THE MORATORIUM

PLARS, by L. Neil Smith

About a billion and a half years ago, way back in the 1950s or 1960s, on some long-forgotten weekly western television drama, a nifty little language lesson was offered that has somehow stuck with me ever since.

Strategy and Tactics, by L. Neil Smith

Each morning I find a dozen messages in my e-mail concerning evil plots by the current administration or some other enemy of individual liberty to take away our guns, our money, our homes, our children, our cars, our land, our gardens, our right to speak out, or travel freely, or whatever else it is that momentarily tickles their kleptocratic fancy.

Their kleptocratic and murderous fancy.

Seldom does this litany of grievances conclude with any suggestion about stopping collectivist predation, or punishing the predators. The focus is always on what "They" did to us in the past, on what "They" are doing to us now, or on what "They" are planning to do to us in the future.

Had Enough Yet?

An earlier version of this essay appeared in The Libertarian Enterprise For each of us who demands nothing more from the civilization we live in — and contribute our efforts to — than absolute ownership and control of our own lives (and, as Ayn Rand noted, the products of our lives) there has been nothing but [...]