And, as many have noted, very few of the "kids" today are libertarians (either small L or large L).
When you were a teenager, everyone thought that Ho Chi Minh was the greatest, had a picture of Che Guevera on their wall, and thought the Soviet Union was going to win.
Nonsense. "Everyone" did not think this. Far from it. YAF was going strong back then.
Of 8 of us who rented a place, 6 were fairly extreme libertarians, one was confused but went along, and one was apolitical. (One of these guys wore a dollar sign pin and subscribed to Nathaniel Branden's newsletter.) This, was, by the way, when we were 18-20 years old.
The Libertarian Party started at about this time, in 1972, and nearly all of the volunteers, spear carriers, etc. were in their 20s. This is very well known.
(And today most of the LP volunteers and spear carriers are in their 40s and 50s. A correlation here.)
I would say that the kids of today are a damned lot more libertarian than when you and I were kids.
Quite likely you, as you have said you were a Marxist. I never went through such a phase, having started reading Heinlein and that crowd when I was around 11 or so. It always seemed self-evidently silly to think that "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" could be taken seriously by anybody.
And I remember taking some cheer that day in November, 1963 when the Big Government guy was zapped. My family left the U.S. that afternoon and did not return for 13 months.
I was a Goldwater supporter in 1964, when I was 12. (Goldwater was way too liberal for me in many ways, but he was against the "Civil Rights Act" and other such Marxist nonsense, so I supported him. I didn't care for his Vietnam views, except I agreed with him we should either fight to win it very, very decisively, or get out.
Still think most of the baldies of today, with rings through their noses, marching against Coca Cola and Intel and Big Business, and arguing for affirmative action are "more libertarian"?
Again, apparently more so than you. In any case, saying "everyone thought that Ho Chi Minh was the greatest" is silly.
This shows up in the fact that protests against global capitalism draw vast crowds of young people, and even several subscribers to our list have nattered on about the dangers of globalism and free trade.
The cartoonist in "reason" (or perhaps "liberty" not sure which) depicts these protests as being dominated by old farts about your and my age, with the young folk in reluctant tow. I suspect if you and he attended the same demo, he would see a crowd of old farts, and you would see a crowd of young punks with nose rings.
This is certainly so. But it doesn't dispute my point. In fact, it supports it.
My generation was very active, on all sides. The droids born after about 1980 are mainly followers. Probably what the nose rings are for.
--Tim May, Corralitos, California
Quote of the Month: "It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes; perhaps there are no true libertarians in times of terrorist attacks." --Cathy Young, "Reason Magazine," both enemies of liberty.
