I Chose Liberty - Ludwig von Mises Institute

306 I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians
where these separate modalities become intertwined. Perhaps we truly are hard-wired for
freedom so that nothing less will do.
Mary J. Ruwart, is a former pharmaceutical research scientist and assistant professor of surgery. She
has worked extensively with the disadvantaged in low-income housing and was a contender for the
1992 Libertarian Party vice-presidential nomination.
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JOSEPH T. SALERNO
IT USUALLY ENDS WITH MURRAY ROTHBARD:
MY LONG AND WINDING ROAD TO
LIBERTARIANISM AND AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS
I vividly recall the event that set me on a long and winding road to libertarianism
and Austrian economics. I was twelve years old and my parents, who were both first generation
Italian-Americans, were hosting some of my mother’s relatives, including a distant
male cousin who had traveled from Italy to visit relatives residing in Rhode Island and New
Jersey. His visit to our home was proceeding pleasantly if uneventfully that day when the
subject of politics came up and the cousin revealed that he was a card-carrying member of
the Italian Communist Party. My father was still a New Deal Democrat at the time, but
also a devout, Jesuit-trained Catholic and staunch anti-Communist who had voted for
Kennedy in the presidential election the year before. A ferocious argument immediately
erupted between my father and the cousin that enthralled me—not because of the issues
debated, which I did not understand, but because of the passion with which the two men
expressed their views. The argument came to an abrupt halt when my father, who was a
formidable presence with an appearance and booming voice that suggested the actor Anthony
Quinn in his prime, roared a threat to throw the Commie out of our house. Naturally I
was eager to see what would ensue and would have permitted events to take their course if
I had my druthers, but my mother’s untimely intervention succeeded in negotiating a shaky
truce between the two combatants that held until the visit ended. That night I decided that
I would learn all I could about the subject that had roused such volcanic passion in my
father. I soon began scouring the local library for literature on Communism and over the
next year devoured everything I could lay my hands on related to the subject. These were