Following the Founders

The Founders advised us to trade and get along with other nations-and, for the most part, we do. Trade is one of the cornerstones of a healthy, free society. But they never advised us to be suckers. How would they have handled the idea that a country thousands of miles away could build a weapon that could be used against American citizens? How would they have approached a scenario in which sea routes that make "free trade" possible were threatened by a navy controlled by radicals?

Actually, we already to know the answer to that last question. In the early nineteenth century President Thomas Jefferson sent navy ships to the Barbary states of northern Africa to fight Muslim pirates who were blackmailing and terrorizing Americans. He realized that to protect American interests we had to take the fight to the enemy. Clearly, that concept of intervention was not a foreign idea to our Founders.

Our Founders-who wrote the very Constitution that Paul says he gets mandates from-were keenly aware that they lived in a growing, interconnected world. One of the intellectual heroes of the Revolutionary War, Thomas Paine-a pretty libertarian guy by any standard-once wrote that "the cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind." We can't just ignore the events shaping the world, even if they are happening in another part of it.

In some ways it's frustrating that we still have to have this conversation. Yes, I know that every situation is unique, but what would this world look like if we had never intervened in World War II? The Jews left in Europe would have been completely destroyed and perhaps millions of Chinese and Slavs (and many others nationalities) would have been massacred and enslaved. Sooner or later we would have had to confront Hitler or else we'd succumb to him ourselves. And sometimes sooner is better; sometimes it's true that an ounce of prevention (although, in the case of war, it's a lot more than an ounce) is worth a pound of cure.

If you reread Ron Paul's description of his own foreign policy, you'll notice one phrase that really sticks out: "practice diplomacy." You'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who disagrees, but you'll also be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn't think that's what America does. Even Ron Paul must understand that sometimes, however, it simply doesn't work. Ask Hitler. Ask bin Laden. Ask Saddam. We've been working diplomatically with the U.N. and others to promote change in Iran and North Korea for how long now? If we, as a nation, don't defend the welfare and lives of our citizens, there will be no freedom to protect.

And it's not like the U.S. just started protecting its interests abroad when George W. Bush was elected; we've been doing it from the beginning. Almost immediately after our independence we found ourselves in an undeclared quasi-war when the French began terrorizing our ships and trade routes. And it was Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison-not exactly a cabal of neoconservatives, I might add-who sent American marines overseas to protect our interest. Is Paul suggesting that those guys weren't libertarian enough?

I agree that America should not be the world's babysitter. I agree that we should not be in a war without declaring it. I agree that we should not have military bases all over the world (over 650 at last count). I agree that we should take a close look at our foreign aid every year. So, yes, there must be commonsense limits to our national defense, but libertarians do not need to be isolationists.

CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

When the Tea Party movement was getting off the ground, David Kirby, a policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, became somewhat skeptical about the mainstream media's portrayal of these activists. Were they really a bunch of angry, far right-wing, bloodthirsty racists? Shockingly, no. "Many political scientists and political pundits who have not examined the data," Kirby wrote, "wrongly conclude the Tea Party is the GOP's base of extreme fiscal and social conservatives."

Kirby spoke with Tea Party supporters at the Virginia Tea Party Convention in 2010 and published his results on Politico.com. Instead of raging hatemongers, Kirby found a conservative move toward more pure libertarian ideas-especially regarding free markets.

Most legitimate national surveys have confirmed that result, finding that the Tea Party is libertarian leaning, but socially conservative. The bone of contention between libertarians and conservatives, in general, has always been whether or not government should be promoting traditional values in society.

One of the most misunderstood aspects of libertarianism is that people confuse policy and morality. Government can't make you moral. It can't make you thin. It certainly can't make you sober.

Remember, the Founders believed that there was a major difference between "liberty" and "license." Friedrich von Hayek put it best when he explained, "Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions. . . . Liberty and responsibility are inseparable."

In contrast, "license" is having liberty without any regard for rules of personal conduct or morality. There is a big difference. Liberty means recognizing the consequences of actions. License, as the most famous example goes, means yelling fire in a crowded movie theater. Libertarians believe in liberty, not license.

Ronald Reagan, the most revered modern conservative politician, said, "If you analyze it, I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. . . . The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is."

William F. Buckley Jr., one of the founders of the modern conservative movement and the founder of National Review, referred to himself as a "libertarian journalist." Barry Goldwater, the godfather of political conservatism, was essentially a libertarian and, still today, remains a political hero to many modern-day libertarians. Yet all of these people, and many others like them, were stalwart social conservatives when it came to traditional values.

