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Source link: http://archive.mises.org/16702/is-there-hope-for-liberty-in-our-lifetime/

Is There Hope for Liberty in Our Lifetime?

April 29, 2011 by

What we can do to advance liberty is to work first and foremost on the one unit of society we’re actually capable of improving: ourselves. We can learn to improve ourselves in every respect, especially in our speaking and writing skills so we can then pass the things that we learn on to others.

FULL ARTICLE by Jacob H. Huebert

{ 42 comments }

Tony Fernandez April 29, 2011 at 10:24 am

Persuasion is a great talent to learn, but I always find myself in arguments with people who will never change their perspective. I guess it’s why environmentalists target children since they are still impressionable. Adults are stubborn and will not change.

Freedom Fighter April 29, 2011 at 10:37 am

Persuasion only works where individuals are hesitant. If you can’t make them change their entire perspective as a whole, find where there is a weak spot and persuade them to agree with you on the small little detail where they are uncertain. Once you remove enough bricks, the wall should fall. You just can’t take on the whole wall at once. Plus, people develop defenses when they sense you are trying to persuade them.

If you see that they get reactive and defensive, this is a sign of doubt and weakness of conviction. They are in fact fighting their own doubts, not yours. It’s a sign that you progressed into shaking their wall and instill doubt. It will most certainly reveal the weak bricks that you could then remove to make the wall even shakier.

If the person is confident, indifferent or even amused, if he’s not bothered by your arguments, then he is much more convinced than the person in the defensive. In that case, instead of trying to make him change his mind, try to steer his mind into your direction. Try to agree with him in a sense that it will bring it to your perspective.

Gil April 30, 2011 at 6:37 am

So what’s stopping Libertarians from reaching children? Or better Libertarians can make their own babies and become a sizeable proportion of the population in a few generations?

Freedom Fighter April 30, 2011 at 2:56 pm

The problem I have with baby making in order to achieve a political goal in the future is that it’s your babies which will live your dreams in the future, not you.

You can’t upload your consciousness into your baby’s body. Your baby is not you and you are not your baby. Anything good that will happen in the future in a few generations will benefit the future generations, not you.

As far as individually concerned, I am not benefiting from all this baby stuff and therefore I stay away from it and try to profit from my own existence in the present.

Freedom Fighter April 29, 2011 at 10:31 am

Given that biologically speaking, life as we know it would not be possible without a minimum of natural aggression necessary to shape us into what we are, I’d say that the first step towards liberty would be to define liberty in the first place.

Think about it, life on earth is an abduction. You are made into a human being, into your gender, species, time, country etc. You decide almost nothing, all this is done violently and forcefully without your permission or consent. To think that liberty is possible under biology seems like a fallacy to me. Any liberties we have must be cosmetic and trivial in nature.

Also, aggression and force exists in nature and cannot be made to disappear. So a definition of liberty will also have to acknowledge the existence of aggression and develop means to adapt to it and accommodate around it because it will not go away.

Bear in mind that nature makes almost all the decisions and that violence is always lurking around. Now, how are you going to define liberty given those two precursors ?

The government is just a symptom of biology and nature, the result of an even more violent and sinister enterprise against life itself.

If you truly want freedom, you will have to go against nature itself.

I will quote Albert Jacquard’s:
Our dignity derives from our refusal to accept the constraints imposed by nature. It is by our refusal of those constraints that, by becoming co-creators of the universe, we approach ourselves of the definition of God.

I would say that liberty is any act that an individual can make which gives him more power over nature. By inventing and developing new and better technologies, we are already expanding liberty.

The internet and communications technologies has greatly expanded liberty beyond anything that you could imagine. Even though the governments are getting more and more authoritarian, technology is setting us more and more free.

In the end, the governments will fall, incapable of adapting to the highly demanding world of fast paced changes. Their strategy of concentrating power in fewer and fewer rigid hands that refuse to adapt will cause them to fall. Just like the dinosaurs once were the king of the world and now it’s humans who rule.

Governments are large dinosaurs which can’t adapt and which will fail and lose to weaker but more mobile and adaptable citizens.

