Stossel on Seavey Book (world on fire)

I’m pleased John Stossel, who wrote the foreword to my book Libertarianism for Beginners, also wrotea column about the book. (And remember that you can hear me talk about the book bylistening to my now-archived July 1, 2016 appearance on radio show Johnny Rocket Launch Pad.)

With so few non-leftist media outlets -- and the journalists of the future being trained by aptly-named groupslike IRE to hate guns and others things the left disdains as though hating is objective journalism -- I need all the allies I can get.

Not that I’m suggesting the right is much better than the left these days. If Clinton is basically a corrupt lawyer (“cleared” by the FBI only after her hubby’s meeting with the Attorney General that was never supposed to become public knowledge), then Trump is like a drunk, ornery uncle who knows he hates that lawyer but will never be able to articulate anything like a conservative or libertarian alternative to her. At least the UK, newly free of the EU, gets a female head of state and a coherent conservative in one fell swoop. Doesn’t solve all problems, but looks enviable from the U.S. perspective right about now.

Win or lose, I just hope that if people vote in November -- I say if -- they vote Libertarian, even if only in protest. Come on, don’t be a jerk. You’ve gotta.

As for how on Earth I maintained a slight hope for years that the Republican Party would become more libertarian, please recall that (for example) three years ago there was one senator who opposed the confirmation of Comey as FBI director, the confirmation that would enable Comey to let Clinton off the hook three years later, and thatone senator was libertarian-leaning Republican Rand Paul. He also opposed Loretta Lynch becoming attorney general due to her drug-warrior contempt for due process. Principled people have a way of ending up looking like prophets.

Ah, well, but best I forget about Paul and other GOP gambits. Now we’re stuck with Trump and/or Clinton -- though some think Comey tried hisdarnedest to stealth-sink Clinton even as he was “exonerating” her. It‘s a complex world.

Law enforcers disappoint us at times (witness this animatedguide to cop-related killings, which is more educational than the selfie that Clinton-supporter Mischa Barton took showing herself in a bikini purportedly being sad about excessive police force). I do not quite qualify as a full-fledged anarchist in the traditional sense of the word, though, as I still prefer the orderly rule of law to chaos. Perhaps my all-time favorite instance of U.S. law having a long and long-delayed reach yet still being respected was the ratification of the constitutional amendment limiting congressional pay raises -- 202 years after it was proposed during the very first Congress, back in 1789. History will come for the real criminals eventually, and it’s sweet when it does.

In the meantime, to make clear I am no mere partisan, let me say clearly that cops get away with crimes, gangs get away with crimes, Clintons get away with crimes -- and similar groups overseas get away with even worse crimes. Be the kind of person who can be trusted to oppose all of it, consistently. And do check out that book of mine if you’re looking for a consistent set of principles to adopt.