I Chose Liberty - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Lawrence W. Reed 271
world, and getting to know foreign peoples and cultures. And I love writing, public speaking,
tennis, hiking, skydiving, and even weight-lifting which, unfortunately, I didn’t really
get into in a big way until the age of 48. I especially love fly fishing because it’s totally
absorbing and the very activity itself makes me think of liberty. I figure when I hook ’em,
I’m giving the fish a taste of what socialism is all about. Then when I throw ’em back,
hopefully they’ve learned something about steering clear of that seductive free lunch.
I am often asked to describe my political philosophy. I cringe at labels because too
often they conjure up misimpressions, stereotypes, and simplistic conclusions. I’d rather
talk about ideas. But if you have to attach a label to my political philosophy, I suppose
“classical liberal” would do just fine. I believe in limited, minimal government, though I
don’t pick fights with my anarcho-capitalist friends. More power to ’em. I have enough
faith in freedom that I respect those who argue that given certain conditions and an enlightened
climate of opinion, there’s not an aspect of life that civil society can’t handle better
than politics and politicians.
I regard myself as a patriot and patriotic, but maybe with a twist that isn’t always a
part of conventional patriotism these days. You can read what I mean about that in my
essay entitled, “The True Meaning of Patriotism.”
Many people who believe in liberty didn’t start out that way, and may even have been
socialists at one time. In fact, one of the signs of maturation, of shedding infantile and
anti-social behavior and becoming a thinking, civilized adult is learning the superiority of
voluntarism and the free and civil society over political coercion and redistribution. Well,
I was never a statist of any kind. From my earliest awareness of political philosophies and
social systems, I understood that the only thing socialism has ever really done for poor
people is give them lots of company.
When I’m asked who my favorite people in history are, I can go on for hours but I’ll
just mention a few here. Grover Cleveland is my personal favorite among U.S. presidents,
and a hero to me. He vetoed more bills than all the previous 21 presidents combined, and
was a rock of honesty and integrity. He was staunchly for free trade, sound money, limited
government, balanced budgets, and free enterprise. I had the privilege of spending an
evening with his son Francis in August 1995, just two months before he passed away at the
age of 92. He was the oldest living child of an American president at that time. A year later,
I spent an afternoon with John Coolidge, son of another president I admire.
William Ewert Gladstone, four times British Prime Minister, is a hero to me because
unlike most politicians, he only got better with age and tenure in office. He started out a
statist and protectionist, came to appreciate liberty, and did more to liberate the spirit of
enterprise in Britain than any other PM in the country’s history.
While I have my favorite politicians, they are still eclipsed in my mind by the nonpolitical
people who invent, create, and build—and who improve the lot of us all in the process.
Risk-taking entrepreneurs who do it all in the marketplace without resort to favors from
government are all heroes to me, and America has produced them by the boatloads.
I myself ran for office once, in 1982. I was the Republican nominee for the U.S. House
of Representatives in my district here in Michigan, running against an incumbent Democrat.
Though I lost, I made a lot of friends and pretty much killed off whatever political