Tag Archives: Leaving the Sandbox

Book Review: Leaving the Sandbox (2014)

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Grand strategy for Libertarians in an era of wanton federal crimes and terror
by Brian Wright

Reposting this review on the eve of my 2018 campaign for state representative in Michigan. The LP is the vehicle upon which I’m seeking the office, but my mission is more fundamental: establishing a system in Michigan for First Principles grand juries via legis-lative act. My brochure lies here: http://brianrwright.com/BW38th.pdf. The book reviewed is about how the LP became controlled opposition and must change its stripes entirely. A bit dated now thanks to my First Principles GJ route, but still worthwhile ideas for the LP.  

FrontReviewed by the author.

Only a large-scale popular movement toward decentralization and self-help can arrest the present tendency toward statism…

A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude. To make them love it is the task assigned, in present-day totalitarian states, to ministries of propaganda, newspaper editors and schoolteachers.

— Aldous Huxley

Leaving the Sandbox is my book on grand strategy for the Libertarian Party, in particular,  and for the liberty movement in general (in terms of what can be done sans party to bring about a free society).

From the Foreword

The motive force of the Old Paradigm—a political-economic Western Cabal with immense and concentrated state power and material resources—is desperately trying to hang on to its Old World privileges. The average American feels this in the onrushing accouterments of the federalized, militarized police state, where citizens have all the rights the Occupying Government tells us we can have. Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: Speculation on Johnson-Weld 2016

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The success scenario is not all that unlikely considering the context

Cover_Leaving_Sandbox_FrontProprietor’s Note—I’ve written extensively on the Libertarian Party (LP) and Libertarian grand strategy, in particular, with my Pusillanimous Prize-winning book, Leaving the Sandbox: Grownup grand strategy and operations for Libertarians in an era of wanton US federal crimes and terror. More recently, in my novel, The Truman Prophecy, I’ve referred to the LP as being rife with anarchists of the irrelevant kind… thus I saw very little in the way of prospects for it.

As usual, the world is far more unpredictable than my understandings; at the national LP convention in Orlando this year, instead of dissolving itself in a flurry of ‘Dilatory Young Men Who Pontificate Incessantly on the Nonaggression Principle,’ the party goes the other way and basically sells its soul to the Republican Establishment. It nominates Gary Johnson (P) and William Weld (VP) (Weld, by a whisker), both utilitarian rather than principled libertarians—having the broad moral passion of a Mitt Romney with a sense of humor.

Strangely enough, this ticket may actually be THE ticket of the 21st century! Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: A Retraction Regarding Johnson-Weld

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We simply do not have the time… for being preoccupied and distracted

SM16_Buildasign_ProofIt’s been how many years? And how old am I? But as most of us who want to believe the best (and who know how hard the struggle has been to achieve true liberty in our time), I was sucked in by imaginings that the J-W ticket heralded a sea change toward uncharacteristic competence and effectiveness in the Libertarian Party at the national level. Please take a moment to review my earlier column: “The LP 2016 National Convention.”

Interestingly, the only part of that previous column that I have to retract is under the level 3 heading ‘This Time the Veep Candidacy was the Potential Foot Shot’. That is where I suggest that even though we have to keep an eye on Mr. Weld, the points in his favor are solid: 1) he’s VP, not P, 2) he brings lots of ATMM (access to money and media) to the table, 3) he speaks succinctly and incisively, with wit and humor, 4) his US attorney record of going after corrupt establishment Republicans (and Democrats) is solid, and 5) he wants the job.
Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: The 2016 LP National Convention

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Libertarians nominate presidential ticket Gary Johnson/William Weld,
now actually standing a chance of winning the 2016 election… IF…

SM_Johnson-Weld… they continue to avoid shooting themselves in the foot (as was ever their wont) and rise to the challenge of The Truman Prophecy… by committing themselves to the Snowden-Manning political program. [In a phrase, the Libertarians “have to bring real truth and real justice to real people.”]

Note: From Shane Trejo’s column here, I realize that Weld, with some disturbing specifics to his background, could be a colossal mistake. But I don’t think so. As I try to point out in this column, what matters isn’t who our candidates are but the political program they will effect. And WE, the truth-justice-liberty warriors, will be—or certainly can be—the driver of what they do. They represent us; we have to insist they embrace the Snowden-Manning program, or else! ALL parties and ALL candidates.

It was a cliffhanger from what my Rose—watching CSPAN—was telling me with regular updates this afternoon. Gary Johnson won the presidential nod this morning on a second ballot, handily. But his preferred vice-presidential candidate, William Weld—another former two-term Republican governor in a largely Democratic state (Massachusetts 1991-1997)—had to duke it out with a handful of presumably fine individuals yet having the political notability of the dogcatcher in Enid, Oklahoma. Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: Whither the Libertarian Party/LPM?

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Some thoughts from The Truman Prophecy

vulturePerformance-driving enthusiast, automotive engineer, and 30-something go-getter Ypsi Sam, a few years ago when he lived in Flint, had spent an unconscionable amount of time (and several hundred dollars of his own money) trying to bring some semblance of, well, normal middle-class, dual-gender, all-age, outreach-oriented appeal to the Genesee County LP affiliate. Only to be met with harsh rejection by the forces of what seemed a bizarre sect of Goth-Voluntaryist-Anarchist-Nihilist national boys’ clubs.

The Genesee Boys’ Club, despite its members’ eternal harangues for Purity of Anarchist Essence—no compromise with any institution or instrument of ‘Existing Coercive Government’ at any level or for any reason—sought to take over the state LP, which of course is a political party whose objective is to run candidates for office in ‘Existing Coercive Government.’ And none of these boy wonders saw the contradiction. Continue reading →

Book Review: Introduction to the Libertarian Party (2013)

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For Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Independents, and everyone else
by Wes Benedict

WesBenedictAnyone who has been around the Libertarian Party (LP) as long as I have—from its founding and with a long absence 1972-1978 and some shorter occasional absences since—can cite a relative handful of books that were LP ‘culture bearers,’ from first presidential candidate John Hospers’ scholarly Libertarianism, to David Bergland’s Libertarianism in One Lesson (now in its < > printing), to Dr. Mary Ruwart’s Healing Our World (coming up on an acclaimed third edition), and of course to all the polemical masterpieces of Professor Murray Rothbard (perhaps the most LP-centered being For a New Liberty). And a host of others that don’t come to mind at the moment.

Wes Benedict’s Introduction to the Libertarian Party is a worthy candidate for an LP book of the times, meaning these times—let’s say late 1990s to the present. It sports several notable features: Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: Truth and Justice Caucus

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

2d_revolutionIn 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 →