I'm a big fan of the Free State Project and the Ridley Report. When I remember to, I log onto to the YouTube late at night and see what old Dave and the crew are up to up in NH. Dave frequently covers the travails of consummate civil disobedience icons Lauren Canario and Russell Kanning (or his wife Kat). Frequently either are in jail after refusing to have driver's licenses or the such.
Recently another fellow free stater got into a pickle over a couch on his lawn. While it gave Ridley some new material, it also seems to be proving successful for syndicated talk show host, Ian Bernard (Freeman). I stopped listening to Free Talk Live over a year ago because Ian Bernard, was always beating on the LP. It was nothing personal, but I chose not to listen.
Well 'ol Ian popped his civil disobedience cherry last week and the whole community is cooing. While I was sympathetic to the situation he recently fell into, it seems that Mr. 'Freeman' (his recent name change ?) succumbed to the thugs after all. But like Napoleon after the Egyptian campaign, he came back bragging about the whole affair and forgets to relate what really happened . . . He caved in.
I find Bernard's criticism of the LP inane. Rather than acknowledge the difficulty and unlikely event that they will ever have electoral success in this system, he tolls the reformer line of "haven't done anything in the last thirty years" and then bashes it's members as evil, unprincipled, little people in the battles of liberty. In the same breath he'll make laudatory statements about 'liberty in our lifetime", as if, geeesh. And while I'm supposed to follow the course of the Free State project and the course of a handful of liberty enthusiasts, spending my time in the LP is a waste. But Bernard's not alone in this criticism. Respected Institutes, think tanks and other bastions of Liberty's glory here on earth all take part.
While Bernard's faithful are starting websites, calling radio shows and awarding cojones medals, they don't seemed to have noticed, that Bernard backed down. After three days in the can, he basically apologized to the Judge, falsely admitted to taking bad advice (when in fact his defense and approach were all his own) and then whined that his sweety was suffering. Hardly the spirit of Ghandi. He then makes an off-handed comment that the couch is gone. This all according to the first ten minutes or so of his return broadcast/podcast (see 11/17/08).
It's not that I'm looking to bash Ian and one up him in any sense. It is nice to know who has your back. Despite my recent public criticism of the Barr campaign ( I waited six paragraphs for my gratuitous plug TK), I stuck it out as chair and got him and the muppet that he mentors on the ballot in NY. We even almost doubled our 2004 totals. Liberty should have many allies and fronts. When one of us falls or climbs a hill that couldn't be crested before, it's a victory, period. Perhaps it's a maturity thing, but I'm guessing Ian's dissenting spirit was twenty five years too late for some meaningful LP activity. The suits have a real reign now . . . shrug.
But some of us within do fight and diligently at that. Before any formal association with the Party or a 'movement' I too had a run-in with the code enforcers in the mid-nineties. I basically built a second story on the house I lived in. No YouTube, freedom forums etc. Just me defying the bastards who tried to control my otherwise rational behavior. To make a long story short, I fought them for two years and settled out of court with no admission of guilt. They were trying to exact almost forty thousand in fines. The building inspector was canned, they lost my file and I never did get a permit as the court directed. Even the new inspector who came later when I wasn't around confided in a host at the property that this country was on the verge of a revolution.
So give Ian credit where it is due.
But also remember the famous words of Hemingway;
"Never mistake motion for action."