Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

L. Neil Smith brought me here. I’m undoubtedly not the first person to have said those words, nor will I be the last. Because this magazine has been instrumental in saving the minds of countless people over the years. It has been responsible for letting those of us who fit neither into the square-peg Right, nor the Hammer and Sickle Left, that we are not alone. There are many of us out there, lovers of freedom as more than an abstract concept, who have looked to this modest enough tome and smiled knowingly.

Through The Libertarian Enterprise, I was introduced to the works of J. Neil Schulman, the late Victor Milan, and Sarah Hoyt, and through them to other greats like Victor Koman, Stephen Hunter, and John Ross. Writers who not only entertained me, but managed to enlighten me, inform me, anger me, and make me question things. They explained in ways that a snotty 17-year old could understand the core of Libertarian philosophy and political thought.

Back in 1997 when I was first introduced to TLE it was like a breath of fresh air. I’d already given up on reading newspapers, and could find very little online that satisfied my need to learn. Enter my uncle who over a few months passed on not only copies of The Probability Broach and The Jehovah Contract—years after truly screwing me up by giving me his copies of various Heinlein classics, along with Keith Laumer, Dean Koontz, and many others—but who pushed issue after issue of TLE at me, knowing that it would grab, and boy was he right.

There comes a point in anyone’s life, I think, when they first discover politics when they become unbearable to all of those around them. It is during this time that you know who your real friends are (hint: they’re the ones who still talk to you once you pass through the fires of political fanaticism). It’s when you begin to mold who you are going to be as an adult: A bottom-feeder Liberal, who feels that they have every right to get hold of their “fair” share of what you sweat and bleed to earn; a hard-hearted, though not as tough as you make out to be Conservative; or something other, better.

Thank God that I leaned toward this last. Thank God I decided that I don’t have any right to what morally belongs to someone else. Thank God that I never let the thin steel get into my blood, making me heartless, and unaccepting. I learned to judge people by their choices, to bother with or not bother with folks based on their merits as people, disregarding everything else.

The Libertarian Enterprise started me down this road.

Which is not to say that the road has always been easy. In the early 2000’s, I became so infuriated with the Libertarian Party figureheads, and their, to me, bassackwards politics that I turned off. When the political party that formed my hopes for the future looked to be turning away from a firm conviction that the Bill of Rights was paramount, toward a more Don’t-mess-with-my-drugs-or-porn-and-you-can-take-away-the-rest-of-my-God-given-rights,-no-problem kind of mentality, I could have spit.

I went years with my back turned to what I saw as a betrayal, a bastardization of what I had embraced. I lamented the time wasted. In truth, I’d done what I always do. See, as a youngster, I’d done the same thing with religious belief. I’d hated organized religion and its “our way or the highway” presentation, and mutated that into a hate for God. It was’t until I had it pointed out to me that hating religion and hating God weren’t the same thing that perspective came. Likewise, over the past few years, that kind of perspective came to my view of politics.

To look at the meaningless figureheads of all political parties, and blame the followers of the body politic can be s foolish. Reading this incredible cyber magazine weekly can prove that. Each week I am brought ideas that embrace those beliefs that first brought me to politics in the first place. I get to read the thoughts of people, smarter than me, whose words have moved, and continue to move, me. These things are important.

What we have here is pure love. Love of freedom. Love of integrity. Love of learning. We are visited every seven days by folks that have more in common with us, over thousands of miles, than we have with many who are blood relations. This is as much a family gathering, as the worlds best, most intelligent, fan convention. It brings more and more people to the cause of freedom every time a new issue is published.

Over the past couple of months, it has been my absolute honor to see my words published alongside those that so helped to mold me into the man that I am today. If I never write another word, I can be contented to know that some of those that I’ve already scribbled are here, to be enjoyed by posterity.

I sometimes delude myself into thinking that somewhere along the line, some otherwise intelligent 17-year old might read something that I’ve written, and be turned on to the Libertarian philosophy. In all likelihood, it’ll never happen. My words aren’t impressive, or moving, enough. Doesn’t matter, though, does it? If it never happens again, it at least happened the once.

To me.

So, L. Neil, TLE, and all others involved in actively making the world a better, more liberty-minded place, on the momentous event of your 1,000th issue: thank you.