What can you do to advance liberty ? Use as much technology as you can, and network with as much people as you can. Or better yet, develop applications and technology that give people the power to communicate with each other.

Is there hope for liberty ? Absolutely, the internet has already made is a lot more free than we were 15 years ago. Yes, there is hope.

But keep in mind that the enemy is not the government, it’s nature. Nature was there before the government as will be there after. It’s nature which is authoritarian and the government is just it’s current tool. Nature is the target, the enemy which must be brought down. Don’t let the fetters of religion stop you from overcoming the constraints imposed by nature.

M Scott April 29, 2011 at 10:48 am

the answer to “the question” is Not until the people realize this:
Edward Mandell House had this to say in a private meeting with Woodrow Wilson (President) [1913-1921]

“[Very] soon, every American will be required to register their biological property in a National system designed to keep track of the people and that will operate under the ancient system of pledging. By such methodology, we can compel people to submit to our agenda, which will affect our security as a charge back for our fiat paper currency. Every American will be forced to register or suffer not being able to work and earn a living. They will be our chattel, and we will hold the security interest over them forever, by operation of the law merchant under the scheme of secured transactions. Americans, by unknowingly or unwittingly delivering the bills of lading to us will be rendered bankrupt and insolvent, forever to remain economic slaves through taxation, secured by their pledges. They will be stripped of their rights and given a commercial value designed to make us a profit and they will be non the wiser, for not one man in a million could ever figure our plans and, if by accident one or two would figure it out, we have in our arsenal plausible deniability. After all, this is the only logical way to fund government, by floating liens and debt to the registrants in the form of benefits and privileges. This will inevitably reap to us huge profits beyond our wildest expectations and leave every American a contributor or to this fraud which we will call “Social Insurance.”

Without realizing it, every American will insure us for any loss we may incur and in this manner; every American will unknowingly be our servant, however begrudgingly. The people will become helpless and without any hope for their redemption and, we will employ the high office of the President of our dummy corporation to foment this plot against America.”

Freedom Fighter April 29, 2011 at 10:48 am

If we could develop a networking system which employs non-hertzian information carriers and which is content addressable as opposed to physically addressable, then there would be no way to shut down such a network nor to track down the origin of the content, this would bring absolute freedom to the users of such a system.

Something like using quantum entanglement, background noise etc. as the carrier, those could not be traced back to the sender. So people could just look for music, news and information and swap those back and forth without ever running the risk of getting caught. They could even offer the sale and purchase of controversial goods.

Plus, you would not need to pay internet access fees, it would be free. Such a quantum net would be free and incapable of shutting down.

Ethan April 30, 2011 at 8:39 pm

Freedom Fighter,

This is a really cool concept. Is there a good forum for discussing/learning about similar privacy or liberty related technology and clever work-arounds? Off the top of my head I was thinking apps (probably for jailbroke phones) that turn the tables, perhaps deliberately falsifying location data. I recently came across a great low tech record keeping solutions for the business interested in differentiation along customer privacy lines, it simply separates the name and address from the invoice/receipt when the transaction has been satisfactorily completed. I like your background communication idea, it reminded me a bit of the freedom radio broadcasts in the final Harry Potter novel, effective resistance through switching stations or broadcast locations and then reporting information only immediately useful so the damage was already done. I’m interested though not very knowledgeable about reverse surveillance, and the idea of being prepared to watch the watchers when the opportunity presents itself. I’ve dabbled with reading cryptome.org over the years and I’m intrigued at times but not sure what to think often. I any case, your theory intrigued me, and if you have a good source for reading about this type of stuff, or better yet a venue for banging around this type of idea, I’d love to hear about it.

Another swede May 1, 2011 at 8:12 am

I would say that there would be freedom of thought, but as long as there has to be a link to the physical world (money) there will be no freedom in this system.

Communicating in a free way, can be done today with encryption, tor, openssl, mix and match until you have your desired function in a secure way.

To have a system that helps me to break free, anonymous ways of exchanging money has to be developed. This is not possible today, and hence no real freedom.

