Don't Hurt People and Don't Take Their Stuff: A Libertarian Manifesto (25 page)

The attempted coup was the fire that ignited the writing of this book, based on the theory that things that don’t kill you can make you stronger. I think that’s true. As I have before, I fed off of the insights of the late, great moral philosopher Warren Zevon. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” he once sang.

Mostly, and for everything that is important in my life, my Unmoved Motivator is my awesome wife and partner in life, Terry. This book, and most things, would not have happened without her. She keeps me straight, focused, and usually headed in the right direction. Despite this daunting challenge, Terry still hasn’t given up on me after twenty-seven years. It may be too late to get out now, Mama Bear.

For this project there were a number of people essential to its success. Peter Hubbard at HarperCollins was an unwavering and reliable hand guiding
Don’t Hurt People
from concept to publication. He was a champion of the project from day one. This is the third book we have worked on together, and it’s always a great experience.

My coauthor, Roark the Cat.

Senators Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz all took time out of their insanely busy schedules to talk to me. So did Representatives Justin Amash, Thomas Massie, and David Schweikert. It is great, and somewhat disorienting, to have so many principled politicians that I might have included in this book, but these six were the obvious best choices. None of them, of course, are responsible for the crazy rantings in this book, except where they are directly quoted.

Joel Davis, unrelenting fighter for liberty, took time to retell his story for me. We are currently conspiring over the next tattoo.

Adam Brandon was a key player as well, at least when he wasn’t getting fired. He would agree to unreasonable deadlines and then hand it off to me. He does that best. We are working on his grasp of the economic concept of opportunity cost:
If you do this, you can’t do that.

Logan Albright contributed substantial research during the writing of this book, and served as traffic cop for all of the various inputs. Wayne Brough and Reid Smith also contributed. Laura Howd ensured that the trains ran on time and deadlines were met. Logan organized all citations and made sure the footnotes were in proper form, which was a daunting task. Laura, Josh Withrow, Dean Clancy, Emilia Huneke-Bergquist, Jackie Bodnar, Easton Randall, Andrew Smith, Parissa Sedghi, Kara Pally, and Christine Domenech all read the final manuscript for mistakes, catching many. Any remaining ones are mine, of course.

As he did during the writing marathons for
Give Us Liberty
and
Hostile Takeover,
Roark the cat played a key role as a calm presence, chooser of music, and random, but critical, keyboard adjustments. Some of his preferred settings on my iMac appear to be permanent. It was his idea to include so much Ayn Rand in
Don’t Hurt People,
although the one Howard Roark quote somehow ended up on the cutting-room floor. He must have been napping.

Speaking of music, a lot of Rush was played during the writing of the book, as you may have ascertained by the end of Chapter Two. If you don’t already have it, you should get a vinyl copy of
A Farewell to Kings.
Liner notes are everything. The band members will no doubt be horrified to learn of their unwilling role in this process, and I can only assume that
Rolling Stone
will demand a(nother) clarification from the band. There was also plenty of John Coltrane, Tom Waits, My Morning Jacket, Sigur Ros, and Father John Misty. And, of course, the Grateful Dead.

Finally, a random hat tip to Three Floyds Brewing’s
Permanent Funeral.
It’s a fine beer that fortified this author at key junctures in the creative writing process.

NOTES

The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was made. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature on your ebook reader.

Chapter 1: Rules for Liberty

  1.  Sir John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, Lecture, February 26, 1877.

  2.  Murray Rothbard, “War, Peace, and the State,”
The Standard
(April 1963), 2–5.

  3.  Adam Smith,
The Theory of Moral Sentiments
(New York: Penguin Classics, 2010).

  4.  Ibid.

  5.  Max Weber,
Economy and Society
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978).

  6.  Wendy Milling, “President Obama Jabs at Ayn Rand, Knocks Himself Out,”
Forbes,
October 30, 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/10/30/president-obama-jabs-at-ayn-rand-knocks-himself-out/ (accessed October 23, 2013).

  7.  Thomas Patrick Burke, “The Origins of Social Justice: Taparelli d’Azeglio,”
First Principles Journal,
January 1, 2008, http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=1760 (accessed August 21, 2013).

