The Political Doctrine of Statism by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

The Political Doctrine of Statism by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.:

"The Patriot Act that was rammed through after the September 2011 attacks was one of the more egregious blows against liberty in our lifetimes. It shredded core rights and liberties that had been taken for granted for centuries. Liberties are never lost all at once, but the Patriot Act, as disgusting in its details as in its name and the rhetoric that surrounded it, was for the United States the turning point, the law that best exemplifies a full-scale embrace of statism as a national ideology. It is a law so severe, so outlandish, as to cause people to forget what it means to be free.

This is why I believe Ron Paul’s book Liberty Defined to be one of the most important statements of our time. He defines liberty clearly and cleanly as freedom from coercive interference from the state. That is how the liberal tradition from Aquinas to Jefferson to Rothbard understood it, too, for there is no greater threat to liberty than the state. Its powers must be crushed if we are to revisit what liberty means.

Ron goes further to apply the principle of liberty in many of the most controversial areas of modern life. The purpose here is not to detail some governing blueprint. What Ron seeks to do is much more important. He seeks to fire up the human imagination in ways that permit people to think outside the prevailing statist norms."