Ethan May 1, 2011 at 5:07 pm

True enough, but a lot can change in a very short time of upheaval. It pays to make connections, share research and theories and prepare for when/if opportunities suddenly present themselves. Another Swede, are you living in Sweden? My wife is Danish and we travel there frequently. It would be interesting to discuss any positive movements towards liberty in Scandinavia sometime. There are a few active Danish ‘Austrians’ I know of, are there any Norwegians or Icelanders that you know of? A technological and low tech solutions discussion forum, perhaps with a focus on what resources are uniquely available in different parts of the world, would seem crucial at this tumultuous time.

Another swede May 2, 2011 at 1:35 pm

Hello Ethan,

I used to live in sweden, but not anymore. Now I live in Switzerland, because I was too tired of the high taxes, and the general apathy of the public. =( So while I miss friends and family, I feel a lot more free in Switzerland.

As for swedish austrians, they exist but there is not a lot of them. Mises.se/forum/ and liberalapartiet.se is a good start to get in touch with them. In iceland, things have been turning towards the left since the banks blew up. I hope that the icelanders will soon resume their more libertarian policy of lowering taxes in a year or two, when they realize that the left wont help. They are arguing that Iceland should join the EU which would be a huge mistake in my opinion.

Another swedish thinker/author/writer is http://www.johannorberg.net/ who also writes for the Cato Institute. I highly recommend his writing.

As for technological and low tech solutions forum I have just the thing for you! For scandinavians check out flashback.se. Also don’t forget to use Google Chrome with the translation feature which is very useful, or ask your wife to help you.

That ends my recommendation section. =)

Capt. A. April 29, 2011 at 2:17 pm

You’ve got to give significant credit to Jacob H. Huebert for his interesting, diligent, seemingly never-ending measures and methods used to try and secure freedom and liberty.

Mr. Huebert’s last sentence within this article: “And even if we don’t get as much liberty as we’d like in our lifetimes, we’ll have enjoyed ourselves along the way, and we’ll take satisfaction in knowing that we’ve given our time and energy to a worthy endeavor.”

Well, OK. Ernest K. Becker, Pulitzer Prize winner of the book, “The Denial of Death,” offers examples following the train of thinking noted above in Mr. Huebert’s statement. Here’s another take on this issue… Why would you settle for less? Staying within the collective—YOU will definitely get LESS! Redistribution of government pelf … through legalized plunder… You know, the guys that play with guns, displaying badges, breaking your door down in the wee-hours.

“It’s what we do till we die,” says Becker. The vast measures that men create to solve earthly problems … limitless. Since most rational individuals would ascribe to the noted fact that life is finite, resources are limited—time being at any point, traded for what you might wish to trade it for—the incontrovertible question arises: How should I “spend” my time? I offer another line of thinking, rather than working inside the collective for change.

One of the absolute, most difficult things in this life is to stand on your two feet, as an individual seeking the greatest degree of happiness possible. The State will inevitably thwart your attempts while striving in this direction. Better known, as the Collective, work preformed on ANYTHING that suits the collective is permissible. Anything that’s contrary to the collective might initiate mild admonishment—up to and including death. You could become an example! Many have. The collective does not support individuals that seek real, true freedom, liberty, privacy, private property, etc. So…

If you want to stay within the collective striving for “change,” you will pay a price in time. Sometimes the trade takes even more time to recognize whether the trade-off was truly worth it to you. Maybe yes, maybe no. Experience does have a way of letting us know, cha-ching! You can bet your nates, you’ll have less time than a moment earlier.

There are those individuals that understand—and those that never will. Seems harsh! Sometimes spending time trying to change something is TIME best spent looking for something you don’t have to change! You ought to think about that! Why? Simply because how you will spend the ONLY life on this earth that you will ever have—demands it! I did beginning nearly fifty-years ago. I saw the rabid collective for exactly what it was: a “time bandit.” It starts with parents, government-controlled schooling, tribal inculcation and religious teachings that reinforce the collective. Tout au contraire, freedom, liberty, privacy, etc., are defined by the collective. Stray from those definitions (“1984”) and your masters will take appropriate corrective measures! Think not? Think again! The collective’s hierarchy creates vast institutions that WILL be supported by its subjects, YOU, the welfare, warfare … and don’t forget, proper etiquette when bowing before or addressing the power elite etc., you know, the ones you put into power with your vote!

