The Free View-- weblog of a presidential candidate: "The Essential Hurdle" gets more exposure

July 07, 2003

"The Essential Hurdle" gets more exposure

My essay "The Essential Hurdle for Libertarians" has been published as an article on LibertyForAll.net, one of the more prominent libertarian e-zines. You can see it here. Not bad for something I wrote almost by accident! :-)

I also forgot to mention a couple other places where it was noticed and remarked upon. Amy Phillips cross-posted about it on Circle Bastiat and The 50 Minute Hour, saying:

Lance Brown, a libertarian running for the presidency in 2008 (No, that's not a typo. That's the first election in which he'll be eligible to run in virtue of his age.), has an excellent piece on what liberals and libertarians have in common, and why it's so hard to convince a liberal to abandon government as a solution to everything. Here's the part that really resonated with me:

...[the part that resonated with her]...

I've never understood the logic of liberalism. It seems to be something like, "Of course this government does a bad job at nearly everything it tries, but if we get a different government, one populated by good liberals, then government will be great." Of course, we've had very liberal governments in the past, just as we've had very conservative governments, and the same ineptitude pervades, but no matter, because this time will be different. It has been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting a different result. Draw your own conclusions.

I agree with liberals that most people are basically good, and that it's morally good to help people for no reason other than that they are in need and I have the means to help, and that no child should go to bed hungry, and that we should preserve our environment, and that no one should discriminate against anyone else based on arbitrary demographic characteristics. The only thing I disagree with them about is their beliefs that we should try to use government, a tool which has been proven to fail, to achieve those goals, and that it's okay to use force against some people in an effort to make things better for others. And I'm baffled by the fact that other people don't see just how wrong they are.

There was an interesting series of comments posted there (well, two interesting ones), so you might want to go over and check it out.

Also, the editor of the Libertarian Today Message Board posted a big excerpt from and link to my article, and a little discussion has spawned off of that. The positive comment was by Bruce White, who said:

I agree entirely.America simply MUST get away from this constant see/saw back and forth between conservatives and liberals--each taking their turn at the public trough and basically doing nothing for the grassroots people because they would rather not shake up the big money power brokers.Stand with,stand for,America the GREAT.Thanks

The negative comment was from Vin Rosa:

Mr. Brown:

You lost me irretrievably with your first paragraph:

"My mother is a Democrat -- a Massachusetts Kennedy Democrat. That's a special breed of Democrat -- one who holds onto the romantic vision of JFK and RFK, and the whole Kennedy feeling, and wraps that around their view of the Democratic Party, then tops it off with pride in being from the veritable bastion of Kennedy Democraticism, Massachusetts."

"Special," all right. Subservient monarchists who continually hand power to a clan that long ago declared itself above the law.

"Romantic vision?" Looks like you bought the BS hook, line and sinker.

My reply is titled "Re: me buying the BS", and goes like this:

Mr. Rosa,

I'm sorry you weren't able to get past the fact that my mother is a Democrat. I'm not sure what makes you think I have bought any "BS", but I make it clear where my political allegiance lies -- with the Libertarian Party. I believe strongly in libertarian principles, and my hope is to make them as universally accepted as possible.

The only way libertarian principles will achieve their deserved dominance in America and elsewhere is if we can show people that libertarian principles will bring about the things most people want. There is no way a majority of the country will take the leap of faith that we ask of them without being convinced that A) our policies won't ruin the country (or state, county, etc.), and B) our policies will bring them to the America they desire. That's what most people care about, and that's what motivates most people's votes. And the burden of proof is on us to convince a majority of people that the libertarian plan meets both of those criteria.

We need to show them proof in current events, when we can, and we need to show them proof in a vision of America that people find believable.

By the way, my mother is more of a libertarian than a Democrat in her beliefs...she's just unable to give up on the sales pitch of the Democratic Party. And of course she has the same fearful reserve as most people do when we talk about ending public schools, or the Drug War, or income tax. She has a hard time seeing things being another way -- most people do -- and I firmly believe that improving our ability to get people to see the future America that we see is of critical imprtance to our political success.

My good friend Gina also wrote me wondering just how it is that a libertarian society is going to take care of the niceties (and not-so-niceties) involved in keeping this country ticking. By which I mean ticking like a Swiss watch, not like a past-due time bomb, as it currently is.

[Note to FBI -- that's a metaphor, not a threat.]

I'm putting together a mega-essay about Green Liberty, which is my term for the confluence of libertarian principles and liberal/green values. It's going to be a while in the making, but I've got about 4 pages, mostly outline, done. I think it's going to be pretty long by the time I'm done with it. I'm also putting together a list of the elements that comprise the "safety net", or the basic functions that people expect from a society. Tom Knapp at Rational Review has issued a call for libertarians to work to create the social structures and institutions that will be needed to support a libertarian society. That's basically the mission statement of Future Solutions, my non-profit project. That project, along with its flagship effort The Free School on the Internet, have taken a backseat to my company PeoplesForum.com for many years now, but as I mentioned in The Little Brown Reader, the seating arrangement is in the process of changing. So I'm working on a list of problems and liberty-respecting solutions.

As always, I'll keep you posted. :-)

Posted by Lance Brown at July 7, 2003 11:56 PM | TrackBack

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