My Personal Odyssey through
Political Thought
I live in Austin, Texas. I grew up a Texan,
did one stint of five years outside the state, but always knew I would return home.
I learned my
avid individualism from my dad along with a work ethic and the importance of staying out of debt. It took me a few experiences
for those lessons to sink in, but they have taken hold of my core.
My political odyssey is rather comical
on the one hand, but rather pathetic on the other hand. I never took politics all that serious until I was about twenty-four
years old. And it took me a number of years to develop the ability to systematize my thoughts around politics. Prior to being
caught up in the 60's, I considered myself "conservative" without knowing what that label fully stood for. I simply
believed that taxes shouldn't be high, that government welfare was wasteful, and that people needed to save beyond Social
Security. About 1972, I stepped into the tail-end of the 60's cultural upheaval and decided that I was "liberal"
without fully understanding what that label meant as well. I felt to my core that something was wrong with the Vietnam fiasco,
and that the idea of policing the world had gone sour at least since Korea. In 1980 I gravitated back toward conservatism, having a rudimentary
understanding of inflation and government spending, and voting for Reagan throughout the 80's. I still had an uneasy feeling
about our military presence around the world, but I didn't really know how to articulate what I felt and believed.
The
label "conservative" didn't set well with me, as it had done in my earlier days. During the time of Reagan's two
terms, I came across the economist Milton Friedman. And even though I had heard of libertarianism, I had little comprehension
of what that label entailed politically. But Friedman stirred my soul thorough his explanation of the concept of "liberal"
and its historical origins. For the first time I began to develop a foundation for Classical Liberal thought.
As
someone who studied in the social sciences, (I am a professional counselor or psychotherapist), I came across a couple of
works by F. A. Hayek called The Sensory Order and The Counter-Revolution in Science. Having been drawn
to Hayek and his writings in the social sciences, I then discovered that he had won the Nobel Prize in economics, which had
been his primary occupation. And alas I came across The Road to Serfdom and his works on Classical Liberalism
The Constitution of Liberty and the The Fortunes of Liberalism. I was on my way to becoming a thoroughgoing
libertarian.
In Hayek's work The Fortunes of Liberalism, I discovered the Austrian
School of economics and came across the name Ludwig von Mises. Being introduced to Mises, I discovered another work on Classical
Liberalism entitled Liberalism. It was the first work I read by Mises. I began searching the web for any information
on Mises and discovered the Mises Institute, administered by Lew Rockwell Jr. Via the Mises Institute, I
came across a work by Mises called Human Action. I'm not anywhere close to comprehending the author's magnus opus,
but having delved into it, I am solidly a libertarian. The system of thought on liberty began to fall in place for me - natural rights, property rights,
individualism, limited and restricted government, non-interventionism, both in domestic and foreign policy, and a true understanding
of laissez faire capitalism.
Following Mises, my journey continued as I discovered other writers that
awoke my soul to personal liberty - the anarchist Murray Rothbard; the great individualist thinkers, Albert Jay Nock, Frank
Chodorov, John T. Flynn, and Garet Garrett; the economist Henry Hazlitt; the satirist H. L. Mencken, and others. Rothbard's
clarification of anarchism has led me to consider on what part of the continuum I fall in terms of Classical Liberalism, minarchism,
and anarchism. Suffice it to say, I have reached a point where I am anti-state and believe that government should be severely
limited and restricted with extreme prejudice.
My journey would not be complete without mentioning the fact
that spiritually, I am a Christian, but have wavered along that path in various and a sundry directions. My spiritual beliefs
form what I consider the foundation of natural rights. I am somewhat at odds with the evangelical community that tends, as
I see it, to cloister themselves from taking on world issues and concerns. I have a broader view of calling and ministry than
I did as a younger believer, and I'm not comfortable with the mega-church movement in evangelical Christianity. I'm less comfortable
with the mega-church leaders and Christian professionalism that creates a hierarchy for itself that deems full-time professional
Christian work as an upper tier of existence. From the first time that I read Francis Schaffer and his discussion of the upper
and lower stories, which describe the thought of those who split the spiritual from the material world, his position jived
with me, and I've held it ever since. Over the years I gravitated to Christian authors such as Dallas Willard, Richard Foster,
Os Guinness, Philip Yancey, and Mark Noll. Although I agree with evangelicals along most theological lines (I'm no longer
an avid Calvinist), I find I do not fit well in the sub-culture of evangelicalism. Libertarianism informs my view of my faith
as well. I'm leery of mega-centralized churches, headed by a mega-church leader or an oligarchy of leaders.
Today,
I am well along the path of libertarianism. And areas that I am studying include 1) implications of the 10th Amendment and
Nullification (via the work of Tom E. Woods); 2) repealing the 16th Amendment and abolishing the IRS (via the thought of Ron
Paul); 3) abolishing the Federal Reserve Bank and the central banking system (via the thought of Ron Paul); 4) the implications
of the business cycle (via the work of Hayek, von Mises, and others); 5) property rights (via the work the Hernando DeSoto).
Libertarianism is not merely about politics. In many
ways it's anti-politics. It is a way of living that values personal liberty above all. It entails a way of living that knows
there are little to no guarantees, and that no power, deemed the State, can exist to secure us from the risks of living. Despite
the rise of the State, as an individualist and libertarian, I seek to carve out my life as I see fit, the best way I can,
even in the face of the rise of collectivism.
So do I take politics seriously now?
Yes, but only in the sense that I want to live as freely as I can, ridding my life of politics as much as possible. From a
libertarian perspective, liberty is the ultimate value, economically and politically. As long as those people exist who believe
that they should plan society and everyone else's life with it, political thought is necessary, if for no other reason, than
to hold at bay those who would believe that they should possess the power to design our lives as they see fit.
J. Victor Jones
September 2010
