible players in the market. It leaves behind a trail of death and misery.

Recently, thanks to some remaining understanding of what is right and wrong, the Texas judiciary has ruled the kidnapping of more than 400 people from FLDS to be illegal. The thing was based on propaganda, as was the Waco incident, which didn't end as peacefully. And this is an important point. What made Waco different was that people resisted. The state is always a threat to the most basic rights. It is ultimately enforced through bureaucratically directed violence. The threat of violence is always there. All over the country, families have been destroyed, lives ruined, communities ravaged by the drug war and other such crusades. And they think we are not looking at reality when we attack such programs as the drug war? Look at what their various domestic wars have actually created.

As for intervention overseas, the principles apply here too. We have a global empire that alienates lots of foreigners, cozies up with lots of politicians and despots, destabilizes cultures, promotes conflicts, gets us embroiled in civil wars, destroys our dollar, distorts the economy, and lays claim to our freedom and the unimpeded right to set policy and interrogate anyone all around the world. We oppose this unprecedented monstrosity not because we are naive. If foreign interventionism were so defensible, why are Americans so antsy when other countries go to war and engage in conflict without the nod from the US?

For more than a hundred years, US foreign policy has been on the wrong track. The US was treating the Middle East like a playground for decades, and the blowback many of us were worried about happened. The result has been a total loss of rationality and some rather frightening blows against the traditions of this country. Congress suspended Habeas Corpus for the first time since the Civil War. Torture has become law in America. The US has laid to waste the lives and property of millions of people. Americans have lost liberty on every front. We have perhaps seen the largest expansion of state power since World War II.

These are urgent concerns, emergencies even. Stopping the next terrible war is an issue of utmost importance. We are, after all, talking here about mass murder.

We need to reverse all the depravations of our civil liberties since 9/11, and continue stripping the state of these despotic powers until we at least have some claim to being a free country again.

And yet, these horror stories I tell you are not the only reason we do what we do. We have the blessings of liberty all around us. In historical context, we are looking good in many crucial respects. We don't have slavery, which was an unforgivable flaw in the original design of this republic, one that nearly destroyed the hope for a more perfect nation. We don't have conscription. We don't have total socialism. We don't have internment camps for all Arabs. Some taxes, regulations, tariffs and many other burdens of the past have been lessened. For many segments of the population, this wasn't much of a free society until relatively recently. And on a global level, there has been a remarkable advance in liberty in many places that we ignore to our own detriment. Every triumph for liberty must be cheered, and should be understood.

What's more, we enjoy a civilization that itself depends wholly on the principles of individual rights and dignity. Without the emerging principle that people have certain rights the state or no man could trample, we wouldn't be here at this convention. This hotel wouldn't exist. The market economy is an impossibility without some degree of economic freedom, and we are fortunate, in relative terms, to be alive here and now.

So, one reason we defend the market and individual liberty is because life as we know it depends on it. We wish humanity to flourish, not to move backwards. And why has it moved at all?

Libertarians and our philosophical predecessors have done so much in the past that it is easy to take for granted. In the Old World, a slow battle that took place over centuries between liberty and tyranny, which exploded in clarity in the 18th century, culminating in the great event when American colonists risked it all, not just for their own personal gain, but to defend their liberty and the idea of liberty. A country was born, founded on the principle of revolution and secession. Newly inspired idealists in a fledgling America kept on with the revolution, applying these ideals to slavery, eventually awakening people worldwide to an evil institution that plagued the world for millennia. Now not even a dictator would openly defend slavery in principle. A few hundred years ago, some of the founders of this country did. Now that's progress.

Classical liberals became more Americanized, more radicalized, throughout the 19th century, as abolitionists denounced Lincoln's power grabs, and a big-tent anti-imperialist coalition developed at the turn of the century. Those determined not to give up the good legacies of this country resisted the Progressives, FDR and then the Cold War. Segregation laws were repealed, and now very few people would ever think of bringing them back. Conscription was met with great mass resistance during Vietnam, with libertarians making all the most fundamental arguments.

Some things have gotten better. At the time many people didn't take the revolting Americans seriously, or think the abolitionists were grounded in reality, or believe those who tried to raise awareness of the perils of total economic central planning had any sense or honesty.

