Urgent Message to Rand Paul Supporters

Brothers and sisters in liberty,

This will be one hell of a tough 19 months between now and November 2016.  If you thought the 2012 elections were a nightmare, you'll want to back out of this now.

But I don't think any of you will back out.  Many of you reading this stood shoulder to shoulder with me across the country in 2011 and 2012.  There are even more of you nearly 4 years later.  You're all men and women of iron.

Rand Paul hasn't formally declared his candidacy yet, but we all know the smooth game he's playing.

If we've learned anything from the last go-round for Ron Paul, we've learned that our collective behavior can attach itself to our candidate and affect public perceptions of him or her.

There are going to be quite a few Democrats and Republicans with ego-maniacal complexes trying to be POTUS, and the media will love some and hate others.  Fox News has been kind to Rand Paul, but maybe we've just been lucky so far.  The left is already being conditioned to hate him, so you'd best believe our work's cut out for us.

I'll say this the best way I know how: DON'T GET CAUGHT UP IN DRAMA.  Let the other campaigns tear each other apart.

Remember that people support certain candidates because they need that deep-down confirmation that their worldview right, that they're making good decisions with their lives, and everybody else is simply wrong.  DON'T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM THEM.  It's just too cruel.

Instead of telling them why they're "wrong" and we're "right," explain why the grass would be greener under President Paul than under President Cruz, or whomever they support.

Remember, both Ron and Rand Paul campaigned to get Ted Cruz in office.  So let's not all of a sudden act like Senator Cruz is the devil incarnate.

We need to politely RESPECT people who support other candidates.  I won't be telling anyone why their candidate is bad, just why I think my candidate is better.

The truth doesn't need apologists or public relations agents.  If we conduct ourselves as proper libertarians and conservatives, we'll respect the worldviews of those who agree with us.  We'll treat those people with respect and kindness.  We'll discuss instead of debate.

Judd Weiss said it best: If we're sharing the TRUTH with people, we need to do so with respect, kindness, and courtesy.  If we attack people with the truth, even verbally bullying them, then those people's automatic reactions will be to DEFEND themselves against the truth.  They'll shut us out.

So don't give people a hard time for supporting the candidate they do.  Instead of bashing their guy, remind them that there's plenty of room for them in the Rand camp.

Instead of the public remembering us libertarians as jerks and trolls, let them remember us as respectful, intelligent people who demonstrate strong character and high integrity.  These are the qualities in politics that people most desire.

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Rand Paul 2016 banner courtesy of the Rand-Paul-4-President Tumblr blog.  Rand Paul and Ted Cruz photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore and obtained from Wikimedia Commons.

Celebrating the Life of Nathaniel Branden

This may have been the first time I ever enjoyed myself at a memorial service, but I had a blast at Nathaniel Branden's memorial service. Hosted at the Los Angeles Ebell Theater by the Atlas Society, it was great to hear a lot of big names in the liberty movement discussing the importance and personal impact of Branden’s work (which also had an impact on me, personally).

I remember one of the defining moments of my last few years: I was sitting on top of a Humvee in the Mojave Desert, wearing full (bloody) combat armor, reading “The Moral Revolution in Atlas Shrugged” under the desert sun.  At the time I’d been wrestling with some major personal issues and I was at a crossroads in life.  As a matter of fact, the Humvee I sat on was literally parked at a crossroads where two dirt paths crossed and continued into the sandy wilderness.

The number one theme I took away from Branden’s essay is this: with great liberty comes great responsibility—not a responsibility to strangers, but to self.  Branden wrote about asserting one’s rugged individualism and never being ashamed of success, especially when “social” pressures dictate otherwise.  But there’s another, more important side to that: one must always own up to one’s own failings.  But rather than self-castigate, one should alter their actions for the better and move forward in life.

In that one essay, Mr. Branden had a hell of a punch for my brain that helped put the Atlas Shrugged novel and my own confused life into proper context for me. That was a big deal.

It also spoke highly of Branden’s character that both his wife Leigh and amicably divorced ex-wife Estelle Devers were present, got along, and treated each other with dignity and respect. Hell, I already know which exes are totally banned from my funeral!

