(excerpted from Issue 1)
What The Libertarian Enterprise Is and Isn’t
Welcome to The Libertarian Enterprise, an online publication dedicated to spreading genuine and unabashed libertarian opinions on the internet and elsewhere.
The Libertarian Enterprise is not a proselytic journal. Our one goal is to tell the world what libertarians think about things. Although most of us are politically active, as contributors to The Libertarian Enterprise, we have no interest in converting anyone to anything. Our experience is that few individuals are qualified to be libertarians, that it requires more patience and genius than today’s products of public education are capable of, and that anyone who must be persuaded to be free probably doesn’t deserve to be.
The Libertarian Enterprise is not an organ of the Libertarian Party. Trust us to speak with our own voices, as we can hardly do anything else. Often the party’s leaders — especially those at the national level who are not the most libertarian of people — will be unhappy about what we say of them. We’re not trying to fool the public into electing anyone, so you can count on us to state what we really think about important principles and the issues of the day.
Similarly, The Libertarian Enterprise is not about the insides of a subculture, which, like many another of history’s intellectual movements, often resembles nothing so much as thousands of shrieking eunuchs frantically beating each other to death with shoelaces. If you truly want to read about that sort of thing, there are plenty of other periodicals out there that specialize in it.
Columns in The Libertarian Enterprise are written by people with real lives outside party and movement. One is an assistant editorial page editor at a metropolitan daily. One is a novelist working on his 20th published book. Another is working on #60-something. One is an officer in an east coast think-tank. One is a systems analyst. Many are computer professionals. One is a Ph.D. in Physics. One is the only lawyer I’ve ever met who seems to be playing with a full deck. Most (and this is unique) are fully-fledged grownups, both mentally and socially, who have longtime spouses and even children.
Thanks,
L. Neil Smith, Publisher
The Libertarian Enterprise