But on some major battles, our tradition has won, and civilization has become that much more civilized. Where we have not yet won, or where our enemies have won, of course we have seen a betrayal of the American dream, economic calamity and the retrograde motion of our society.

Ultimately, I believe most of us choose to defend liberty because it is under attack and defending it is the right thing to do. We admire and thank our predecessors even as we acknowledge their flaws and keep trying to move the culture toward a greater respect for liberty. Every little bit of progress means the world to someone out there, currently enslaved and impoverished and brutalized by the police and welfare state. Every big step toward freedom has enormous consequences that will benefit generations to come. Many timely battles have high stakes, for the economic well-being of this country, the safety of its people, the liberties they cherish, the lives of countless Americans and foreigners are on the line.

Sometimes we libertarians take positions that horrify detractors on the left and right. We defend people that many people won't. We take some very unpopular stands.

But we have to. The statists on left and right have had their way, and they have devastated the lives of millions.

Libertarianism is not about protecting big business at the expense of the little guy. It is not an obsession with drugs, or a naive view of foreign affairs or about throwing all manner of civility, community, law and personal discipline out the window. That is not our interest. Quite the reverse.

Ours is a program and philosophy concerned with dismantling state oppression and setting people free. We need not shy away from it, or make excuses. The tradition of liberty speaks for itself. It has brought on all these blessings most Americans take for granted. The opposite tradition had brought only disaster.

The short-term remedy and the long-term goal are the same thing: Liberty. Making ourselves clear will help to bring more people to understand this. If enough people understood this, got behind this, also chose the path that we choose, things would improve instantly and dramatically and continue to do so. If we succeed and to the extent we do, we see more prosperity, social harmony, peace and civil society. To the extent we do not, we see stagnation, poverty, class division, war, tyranny and lawlessness. Everything we care about is on the line.

And that's why we choose to defend liberty.

Thank you.

This originally ran on LewRockwell.com, on July 6, 2006.

Many libertarians seem particularly worried about "purity police" within the libertarian movement. These "purity police" are accused of over-zealous sectarianism, frightening away potential fellow travelers with their rabid accusations of statism hurled at those guilty of the slightest deviation from radical libertarian principle. Instead of embracing those who believe in liberty for the most part, they supposedly get bogged down on allegedly minor issues, and their attachment to libertarian purity thus threatens the growth of the libertarian movement.

I consider myself a principled libertarian. Or a radical libertarian. I suppose there are many ways of saying it. Murray Rothbard called it "plumb-line libertarianism," and Walter Block has seen fit to embrace that terminology. I see it simply as the belief that initiating force is wrong.

I do not consider myself a sectarian in any detrimental sense. I am willing to work with, and certainly to engage discursively and try to learn from, those with whom I do not agree on every tiny point. If someone opposes the rapid Sovietization of America and would like to see government smaller, less expansive, less intrusive, and less belligerent, I view that person as a prospective ally and certainly not as some sort of serious problem.

Libertarian purity, however, has its place. It is in fact very important. A movement, even a big-tent movement, would be nowhere without some core principles, and the adoption of principles necessarily entails the believing of some things and the disbelieving of others. A political movement needs radicals to keep its end goals in mind and to inspire and encourage those entering into the movement, and those who may deviate here or there, to hold their sights high.

Libertarianism in particular is a radical ideology. Grounded in the principle of non-aggression, libertarianism leads one to see the world from a perspective radically different from that which the maintainers of the status quo would have you see it from. To eliminate all aggressive force would be to eliminate government as we know it. Even minarchist libertarians, who believe in minimal government, if they are consistent, believe in a government dramatically much less aggressive than virtually any government that has existed in this world. They support a state that would barely qualify as being a state.

You do not have to believe that radical libertarianism will be implemented any time soon to insist on keeping the radical flame lit. Libertarianism can, if nothing else, serve as an ethical vantage point from which to analyze the world's problems and conceive of possible solutions. As we see it, all the big political problems would be best addressed by minimizing the amount of aggression being employed, especially by the state. To make concessions on this point is to say that some people's liberty is less important than others', or that sometimes it's perfectly okay to initiate force on the innocent. Why concede that? It undermines the whole philosophy. It also makes it, in the long run, less appealing to people to whom it is new, and less meaningful to those who believe they have adopted it.

