Brian’s Column: Dead Horse, New Horse?

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Brian Wright

4Q 2015, Michigan. [Excerpt draft from upcoming The Truman Prophecy.]

And it came to pass in the SLOW (Spartan Land of the Wolverine) and in most other subrealms of the LOWDOWN—to be uttered in a deep Darth Vader-like voice—(Land of Worship for Deathstar Operations Worldwide No-Exceptions) that a onetime major—albeit never conventionally successful—movement for freedom sputtered to a halt. That ultimately petering-out political enterprise would be the Libertarian Party of Michigan (LPM) and Libertarian Party (LP) in general.

Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. [Good manners, consideration] … and formal politeness provide the lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as ’empty,’ ‘meaningless,’ or ‘dishonest,’ and scorn to use them. No matter how ‘pure’ their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.
— Sayings of Lazarus Long, Time Enough for Love, Robert Heinlein Continue reading →

Book Review: What to Think About (2015)

Posted on August 14, 2015 by Brian Wright

Philosophy for a thoughtful younger generation
by Chris Brockman

Let’s see it would be somewhere in the late 1970s and early 1980s, during my life in the SE Michigan general liberty movement—which at that time still had a decidedly Libertarian Party component, at least for me—Chris and his wife Julie were welcome, sane voices in that not always august milieu. In 1978, Chris wrote a short book What about gods?, which became the modern standard for helping children think intelligently about the phantasmagoric world of deities and religion. [I would like gods? to be required reading for first graders in the government schools… but of course someone on the school board would jump up to shoot down such an ‘irreverent’ book for junior and his friends. “What about moral values!?” they’d exclaim.]

Exactly. Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: Truth and Justice Caucus

Posted on August 9, 2015 by Brian Wright

Proposing a Truth and Justice Caucus for the Libertarian Party
[… and perhaps apply it to the other political parties]

In the interests of growing party participation toward the ultimate goal of a free society worldwide, I’m forming the ‘Good Neighbor Truth and Justice (GNT&J) Caucus’ to persuade LP and Libertarian Party of Michigan supporters to take a new political strategy along the lines advocated in my books, Leaving the Sandbox (http://www.amazon.com/Leaving-Sandbox-Grownup-Strategy-Libertarians/dp/150031501X/?tag=thecofcoa-20) and After 9/11 Truth (http://www.amazon.com/After-11-Truth-Death-Humanity/dp/1507662416/?tag=thecofcoa-20) (and other sources). Specifically, the caucus will: Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: Occupational Hazards

Posted on May 3, 2015 by Brian Wright

… plus did we just hear the death knell for biotech and Big Agra/Pharma?

Okay, sad to say, I wasn’t always this brilliant and worked out, completely correct on every issue that I deign to wield my pen at. 🙂 No sir. In fact, as recent as late 2008 I wrote a column—in the interests of full disclosure it remains at this location in my old format—that advocated voting for Obama above John McCain (even over the LP candidate that year, Bob Barr).

[I’ll never live that one down, but you can see the problem that McCain was simply a continuation of the warmonger Bush machine; a lot of other libertarians held their noses for peace and helped to launch the presidency of the Great Dictator born in Kenya. Also, I’m on record in some forum or book in 2004-ish as favoring John Kerry over LP choice, Michael Badnarik, to give a more emphatic NO to George Bush II. I know, in particular, I created hard feelings over the Badnarik slight. And I’m not happy in retrospect with the flippant-bordering-on-disrespectful style I used to disparage a vote for Michael. Sorry. (He was and is a wonderful stalwart for liberty, who has written an excellent book, Good to be a King, and teaches classes on the Constitution to audiences, nationwide.) ] Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: My Bette Erwin Memorial

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Brian Wright

Tribute to a fiery leader who nurtured the cause of liberty

Bette_Erwin This is an encore piece (originally penned January 8, 2007) as I reach the last of the columns I created in the former clunky format. By conjuring up memories of the way we were—at least here in L/libertarian Michigan in the final quarter of the 20th century—it propels me to think more strongly from the roots of experience. Also, the Libertarian Party that she helped to seed has reached, by many people’s accounts, a Day of Reckoning. It is good to reflect on the salient plusses that arose under its auspices. — bw

For a while I was afraid no one would find out about her passing; finally some solid information emerged from a scattering of emails from friends and who knew her back in the day. “The day” being roughly 1974-1984 in Michigan libertarian politics.

During the period when Bette came to preeminence—she was the Michigan Libertarian Party candidate for US Senate in 1976 and 1982—I was into my iconoclastic-anarchist phase. Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: Good Neighbor Libertarian Quickstart Guide

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Brian Wright

Intended to orient and get affiliates and individuals going quickly

Note:

This column is based on a two-sided, one-sheet description of the same name, which I’ve uploaded to a pdf file here. The idea behind it is to provide advance information on the Good Neighbor Libertarian (GNL, pronounced genial) political activation system I’m writing a book about. This GNL system is essentially a methodology for generating rapid growth in effective libertarian solutions to the main categories of the massive central corporate-state assault upon real human individuals in the incipient American police state. I also expect to dramatically raise ‘body count’ of caring, effective people monitoring public-official councils and holding them accountable for securing liberty. Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: Context for Leaving the Sandbox

Posted on June 8, 2014 by Brian Wright

A passionate appeal to fellow Libertarians

This is from the front matter to my book on Libertarian grand strategy Leaving the Sandbox, scheduled for completion June 21, 2014.

Roughly 2005 while I was embarked on the Free State journey in New Hampshire[1] an agorist disciple/leader and international philosophical man of intrigue, Jack Shimek, commented to me, “The Libertarian Party has set the cause of liberty back decades.” Actually, I think he said generations.

Naturally, being a longtime, if occasionally backslid, Libertarian, I resisted his assertion. Continue reading →