The following story is part of Walter Block's Autobiography Archive.

Walter Blockized

I was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, the year "How much is that doggie in the window" topped the charts. 1950. That makes me a boomer. A fact only of importance when we jump forward to year 1968.

I was 18 when the cops started busting heads at the Democratic National Convention. I hated the cops. I had the right emotion but for all the wrong reasons. They were not letting young people take part in the democratic process. You see, I was already a budding socialist. My parents, who were idiots when I was 18, were none-the-less card carrying members of the NDP, Canada's socialist party. Even though they were idiots, they were my parents and that made me a socialist too. University didn't help either. Within a year, I was long hair on campus with a copy of Marx in my bag and a Mao badge pinned on my army surplus jacket.

After graduating with a degree in Political Science for no particular reason whatsoever, I too went into the world with a hate on for the capitalist insect that preys upon the people. At 23, I joined the party and spent afternoons silk-screening lawn signs for our local NDP candidate. Power to the people!

In 1980, I was between jobs and looking to get into the advertising business as a copywriter but not looking too hard. Then something happened. While in a conversation with an old high school buddy he suggested I rethink my attack on capitalists. According to him, there was nothing wrong with capitalism at all. He said a girlfriend had turned him on to someone called Ann Rand and I should read her book, The Virtue of Selfishness. Oh yeah, I'd read her book alright, then I'd rip it to pieces and tell him off.

I got the book. Strange way to spell Ann, I thought. Right away, it was hard going. At first I thought she was crazy. Then I wanted to collect all the copies and burn them. By the time I was finished, I was a raving Randroid. My gawd, my world had been turned upside down. Everything I had believed was wrong. I began apostatizing immediately. Now people thought I was crazy.

I got a free-lance advertising assignment, wrote a tag line, and spent my earnings at the University Book Store. I bought everything Rand had ever written, fiction and non-fiction. I spent several weeks reading the collection non-stop. I was born again. But still unemployed.

One day, I was flipping though the Vancouver newspaper and the title to a letter-to-the-editor caught my attention. It read, "Plea for housing rights will lead us all into a moral swamp." Was Rand writing letters-to-the-editor now? No, it was signed Walter Block, Senior Economist, Fraser Institute. Senior Economist? Senior Plagiarist would be more like it, I thought. I called the Institute to give this fellow Block a piece of my mind.

I got to the point right away. Was he aware that his position on housing rights was identical in logic and suspiciously close in style to Ann Rand's position? He agreed that his point of view was the same, claimed it wasn't plagiarism, noted that he knew Rand and added that her name was pronounced Ayn (Ain). I suggested we meet in person.

I wore my hand-fashioned dollar sign button to the meeting. Walter was polite enough not to comment on it. I shook the hand that shook the hand of Rand. Life was good.

But wait, there was more. Walter wanted to talk about The Virtue of Selfishness. How did I like the article about Woodstock and the moon landing? I thought it was great, all that man's reason can take us to the moon or we can turn it off and roll around in the mud stuff. He agreed but asked me if I knew who paid for the moon landing. Nobody, really was my response. Okay, then, taxpayers. Theft? What do you mean by theft?

Walter recommended I read two books: Economics in One Lesson and For a New Liberty. I did. By the time I finished the Rothbard book, I was an anarchist and on my way back to the Fraser Institute for some more direction. Next, Walter sent me off to a Libertarian discussion group. Three people showed up at this guy's apartment. By the end of the evening, we had split into two factions. I knew then that I was on to something.

A series of Libertarian Supper Club meetings followed. Quickly I learned that the Supper Club was a get together for political libertarians. Hum, anarchists running for office? Didn't feel right to me. So, after the first couple of meetings, I began playing thorn in the side of the tiny libertarian community.

I started writing my own little tracts: "Limited Governmentalists – Trapped in a State of Mind." I came to the conclusion that it's what we don't do that really affects change: don't get a social security number, don't pay taxes, don't vote. I called it, Apathy in action. A guy at the Supper Club suggested I contact Robert LeFevre who, he said, shared my point of view. I did. Bob turned out to be a quite a guy. He answered every one of my clumsy, rambling diatribes with long, beautifully written letters. He was patient, encouraging, and always positive. I miss him.

At the same time, my contact at the Supper Club turned me on to The Voluntaryists. I wrote to Carl Watner. He and the other two Voluntaryists funded a League of Non-Voters I formed during the provincial election. And Carl traveled to Vancouver to debate the political Libertarians at our Supper Club. As time went on, I lost touch with Carl, the Supper Club and even the movement. But Walter has always been there for me.

I find a good deal of personal satisfaction from the fact that I have personally converted a handful of people to libertarianism over the last 20 years. And I thank Walter, Robin, Bob, Carl, and Murray for making this crazy world make some sense. I still don't like what I see on the nightly news. But at least now I understand why.

January 8, 2003

Peter Walters [send him mail] is Creative Director at Copeland Communications in Victoria, BC.

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