I think it’s natural for people want liberty for themselves, with the term “liberty” here used to describe that system where voluntary interaction among consenting adults reaches as far as is possible into our day-to-day lives. I think this holds even for those ostensible socialists and “communists” in our midst. No communist, when planning their militant utopian uprising, expects to be thrown into the Gulag.
As an aside, I’ve often marvelled at the fact that the socialist ideal can only be attempted with the establishment of a totalitarian, tyrannical central government. That unconscious will for liberty has to be crushed completely in order to move toward any semblance of a marketless society. The primal “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange” is too great. The desire to form bonds between people that include work, payment for goods and services, has to be continuously stamped by the jackboot of the secret police. And socialist countries always have a legion of secret police. Strange, but no coincidence. Free speech is supressed totally in socialist societies as well. The level of censorship in a given country is a veritable storm glass for the liberty being either protected or stripped from the civilian class.
Gun ownership as well, because, despite the masses of gun-toting troglodytes reciting the fact, gun ownership is defense against a tyrannical government once it begins coming for your family, friends, coworkers, and generally anyone you believe to be innocent yet are persecuted nonetheless. Which is why gun registration is an evil. A government shouldn’t know which citizen is armed and which is a sitting duck. To be clear, I’m not advocating for the murder of police or any other armed officials. But did German Jews have a right to defend themselves against a forced train ride to a concentration camp? A gun at least gives them a say in the matter. During World War 2, the Allies dropped 25,000 single-shot, .45 handguns, known as the FP-45 Libertor over occupied Europe, with the logic being that, if the secret police had no idea who was armed and who wasn’t, they’d be slightly more hesitant to kick down a door. No one wants a .45 slug in the gut. Hence the logic of civilian disarmament. I say that most current pro-Second Amendment supporters who are aware of the true purpose of the Second Amendment are inconsistent troglodytes because of their blind worship of the police. When a country descends into tyranny, the police are the ones that will come get your guns, kidnap your people, and shoot you in the head.
Now back to the original purpose of this post. I think we all carry an inner compass that gauges the level of liberty that exists in society, even if we don’t directly experience it. We just know that something is wrong with the state of things. If, due to burdensome regulation or taxation, a would-be inventor fails to produce the next revolutionary gadget or theory, we feel the loss. If the next Einstein or Feynman drops out of a restrictive graduate program because the barriers to entry are prohibitively high, we know. Which brings me to another reason for the danger of restricting liberty: we have no idea what future we are killing by restricting the freedom to create, discover, to engage in ceaseless trial-and-error, in order to build a better future than any single person could dream of.
The fight for liberty, as I witnessed it during the Ron Paul cataclysm, was not a catering to the Left or Right, but more of standing back and hoisting a black flag. It was ideological, and pure, and because of that it planted seeds that will bear fruit if only they receive adequate sunlight and don’t get mired in the weeds of compromise. Paul’s campaign is proof that it is possible to be ideologically principled, yet successful.
To conclude, I’d like to point out that the majority of my writing will consist of (probably irrelevant) ruminations on the nature of liberty, why its important, the path to achieving it, and what I think it would take to achieve it. Which probably consists more in finding the next Mises, Hayek, or Ron Paul, more than patching together a grand coalition. It consists of keeping up morale among the Remnant, keeping the message pure. Defending liberty is the most urgent task we can engage in, its enemies are everywhere, organized, well-funded. A burgeoning Surveillance State is being built around us, all the while telling us its for our own protection. A virtual kill pen, Bentham’s Panopticon reimagined and being realized today.
“Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders: no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping toward destruction. Therefor, everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interest of everyone hangs on the result.” -Ludwig von Mises
Ed: Thank you again for the views. This website is home to the ideal of liberty as felt by those who participated in Ron Paul’s campaigns from 2007 to 2012. Each day I will post news from a ‘liberty’ perspective, in the sense of a philosophical framework that believes that a voluntary society is an ideal that is achievable in our lifetimes, if we only want it bad enough. I will also post ramblings that you may or may not read. Thank you for the time of day.