The practical importance of maintaining a principled conception of liberty within the libertarian movement, and not abandoning it for a watered-down, more palatable recruiting slogan such as "libertarians believe in personal freedom, lower taxes, and responsive government," should be obvious. The more you dilute the libertarian message simply to get more people on board, the less you've actually gained in activism and outreach. The point isn't simply to get a plurality or majority of politically inclined folks to identify themselves as "libertarians," or even to vote for a particular candidate who identifies himself that way. The only hope for liberty is if popular public opinion changes. The state exists and persists with the tacit acquiescence of the people. It will only relent in its tyranny when most of its subjects resist it, or at least stop supporting it. And so there will be no restoration of liberty until enough of the people believe in liberty. If you managed to trick the people into voting for a candidate more libertarian than they are, it wouldn't be long until the system corrupted the reformer and the state returned back to the type of repression that most people are willing or even happy to tolerate. The key to a free society is rooted inextricably in the culture and ideas of the people.

Libertarianism is a radical belief in liberty, and libertarians, if they have any practical political goals, want to move society in a libertarian direction by convincing their neighbors to be more libertarian and thus less favorable and supportive of the oppressive state. So we need more libertarians, more radical libertarians, and more persuasive libertarians. We need intellectual ammo and ever-improving ways of getting the ideas across. What we don't need is to fool ourselves into thinking that by convincing more people to call themselves "libertarians" or to vote for certain candidates, we will be closer to our goals. On the contrary, the more non-libertarians who call themselves and their favored policies "libertarian," the more we have lost the meaning of the label, the further we are from our goal.

This problem is clear with economics, where Republicans have managed to convince Americans across the political spectrum that they support free markets. Perhaps nothing has hindered the prospects for free markets in America more than the conflation of conservative, corporatist politicians and policies with the cause of free markets. By free markets, I mean markets that are free of state violence and looting. State violence and looting are two concepts that many on the left justly associate with Republicans such as the Bushes and Reagan. Unfortunately, when people on the left hear of "free markets," they often assume that what is being discussed is Republican state violence and looting, rather than the opposite. On the other hand, free-market enthusiasts and libertarian-leaning folks are quick to side unquestioningly with Republicans and corporate America rather than with genuine free markets, especially if they have convinced themselves to relinquish libertarian purity in exchange for pragmatic gains.

The worst thing that could happen to the libertarian movement would be if statist, corporatist politicians began self-applying the label "libertarian." The movement would have to invest incredible work into convincing the public that the label was misapplied, or into finding a new label for its own beliefs. This would be a huge setback. One way to prevent it is to be jealous of the term. While we should welcome people from all over the political spectrum into discourse, and we should gladly work with those who have strong libertarian instincts on key issues, we should not be quick to render everyone who thinks Bush's government is too big "a libertarian." Almost everyone believes Bush's government is too big - certainly, most Americans wished they paid less in taxes - but a good number of them would love to nationalize healthcare or bomb more Arabs. These people are not libertarians. We should be willing to say so. We want the public to know what libertarianism is if we want it ever to be more libertarian.

The perils of insufficient libertarian purity come through most clearly in political outfits, such as the Libertarian Party, which practice an astonishingly low degree of internal education. If anything is important in any libertarian group, it is libertarian education. Conversing with fellow libertarians is crucial in maintaining one's convictions and in sorting out the more difficult issues with one another. It has often been disparagingly referred to as "preaching to the choir." Well, we want the choir to keep coming to service, don't we? We want them to remember the tune they are singing and why they're singing it. If you can't even keep the choir coming, you don't have much hope of bringing the average person in to listen to your sermon.

While libertarian organizations shouldn't quickly turn anyone away because of a failure to practice perfect lockstep conformity, and while some issues are more difficult to find consensus on than others, it is absolutely paramount that libertarians do not put the growth of their organizations ahead of maintaining a grip on principle. It should never be kept a secret what libertarians actually believe, even if concealing one's convictions might make it easier for some people to think they agree with you.

