The Case For Optimism
May 10, 2017
From: K
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2017 4:38 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Burnout and Depression
I appreciate your comments about the apparent hopelessness of the libertarian cause. I just had to comment. Call me a wild eyed optimist if you like, but I think progress has been made due in large part to people like you, Lew Rockwell and Ron Paul. I sometimes tell people that 30 years ago 99 out of 100 people thought that I was crazy. Now it is only about 90 out of 100 people. That’s progress! I think there has been a noticeable change in attitude about government especially over the last 10 to 15 years. Granted most people are far from libertarian, but many are more open to libertarian ideas than they were a few years ago because they have lost faith in the god of government. One of the most striking changes that I have noticed recently is in conversations about military intervention. It used to be almost dangerous to suggest a non-interventionist foreign policy. People would get hopping mad as if the Government could do nothing wrong. Out here in the hinterlands many people are growing tired of perpetual war for perpetual peace. Of course they are not non-interventionist yet, but they are I think moving in that direction. I don’t doubt that things will get worse before they get better but I also don’t doubt that attitudes are changing. I just wanted to let you know that I appreciate the work you are doing and hope this will encourage you to keep up the good work. Best regards, K
Dear K: Thanks for your kind words. Here’s some more evidence in the case for optimism. When I first met Murray Rothbard in 1966, I asked him how many libertarians were there in the entire world? His answer? There were 25. And, he’d be in a position to know, since he was in contact with virtually all of them, and, if there were any more than any of the other 25 knew of, they would have told him. Well. You can shake a stick at any even relatively small crowd, nowadays, and come up with 25 libertarians. I run a book club on Friday afternoons at Loyola University, and we usually get something in the order of two dozen attendees. And, we read books such as Mises’ “Socialism” and “Human Action.”
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