Thinking About Liberty
I became interested in ideas on liberty in the early 70's. Until then, I was an unthinking modern liberal. Although I did not know, I was actually a classical liberal. I wanted as little government interference as possible. I wanted to limit government's power.
The attack on liberty is almost always based on some real or imagined crisis. Some say that "War is the health of the State." My view is that crisis and fear are the health of the state. Power once conceded to government is difficult to regain.
I have been collecting ideas, books and links to libertarian ideas since that time. This lens highlights what I like. You will find some you know. You will find some that you will certainly not know.
One of my favorite people was Phil Carden in Nashville. Phil always posed the issue as the eternal struggle, Liberty vs. Power. Phil always took the side of liberty. He was a defender of the the first amendment. In one case, he was defending the right of a theater to show a movie. When the prosecution showed the movie in the trial, Phil left the room because he did not like to watch. He always defended free speech.
How did I learn I was a libertarian?
Discovering my political leanings
Someone wrote a book saying it all started with Ayn Rand.I started with How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne. I was so excited that I started looking for anything I could find on Liberty. I had been a libertarian all along, but did not recognize the problem of government. I read Rand after I read Harry Browne.
I read books by and from all the following:
Ayn Rand
Hayek
Foundation for Economic Education, led by Leonard Read, has loads of marvelous books.
Robert Ringer
Karl Hess
Rose Wilder Lane
Robert LeFevre
I took a year to attend Grove City College to study under Dr. Hans Sennholz. He was a great teacher and very clear writer. He is greatly underappreciated. Interestingly, I found an attack in one left leaning book (I don't remember the author) portraying him as a Nazi, pointing out that he was a Luftwafte pilot in WWII. He was shot down and originally came to the US as a POW. I remember him talking about how many economists were helping Pinochet in Chile. Hans thought that were being fooled by an authoritarian military regime that did not really believe in a free market. He was as far from a Nazi as you can get.
Are you a libertarian? Take this quiz to see where you fit.
World's Smallest Political Quiz
World's Smallest Political Quiz will plot your political bent on a chart. This is much more informative than simply asking if someon is a liberal or a conservative. Many of us do not fit either category, but the world seems full of those who believe everyone fits into one of two categories. Liberty on Amazon
Knowledge And Decisions
A great book based on Hayek's monograph, "The Uses of Knowledge in Society." The real problem that a free market addresses is the dispersal of information throughout society and the inability to capture that knowledge in any centralized manner.
Amazon Price: $23.40 (as of 01/01/2010) 
Usually ships in 12 to 14 days
Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement
Fun to read description of libertarian radicals.
Amazon Price: (as of 01/01/2010)
Free to Choose: A Personal Statement
Milton and Rose Friedman's statement on liberty.
Amazon Price: $9.75 (as of 01/01/2010)
Usually ships in 24 hours
The Road to Serfdom
Why the worst usually get to the top. Remember von Mises words when asked what he would do if elected as dictator. He said, "Abdicate!"
Amazon Price: (as of 01/01/2010)
Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World
Shows surprising roots for many of Franklin's ideas on liberty came from the Iroquois. You don't know their influence.
Amazon Price: $10.20 (as of 01/01/2010)
Usually ships in 24 hours
Sites on Liberty
Probably some new ones for you
These are some long established groups promoting liberty. Most are not overtly political.
The Cato Institute
Promoting an American public policy based on individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peaceful international relations.1 point
How Free Markets Make Our World A Better, Friendlier, and Safer Place
Free markets are equivalent to neighbors trading vegetables for fruit at a garden gate.1 point
The Foundation for Economic Education, home to free-market ...
The Foundation for Economic Education is dedicated to offering the most consistent case for liberty.0 points
Liberty Fund
Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individua...0 points
Institute for Justice
"A merry band of libertarian litigators."
-Columnist George F. Will0 points
The Institute for Humane Studies
The Institute for Humane Studies is a unique organization that assists undergraduate and graduate students worldwide with an interest in individual li...0 points
LIBERTY! . Resources . Liberty Links | PBS
PBS site with links to the series Liberty!0 points
Top Five Bureaucrat Tipping Ideas
Power corrupts, but bureaucrats are proof that even a little power corrupts absolutely - few of them can tell differences in degrees of power.0 points
privatizing government
Prepare to be scandalized.0 points
Magazines on Liberty
Reason Magazine
Free Market and Free Minds
The Best all-around magazine0 points
Cato Journal
Great articles, more scholarly.0 points
The Freeman
Maybe the longest running magazine of liberty. T0 points
The Independent Review
Journal edited by Robert Higgs.0 points
Liberty Online
Great articles online
- The Use of Knowledge in Society
- This is one of the best essays ever. It describes the problem of allocating resources without markets. Socialists have pretty much abandoned their old view that we can allocate goods and services to the best end without markets.
If someone invented the market, it would be regarded as the most amazing system devised. Read the article for yourself. - World's Smallest Political Quiz
- This is a great short quiz to place you on the political spectrum. It will give you a much better idea of your position, than using the standard labels, liberal and conservative.
Ideas on Liberty
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byLibertarian Blogs from Google
- Libertarian Republican: Increasing influence for Libertarian ...
- Little Libertarian Republican blog scooped the Times on using a well-known phrase that previously en...
- Moscow: Libertarian communism 2010 forum - Infoshop News
- However for us, libertarian communists, there is nothing to be happy about. We always knew, that whe...
- Cincinnati.Com | Cincinnati Enquirer | Letters to the Editor ...
- This libertarian view is overly simplistic and indeed represents neither the conservative nor libera...
- Best Libertarian Books of the Decade? - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine
- The Atlas Economic Research Foundation asked a handful of libertarian thinkers and activists to pick...
What do you think?
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Reply
- BFuniv.com BFuniv.com May 10, 2008 @ 7:16 pm
- "The struggle is always liberty vs. power." You hit that right. It is always a struggle, it will always be that choice -- individual freedom or government control. To readers of this page: Which direction is your government headed?
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