For those individuals seeking change within the collective, more power to you! For true freedom-seeking individuals (the renegades), changing the collective in my opinion will sap you of the only life you will ever have. Speaking of change … democracies use the VOTE! As noted by the late Harry Browne, “It doesn’t make any difference which door you walk through—you wind up in the same room.” Time spent watching two bald-headed men fighting over a comb is not my idea of gaining happiness. Creating circumstance, minus the collective, minus the master’s yoke (taxation) and the master’s lash (you will do as you are told by the collective—or else…) creates a far greater and pleasant picture of how to live the only life you will ever have. VOTE with your feet—leave the collective! It’s the ONLY way that you don’t have to compromise, caving in to the collective by kissing up. The horror of it all! BOHICA! C’est la guerre.

Capt. A.
Principauté de Monaco
UTC +2:00 CET

billwald April 29, 2011 at 3:09 pm

There is only one Ron Paul because one of anything is generally harmless and sometimes amusing.

Liberty is like exercise, a means to an end. No one sells exercise for the sake of exercise. What is the intended end result of liberty/freedom?

I vote Libertarian because I like to stir the pot. But if Ron Paul actually had a good chance of willing the President lottery . . . the devil we know is preferred to the devil we don’t know.

Freedom Fighter April 29, 2011 at 8:17 pm

Are you saying that you consider Ron Paul or libertarianism to be a devil ?
Or are you implying that the general public considers libertarianism to be a “devil” because of all the misconceptions about it and because of the fear of the unknown.

Leon April 29, 2011 at 4:07 pm

Libertarians will probably think this a good speech. It contains some valid insights, but on the whole, it is spectacularly ignorant – and plain wrong. Huebert is an idiot. Why is Rockwell pumping up this kid? It certainly does not inspire confidence in me in the Mises Institute.

Political change must be FOUGHT for, relentlessly. Ever heard of the Glorious (British) or American Revolutions? They represented increases in liberty in short periods of time. Similarly, it would have been worth fighting – politically, physically – much harder the Russian, Nazi and New Deal revolutions, as they constituted quantum leaps downward into much less freedom.

The notion that supporters of liberty should abandon politics is ludicrousness masquerading as cold-eyed realism. We live in the US in a fairly stable democracy. That is our fate for the present and foreseeable future. In a majoritarian society, there is no escape from the burdens of politics. If libertarians do not constantly mobilize politically, whether in the LP or not, and fight for freedom, their enemies will take their freedom. Libertarians hate this having to work for something much less than ideal, but that is “real reality”, as opposed to the false realism Huebert advances.

The assininity of Huebert’s position can be seen by looking at his method and then conclusion. First, he equates liberty with libertarianism – a highly contentious proposition. Second, he adopts an extreme version of libertarianism as his standard (eg, opposition to the immigration invasion, or to putting a Mosque at Ground Zero, represents an assault on liberty?!), and then condemns liberty-oriented groups, like the Tea Party, because they don’t live up to it. Third, he then offers a realistic critique of why it is indeed unlikely that we are going to see his extreme version of liberty instantiated in the real world. Fourth, and finally, he then turns on a psychological dime away from realism to the perennial libertarian fantasyland of “abjuring the realm”. This is the naive belief that, if we can’t have liberty in the political realm, we can at least increase it personally (a logical contradiction, incidentally: ‘liberty’ is only a political concept; by all means, practice homeschooling, but you’ll still be taxed to pay for socialist schools).

Here is the truth. Liberty must be fought for through political organization and agitation, as well as education and media work. There is no private realm to retreat to. The statists won’t let you have it. And anyone serious about increasing liberty must not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Who cares if most TPers, like me, staunchly favor tough border control and an immigration moratorium? We also favor huge reductions in government spending, deregulation, fewer foreign involvements, etc. Even libertarian extremists like Huebert should take what they can get.

