Past Uncertainties and Convictions
It has now been a good 5 months since I’ve last written about goal-making (see 1, 2). To be honest, the delay is probably due to my own sense of limbo about what I want to pursue as a career.
It has now been almost 1/2 a year since I’ve graduated college, and although I have been keeping busy diving into my own personal interests, I have yet to draw any clear path about where I want to be in the future.
Is this normal for a recent graduate? Maybe, maybe not.
Either way, I know panicking won’t do me any good, so I remain relax and focused.
It’s not that I don’t spend time thinking about the future – I do and I do it often – but I want make sure that when I find my niche that it is something I can become fully engaged in. The last place I want to be in 40 years is at some dead-end job with no love or pride for my craft.
Long ago I came to the conviction that there need not be a difference between work and play. That one can simultaneously do what they love and prosper from it if they put their mind to it. First, I need faith in my capacity to think, grow, and create value.
Believing I can achieve something must be the first prerequisite for actually going out and doing it.
Mission Statement
Throughout my life I have always had some desire to write. As a kid I remember thinking up short screenplays, reviewing video games online, and expressing my feelings about loved ones through lyrics and poetry. Today, I continue to make a conscious effort to improve my writing ability by blogging on sites such as this one and Libertarian Minds.
The past year has been an experiment to see if I can stay committed to blogging and still come out enjoying it in the end – I do.
That is why I now want to take my craft to the next stage. This, to me, means turning it into a profession.
First, I want to create a mission statement. Then I will write it above my desk, so I can recite it every morning. This one simple ritual will help me to maintain flow and keep my mind concentrated on the habits I need to adopt in order to be successful.
Here is a picture of my mission statement written on a dry-erase board:
To become a professional writer I will follow my self-appointed mantra of RAWA meaning “Read A lot, Write A lot.” In it there are 6 tenets: consume, digest, rest, grow, repeat, and evolve.
1. CONSUME A LOT OF MATERIAL
Lucky for me I love reading and I already go to all sorts of different websites on a daily basis. Over the year I have accumulated a list of my favorite and most informative resources:
Mainstream Media
Sites to follow the most up-to-date news of popular issues.
Libertarian Opinion/Blogs
Reason
Cato Institute
Ludwig von Mises Institute
Campaign For Liberty
Foundation for Economic Education
Anti-War.com
Center for a Stateless Society
Ayn Rand Institute
Capitalism Magazine
Libertarianism from A to Z: Jeffrey Miron’s blog
Think Markets
Marginal Revolution: Tyler Cowek and Alex Tabarrok’s blog
LewRockwell.com
Stephan Kinsella
Austro-Athenian Empire – Roderick Long’s blog
Free Advice – Bob Murphy’s blog
Ideas – David Friedman’s blog
Fringe Elements – Ryan Faulk’s blog
Economic Policy Journal – Robert Wenzel’s blog
Free Association – Sheldon Richman’s blog
Brad Spangler
Fr33 Agents
Professional resources and personal blogs to help build a comprehensive libertarian philosophy. More to be added.
Alternative Opinion/Blogs
Salon
Smithsonian Magazine
Huffington Post
New York Times
Bloomberg
WallStreet Journal
Alternet
DailyKOS
The Daily Caller
Politico
New Yorker
Fora.TV
Rolling Stone
The Conscience of a Liberal – Paul Krugman’s blog
Libcom.org
Other resources to stay knowledgeable about opposing opinions. This is important to help keep a well-rounded view. More to be added.
I will try to visit most of these sites at least once every week. The big ones like CNN.com (or ones I really enjoy like Mises.org), will probably be visited more frequently. I also go to reddit everyday where users post articles from all over the web.
The main point of building a huge list like this is to always have reading material available and to have access to a wide range of viewpoints and philosophies.
2. DIGEST IT ALL
It would be wasteful to read hours everyday but to never think critically about the content. I believe contemplation is one of the most important mechanism to human learning.
Studies have shown that when rats are given time to reflect, they learn faster than rats who don’t. Time spent introspecting on one’s thought patterns can help us better understand our beliefs. We may even discover that we have made a logical fallacy or a cognitive bias.
Humans are infallible but they are also self-correcting. There is no need to be alarmed when a belief of ours has been challenged. Instead it should be seen as an opportunity for growth. Those who deny their mistakes will always remain fixed where they stand, but those who are willing to weigh other alternatives are more likely to progress their understanding and step forward as intellectuals.
Digesting material means to put a conscious effort into reflecting on what we have learned and how it fits into our worldview.