When some movement libertarians refer negatively to "purity police," what they are really condemning is internal education. Instead of prioritizing internal education, the effort has been simply to curry favor with conservative institutions and to attract movement members who are "socially liberal" and "fiscally conservative." So virtually anyone who wants to pay less in taxes and have pot legalized has been considered a libertarian. There is nothing wrong with encouraging those who want to pay less in taxes and see pot legalized to consider the merits of libertarian philosophy. Such a person is probably statistically more open to libertarianism than the average man on the street. However, what should be a cue for opening up dialogue has tragically become a sufficient litmus test for determining whether someone is a libertarian or not.

In fact, it is entirely possible that someone who does not immediately give libertarian answers to one's questions about taxes and drugs will eventually be brought around to complete, radical libertarianism. And it is also possible that someone who gives the libertarian answer to both questions will turn out to be a totalitarian at the core - a totalitarian who likes marijuana and wants to pay less in taxes, but whose love of liberty does not cut any deeper than that. Instead of fully understanding the implications of libertarian principle, and trying to explain it to others and convince them of its value, many libertarians have looked at libertarianism as something that could easily be defined by a small number of bullet points or a handful of superficial sentiments towards government, and have thus propagated a false comprehension of libertarianism among those near to and outside of the movement.

In our time, nowhere has the paucity of good internal education been more obvious, and more detrimental, than on the issues of war and peace. For years, the Libertarian Party and other libertarian outfits have failed to emphasize the centrality of peace within the libertarian ethic and political program. Whereas issues such as taxes and drugs and guns and welfare have gotten at least some of the attention they deserve, serious discussion of foreign policy has long been missing altogether from outreach literature and political meetings. No consensus was ever attempted, because the topic was seen as either trivial or too difficult to agree on. So every conservative who was okay with abortion and gay marriage was welcomed into the movement with open arms. Meanwhile, antiwar, civil libertarian leftists who flunked the initial test on economics were quickly turned away.

The destructiveness of this approach became completely apparent after 9/11, especially in the build up to the Iraq War. Whereas with Afghanistan we could somewhat understand the desire for revenge and the overwhelming fear that unfortunately led many libertarians astray, with Iraq what we saw was a wholesale abandonment of the non-aggression principle, of distrust of the state, of distrust of central planning. The libertarian movement appeared divided on the issue, but the truth is that it was never united in the first place. Most of those who advocated and still support Bush's killing spree are simply not libertarians, misguided or otherwise. It is theoretically possible that they could be converted to libertarianism. That most of them never fully embraced it to begin with is clear.

The libertarian movement would have been better off with more so-called "purity police," especially on the issue of foreign policy. The movement fractured over a key issue - indeed, the greatest of all political issues - because most hawks who identified with the movement never understood what libertarianism really was. One could, it turns out, be a "fiscally conservative, socially liberal" imperialist. But one cannot champion the non-aggression principle, the foundation of libertarian philosophy, and yet "support our troops" in the dropping of thousand-pound bombs on heavily populated civilian centers in a country on the other side of the world. Had the principle been stressed at the outset, we would today see fewer "libertarians" defending Bush's authoritarian power grabs and calling for more war, confusing the public as to what libertarians fundamentally believe.

The libertarian philosophy is important because liberty is important, and we need people who will advocate a radical conception of freedom. We need revolutionary thinkers if ever we are to expect another revolution in mainstream political thought, if ever we are to expect a major change in national politics. This means we should certainly reach out to others with whom there is substantial agreement. We should not alienate them, nor lash out at them when they express disagreement and confusion at our ideas. We shouldn't try to pick a fight over every little issue when there are better things to do. We shouldn't reject all constructive collaborations in dealing with present emergencies, such as opposing a new war, police state measure or nationalist welfare scheme that threatens to bankrupt the country.

But we should also maintain a sense of what libertarian purity is, and we should not keep it a secret. We should indeed spread the ideas far and wide, in hopes that they will be adopted by increasing numbers of people, eventually catch on, and exert pressure on the political establishment. We should especially be able and willing to explain to prospective allies why we take the strong positions we do. If libertarianism is important to the future of human liberty, we must not lose sight of it in its purest form. We might never obtain the total human liberty we seek. But we will get nowhere if we turn our backs on our principles and jump toward the nearest compromise.