  8.  John Rawls,
A Theory of Justice
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971).

  9.  F. A. Hayek,
The Fatal Conceit: Errors of Socialism
(London: Routledge, 1988), 114.

10.  Jim Geraghty, “The Things We Choose to Do Together,”
National Review,
August 27, 2008, http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/8984/things-we-choose-do-together (accessed September 17, 2013).

11.  Stephen Cruz, “Ashton Kutcher Reveals to Millennials an Enduring Secret to Certain Success,”
Forbes,
August 23, 2013, http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/08/23/ashton-kutcher-reveals-to-milennials-an-enduring-secret-to-certain-success/ (accessed October 23, 2013).

12.  Ludwig von Mises,
Human Action
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1949), 859.

13.  Jonathan Haidt, “What the Tea Partiers Really Want,”
Wall Street Journal,
October 16, 2010, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748703673604575550243700895762 (accessed December 15, 2013).

14.  Benjamin A. Rogge,
Can Capitalism Survive?
(Indianapolis: Liberty Fun, Inc., 1979).

15.  Sir John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, Letter to Mendell Creighton, April 5, 1887.

16.  F. A. Hayek,
The Constitution of Liberty
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960).

17.  Ibid.

Chapter 2: You Can’t Have Freedom for Free

  1.  Ron Wynn, Michael Erlewine, and Vladimir Bogdanov,
The All Music Guide to Jazz
(San Francisco: Miller Freeman Books, 1994), 197.

  2.  
Rush: Classic Albums: 2112 & Moving Pictures
(Eagle Rock Entertainment, 2010).

  3.  Chris Matthew Sciabarra and Larry J. Sechrest, “Ayn Rand Among the Austrians,”
Journal of Ayn Rand Studies
6, no. 2 (Spring 2005): 241–50.

  4.  Pete is now one of the most distinguished professors in a booming community of Austrian-minded economists teaching in academia, and is the deputy director of the James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy, a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center, and a professor in the economics department at George Mason University.

  5.  H. L. Mencken Quotes, Goodreads, http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/7805.H_L_Mencken?page=3 (accessed August 29, 2013).

  6.  Barry Miles, “Is Everybody Feelin’ All RIGHT? (Geddit?),”
New Musical Express,
March 4, 1978, http://cygnus-x1.net/links/rush/images/books/mojo-06.2012/mojo-06.2012-11.pdf (accessed September 26, 2013).

  7.  Scott R. Benarde, “How the Holocaust Rocked Rush Front Man Geddy Lee,”
JWeekly,
June 25, 2004, http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/23003/how-the-holocaust-rocked-rush-front-man-geddy-lee/(accessed August 29, 2013).

  8.  Stephen Cox, “Ayn Rand’s Anthem: An Appreciation,” Atlas Society, http://www.atlassociety.org/ayn-rands-anthem-appreciation (accessed August 29, 2013).

  9.  “Books That Made a Difference in Readers’ Lives,” English Companion, response to Survey of Lifetime Reading Habits taken in 1991, http://www.englishcompanion.com/Readings/booklists/loclist.html (accessed August 29, 2013).

10.  Joshua Green, “An Apology to Rand Paul,”
The Atlantic,
June 11, 2010, http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/06/an-apology-to-rand-paul/57999/ (accessed August 29, 2013).

11.  Andy Greene, “Q&A: Neil Peart on Rush’s New LP and Being a ‘Bleeding Heart Libertarian,’ ”
Rolling Stone,
June 12, 2012, http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/q-a-neil-peart-on-rushs-new-lp-and-being-a-bleeding-heart-libertarian-20120612#ixzz2dIlNJFqD (accessed August 29, 2013).

Chapter 3: Them Versus Us

  1.  Martin Luther King, “I Have A Dream,” speech delivered August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm (accessed September 3, 2013).

  2.  William Sullivan, “Communist Party, USA Negro Question,” U.S. Government Memorandum, August 30, 1963, http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/king/images/fbifiles/other/full/10.jpg (accessed September 18, 2013).

  3.  Tony Capaccio, “King Address That Stirred World Led to FBI Surveillance,”
BloombergBusinessweek,
August 27, 2013, http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-08-27/king-address-that-stirred-world-led-to-fbi-surveillance-program (accessed September 3, 2013).

