Moon landing

Writes Greg Privette:

Hi Lew,

I’ve seen a number of articles on LRC regarding the moon landing due to its anniversary and it brought to mind a sort of amusing story. I have a nephew who is now in his late 30’s. I found out a number of years ago that he is very libertarian. He is a fairly regular reader of LRC and has read “Man, Economy and State” as well as many other libertarian and Austrian related books. We have also traded books at Christmas and so on. A few years ago it finally occurred to me to ask what had brought him around to this school of thought. He told me that when he was fairly young my mother, his grandmother, told him she believed the whole moon landing was a fake. He said he thought she was kidding but after some discussion realized she was serious. He said having someone he knew to be smart, rational, and very well (self) educated show real skepticism of the widely believed official narrative on such a giant historical event had touched off his own willingness to question official narrative. My mother was a very independent thinker who was skeptical of official narrative, opposed to any form of arbitrary authority, and beyond basic human decency believed respect had to be earned by deeds, not granted based on a title. Unfortunately, my mother had long since passed when my nephew and I had this conversation because I know she would have taken great delight in knowing her moon landing skepticism had such an impact on her grandson.

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