by Alan Turin
"If the central axiom of the libertarian creed is nonaggression against anyone's person or property, how is this axiom arrived at? What is its groundwork or support? Here, libertarians, past and present, have differed considerably. Roughly, there are three broad types of foundation for the libertarian axiom, corresponding to three kinds of ethical philosophy: the emotivist, the utilitarian, and the natural rights viewpoint. The emotivists assert that they take liberty or nonaggression as their premise purely on subjective, emotional grounds. While their own intense emotion might seem a valid basis for their own political philosophy, this can scarcely serve to convince anyone else. By ultimately taking themselves outside the realm of rational discourse, the emotivists thereby insure the lack of success of their own cherished doctrine." [Murray Rothbard, For a New Liberty, page 26, 1978 edition].
Pat Buchanan coined the phrase "conservatism of the heart." In a eulogy for Mike Royko I used the phrase "libertarianism of the heart."
Murray was right about condemning to defeat "this movement of ours" if one bases his libertarianism on emotional, subjective premises.
But what about motivation? What took your libertarianism into your heart? What brought you to love or hate about this "movement of ours?" What radicalized you?
For me it came with helping my father build a house without a permit.
The time was from 1969 to 1970; I was 13 going on 14. My father had purchased an acre of land out in the "sticks" of south Dade county. My father and mother had divorced in 1960. He had moved from Miami to his hometown of Tampa and returned to Miami in late 1967.
He and I decided to build a house on this acre of land. We had to clear the land. During the 1930's the land had been a failed guava farm. Subsequent hurricanes had smashed pine trees in the lot's rear. We picked the line between where the guavas stopped and pine trees started: it had the least amount of trees to be cleared. We had to hack a path for a car from the dirt road to the building site.
Despite picking the thinnest spot I can recall cutting many trees and because of the closeness with other trees we had to rope and pull them down. This being south Florida each weekend, because that was the only time we had, we would spend an hour removing vines that would cover where we had worked the weekend before.
The house we planned was modest: a two-story house 20′ wide by 24′ deep. With the bathroom the house totaled 1,000 sq. ft. Downstairs would have a kitchen, living room, the bathroom and an office. Upstairs was for bedrooms.
We poured the foundation and framed the walls and roof. The walls were made clapboard style out of cypress planking.
Neither of us knew enough about electrical wiring to feel safe in installing that so my father hired an electrician. He and I installed the plumbing. The roof framing we did, but he did hire helpers to finish the shingling. Lastly, a cousin and a friend did the pickaxe work for clearing the coral rock where the septic tank was buried.
To be modest, my father with some help from me built 2/3 of the house.
It would be a long digression here as to how I came to own a copy of Marx's Communist Manifesto at that point, but own one I did.
The house was finished and my father went to get electricity. Which is where the "s**t hit the fan."
Florida Power & Light wanted to see the permit {"Permit? Permit? We don't need no stinkin' permit!"}.
A kid can get angry, have temper tantrums, but I had never felt so cold a fury as being told we needed to ask the government for permission to build on our private property. A line I said back then might give you a feel of how I felt, "They don't have the right to even express an opinion about what we can do on private property."
A libertarian is born. In fire. Fire?
While this was going on I was at home one night reading the Communist Manifesto. It was cold that night [a laughable concept for Miami, but go with me on this] and I was in the Florida room, which had a fireplace roaring away. My mother wanted a fireplace and she had it built. Funny, I don't think she got a building permit for it either.
Then I turned a page in Marx's book and read a sentence, "…and therefore private property should be abolished…" whereupon I got up, threw the book into the fire and stood there until every last bit of it was ashes. I helped it along with the poker.
I had never burned a book nor have I ever advocated doing such. I well remember seeing Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 a few years earlier and was thrilled and appalled by it. But the offending tome was my private property to do with what I willed. So I burned the damned thing.
A libertarian was born in fire.
So what happened with the house?
My father found out that if one asked for an agricultural usage account with the power company there was no inquiry regarding permits. Also it was a better rate per kilowatt. So there.
Coming this August 24 is the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Andrew hitting Miami. In the aftermath of that storm, I was a volunteer attorney [I am not making this up!] in the zone of destruction. After putting in my time one day, I drove to see the house my father and I built as it was close to where I had been dispensing legal advice.
Our house was in the path of "total destruction." The destruction wasn't total: "our" house was standing without any structural damage. A lot of houses in south Dade county that day were kindling and they had been given the blessing of a permit.
God bless government as it protects us from private action.
There is another anniversary: My father [and Ray Bradbury] were born the same day: August 22, 1920. My father passed away in 1995 along with Murray Rothbard and Roger Mac Bride. For me, 1995 was an annus horribilis.
Running up against a building permit as a 13 to 14 year old turned me into a "libertarian of the heart." Reading Rothbard and others gave me the tools to achieve what my heart desired.
Let me close then by borrowing [I read this in Robert Anton Wilson's Historical Illuminatus Chronicles The Widow's Son. How apt, my father was a widow's son.] from the headstone of Jonathan Swift:
He has gone where fierce indignation can no longer lacerate his heart. Go traveler. Imitate him if you can. He served liberty.
