Recently I was asked by Eric Bigelow of I Am An Individual to write an essay on my libertarian awakening, and here it is….
Several years ago, perhaps after seeing the Soviet-style campaign posters for Obama in 2008, I began to realize that the American Experiment had failed and tried to figure out why. I wondered: If the Founders had put an express right to secede in the Constitution, would the federal government have respected States’ rights more? If Lincoln had not been elected or if he had let the South go, would the federal government have been checked, giving rise to two truly federalist (rather than nationalist) governments, or to a peacefully reunited country whose government respected the voluntary nature of the Union? If Wilson had not been elected or if we had entered the First World War on the side of Germany (a distinct possibility), would classical liberalism have been saved? If we had never gotten ourselves involved in any foreign entanglements as President Washington had advised, would we now be a free society shining a beacon of hope to the rest of the world?
Unfortunately, with every question I asked myself, the obvious answer kept popping up: no matter what the Founders could have done, no matter what change could have been made to the Constitution, no matter what politician was or wasn’t elected, the experiment of liberty-preserved-by-government would have failed. I concluded that if there is a seat of power, eventually that seat will be filled and enlarged by those who desire power and its rewards, rather than occupied by those who wish to limit government and promote liberty.
I distinctly recall having this epiphany while vacuuming my bedroom–it was like when the Twin Towers fell, or as the older generation say, when JFK was shot–I remember the exact instant, it was so momentous to me. My despair was total but at the same time, liberating. I knew my quest for liberty and justice was utterly hopeless, that man was destined for servitude, but I didn’t have to worry about it anymore because there was nothing anyone could do. I actually thought I had come to the end of my quest for truth the way the guy in the commercial a few years ago, bleary-eyed and unshaven, clearly having just spent days surfing the web, got a message on his screen: “You have come to the end of the Internet.” That was me. I had come to the end of the metaphorical Internet, or so I thought.