The fight for liberty is about the swinging of the political pendulum. Which way is it headed? We must fight to make it headed in the direction of liberty, even if not everyone wants to see it go from Point A all the way to Point Z. Getting from A to H, or even A to B, would be a nice start.

Freedom Fighter April 29, 2011 at 8:19 pm

The USA is NOT a democracy, it’s a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC.

Leon April 29, 2011 at 9:30 pm

It WAS a republic. Today, it’s a democracy, in fact if not quite yet in theory.

Freedom Fighter April 30, 2011 at 2:57 pm

Today, it behaves like a democracy, but it is meant to be a constitutional republic.
I guess the constitution means nothing in our days.

Stranger April 30, 2011 at 8:56 pm

In other words, it is a democratic republic – a republic with a democratic character, where the rulers appeal to lowest common denominator.

Brenda Stewart April 30, 2011 at 9:04 pm

@ Leon: I agree. If the author of this piece is content to wait generations (or perhaps eons!) for an environment in which libertarian beliefs and concepts may grow, I am not! Yes, I care what kind of government my grandchildren will live under, but I also care very much what kind of government I live under! I want change now! We need a revolution now! If libertarians are afraid to stir the pot, we will have some kind of right-wing fanatical Christian government, because they are not afraid to stir the pot. We don’t need that, and we don’t need what we’ve got, either. We need a gov’t that is much more libertarian. Ayn Rand wrote novels – this is real life! Let’s do something!

tatosian May 1, 2011 at 2:50 am

Who are these right-wing fanatical Christians the liberal/statists are always warning us about? I mean, I’ve been watching out for these guys for years. Didn’t the Clinton’s finish them off at Waco?
Have the Christian fanatics deprived women of their “right to choose”? Should I be on the look out for those Christian fanatics who support and encourage a steady stream of illegal aliens into this country? (I am actually on the lookout for those pogues.) Did those dastardly and bigoted fanatics stop the repeal of DADT?
Clearly the monumentally ineffectual opposition of those fanatics to abortions or homosexuals openly serving in the military has not hurt the abortion industry, homosexuals or libertarians. And the fanatical support of Christians for illegal aliens is perfectly in concert with libertarian beliefs.
The balkanization of my country, the dumbing down of our children, the suffocating stricture of political correctness the loss of God given rights to an ever expanding and voracious state; but it’s an imagined right-wing fanatical Christian government I should beware of?
Cut it out.

Joe May 1, 2011 at 4:09 pm

Brenda,
You say we need a revolution now. So explain a little more about this revolution? How many people do you think will be a part of this revolution? Will it be a violent overthrow of the liberal establishment?
Unless the people understand that property rights mean something and that you need to take responsibility for your life and not vote to have the government steal from your neighbors so you can live, it will not happen. It took some time for us to get to the point where we are now. It will take longer to reverse the process. (If we can actually do it) So, I was fascinated about your revolution suggestion. I personally believe that it is the only way to achieve the goal. The problem is there are not enough people to go along. We lost 600,000 thousand in the war between the states. How many do you think we would lose on the next round? Remember these people don’t want to give up their entitlements and Obama will be pushing buttons all over the place to preserve his pagan, socialistic agenda.

Another swede April 29, 2011 at 5:36 pm

Interesting article but I miss another one that explores what one can realistically do right now, to gain freedom. Like our monegasque, I left my home country, the communistic sweden, for switzerland. And although I am not free, I am a lot more free than in sweden. Compare a top tax rate of 55% (closer to 80% if you count the hidden non-salary related taxes), with my current tax rate of ca 25% (exkcluding hidden taxes).

So move you americans! Move to Monaco, move to Liechtenstein or Switzerland, or why not the middle east? Lots of countries with 0% capital gains tax. That, is a quick way to increase your freedom over night.

