How life informs our political perspective

My brother Bill wrote a book entitled My Libertarian Education. Essentially a political memoir, it is well-researched and well-argued, drawing from his life’s experiences.
 
Obviously, my brother and I share many commonalities regarding our childhood, most salient being raised in a family that gravitated toward personal freedom and independence. At the core, we were hard-working, middle-class, small-business-oriented people—a family that sat down and ate dinner together every evening at 6:00 PM. Many times the conversation centered around the struggles of dealing on a daily basis with the survival of our ranch (prunes and walnuts in the Santa Clara Valley) and later our motel business in Capitola. At an early age, my brother and I knew the price for a ton of prunes, what our father paid for each sixty-pound sack of picked walnuts, or the nightly and weekly rate for our two studio/kitchenette rooms on the third floor.
 
When we got older, Bill and I acquired a small auto parts business. We still own it. Throughout the decades it has become more and more difficult to stay competitive in a market that is increasingly competitive, heavily taxed, and subject to expanding regulation. It’s as if our business has essentially become a tax collection agency for the government while providing a modicum of income. Combining our family’s history along with the philosophy and business degrees my brother holds, you can understand the basis for his book and why he concludes that Libertarianism, in its true form, is the path human society should strive for.
 
While I may not agree with everything in his book, much of what he says really hits home. His writing is logical, well-laid out, and persuasive. Of course, some of his writing takes on an intellectual and philosophical tone, rendering it beyond my capacity to fully grasp its meaning. However, political scholars should find it rational, stimulating, and compelling.

How life informs our political perspective

My Libertarian Education is quite dissimilar to my historical novelFive Hundred Moons, but what I liked most about Bill’s book are the stories he tells about our family history and the many characters that are part of its tapestry. He talks about the egalitarian activities of the prune harvest, our mother’s Italian neighborhood (they were Irish) near downtown San Jose, Capitola Village in the early 1960s, and the camaraderie we enjoyed at the parts counter with customers and employees in our store.

There is a chapter about the human grief of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, the ensuing presidential elections, the civil rights movement, and the advent of the “Great Society.” But the main focus of the memoir is Bill’s introduction to classical liberal thought and his thirst for formulating ideas about one’s self and one’s relationship with the State and civilization as a whole. He chronicles the many classes he has taken, the many scholarly books he has read, and the several courses he has taught at UCSC, and he makes a very strong case for Libertarianism. No doubt he will find publishers happy to make his writing available to think tanks, political philosophy departments, and the general public. It is an important voice that needs to be heard in this country and around the world—wherever freedom of speech, thought, and deed are threatened.

My Libertarian Education is an engaging memoir sure to interest readers curious about libertarianism, students of American history,
lonely libertarians who need bucking up’,
and scholars interested in ideologies.”

 

I am delighted that my brother has written this book. He has put a lot of love and effort into it. It will become required reading with our extended family and should withstand the test of time for future generations to examine and enjoy.

My Libertarian Education is available on Amazon in both paperback and e-book.


Profitable political discussions follow when we ask each other,
“Why do you think that?”
and then really listen.

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  1. Pinterest downloader

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