August 1998
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History is on the side of freedom, Cato's David Boaz tells delegates
"We're winning," David Boaz told Libertarian Party convention delegates over lunch on July 3.
In his speech -- entitled "Liberty Versus Power: The Eternal Struggle" -- he urged Libertarians to take the "long view" and look beyond the Beltway, where "never mind devolution, most of the power remains in Washington and Hillary and Bill Clinton are profoundly anti-family and anti-individual."
Boaz, vice president at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, DC, is the author of many books, on subjects ranging from education and drug policy to the history of libertarian thought. Most recently, he wrote and edited Libertarianism: A Primer and The Libertarian Reader.
In his wide-ranging speech, he touched on the historic and political lessons of those two books to examine how America arrived at the point it is at today.
"The roots of libertarianism extend deep into Western culture," Boaz said. "Libertarianism wasn't something dreamed up by Murray Rothbard in 1969. Throughout history, the eternal battle has been between the forces of liberty and the forces of power. It has played out in ancient Greece, in the Magna Carta, in the fight against slavery, the rule of kings and, in recent times, authoritarianism."
However, as gloomy as the prospects for freedom sometimes appear, the forces of liberty are clearly on the right side of history, Boaz said.
"Liberty unleashed the technology revolution in the 19th century -- it created the modern world," he said. "In our day, is it an accident that the most dynamic companies are in Seattle and the San Francisco Bay area, the farthest from Washington, DC? We have much to be optimistic about. The premise of the new world economy is libertarian."
Boaz also had some advice for Libertarians. First, that they must do a better job explaining what they believe, he said.
"Many of our critics misunderstand Libertarianism -- believing it's the philosophy of misanthropic anarchists living deep in the woods behind barbed wire," he said. "We need to do a better job of communicating our commitment to both liberty and responsibility."
And Boaz urged Libertarians to reach out to new constituencies.
"Earlier Libertarians missed an opportunity and alienated generations of potential Libertarians because they ignored anti-Semitism and Jim Crow laws," he said. "Gays and lesbians are an opportunity for us today. We have a good record on gay rights and we need to leverage it. Republicans are doing their best to insult and drive gays and lesbians out of [their] party -- and despite this, about one-third of gays and lesbians vote Republican [because they favor less government, lower taxes, and economic freedom]."
Taxes and statism are making Americans poorer than we should be, Boaz acknowledged -- which is why Libertarians also can't ignore Washington, no matter how much they dislike the politicians and institutions of that city.
"It's a dirty job [working in Washington], but somebody's got to do it," he quipped. "Cato is a small voice in Washington asking a few embarrassing questions and trying to educate journalists that we need to apply Smokey the Bear,s rules of fire safety to government: Keep it small, keep it in a confined area, and keep an eye on it."
