Perspective

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sun, 25 Mar 2012 11:36:01 GMT  <== Politics ==> 

L. Neil Smith at The Libertarian Enterprise - Neil uses the life of GE's founder, Charles Proteus Steinmetz, to remind us not to get caught up in personalities. Great people are often quirky, or downright mean; they don't easily put up with idiots.

I had a fairly brisk argument today with some good friends who nevertheless didn't get this extremely simple principle: if you want control over your own life and all the products of your life, and yet you move to limit the freedom of others around you in the name of some cause you deem worthy, then when others move to limit your freedom in the name of some cause they deem worthy, you have no right to complain. You cannot pick this or that right to nullify or uphold; there is, at the base of things, only one right, the right not to be molested by anyone for any reason, no matter how desirable the outcome seems.

I'm sure my friends find me difficult. If that's the case, so be it. None of us can be free until we learn to let go of other people's lives. Other folks find Ed Crane or J. Neil Schulman, or Jim Davidson difficult.

It's the occupational hazard of revolutionaries.

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