Firstly I’ll just say I should have left out anything about domestic economics. We have a 750 word max for editorials, in a real publication you don’t have the luxury of rambling on for as long as you have here. Furthermore, I know little about economics compared to many. What I do know is what unrestrained capitalism has done in the past, and what plain old capitalism does today – create vast injustice and inequality. You can call me a pinko commie for wanting to make the world a better place, but that’s what I think.

I won’t respond to each individual point, it’s clear we have differences of opinion that will not be settled by senseless name calling or endless internet bickering. What I will say here is that my goal in writing the article was to try to advocate support for needy people and needy countries, instead of ignoring them, as I fear will happen if we leave charity wholly in the private sector, if we just sit back and watch while the world falls apart around us, embroiled in injustice and warfare. You speak of me wanting to limit the freedom of Americans, this could not be farther from the truth. But we have an ethical responsibility to at least attempt to secure that freedom for those far less fortunate than us, instead of groveling in our own superiority.

The title that was in The Hawk – ‘Libertarian ideology will only lead to corruption and inequality’ – was not my title. I sent in the article and the article only. I’m not an editor. I do not choose the titles, and if I had the chance to choose titles that certainly would not be it. Libertarianism does not only lead to corruption and inequality. As you so lovingly pointed out, there are several points of Mr. Paul’s that I agree with. I just don’t agree that we should just sit back and let things happen as they will. With great power comes great responsibility – it’s corny but it’s true.

St. Joseph’s is a Jesuit (Catholic) institution, with the motto ‘Men and Women for others’. It is a sentiment of selflessness and social justice echoed across the religious spectrum. Personally, I’m an agnostic at best, so don’t try and demean my point by saying I’m trying impose my religion – that is completely the opposite. You need to think outside the traditional modern bullshitting disingenuous money grubbing political box, you need to realize that I have no ulterior motives other than making the entire world, not just the United States, as free and as great a place as possible.

I don’t see Americans and foreigners, I see human beings, human beings which have put up so many senseless barriers and dividers between each other that any hope of solidarity, brotherhood, or community, is practically vanished. We band together like gangs, and like gangs we only watch our backs and our friends backs. We are self-interested to the last. Your response, among other things, reflects the sad state of the money-made man. Just remember this: it’s not only you and your gangs and your allies that want that freedom. Everyone wants freedom, and everyone deserves it. I won’t twist your words for the sake of cheap humor, or attempt to construct some insidious purpose behind your article, because I know there is none, and I, unlike you, realize that both of us truly believe what we are arguing is the right thing. In the end, it comes down to this:

“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Take care.

Anyhow, you are right to correct popular misunderstandings of what libertarianism is – I’m amazed that the ideas are so alien to people and so badly represented by critics.

And while these guys wax lyrical about the oppression they believe libertarianism causes they ignore that the worst tyrannies in history involved mass government regulation. Under Stalin the poor starved. Government regulation could not feed them. Government regulation could not give them jobs, or money or a roof over their heads. It robbed them of all they had, and took the lives of millions.

It’s time to give libertarianism a chance, and I hope this guy can do it. If nothing else many more people are talking about libertarian ideals and hopefully it will awaken a sense of individualism, responsibility, desire for freedom, and repulsion of forcing others to live the way others think they should.

Time to wake up and leave The Matrix!

S.