For the more adventurous there is always the Perpetual Traveller strategy. By boat, plane or train. Finally, you can always go underground with the advances in solar power, and grow your own food.

Well, for the more adventurous as I said. =) Personally, I find Switzerland a good start, and I wish more swedes would follow so the swedish state would have to change. But that probably will not happen.

Joe April 29, 2011 at 5:44 pm

To change the pendulum you will need; education, morality and conscience.

Freedom Fighter April 30, 2011 at 2:59 pm

You cannot enforce morality nor conscience. Therefore, you will have to focus on education and never stop. The fact that there are more libertarians today is the direct result of education. With good education, morality and conscience will come.

Brenda Stewart April 30, 2011 at 9:17 pm

@ Freedom Fighter: “You cannot enforce morality nor conscience.” Perhaps not, but you CAN enforce the Constitutional principle that all rights are given by God, and are unalienable. And that each adult’s rights end only where they prevent someone else from exercising their own rights. Such a “master law” would define and thus become morality and conscience, especially if accompanied by the Golden Rule. If the only crime were “breaking the Constitution” by attempting to injure or nullify another’s rights, any trial could be settled in fifteen minutes at the local police station by a Justice of the Peace and a copy of the Constitution. If you haven’t threatened anyone else’s rights, you have not committed a crime!

Joe May 1, 2011 at 4:01 pm

I wasn’t talking about enforcing anything. These are conditions that must be present for the tide to turn.

Bill April 29, 2011 at 6:32 pm

Here’s the problem as I see it: everyone, but everyone, irrespective of creed, color, political view, you name it, is always looking for or offering a ‘solution’. There IS no ‘solution’ – the affairs of man move in waves resulting from unceasing interaction; there is no “bubble”, no diverticulum to help focus the mind, there are only troughs and peaks with an occasional tsunami. That’s why the business of business is to continue to be in business and management should focus less on the annihilation of the competition and more on the market. The Founding Fathers had it right, it’s the pusuit that’s the right, not happiness itself.

And frankly, I don’t care out of which conviction a vote against another four years stems as long as it is counted.

Another swede April 30, 2011 at 6:03 am

But how can you pursue something without the freedom to do it? If you are stopped from pursueing something, the right to do it, is kind of meaningless don’t you think?

Ergo, for the right to pursue something to be meaningful, you also have to have the freedom to be able to do it. Otherwise the right is nothing but a few words.

I also argue that you are wrong when you say that there “is no solution”. If that would be true we would still live in the middle ages. Clearly, we are now enjoying more freedom than a slave in the middle ages. Therefore the problems in the middle ages were solved.

That is what makes me slightly optimistic and I think that voting with your feet (move to europes small tax paradises, or the middle east) is a very good option.

Then there is no straight line of progress, but frequently regress, but overall, progress wins and that I think is why freedom eventually will be ours.

Bill April 30, 2011 at 8:07 am

I’m philosophically against the pursuit of a single goal in the belief that, once achieved, eternal happiness results. There is no Utopia because achieving a goal is always followed by another – sort of planned obsolescence by God. So I’d rather have many irons in the fire, they keep me on my toes, make life interesting and made me an entrepreneur rather than an employee.
Politically I distrust anyone who tells me that he has a solution for what ails us; I already know that no company is ‘too big to fail’, that dictators have a jolly difficult time of it and that most of the species the world has seen are already extinct.
As for your slave, I can’t really comment because I’ve never met one, but some may well have been satisfied with their lot, believing that it was ordained. Their descendants can be seen today queing up for entitlements and government subsistence allowances, relying on the Government to take care of them. Is that what you mean by Freedom?

Another swede April 30, 2011 at 11:21 am

Not having met one, does not mean that you cannot think and reason about one. If that were true, you could never argument about anything which you have not personally experienced. I think most people are imaginative enough to use the example of a slave in their discussions.

What I mean with freedom is to be able to move in any direction without being restricted by anyone else, while at the same time, not restricting other people. Voluntary exchange is the way.

Receiving money from the government, the government is in control, and that is definitely not freedom.

