The Rebel
by Robert Groezinger
Junge Freiheit, 27 June 2014
The American commentator and journalist Llewellyn Harrison Rockwell, Jr., who turns seventy on July 1, is one of the leaders of the libertarian world. Few others are so uncompromising in their criticism of government interventions into citizens’ private lives, of taxes, of government welfare and government education. Hardly anyone combines this criticism so consistently with the condemnation of foreign policy interference in the affairs of other countries. Hardly anyone has offered so comprehensively private alternatives, for example in the areas of medicine, nutrition and safety in the neighborhood, where, according to Rockwell's opinion, the state has totally failed.

"Lew," as his friends call him, has only contempt for the state-friendly media. He recently expelled a New York Times reporter from the site of his Ludwig von Mises Institute in Alabama, telling him he was "part of the regime". This institute, which was founded by Rockwell in 1982 and is run by him to this day, includes twenty senior fellows and seventy associated scholars. It is named after the strictly free market economist, who died in 1973, and who is the most important representative of the so-called Austrian School (AS). It advocates the radical shrinkage of the state. The mission of the Institute is the promotion of "classical liberalism", specifically and explicitly under the banner of this school of thought. Any attempt to do good with government funds leads, according to the AS to side effects, which the state again feels called to fix: Until it becomes a juggernaut outwardly aggressive and inwardly surveilling and regulating everything.
The state is the "greatest worldly enemy of humanity," says Rockwell, a Catholic. Although the Tea Party movement is not quite as radical: Without Rockwell's journalistic groundwork their electoral success would probably have been probably smaller. The growing skepticism of his countrymen against foreign missions - as in the case of Syria - may also be at least partly attributable to Rockwell.
Maybe that's his biggest success so far.
Lew is doing God's work. I came to the Libertarian movement via his writings. May God bless him and grant him a long life
ReplyDeleteHe was my introduction as well and has been a consistent role model for over fifteen years. Always reasonable, always compassionate, never backs down from principle. Not by coincidence are my oldest son's initials LEW.
DeleteIt's a thrill to see him get any kind of media exposure.
I hope, at some point in my life, to get an email or letter or text that says "Thank you for introducing me to Mises, Rothbard and Rockwell."
ReplyDeleteSRSLY- this is one of my "Bucket List" things.
In the meantime I will just keep telling people how to get to "REAL libertarianism".