Quotes from Brian Doherty

One day, J. Howard Pew of Sun Oil called Read to tell him that he had $136,000 that he had to get rid of, for some arcane tax reason, in the next twenty-four hours-and would Read, along with Howard Kershner of Christian Economics (a more right-wing religious education group Pew also supported) figure out among themselves what they could best do with it? Thanks. And they did.

Government, if it has any purpose at all (and many libertarians doubt it does), should be restricted to the protection of its citizens' persons and property against direct violence and theft.

This emphasis on the need for a conservative, traditionalist cultural context for libertarianism in his later years—and the way he turned venomously on every part of the libertarian movement not under the paleo tent in the pages of the newsletter he and Rockwell launched in 1990, the Rothbard/Rockwell Report—lost Rothbard many of his old fans and friends in the movement.

The problem is, it builds into the idea that the world is divided into stupid people, evil people, and people who agree with me. The first thing you have to learn is that there are lots of brilliant, kind–hearted people who just disagree with you.

Mises's conclusion: "Whosoever foresees so clearly before the age of forty the disaster and the destruction of everything he deems of value, cannot escape pessimism and psychic depression.

As with many tempests in teapots among small, contentious, ideologically charged groups with a sense of millennial mission, it is hard for outsiders with the perspective of time to figure out what they were thinking, and why, and everyone involved can only remember that their side was right, and the other side wrong, with the most uncharitable possible spin put on the whole contretemps.

Rand knew that people don't care if something doesn't work, as long as the dominant morality of altruism tells them that it is right.

And, most significantly for the libertarian movement, he read Murray Rothbard's article in Ramparts magazine and discovered that he wasn't crazy and he wasn't alone—that there was a real link between the right-wing spirit of his old ideological home and the new left he was increasingly attracted to.166

Leonard Read noted admiringly that her simple and unobjectionable principle that no one ought to initiate physical force against another would, if applied "to present-day practices . . . be shocking to many persons.

The Rothbard crowd began its own official organization—the Radical Libertarian Alliance. (Its slogan: "War is murder. Taxation is theft. Conscription is slavery Government is chaos.")

Hayek later decided that what really separated him from his friend Keynes was that the latter always believed that certain advanced thinkers (Keynes among them, of course) could skillfully and accurately manipulate the social order to their own ends, without ill effects.

aiding and abetting avatars of a religio-politico-wacko machine run by Guy Ballard (who channeled his eternal wisdom under the name Godfre Ray King). Ballard claimed to be the reincarnation of George Washington, and a being—who can call him a mere man?—with

With Constant, the chief articulator of his generation's liberal ideas, we see the beginnings of classical liberalism's 'state-hatred,' which, after the 18th century's ambiguous attitude, marks its theory to the present day," noted modern libertarian and historian of classical liberalism Ralph Raico.

The progress of markets and wealth in the past centuries has eliminated many aspects of day-to-day early American life that strike us today as tyrannical, from the sharp distinctions of rank, the religion-based social control in the towns, and of course the most prominent stain on America's libertarian heritage, the status of blacks and women.

Magna Carta or no, the rights of Americans were not not theirs only because of any ancient "contract." As James Wilson put it, using ancient legal terms, "The fee simple of freedom and government is declared to be in the people.

Nock's "plan of action" was "a plan of no action at all. To Nock there was clearly only one path to follow, and that was to learn, to think, to write, to informally teach, and then, simply wait.

We bring light to unite the boulevards of Black Rock City: the light of civilization, navigation, and celebration. In honor of the immensity of the desert and the immensity of our dreams and visions, we hang our lamps high.

Libertarianism is based in economic theory, as economic science teaches how workable order can arise from the seeming chaos of free actions uncoordinated by a single outside intelligence, and how government intervention is apt to upset that balance.

I've seen things you wouldn't believe, and I believe in things you can't see.

On this particular expedition, we shall travel to a vast desolate, white expanse stretching onward to the horizon in all directions... A place where you could gain nothing or lose everything and no one would ever know. A place well-beyond that which you think you understand.

They knew the money had to go somewhere more secure. In '96, they dug a hole in the playa with a backhoe and submerged an old water heater. They thrust a pipe into the water heater, left the other end of the pipe flush with the playa surface, and erected John Law's tent over it, with a hole cut in the bottom over the pipe. Daily, bagged wads of cash were shoved down the pipe.