Minds Alike

For this matter, my eventual transition to libertarian was not a far leap.

My studying of Marxism allows me to dissect socialist arguments so easily. I enjoy engaging in debates but with socialists above all because I feel it is a great blot to mankind that must be cleaned. Once I challenged the International Socialist Organization Dallas branch to a debate at a local bookstore. I asked most of the members but none wanted to engage. Strangely they were easily accessible when I attended their meetings or organized. In a second attempt I challenged my associate-friend, a self described “Black Marxist” student at University of Texas, on the topic of socialism vs. capitalism but she never showed and the debate turned into a discussion with the attendees. Later on she invited a friend and I over to enjoy her mother’s cooking as a sign of forgiveness. We got a chance to spend a whole day–literally the whole day–with her and the rest of the family. What an experience. It is not often I get to deeply engage with Marxists, and I must say these people are crazy. I enjoyed the opportunity, though, and her and I still keep in contact. One day she and her brother will see the light.

During the Occupy movement I ran into three people who were Ron Paul supporters. Contrary to the stereotype there were non-Marxist occupiers in the beginning who participated because they were simply mad at the 2008 bailouts and their current state of employment or unemployment, which came through, they said, as a result of the recent recession. Occupy was mostly filled with Marxists so it was weird to see people of the liberty movement. It quickly turned into a communist gathering after the first two or three weeks and that isolated many people, so much, in fact, the group shrunk dramatically.

(The “People’s Mic” participatory democracy technique for decision making was so inefficient, counterproductive and divisive. Looking back, many writers explained the impracticality of such a communist-esque government and they were one hundred percent correct.[2])

The three people were drawing on a sign in front of the JFK monument before a protest and were so happy—liberty kind of naturally does that to you. When some protestors and I were walking towards the area, the three people looked up, waved and said something to the likes of, ‘Hey join the Ron Paul movement.’ We said bad words to the group and waved them off.

‘Why on earth would I join a capitalist movement? Besides, who is Ron Paul?’ I thought to myself. There I missed my first opportunity to join the liberty movement.

Alex Jones, a libertarian or paleoconservative, was announced to come and speak and the excitement in the air was evident. At the time I did not know who Alex Jones was, and whenever I asked the common reply was, “the guy from Info Wars.”

Fast-forward a few months after the Occupy movement when I stumbled into the field of economics. As apart of my political science degree plan was a minor study requirement and I chose economics. What a blessing and curse. Blessing because it changed my view on many things and rescued me from the sin of Marxism, and curse because I became addicted. The decision was hesitant because I only wanted to study economics on the side and not as a minor. I knew economics was important but was afraid it would overwhelm me. Ultimately, I am more than happy with the decision. To quote Ludwig von Mises, “economics is too important to be left to the economist.”

Thankfully my early economics books were not difficult to understand so I stayed with the course. I do not recall which I read first but my early books were by Austrian economists: F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom and Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. Austrian authors are great for the layman.

I am not sure when or why I was surfing Youtube but as stated earlier it was through Nader that I found Paul. On the side as a related video was the infamous Paul-Guiliana exchange from 2007 during the 2008 primary presidential debate on the topic of the 9/11 attacks. Paul’s honesty and insistence on the “blowback” effects of foreign policy decisions blew my mind. How dare a politician—and a Republican, gasp!—question the accepted narrative of 9/11? I took away two things from the exchange: 1) Paul was an honest politician, though that may be a paradox, and 2) when challenged and booed, Paul repeated himself without hesitation, displaying conviction and courage, even on nationally sensitive and fresh topics. This guy, I concluded, was no regular politician. Politicians step outside to see which way the wind is blowing; they never lead the parade, unless, of course, it is in praise of them.

This single exchange forced me to further explore this new man. At the time I was still waning off socialism into a social democrat but something was obviously different about Paul—and he was a Republican, double gasp!—and we held similar foreign policy views. As a black man I was taught to believe Republicans do not care about black people and were warmongers. One of these assessments is correct.

Further exploring Paul forced to me study foreign policy and economics, both topics that I understood purely from an emotional point of view. I went on to study general war history and American foreign policy because of him.

