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When was the last time you opened a book by a contemporary politician – or more accurately, his ghostwriter – to see Lysander Spooner mentioned, much less discussed, and intelligently so? If you crave so exceedingly rare and rarified a pleasure, treat yourself to Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-Texas) newest effort, Liberty Defined.
Were Dr. Paul a typical American ruler, he would be far more familiar with lobbyists and menus at four-star restaurants than with anarcho-capitalists from the 19th century. And if by some bizarre happenstance, he had actually heard of Spooner, he would vilify and denounce him for his vigorous hostility against government. But of course, Dr. Paul is as unusual as freedom is.
That accounts for his “cult-like following,” the smear with which statists dismiss those Americans who yearn for the “individual liberty, constitutional government, sound money, free markets, and … noninterventionist foreign policy” that Dr. Paul has always championed. It accounts as well for the fact that though I am an anarcho-capitalist who would never buy (in any sense of the word) a politician’s prattle, let alone recommend it, I happily break that rule for Dr. Paul and Liberty Defined.
Maybe you’ve studied political philosophy extensively; Liberty Defined, though as “accessible” and “easy to digest” as its publisher promises, will still thrill you. Here is a Congressman of 12 terms who spouts such condemnations of government as, “Do our leaders in Washington believe in liberty? They sometimes say they do. I don’t think they are telling the truth.” A page later, he briefly reviews the wars and genocide of the 20th century to warn that “the threat of government today, all over the world, may well present a greater danger than anything that occurred” then. All this, and we haven’t even left the Introduction!
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One of the good doctor’s greatest services to liberty is his evangelizing. His principled, consistent, and breathtakingly courageous stance for freedom over the decades, his integrity, his courtesy and gentlemanliness, under even the rudest, most ignorant attacks, have converted legions from their faith in Leviathan.
Unfortunately, their enthusiasm often exceeds their knowledge of freedom’s philosophy. One reader of campaignforliberty.com, the website Dr. Paul founded, comments that “Ron Paul is an amazing person and he’s really got me into the ideas of libertarianism/free markets” but then lauds “public/socialized healthcare” in Canada and by extension ObamaCare. Another defends government’s regulation of smoking on aircraft because he is “old enough to have experienced many flights without any smoking restrictions at all and they were not pleasant.”
It’s these folks and those who have yet to consider freedom’s blessings who most need Liberty Defined. Dr. Paul alternately teaches and preaches with his trademark tact, then applies freedom’s tenets to 50 issues – everything from Abortion and Austrian Economics, through CIA, Discrimination, Education, Gun Control, and Monetary Policy to Security, Surveillance, and Unions.
Each subject forms a chapter averaging seven pages, all of which are remarkably free of jargon (perhaps we’re benefitting from Dr. Paul’s earning a degree in medicine rather than law); “the idea of this book,” Dr. Paul tells us, “is not to provide a blueprint for the future or an all-encompassing defense of a libertarian program. What I offer here are thoughts on a series of controversial topics that tend to confuse people, and these are interpreted in light of my own experience and my thinking.” He adds with characteristic humility, “I present not final answers but rather guideposts for thinking seriously about these topics. I certainly do not expect every reader to agree with my beliefs.” But let’s hope for liberty’s sake that most do.
April 21, 2011