The Formula for a Police State
by Anthony Gregory

On the night of March 15 in an Oceanside, California, parking lot, after a dispute over one car cutting off another, Frank White, an off-duty San Diego police officer, shot five bullets into Rachel Silva's car, hitting her in the arm twice, shattering a bone, and striking her eight-year-old son in the leg. She was unarmed. She has trouble moving her arm and might have permanent nerve damage.

Oceanside Police Captain Tom Aguigui promises that the department is pursuing "a very fair and complete investigation" to determine "why this whole thing happened," but many details are being concealed from the public.

What does seem apparent, however, is something of a double standard. First, after Silva was hospitalized, the authorities decided to drug test her. Officer White, the one who did the shooting, was not tested. San Diego Homicide Lieutenant Kevin Rooney explained that police, whether on- or off-duty, are not drug tested after involvement in a shooting, barring some sign of intoxication. It is yet unclear what Silva's alleged signs of intoxication were or why shooting someone after a traffic dispute isn't probable cause for testing the way that, say, reckless driving is.

Nor was Officer White arrested. The Oceanside police did question himawhile he was accompanied by a supervisor from his department, an attorney, and a police "peer support" representative. He is currently on paid leave.

Silva and her attorney have filed a claim for damages, in which she says she and White were yelling at each other when White pulled up on the right side of her car and began shooting as she tried to drive away. This account might help explain the bullet holes in Silva's windshield and passenger side window, as well as why White's driver's side window was broken.

Silva has two DUIs on her record and was driving on a suspended license, leading some to question her credibility, and yet it is hard to imagine things going the same way if White were not a police officer. If police arriving at the scene found an unarmed woman blacking out from massive blood loss, her young son bleeding, her car shot up, and an angry motorist having clearly done the shooting, would they have decided to drug test the shot woman and not the shooter? Considering the injured child, would they have let the shooter go so easily and kept such strict control over the investigation? Would they have characterized their probe as an attempt to discover why he did itanot just to find motive for what appears to be an open-shut case of criminal road rage, but seemingly to find an exculpatory explanation?

What if the tables were turned: if White had been an ordinary citizen and Silva a police officeraeven an armed one? Does anyone truly believe the investigation would be undertaken in an identical manner?

Indeed, the very fact that this investigation is being approached secretively and as a special case shows there is something fundamentally flawed about the way police are viewed in our culture and by the police department itself. It should make no difference who did the shooting and who was shot. All that should matter are the facts of the case and whether the shooting was an act of aggression or self-defense. In a free, just society, police are not held to a different standardaunless, perhaps, a higher standard; after all, they are the ones paid by taxpayers to uphold the law.

Having a double standard that favors police is the formula for a police state. Whether in investigations, arrests, trials, or punishment, police should never get away with anything for which a member of the public would face severe consequences. A police state is at our doorstep when the public fears the government and law enforcers enjoy impunity for negligent or malicious behavior. Freedom and justice are empty promises without equality under the law, including for the lawmen.

Frank White should be regarded innocent until proven guilty. But does anyone think he'd be treated the same way if he were not an officer of the law? Or that if found guilty he'll get the same punishment that Silva would have if she had shot him and his son? To ask the question is to answer it, which is a sad testament to the current state of the rule of law.

[I will be keeping up on this a bit. Not much in the last week has come out to add much clarity to the situation, though apparently Silva has a new attorney and there is some evidence she was in retreat when White shot her.
Also, a new claim on the boy's behalf accuses White of pointing the gun directly at him.]

Furthermore, the economic situation has gotten me thinking. Can we really trust an unhampered market to foster financial stability? Clearly, the subprime mortgage mess shows that the answer is no. The Federal Reserve might not be a perfect institution, but we have avoided Depression for six decades and perhaps with some tweaking, the Fed can help forestall a disaster today. It is realistically our only hope. It just needs more tools to keep the economy afloat. The proposals from the Treasury to give it oversight power over financial institutions, insurance companies, hedge funds, banks, mortgage firms and other such bodies is a good starting place. Indeed, it is hard to imagine the market functioning at all without the basic infrastructure provided by government.

Furthermore, government can be a great force for social progress. Where would we be without government restrictions on guns, drugs, religion, family affairs and community standards? Not just local but national leaders must be brought in to help manage society toward a more moral, more equal, more patriotic future.