Paul shocked me even more when I discovered he was interested in what most people consider fringe topics or conspiracies like the United Nations goal of a one-world government and currency, the Tri-laterial Commission and Council of Foreign Relations absolute control of American foreign policy, the Federal Reserve as the “bankers bank,” and CIA drug trafficking. In addition Paul always reminded people to demand transparency from and to never believe the government. Contrary to what I was taught in government schools, Benjamin Franklin, too, spoke harshly about the government.

After dozens of Paul videos, completing the Road to Serfdom, thenLibertarianism: A Primer by David Boaz I was an official convert. Now I am convinced that libertarianism is not only the best way for a peaceful and prosperous society but the moral way, too.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines libertarianism as “an extreme laissez-faire political philosophy advocating only minimal state intervention in the lives of citizens.” Liberty is defined as “the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by pleases; the power or scope to act as one pleases.”

A common misconception of libertarianism is that it is an ideology. I do not view it as this way. First and foremost, libertarianism is a political economic philosophy that advocates the non-aggression principle, that is, it is never OK to force anyone for any reason to do anything. We believe in the primacy of the individual, personal autonomy, that humans should be free to pursue their goals as they see fit, without outside force, so long as they do not violate the rights of others. It rejects all acts of violence or threat of violence with the exception of self-defense. It does not distinguish violence from private persons or government officials. From this starting point we can predict the libertarian position on every issue, as it is a consistent position.

Another misconception of libertarianism is that we do not want government to do anything. Mainstream (constitutional) libertarians only want the federal government what to do what is authorized in the Constitution, and the rest, as the 10^th amendment states—which does not include involvement in education, energy, commerce, transfers of wealth including social and corporate welfare and the variety of other goods, services and departments of the federal government—is up to people (individual, organizations, businesses, etc.) or the states. Simply stated, if it is not granted by the Constitution the federal government should not be doing it. So 80% of what the federal government does is unconstitutional, according to the average libertarian. Other libertarians, near anarchists, see government in general as incompatible, even antithetical, with a free society, so it should be abolished. They believe the private market can (and does) better provide various services such as courts and defense, education, infrastructure, currency, and other services believed to be only provided by a government, in a more moral way.

Whatever their disagreements may be, both sides believe pursuing liberty should be the primary goal of a people, and should there be one, a government.

As I dove deeper into the world of libertarianism I was exposed to more radical libertarians, or anarcho-capitalist, like Albert Jay Nock, H.L. Mencken, Murray Rothbard, Walter Block, Lew Rockwell and many others. This other world of libertarianism did not take too much of a liking Milton Friedman, leader of Chicago school of economics. Friedman, I think, was too mainstream and took a more seemingly practical, compromising approach to libertarianism. For example, Friedman was a leader in school choice but others saw this as a compromise and advocated privatization—a complete separation of education and state. More can be said about Friedman like his support for negative income tax and tax withholding. In all, I appreciate Friedman’s contribution to my libertarian thought. Friedman’s “Free To Choose” series offered good debates not seen on TV any more and introduced me to black economists Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, something that is not too common in the libertarian sphere.

Reader, I hope you get out of the Republican vs Democrat, left vs right, good vs evil etc. dichotomy. This is a deliberate scheme to keep the two parties in power, and, more importantly, retain State power. Whichever side wins, the government wins as they both use government for their desired ends. In many instances they both wish to preserve the current system of government and debate over next year’s tiny tweaks and tunes. I recall a friend (not a libertarian) of mine tweeting during the last presidential debates: “This whole thing seems to be a debate over who can hold the most power.”

The only true and moral way for a more peaceful and prosperous society is one that pursues liberty—in the personal and economic realm—at all costs. For this matter, neither of the above parties, given their history, is the way for a peaceful and prosperous society. Anyone who declares either parties is a path to freedom is misguided or untrustworthy.

Lastly, I owe all of my thought to Ron Paul[3]. Without discovering him I would have possibly remained a socialist or even worse—a conservative. Paul exposed me to many great pieces of literature involving monetary theory, Austrian economics, libertarian thought and foreign policy. His contributions are invaluable and courage unmatched. Inspired by him, honestly, one day I see myself running for office, possibly on the Republican ticket, in attempt to spread liberty and preserve our remaining individual rights[4]. Instead of announcing my campaign is against Keynes, I will announce that I am running against statism and for liberty.

Thank you.