3. REST
Between all this reading and thinking I am going to need some leisure time. This means things like nap-taking, hanging out with friends, listening to music, watching Mets games, and going out to dinner. Life stuff. Stuff less mentally-intensive so my mind has a chance to rejuvenate itself. After all, variety keeps the mind healthy and balanced.
Including rest in your routine is the difference between hard work and smart work. Also, one positive thing about actively taking your mind off of your work is that it lets your unconscious mull over ideas as you engage yourself in other activities.
4. GROW
Once I have consumed, digested, and taken a healthy break, I am then ready to apply my knowledge into the form of writing.
While the digestion phase was about breaking down information, the growth phase is about integrating information into an article that conveys a coherent theme. All writing, whether fiction or non-fiction, is the process of connecting old ideas and transforming them into something new, something more contemporary, and something more aligned with the zeitgeist of the times. It is the process of moving knowledge forward.
To fulfill my goal I must write each and everyday, even if it is just for a little bit. If by the end of the day I am not happy with what I have written – and it never gets published or even posted on a blog – it is still a worthy exercise in critical thinking and creativity. I think of it as analogous to a professional baseball pitcher: although it may not always be there day to start a game, they still go out in the bullpen and throw some pitches everyday, because that is how they keep their skills sharp.
If you want to be good at something you need to live and breathe it. It needs to be a part of your daily routine. By aiming to write everyday I am setting a precedent to continuously improve until I reach that next plateau.
5. REPEAT. REPEAT. REPEAT.
We all have certain habits which we repeat day-in and day-out. They become automatic or “second nature.” One beauty of the human mind is that we can consciously choose to replace existing habits with new ones – to reinforce “positive” behavior and punish “negative” behavior (however an individual may come to define those terms).
Over the last year I have built up a habit of reading, thinking, and writing about political philosophy, economics, and society at large. It is something I have developed a passion for which is why I now picture myself doing it as a career.
I don’t want to be simply good at it but great at it. I want people to read what I have to say and walk away more educated, more independent-thinking, and more inspired by life around them. I want them to think, “this is so good, I want my friends to read this.”
But this kind of value can only be created if I am dedicated to my craft, which means: practice, practice, practice. I believe that the more I immerse myself in an activity, the better and faster of a learner I will be.
6. EVOLVE
Evolution is a series of adaptations and changes over time. In many ways, it is spontaneous and unpredictable. Often the order is not clear until you look back on it.
This post marks a starting point for my pursuit as a professional writer, but only time will tell where I will end up a year, five years, or ten years down the line.
While I may not know the specifics of where this path is heading, I do know that if I stay devoted to my mantra of RAWA (“Read A lot, Write A lot”), and its 6 tenets, that it will lead me somewhere productive and fruitful.
The human mind can facilitate positive evolution by identifying value and producing it over time. Only by adding value to our lives and the lives of others do we progress as humans and make life worth living.
ENDING NOTE
At its core the RAWA strategy is simple: get emerged in reading and writing and I will soon build the skills to enter the professional domain.
Of course, this is not all one needs to be successful. Along with actually having the ability, one also needs to know how to network, market their product, and land opportunities. These will be issues I will try and resolve in later posts.
For now, my main focus is thinking of myself as a writer, reinforcing these positive rituals (consume digest, rest, grow, repeat, evolve), and eventually building a portfolio of my best material to send to editors.
“G. Edward Griffin (born November 7, 1931) is an American film producer, author, and political lecturer. Starting as a child actor, he became a radio station manager before age 20. He then began a career of producing documentaries and books on often-debated topics like cancer, Noah’s ark, and the Federal Reserve, as well as on right-libertarian views of the U.S. Supreme Court, terrorism, subversion, and foreign policy. He has opposed the Federal Reserve since the 1960s, saying it constitutes a banking cartel and an instrument of war and totalitarianism.”
This is the third time within the last couple of weeks that Judge Napolitano’s show “Freedom Watch” has covered the War On Drugs, and its utter failure as a government motive to protect its citizens from substance abuse. Even though I already reported on one of these segments at Legalize It? Director of NORML on Marijuana Prohibition, because this is a topic I find very interesting, I decided to report on this latest update as well.
Jacob Hornberger, the founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation , a non-profit libertarian educational facility, says Nobel Prize economist Milton Friedman predicted the failure of the War On Drugs back in the 1970s, back when then-President Richard Nixon first defined the movement. Since then, Hornberger argues, the WOD has proved itself to be a failed war. He claims the best way to fix this mess is to do the same thing we did with alcohol prohibition – end it!