The initial success of the Tea Party bodes well for the future of the movement, as does the historic 2010 congressional victories by Republicans. That was, without a doubt, the most libertarian class of elected officials in history. Congressmen like Rand Paul and Mike Lee are libertarians who understand that, without the strong moral underpinnings of faith, freedom can't work.

"I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism."

There is another area of overlap between conservatives and libertarians as well: conservatives who want to preserve traditional values understand that dependency is not helpful to the cause. Being self-sufficient is the best antidote to moral decay. Senator Jim DeMint, one of the leading conservative voices in the Republican Party, has been arguing that voters need to take a more libertarian view of the world. When asked about how cultural conservatives could get along with libertarians he explained: I think the new debate in the Republican Party needs to be between conservatives and libertarians. We have a common foundation of individual liberty and constitutionally limited government. We can rationally debate some of the things we disagree on. Because I don't think the government should impose my morals or anyone else's on someone else. At the same time, I don't want the government purging morals and religious values from our society. We can find a balance there.

He's absolutely right-but not only can we find a balance there, we must find one. And it shouldn't be that difficult: libertarians agree that government intrusion is bad for the family and that government doesn't strengthen families or our belief in God. For example, since the "War on Poverty" started we not only have more poverty; we also have destroyed the educational system and we're breaking apart families-all because of bad government policy. You know what the best way for a kid to escape poverty is? Ben Franklin nailed it: to not make them "easy" in it, to show them by example that there is a better way but that it will take hard work and personal sacrifice. Libertarians, like conservatives, believe that prosperity fosters more self-reliance, stronger families, and more moral societies.

Stand Up for Privacy

To understand just how far libertarians have come within the Republican Party, let's look at the Patriot Act. For years, Republicans were champions of the antiterrorism legislation on the grounds that it made America more secure.

But, over time, things have changed, due in no small part to libertarian-minded politicians like Senator Rand Paul and Mike Lee, who are not afraid to question even those policies that their base finds acceptable. Senator Lee, for example, said: The concept that regardless of how passionately we might feel about the need for certain government intervention, we can't ever allow government to be operating completely unfettered. . . . We voted against it because we love America, because we believe in constitutional limited government, because we want to make it better, we want to make this something that can, at the same time, protect Americans but without needlessly trampling on privacy interests, including many of those privacy interests protected by the Fourth Amendment.

Whether you support the Patriot Act or not, this kind of view is healthy for America and has been missing for a while since neither party has made personal liberty and privacy a priority.

Overall, there is much more that binds libertarians and conservatives together than what keeps them apart. With that in mind, I want to quickly go through a few issues-some minor, some major-and dispel some of the myths about what being a libertarian means you're supposed to believe.

YOU CAN LOVE ISRAEL AND BE A LIBERTARIAN.

Many libertarian purists oppose providing any and all foreign aid. I agree that it's probably time we revisited the topic. Who are we giving aid to and why? But what makes me suspicious of too many other "libertarians" is that they seem to direct most of their criticism at one nation: Israel. Why would we be so overly concerned with the aid we send to the one nation that embraces the tenets of liberty and has been our most reliable ally?

Many libertarians falsely view Israel as the aggressor in the Middle East and have succumbed to the liberal inclination to always believe that the less powerful are victims-as if being less powerful makes you right. Some libertarians falsely believe that if the United States wasn't in the Middle East then Israel would be more likely to deal with Arab nations themselves and peace would be within reach.

History tells us a different story, though. It tells us that Israel has tried to form healthy diplomatic relationships with all of its enemies and, with few exceptions, has been rebuffed. But what is most incredible is that a philosophy that claims to honor freedom would take the side of groups and nations that deny their citizens that basic right.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BELIEVE IN THE GOLD STANDARD TO BE A LIBERTARIAN President Richard Nixon took America completely off the gold standard over forty years ago. From that point on, America would no longer use "hard money," a fact that has likely unleashed government spending and helped usher our national debt to unprecedented levels. Since 1971, the total amount of U.S. public debt held in the United States has risen over 500 percent (after adjusting for inflation).

But a return to the gold standard-as some libertarians like to promote-is a pipe dream. We seem to forget that even when we had the gold standard, the United States went though a serious depression and many recessions, along with years of deflation. Economic growth seemed to explode after we began turning away from gold.

Then there's the small matter of gold being a precious metal and a limited resource. By my quick math, we would have to invade every county in the world and steal all their gold just to pay off our national debt.