Further, I did never say that happiness and freedom are 100% correlated. You can be happy and not free, and free and not happy. The topic I am discussing here is freedom. The topic of what makes someone happy, is another discussiong altogether.

Bill April 30, 2011 at 9:15 pm

It’s a waste of time discussing what ‘freedom’ is, it’s just a label and most of them are laced with personal values – for example, is the suicide bomber to be granted the freedom to blow your family away? Or doesn’t your ‘not restricting other people’ detract from his freedom? And what right allows you to sit in judgement on his interpretation? Being motivated by self-interest, man interprets these noble (there, you see, I fall in the same trap!) concepts according to his own advantage; even in the event he agrees to a consensus, he does it because it provides him with the maximum return for himself – yet another reason why Utopia is a pipe-dream. I know it’s not fashionable to say so, but perhaps Thomas Hobbes wasn’t so wrong after all. Read the crappy wishful thinking some of the other contributors have written and perhaps you’ll agree with me.

Another swede May 1, 2011 at 8:24 am

Well Bill, this seems to generate into a discussion about moral relativism, and since relativism by its very nature, makes it quite difficult to argue about these things, I think we’ll have to agree to disagree (or did we agree? ;) ).

Then you would have to explain to me, how not restricting other peoples freedom, detracts from peoples freedom? Granted, we have no agreed upon definition of freedom, so that would be the only way out of that dilemma, but I suspect that your definition of freedom would be quite counter-intuitive.

But if we look at freedom from a utilitarian perspective, there is proof that the societies with the highest degrees of financial and personal freedom, have blossomed, and the ones with the least degree have degenerated. Just turn on history channel. So from a utilitarian perspective, and given a not very precise definition of financial and personal freedom (I offer low tax, minimum laws, as a starting point), wouldn’t you agree that more freedom equals more prosperity and a better functioning society?

Well, enough of this for the moment, the sun is shining outside. Have a nice day! =)

F. Beard April 30, 2011 at 4:00 pm

Is There Hope for Liberty in Our Lifetime? Jacob H Huebert

Liberty for whom? Are folks without gold eligible for that liberty?

You can hold onto gold instead of Federal Reserve notes. Jacob H Huebert

Gold is perfectly acceptable as a private money form but the moment one advocates it be recognized by government as money then he has advocated fascism.

TZ April 30, 2011 at 7:11 pm

Libertarianism is growing simply because people are looking for the truth that helps them understand the world. Libertarianism provides that truth. People can decide to live in freedom or they can allow others to restrain their freedom.

Stranger April 30, 2011 at 8:52 pm

That people are learning about liberty is good. Telling them that it is only a dream and can only be achieved by the next generation is a terrible mistake. What could motivate them to struggle on?

We need to know how to continue the struggle to its very end, and we need to be courageous in how we picture this struggle. Only this can preserve, expand and renew the libertarian movement.

Ricky James Moore II May 1, 2011 at 10:10 pm

Short answer, no. People are not tricked into being busy-body herd animals. That is what they are. They don’t give a damn about being right or being free, they care about fitting in with the herd.

We are screwed. Thankfully, I have no desire to save the world and will happily fiddle while it burns. Good riddance, they asked for it.

Bill May 2, 2011 at 7:40 am

Totally agree. In fact, it’s even worse – I think most people are pretty dumb as well: how else did we get this government?

Keith May 2, 2011 at 2:02 pm

Thank you for mentioning the Free State Project in the article. When I saw that Liberty in Our Lifetime was in the title, I was thinking, or wait, is this an article about the FSP. The article took a big picture look, which is fine. You did point out some things that people must understand. IMO, the US as a whole is only going to get worse for the foreseeable future; and, that’s whiy I voted with my feet by moving to New Hampshire.

J.P. Morgan May 2, 2011 at 2:25 pm
Bill May 2, 2011 at 7:34 pm

Nice idea but FSP will never work and before you say “Mormons” or ‘Waco” or “Hippy Communes”, sharing a faith is so much easier than making a living.

Ricky James Moore II May 20, 2011 at 4:05 am

Yep.

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