Napolitano agrees with Hornberger; he believes the War On Drugs is unconstitutional, a waste of time, and a waste of the American people’s money and resources. As a result of some of these laws, innocent people’s lives have been ruined by the hands of the state.
NAPOLITANO: Is it controversial for people in the public eye to come out in favor of the legalization of the private use of recreational drugs?
HORNBERGER: Well when I was bringing this up 20 years ago on radio talk shows I could light up the phone calls. People were just shocked at the possibility that drugs could be legalized. Twenty years later it is now a legitimate position…What do the drug warriors have left? All they have is their good intentions, and that is not enough. They have made the situation worse.
According to Hornberger it is not uncommon today to see police officers, federal judges, prosecutors, and lawyers against the War On Drugs.
HORNBERGER: We have argued for 30 years now, Judge, that the free market would put these drug dealers and drug cartels out of business instantaneously. And the article to which you are referring, where the private sector is having these marijuana farms, is proving that. These cartels are having a difficult time competing against these legitimate marijuana farms. Which leads us to believe that if you legalize the whole market, [then] these drug gangs and cartels would go out of business overnight.
According to this CNN poll conducted earlier this year 95% were in favor of marijuana legalization.
Is it time politicians start listening to the American people? Can we ever return to a society that respects the individual’s freedom to choose his own pursuit of happiness, as long as it does not undermine the liberties of another? What is stopping legislators from legalizing drugs like marijuana and regulating it similarly to how we regulate alcohol? Over the last decade I have noticed a surge in people speaking up on this issue – hopefully we can come to our senses sooner rather than later. America, let your voice be heard!
These guys are just about everywhere nowadays and for good reason: they have been pushing libertarian ideals hard since 1977.
This non-profit, pro-free market libertarian think tank, and public policy research facility, was first founded by Edward Crane after he received assistance from Mr. Libertarian himself Murray Rothbard as well as some funding by engineer and CEO Charles Koch.
According to their website,
“The mission of the Cato Institute is to increase the understanding of public policies based on the principles of limited government, free markets, individual liberty, and peace. The Institute will use the most effective means to originate, advocate, promote, and disseminate applicable policy proposals that create free, open, and civil societies in the United States and throughout the world.”
The Cato Institute is responsible for a variety of publications and essays throughout the decades on a on a wide range of policy issues including taxing and spending, education, free speech, Social Security, regulation, federalism, individual rights, the rule of law, globalization, national security, and the environment.
Where to start:
Their main blog is great as well as their multimedia section and homepage where they display recent articles and recommended links.
The Mises Institute considers themselves the world center of the Austrian School of economics as well as libertarian political and social theory. That can certainly not be disputed. They also have an incredible amount of content – so you are going to want to get digging soon.
In the media center you will find a variety of downloadable video and audio files of lectures, documentaries, and interviews. These are great to put on your IPOD and listen to on long road trips. Topics cover welfare, bureaucracy, war, monetary reform, and economic critiques on Keynesian, classical, monetarism, socialism, Marxism, and communism.
The literature section is also full of gold, where you will find hundreds and hundreds of downloadable books, journal articles, essays, and even study guides.
Where to start:
One of my personal recommendations is to check out their study guide dedicated to Mises’ magnum opus Human Action, which lays out the Austrian methodology of praxeology – the basis of all Austrian economic theory. Praxeology is a form of methodological individualism (who early economist and Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek, and one of the most influential philosophers of science Karl Popper both advocated), which demands that social sciences ground their theories in the actions of individuals and not collective entities who do not behave as autonomous decision makers.
If that last paragraph bored the heck out of you: then just check out their daily archive and recommended links on their homepage.
I’ll be honest here, LewRockwell.com is my favorite libertarian resource but it is also the most extreme recommendation on this list. I think their main slogan sums up what you are going to get here perfectly: “Anti-State, Anti-War, and Pro-Market,” and their articles are certainly not bashful of it.
You won’t be seeing many kind words regarding government – but it is not like they are just being spewed by the mouths of government fear-mongering, Fox News-motivated drones.
Far from it: LewRockwell.com is nothing but quality reading. They update their site daily with about 13-15 new articles, with about 75% being about current issues in politics and economics and 25% regarding miscellaneous topics like art, culture, and science.
LewRockwell.com’s strong point is its stunning display of diversity in perspective. Authors range anywhere between university professors, politicians, economists, financial experts, authors, doctors, psychiatrists, and various others devoted to individual rights, limited state (sometimes flirting with anarchism), and the freedom to choose within the marketplace.