Perhaps the problem isn’t so much big government, but poorly run government. Indeed, maybe we actually need more government to help even out some of the crinkles in the private sector. What if health care were free here, like it is in much the world? And what are we to do about anthropogenic climate change? Surely, getting government off our backs will do nothing to stop the relentless warming of the earth. Many Americans have far too much money anyway; surely, a slight increase on their taxes could be directed toward cleaning up the planet.

And it really is unfair, now that I think about it, that some people have more money than other people, anyway. We are all humans. Yes, we have different abilities, and different needs, and for this very reason, perhaps, we need some sort of government of the workers to help distribute goods from those who are able to provide to those most in need. (If this were achieved completely, I might then humor the idea of getting rid of the state. But first thing’s first.)

Of course, the US government is uniquely suited to this task, and all tasks, which is why I’ve begun favoring its expansion so as to provide the fruits of liberty and prosperity to all people everywhere. Ours is an international struggle, but perhaps it must all be directed by American leadership, considering our nation’s long and proud history of spreading freedom and fairness throughout the globe.

However, this cannot be done so long as we let our narrow, individualist impulses determine the direction of our great society. Individual autonomy has led to a breakdown of the family. Yes, it might have accelerated in the hedonistic 20th century, but I think the problem goes back further to voluntary marriage. Why should people get to choose something as important as who their mate will be without some national consensus, some guarantee that their decision is best not just for themselves, but for all of society?

Speaking of which, society is not going to function much longer if we maintain our reliance on unhampered labor markets. Unions should be made mandatory for all economic sectors, but that’s only the beginning. With the inability of economic actors to act rationally in a consistent manner, we need government to step in and improve the labor market with meaningful incentives. However, the pro-market crowd has a point about the efficiency of business and private enterprise. The best of both worlds, then, would be a conscripted civil labor force, all put under the control of local, market players. I’m thinking this will also cut bureaucratic costs: If American workers fail to meet a quota, their overseers in the private sector will simply steer them back on course by incentivizing good behavior. I think the threat of a lashing will keep America’s workers from going idle. (Some will compare this to chattel slavery, but indeed it will be fundamentally different: although the federal government protected that peculiar institution, it did not have the proper regulatory bodies to adequately ensure fairness and dynamic competition. The idea that privatized conscription is similar to slavery is as absurd as the idea that privatized welfare is similar to private looting.)

Each economic sector, for that matter, should be regulated by a new system of guilds. An economy of free and open competition requires a baseline of rules and standards. Not everyone should be trusted to go into business doing something, without the experts in that field agreeing he’s ready.

I think another area where America has gone astray is the unregulated freedom of people to leave their property to the heirs of their choice. We should bring back primogeniture, and, while we’re at it, reconsider entail as well.

As for religion, either the state should mandate one faith for all Americans (and all foreigners fortunate enough to be liberated by US forces) or it should simply outlaw it altogether. Either way, we’d at least have national solidarity and religious conflict would be a thing of the past.

These modest reforms I propose would surely be difficult to enact in the current political climate. Perhaps, then, we must begin a campaign of thought correction among dissenters. All publications must be approved by central administrators. Thinking is not something to be trusted to the masses, anyway.

Oh, and I’m also for vouchers now.

Yet the movie is campy. You need galvanized cable to suspend your disbelief, it is so heavy. The movie is, like much political science fiction, quite cheesy at times. It rocks. And it rocks in a libertarian way. Yet the art does not compel me as much as my favorite art.

There Will Be Blood is based on a novel by progressive-era muckraker Upton Sinclair. This book attacks bourgeois America and highlights the dysfunction of the oil industry at the turn of the century up through the late 1920s - a time when Standard Oil and Union Oil dominated the market, a time when burgeoning competition decentralized the economy while antitrust law and other duplicitous progressive reforms moved to consolidate power back in the hands of a few firms. Of course, Sinclair didn’t generally tell it that way, and his novels became accepted as history, and that historical interpretation became a key portion in the general outlook on the era that came to justify, in most Americans’ minds, the great departure from American liberalism in the first quarter of the 20th century.

And yet, despite being pinko propaganda - and despite the fact that I really did enjoy Doomsday quite a bit a There Will Be Blood was a far superior film. It was a beautiful, amazing work of art.