The service lasted almost three hours, with a variety of accomplished objectivists and libertarians speaking both of Nat Branden’s work as an intellectual and personal memories of a dear friend departed.  People shared funny, silly stories about Branden and played audio clips from his academic lectures.

It was fascinating to hear in Branden’s own words a new context for the infamous rape scene in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead.  While I didn’t agree with him 100%--rape is rape in my book—I will admit that there’s something to Branden’s reasoning in sexually repressed people who are intensely attracted to each other having rape fantasies.  After all, it’s the reason why 50 Shades of Grey is so wildly popular.

Judd Weiss shares memories of Nathaniel Branden

Many of the speakers who were mentored by Branden were aged, in their 50s and 60s. In this context, it was especially refreshing to hear from the cream of the crop of the second generation of Nathaniel Branden’s pupils: Judd Weiss.  Apparently other speakers ran over their allotted time, so Judd had to slash most of his remarks and deliver his speech in five minutes.  Judd's words were touching and he spoke from the heart, not so much about Nat’s work, but about the growing role Nat played in Judd’s life over the last 5 years.

Nat Branden spoke and wrote often these simple instructions: Feel deeply so you can think clearly.  I learned a lot and left the service feeling better about myself. I suppose the greatest feeling of all was being surrounded by people of strong character who aren't ashamed of their success, but also own up to their failures.  Men and women of this quality are few and far between, and no small part of their character and integrity was inspired by the words and deeds of Nathaniel Branden.

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Color photo by Judd Weiss.  Black and White photo by Avens O'Brien.

Five Libertarian Ideas #2

Prostitution

Prostitution, as voluntary exchange between consenting adults, could be a victimless "crime," but government bans make it a punishable crime and drive it into the criminal underground. Sex's high demand and low supply creates a need for prostitutes, so criminal pimps will kidnap and coerce modern slaves. This is how women and young girls get caught in human trafficking. Every client a prostitute serves is an act of aggression against her body and soul, inflicted on her by her pimp who is her "State" in the criminal underground. Does government intervention REALLY help??? –12/2

Anarchism vs. Minarchism

Anarchist and minarchist libertarians need to bury the hatchet already. Don't be elitist because you do or don't believe in eliminating the state right away. A revolution won't magically happen. We need to CONSOLIDATE the strength of our #libertarian organizations and work to elect Libertarians and libertarian Republicans who will vote and fight to End the Fed, end the TSA, fight the IRS, end the warrant-less wiretapping, bring back a gold or competing minerals standard, protect the 2nd Amendment, end the war on drugs, and bring our troops home.  –12/3

Anarchists and elections

Libertarian hatchet-burying Part II: Anarchist and minarchist libertarians often work together in the Libertarian Party and even the Republican Party's libertarian faction. The an-caps who participate in the electoral process agree on the following:

--Yes, the state is "violence", and so participating in elections would constitute in participating in "violence"

--Since the state has already committed "violence" by taxing/robbing us and stripping away our liberties, for libertarians to participate in elections is SELF-DEFENSE, which does not violate the NAP.

--By building our movement and winning libertarian victories at the polls, they can use their self-defensive actions to LOWER and eventually END the violence of the state.

Our movement will NEVER succeed if we can't pair THEORY with REALITY. –12/3

Attacking people with truth

Judd Weiss said it best: we need to DISCUSS our ideas with people, NOT argue or troll. Telling people "YOU'RE WRONG" is like beating them in the face with the truth, so then people have to DEFEND against the truth assault. They shut themselves off to our libertarian message in mental self-defense because our approach was that of a bully. There are more positive ways to counter their ideas, like "You have a good point but I see a better solution" or "Actually, I've seen LOTS of evidence to the contrary." Then they RECEIVE the truth because you're treating them like a peer, not like the enemy. –12/4

Nelson Mandela’s lessons

Dear liberty movement: talking shit about Nelson Mandela for allegedly being a socialist/communist is NO way to win the liberty movement any supporters. He's far too well beloved, and I guarantee you any smack talk will burn bridges with potential libertarians coming from the left. It's much better to use Mandela's life to respectfully promote libertarian ideas, especially libertarian solutions to approaching and improving race relations. –12/5

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Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton image is by the U.S. Government and in the public domain.  The image was obtained from Wikimedia Commons.