You may not readily agree with some of the ideas you read, but at the very least LewRockwell.com offers one of the freshest, inspiring, and most intellectual perspectives on what liberty really means.
Where to start:
Just check out their daily articles and pick whatever sounds interesting.
FOUNDATION FOR ECONOMIC EDUCATION
The Foundation For Economic Education (FEE) was first founded in 1946 by Leonard E. Read. Since then they have been dedicated to provided a consistent case for freedom and the sanctity of private property, individual liberty, the free market and the moral superiority of individual choice and responsibility over coercion.
Since FEE was established they have published or hosted lectures by some of the greatest economists of the last century: Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, Vernon Smith, Israel Kirzner, Walter Williams, George Stigler, Frank Chodorov, John Chamberlain, F.A. “Baldy” Harper, William F. Buckley Jr., among many others.
One quick look through their library of books, articles, audio and videos and you will see the massive database and free information that FEE has to offer to the general public. I also recommend their main blog, Anything Peaceful which gives a free market perspective on current issues facing our nation’s economy, and how we can help move our country in a more free and prosperous direction.
But the fact of the matter is the ideas of Rand’s Objectivism and the ideas of capitalism, individual rights, and limited government are essentially synonymous. Rand just never liked the term “Libertarianism” because she saw it as inherently collectivist.
If I had to say one thing about Rand I would say she was misunderstood, and this was partly because she was such a stubborn person.
But ultimately, she was an intellectual tyrant, and true defender of freedom, the pursuit of happiness, and peace. I highly suggest reading The Ayn Rand Institute’s FAQ page for a full overview on what Rand was about, what her writings were about, what her philosophy called Objectivism was all about, and what the Ayn Rand Institute is doing today, as a non-profit think tank, advancing these ideas and trying to make real world changes.
A lot of the recent popularity in libertarianism is because of Congressmen Ron Paul who ran for President in 2008 under the Republican Party, and also back in 1988 under the Libertarian Party.
He is also currently getting a lot of recognition in the media for his new bill HR1207: Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009, which currently has 297 cosponsors, as well as Dr. Paul’s new book “End The Fed” which is an intellectually marathon on the economic, philosophical, and moral reasons why the Federal Reserve is a threat to everyone’s liberty.
I go to DailyPaul.com because when Ron Paul is getting coverage I like to see what he has to say. Just the other week he was on the Daily Show discussing his book. Ron Paul’s opinion matters, and he is still going to be relevant in the next coming years – especially as our economy continues to slide, and the American public gets more eager for answers and rational explanations to what got us into the mess we are experiencing now.
Reason.com is updated daily with articles and columns on current developments in politics and culture. It also contains the full text of past issues of the print edition of Reason Magazine. Like all these other resources, it is also entirely free. You can look through their Print Archives here.
One of my personal favorite features of Reason Online is REASON.TV which contains videos, celebrity interviews, and short documentaries on a variety of topics like civil rights, health care, business and technology, welfare, foreign policy, government spending, The War On Drugs, abortion, gun rights, labor unions, global warming, science, art, culture, and much more.
Their slogan is “Free Minds, Free Markets,” which are ideals they hold to pretty well since they are very non-partisan in their political beliefs and very dedicated to the principles of liberty and voluntary transactions as they would take place in a free market.
There is also REASON.ORG, or the Reason Foundation, which takes a more academic approach at critiquing public policy, offering different solutions. According to the Washington Journal, “Of all the nation’s conservative or free-market policy groups, it may be the most libertarian among them, the Reason Foundation in Southern California, that ends up having the most direct impact on the actual functioning of government.”
Where to start:
It really depends if you want to read articles, watch videos, or listen to podcasts or audio files. Reason has all of the above and the best idea is to just go to their main page and start digging through all they have.
Yes, it is affiliated with Fox News. Yes, Judge Napolitano sometimes fills in for the Glenn Beck show. Now can we get over it? The truth is Freedom Watch is the best libertarian TV show on the internet, and it is now running on a new daily schedule, or as Napolitano calls it: “A Daily Dose Of Raw Liberty!”
Frequent guests include pretty much everyone we have discussed above: members from The Cato Institute, Reason magazine, Mises Institute, Ayn Rand Institute, and politicians like Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, Rand Paul, and Jim Demint, including many other knowledgeable guests, authors, constitutional and law experts, etc.
Where to start:
You could just check out the site and start streaming the videos. Or, if you want to take a personal recommendation, check out my recent article, “Legalize It? Director of NORML on Marijuana Prohibition.”