Doomsday, with its guns, its women, its explosions isn’t a bad attempt. Not a failed project. Not at all. It’s just that, movies like There Will Be Blood have the instant feeling of being a classic.

Even if you disagree on these particular examples, you must concede there’s a point here: Proponents of statism, especially left statism - but also national statism - make great art. They touch people. You might give libertarian art bonus points in your appraisal, and I do too, but I can’t pretend that libertarian quality is the same as artistic quality. At the latter, we have a comparative disadvantage.

Why is it that works of art with libertarian themes tend to suffer from a campiness that makes them less persuasive, less touching, than the art produced by nationalists and collectivists? I’m not so sure. Our philosophy - the philosophy of liberty - is surely idealistic. Is it perhaps to cerebral? Not romantic enough? Too systematic? Does it simply offer no comfort? Do people seek art for similar reasons of insecurity that they tend to find comfort in the state?

I agree with the unusually artistically adept libertarian writer - and of sci-fi, no less! - L. Neil Smith when he says, "You Can’t Fight a Culture War if You Ain’t Got Any Culture!" Whatever it is that makes the socialists such convincing and powerful artists, the party of liberty needs to catch up.

McCain criticized President Bush’s tax cuts. Schwarzenegger has delivered some of the largest bond increases in California history.

McCain has attacked Bush on global warming and even forced the first significant Senate vote on climate change. Schwarzenegger has also confronted the administration on the issue, suing the EPA to allow Sacramento to impose its own, higher standards on carbon emissions.

McCain has mediocre ratings from the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America. Schwarzenegger has supported the Brady Bill, the so-called "Assault Weapons Ban," mandatory safety locks, and other such anti-gun measures.

Just as many conservatives questioned Schwarzenegger’s Republican credentials, so they have been quite critical of McCain. Conservative diva Ann Coulter recently proclaimed on Fox News that she would campaign for Hillary Clinton if the GOP gives its nod to McCain-"because she’s more conservative than he is," Coulter told fellow conservative Sean Hannity.

Meanwhile, McCain has been endorsed by Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman, a champion of big government across the board.

Is all this a sign that Republicans do not stand for the principles that they used to?

Not exactly. Republican politicians have always sided with big government, despite their rhetoric. President Bush gave us No Child Left Behind, enormous prescription drug entitlements, immense corporate regulation, and staggering spikes in domestic spending. His father raised taxes and signed the Americans With Disabilities Act. No less a Republican hero than Ronald Reagan raised Social Security taxes, increased tariffs, busted the budget and-in his earlier years as Californian governor-expanded social programs, passed the largest tax increase in state history, and signed landmark gun control legislation. Almost every Republican president in the last century oversaw significant expansions of government size and power.

So why have many conservative intellectuals and commentators tolerated all this social spending, gun control, meddling in education, violations of civil liberties and high taxes and debt? One reason: War.

Ann Coulter says Hillary Clinton, no foe of big government, is better than McCain because she would wage war more aggressively. Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger and pro-war Democrat Lieberman hail McCain because of his military credentials and willingness to wage war. For the last six years, fiscal conservatives have held their nose and supported Bush, who has increased the federal budget by about 50 percent, all because of the war on terror and war in Iraq. Back in the 1980s, conservatives didn’t mind that Reagan actually increased spending much faster than President Jimmy Carter, since the money was ostensibly going to "national defense." And today, most conservatives neglect the one Republican presidential candidate, libertarian Ron Paul, who has actually been talking about cutting taxes, regulations, and spending; eliminating the IRS, and protecting the Second Amendment. They oppose him because he has always condemned the Iraq war and supports bringing the troops home from Iraq and around the world, as well as repealing the PATRIOT Act and restoring the Bill of Rights.

Most conservatives are addicted to nationalist militarism, war, and empire and are willing to abandon their free market, smaller-government principles in favor of continuing and accelerating U.S. intervention abroad. Randolph Bourne trenchantly observed that "war is the health of the state." No wonder the state keeps getting bigger under hawkish Republicans. When pressed, they prefer big government and war to small government and peace.

The lesson here is that if you want less government, you must first find a movement and a party that does not put a love of war above all other issues. Libertarians, unlike conservatives, recognize that the problems with big government at home also apply to big government abroad and that a free country with a constitutionally limited government is incompatible with perpetual war and global empire.