About Liberty’s Last Stand From the Editors In the Nation The State of California Campus and Claremont On Libertarianism Print Edition Letters to the Editor Become a Writer Leave & Read Comments Links About_Libertys_Last_Stand.htmlIn_the_Nation.htmlIn_the_Nation.htmlThe_State_of_California.htmlCampus_and_Claremont.htmlOn_Libertarianism.htmlPrint_Edition.htmlLetters_to_the_Editor.htmlBecome_a_Writer.htmlLeave_%26_Read_Comments.htmlshapeimage_1_link_0shapeimage_1_link_1shapeimage_1_link_2shapeimage_1_link_3shapeimage_1_link_4shapeimage_1_link_5shapeimage_1_link_6shapeimage_1_link_7shapeimage_1_link_8shapeimage_1_link_9

From the Editors:

“A Stand”

January, 2010 Print Edition


“O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”


You may very well answer this question with rabid affirmation. You might assert that we enjoy the privilege of living in the one of the world’s few bastions of freedom. We Americans, after all, regularly participate in a robust democratic process where our political rights and freedoms are protected and cherished. We now take for granted the ability to speak, publish, and assemble freely, and have even embraced the ability to desecrate our nation’s most sacred and unifying of symbols: the flag. We participate in a relatively open economy and stand proudly as the one of the world’s most ardent defenders of free markets. And with the thirteen stripes and fifty stars waving proudly over every city, town, and village between the Atlantic and the Pacific, Francis Scott Key’s question seems more like a light-hearted joke than a serious enquiry.


Yet perhaps Marcellus’s observation about Hamlet’s Denmark is more suited to our country than we would like to admit. Eight years of rule from the right under President George W. Bush seems to have steered this haven for liberal democracy and capitalistic prosperity into dangerous waters. In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, our government gained the ability to listen to our conversations without warrant, and to detain us without limit in the name of our own security. The line between state and religion became a bit more blurry, and in one fell swoop in 2004, thirteen states managed to constitutionally ban the right of millions of Americans to make certain types of legal contracts with one another. While we watched our civil liberties shrink, our budget deficit ballooned, partly due to our renewed commitment to entangling ourselves in conflicts abroad.


In 2008, we reached to the left, searching for a remedy. We should have reached for our wallets, as the new government was prepared to never permit a good crisis to go to waste. The paychecks of the prudent and responsible, or, perhaps more appropriately, the paychecks of the future prudent and responsible, were seized and redistributed among the well-heeled elite of Manhattan and Grosse Pointe. Notwithstanding the artificially low interest rates and government policies that discouraged and even forbade prudence we cheered the government on as it bailed out New York and Detroit. Nor has the left delivered on its better promises. Millions of Americans are still ineligible for service in the military solely due to their refusal to lie about activities that they carry out in private, the war on drugs is alive and well, and our facility in Guantanamo Bay, located in a country to which we are still not permitted to travel, remains open for business.


As proponents of personal autonomy and individual rights, we fell in love with the right, then the left, only to realize just how committed both are to the growth of government and its ability to interfere with our lives and decisions. This frustration extended to our campus as well, where we were unable to find a comfortable home in either of the two political campus periodicals. The left’s newspaper claims to “rock the boat,” but in an age of over-regulation and centralization of government power, their propensity to involve government as a solution to our problems lacks the innovative spirit they so proudly trumpet. Our conservative colleagues have managed to call their periodical “libertarian,” though what libertarian would defend the war on drugs or mention the “redefinition of marriage” in an argument escapes our imaginations.


We have decided to publish this magazine to give voice to the discontent of libertarians and clear the air of the misconceptions from which we suffer. We believe in the individual, and the ability and duty of each to govern his or her own decisions and actions. We hope that our articles will provoke thought and enhance debate. If we have been successful, perhaps the next time you stand up, take off your baseball hat, and place your hand over your heart, you will not consider Mr. Key’s question to be rhetorical.