What people who like the gold standard idea are reacting to is out-of-control government spending. They figure that if you tie politicians' hands by not allowing us to print and inflate our money then fiscal sanity will follow. But there are other ways to do that, policies that would be effective and, just as important, could actually pass through Congress. I'm talking about things like a balanced budget amendment with future spending caps, term limits, and the like. (I covered these issues in depth in my book Broke.) These are not new ideas but they are absolutely things that both conservatives and libertarians should be able to embrace.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BELIEVE IN OPEN BORDERS TO BE A LIBERTARIAN Many libertarians believe in open borders. Not just relaxed immigration laws, but lawlessness. Sorry, that's not going to work for me. I can understand the emotional arguments, the "free trade" arguments, etc.-but there is nothing libertarian about rewarding those who break the law.

Milton Friedman, the great libertarian economist, once observed that America "cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state." I'm not sure why more libertarians don't understand this concept, especially since it's already happening. Allowing foreigners to take advantage of a system in which nearly half of Americans don't pay any federal income tax is a libertarian nightmare.

BEING A LIBERTARIAN DOESN'T MAKE YOU SELFISH One of the most consistent attacks on libertarians is that they are somehow selfish and hateful. For example, Van Jones, the former Obama administration green jobs czar recently said that libertarians "hate the people, the brown folk, the gays, the lesbians, the people with piercings . . ."

Progressives aren't the only ones who label libertarians that way. Conservative Washington Post columnist and former George W. Bush chief speechwriter Michael Gerson once wrote that libertarians promote "a freedom indistinguishable from selfishness." Economist Jeffrey Sachs wrote, "Libertarians hold that individual liberty should never be sacrificed in the pursuit of other values or causes. Compassion, justice, civic responsibility, honesty, decency, humility, respect, and even survival of the poor, weak, and vulnerable-all are to take a back seat."

This argument is so stupid that it's actually laughable. It's like calling someone you disagree with a racist, sexist, or Islamophobe. I like to call it the "EZ Chair" argument because these people are so lazy that they resort to the most stereotypical line of attack possible.

It's really ironic that those who support government taking the hard-earned money of private individuals-money that could go toward creating jobs, giving to charity, and sending children to school-and throwing it into one wasteful project after the next are the ones out there calling other people selfish.

It is common for the left, and even many Republicans, to confuse charity and coercion. It's why politicians call the money they steal from taxpayers and spend "investments." A libertarian believes in social cooperation, not social coercion. A libertarian believes in real charity rather than coercion that funnels their money to wherever government thinks it's best served.

Now in the EZ Chair: Jeffrey Sachs

Here's how the EZ Chair argument might work in reverse: Jeffrey Sachs is an elite of the highest order, a guy who sits in the cozy confines of his Columbia University office (where he attempts to "solve" man-made global warming) without having any clue how the real world works. He's spent so much time collecting degrees and being part of a university faculty that the idea that people might actually want to work for a living probably makes him queasy. He's probably written a bunch of scholarly books with high-minded titles implying how smart he is (like "The End of Poverty") and I bet he's so "accomplished" that he has three versions of his biography listed on his website: short, medium, and long so that you can select which version you want by how much time you have to read about how perfect he is.

In his book Who Really Cares? The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism, Arthur Brooks finds strong evidence that charitable giving is influenced by "strong families, church attendance, earned income (as opposed to state-subsidized income), and the belief that individuals, not government, offer the best solution to social ills-all of these factors determine how likely one is to give."

It turns out that those who believe in classical liberalism tend to give a lot more. Brooks found that "conservative" households gave an average of 30 percent more money to charity than liberal households-even though liberals make approximately 6 percent more. How's that for "selfish"?

Those who believe that the government, or some federal program, can ever take the place of individual compassion are clearly short on another ingredient that's imperative for success: intelligence.

THE PLAN.

Libertarians are not going to be able to change minds overnight. In fact, that's part of the problem: we want Americans to move much faster than they ever will. We don't understand how people could know so little about history that they're falling for the same tricks all over again. We can't fathom how people willingly hand over their rights and power to a heartless, soulless, brainless entity.

But libertarians have to understand that there is no quick-fix, Jiffy Lube, thirty-minute solution. The only strategy that has any chance to succeed is to dismantle and reverse-engineer the entire system, brick by brick, until it's back down to its foundation. Only then can it be built back up the right way. Think about what would happen if you tried to just instantaneously legalize drugs or rip away programs or entitlements that people have been dependent on for generations. Riots if we're lucky, revolution if we're not. Either way, libertarian policy would not be high on the agenda at that point.

For decades Americans have been raised to believe that entitlement programs are their God-given right. The only way to overcome that is to teach principles, morals, ethics, and personal responsibility again. That takes time, and I know we're running out of it, but there's no other choice-the system has been rotted to the core over the past hundred years. We have to restore it piece by piece, but we first have to make sure that people and families and communities are strong enough to handle it.