  4.  David J. Garrow, “The FBI and Martin Luther King,”
The Atlantic,
July 1, 2002, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/07/the-fbi-and-martin-luther-king/302537/ (accessed September 3, 2013).

  5.  Peter Hamby, “Axelrod Suggests Tea Party Movement Is ‘Unhealthy,’ ” CNN, April 19, 2009, http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/19/axelrod-suggests-tea-party-movement-is-unhealthy/ (accessed September 16, 2013).

  6.  Abby D. Phillip, “IRS Planted Question About Tax Exempt Groups,” ABC News, May 17, 2013, http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/05/irs-planted-question-about-tax-exempt-groups/ (accessed September 3, 2013).

  7.  Victor Fleischer, “A Dickensian Delay at the IRS,”
New York Times,
May 16, 2013, http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/a-dickensian-delay-at-the-i-r-s/ (accessed September 19, 2013).

  8.  David Weigel, “IRS Asked a Pro-Life Group to Explain Its Prayers Outside Planned Parenthood, Which Is Now a Scandal,”
Slate,
May 17, 2013, http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2013/05/17/the_irs_asked_a_pro_life_group_to_explain_its_prayers_outside_planned_parenthood.html (accessed September 26, 2013).

  9.  Tamara Keith, “Report: IRS Scrutiny Worse for Conservatives,” NPR, July 30, 2013, http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2013/07/30/207080580/report-irs-scrutiny-worse-for-conservatives (accessed August 26, 2013).

10.  “IRS Scrutiny of Non-profit Organizations,” C-SPAN video, June 4, 2013, http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/RSScr (accessed August 29, 2013).

11.  Ibid.

12.  Caroline May, “Tea Party Groups Speak Out Against the IRS: ‘Folks, This Is Bad,’ ”
Daily Caller,
May 16, 2013, http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/16/tea-party-groups-speak-out-against-the-irs-folks-this-is-bad/ (accessed August 29, 2013).

13.  Michael McDonald, “The IRS Takes a Closer Look at Colleges,”
BloombergBusinessweek,
November 17, 2011, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/the-irs-takes-a-closer-look-at-colleges-11172011.html (accessed September 16, 2013).

14.  Stan Veuger, “Yes, IRS Harassment Blunted the Tea Party Ground Game,” American Enterprise Institute, June 20, 2013, http://www.aei.org/article/economics/yes-irs-harassment-blunted-the-tea-party-ground-game/ (accessed September 18, 2013).

15.  Douglas M. Charles, “How Did the IRS Get Investigatory Authority Anyway?,” History News Network, August 21, 2013, http://hnn.us/article/151970#sthash.9RXzbkmd.dpuf (accessed September 16, 2013).

16.  Michael Scherer, “New IRS Scandal Echoes a Long History of Political Harassment,”
Time,
Swampland, May 14, 2013, http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/14/anger-over-irs-audits-of-conservatives-anchored-in-long-history-of-abuse/#ixzz2eR8AInHE (accessed September 16, 2013).

17.  Alan Farnham, “IRS Has Long History of Political Dirty Tricks,” ABC News, May 15, 2013, http://abcnews.go.com/Business/irs-irs-long-history-dirty-tricks/story?id=19177178 (accessed September 3, 2013).

18.  Victor Reuther and Walter Reuther, “The Reuther Memorandum: The Radical Right in America Today,” Memorandum to the Attorney General of the United States, December 19, 1961, http://www.scribd.com/doc/31124491/The-Reuther-Memorandum-Precusor-to-the-Ideological-Organizations-Audit-Project-Created-by-President-John-F-Kennedy-and-Attorney-General-Robert-Kenn (accessed September 18, 2013).

19.  David Dykes, “Former IRS Chief Recalls Defying Nixon,”
USA Today,
May 26, 2013, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/26/irs-chief-defied-nixon/2360951/ (accessed September 3, 2013).

20.  House Judiciary Committee, “Articles for Impeachment,” Watergate.info, July 27, 1974, http://watergate.info/impeachment/articles-of-impeachment (accessed September 16, 2013).