About five years ago I was going to write a book called The One-Hundred-Year Plan, about this exact topic. Nobody wanted it. Oh, that's too long of a time, they told me. No one wants to read about a hundred-year plan; we'll all be dead by then! Can't you give us something that will work by the next election?

No! Don't you see that's exactly how we got here and why things only keep getting worse? A long time ago a group of people got together and thought outside of the box to develop a hundred-year plan that would make the Constitution essentially irrelevant. They knew they would never see the results in their lifetimes, but that was okay; they just wanted to plant the seeds.

Those are the people that libertarians must now become. We've got to think like the Chinese or early-twentieth-century American Progressives, not like political tacticians, campaign managers, or cable news executives who live and die by every daily poll, delegate count, or Nielsen rating.

None of this will be easy. In fact, it may not even be possible-a hundred years of decay is a lot to overcome. But we've got to try.

You are holding the first step in your hands right now. It's the truth. About America, about the threats we face, and about those who are working hard every day to take away our exceptionalism. Only when people truly understand what progressivism has brought us-an educational system that churns out kids who can't think for themselves, a government that won't face the truth about Islamists' agenda for the world, and a media that is complicit in it all-will they be willing to join the fight.

"Everybody says that I have a lot of power. But what does that power consist of? . . . Can I influence governments? I am beginning to be able to. . . . ."

-George Soros, 1995 SOME PEOPLE seem like they were born to play puppet master. (I believe it was the profound philosophers Tears for Fears who said "everybody wants to rule the world.") Of course, not everybody has the resources to actually pull it off. Not everybody wants to force others to live the way they think is best. Not everyone wants to line their pockets while they manipulate society for their own benefit.

The fact that we all think our ideas are the best ones makes sense. If you thought something else would work better, you'd possibly change your mind. That's why I believe that one of the most impressive feats accomplished by the founders of this country was to recognize their own imperfection. They created the most brilliant foundation for a country in world history-yet they were smart enough to realize that they might not have thought of everything.

They had a free ride to grab as much power as they wanted in a brand-new country where they were heroes. Yet they spent all of their time devising ways to prevent anyone-including themselves-from ever claiming too much of it. They recognized that only God could grant rights that were self-evident. The federal government would protect those rights, and cede the rest to the states. If something in the Constitution needed to be tweaked, there was the constitutional-amendment process.

All of this resulted in a framework that has been able to handle more than two hundred years of a burgeoning nation's experimental existence, simply and effectively. It is now the globe's longest-lasting constitution.

Our Constitution declares that sovereignty shall rest in the people.

Our Declaration proclaims that "all men are created equal."

I've read both of those documents many times and nowhere in them can I find anything that acts to qualify the above two tenets of society. No "but's," no "except for's," no "unless they really want to's." That's why it's surprising to see that some people have determined that they are above the law; that their money and influence should somehow afford them more rights, powers, and influence than others.

One of those people is a billionaire named George Soros.

BIRTH OF A BILLIONAIRE.

George Soros was born to Tividar and Erzebat Schwartz, nonpracticing Jews, in Budapest, Hungary, on August 12, 1930. According to Soros, his mother was "quite anti-Semitic, and ashamed of being Jewish." Soros's father was an attorney by profession, but his main focus seemed to be the promotion of Esperanto, a "universal" (aka "completely made up") language created during the 1880s. Proponents believed that if the world would share one language, we could eventually achieve one world government and get rid of this silly idea of national sovereignty.

In 1936, two years after Hitler came to power and the attacks on Jews intensified, Soros's father decided to sever the family's Jewish roots altogether and change his surname to Soros, a future-tense Esperanto verb meaning "will soar." When the Nazis occupied Budapest in 1944, Soros's father purchased forged papers identifying the family as Christians and bribed a fascist Hungarian government official named Baumbach to claim George as his Christian godson. Baumbach took the young Soros, then fourteen, on at least one of his trips to take the possessions of a Jewish family that had been forced to leave the country.

Lessons in Esperanto

Marioneto majstro-(n) puppet master *

In December 1998, Soros appeared in a segment of CBS's 60 Minutes and was asked by Steve Kroft about that experience: KROFT: I mean, that's-that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it difficult?

SOROS: Not-not at all. Not at all. Maybe as a child you don't-you don't see the connection. But it was-it created no-no problem at all.

KROFT: No feeling of guilt?

SOROS: No.

KROFT: For example that "I'm Jewish and here I am, watching these people go. I could just as easily be there. I should be there." None of that?