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
HOOVER INSTITUTION
They Hoover Institution at Stanford University is a public policy think tank which has had much influence in both conservative and libertarian circles. It was first founded in 1919 by then-future U.S. president Herbert Hoover. High-profile conservatives like Edwin Meese, Milton Friedman, George Shultz, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, and Amy Zegart are all Hoover Institution fellows. Check out their website for a great archive section and various other material on economics, politics, and freedom within the marketplace.
Sure it’s not libertarian, but it is always healthy to keep up to date on what other political commentators are saying about current issues in America. The Huffington Post has a lot to offer libertarians and the American public in general by raising awareness about serious issues our country is facing.
Even if many of the solutions they might propose are more government and regulation, I still find their reporting much more unbiased than some of the stuff I have found at DailyKOS, truthdig and alternet.
FORA.TV is not libertarian either but its site gathers the web’s largest collection of unmediated video drawn from live events, lectures, and debates at universities, think tanks and conferences. Of course their politics section and economics section would be the pages libertarians would be most interested in but they also include some great information on various things about science, culture, the environment, and technology.
Paul Armentano, the Deputy Director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) (check out their blog here), is an expert on marijuana policy, health, and pharmacology. He has served as a consultant for Health Canada, the Canadian Public Health Association, and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts.
As a guest on yesterdays Freedom Watch, Armentano starts by discussing the potential treatment and prevention of certain cancers through the medical use of marijuana:
ARMENTANO:Things like THC and several other unique properties [of cannabis] actually have the ability to selectively target cancer cells and kill those cells. [This is] sort of the Holy Grail for cancer research; and frustratingly the Federal government has not funded appropriately clinical trials in humans on this sort of work, but we’ve know that marijuana has had these effects on animals now for three decades.
Although President Obama has been more lenient on Federal laws prohibiting marijuana use when compared to the previous administration, the DEA is still raiding certain third-party vendors in states like California, who have authorized doctors to prescribe marijuana to certain patients.
ARMENTANO:What is very interesting with these raids is that no criminal charges are ever filed. The Federal government comes in, they kick down some doors, they seize some merchandise, they seize cash, they seize computers, and then they leave.
According to Armentano, the U.S. government first got involved the “marijuana prohibition business” all the way back in 1937,
ARMENTANO:Now when you look at the actual transcripts of those hearings we laugh at them – even though they were the foundation of marijuana prohibition. The government’s argument at the time was that if you use marijuana you would go insane and be inspired to commit acts of violence and murder.
Nowadays the government doesn’t so much propagate the “Reefer Madness” fad. This is maybe because anyone who has ever been exposed to marijuana, or those who do it, knows simply through their everyday experience alone that it doesn’t cause people to be more violent. Instead the government now tries to perpetuate the myth that marijuana has worse health risks than tobacco or alcohol, which is simply not true.
NAPOLITANO: Which is more harmful statistically: the excessive use of marijuana or the excessive use of alcohol?
ARMENTANO:Well if we are looking at either the harm caused by the drug to the individual or if we are looking at the harm done to society, clearly alcohol is the far more detrimental substance.
According to Armentano, despite all the governments prohibition and propaganda surrounding cannabis 51% of those polled by Rasmussen Reports believed alcohol to be more dangerous than cannabis. Only 19% of those respondents said marijuana was.
ARMENTANO: The public understands this issue. They have it right. It is the law that has it wrong.
NAPOLITANO:Do you think we will ever get to the point where the government will let us make our own choices? Even if they are bad choices, even if they are stupid choices, but they are our own choices about what we put in our body? As long as whatever we put in doesn’t harm somebody else?
ARMENTANO: Let’s certainly hope so. I mean that is one of the main reasons why this prohibition of marijuana is so detrimental. The federal government has drawn an arbitrary line that says adults can put certain substances in their body and then other substances they cannot. And that line is not based on science – it is not based on potential dangers to the user or potential dangers to society.As I noted, it is an arbitrary line. Yet we have arrested in this country over 20 million Americans since 1965 on marijuana offenses. Almost 90% of those arrested were arrested on simple possession only. Yet if we go back to 1965 we will see that marijuana is more prevalent today then it was then, that young people have easier access to marijuana than they did then, that marijuana is more potent today then it was then, and that there is more violence associated with the illegal drug trafficking of marijuana today then it was then.
We have literally spent tens of billions of dollars and ruined millions of people’s personal and professional lives. But we have not in anyway disrupted the flow of marijuana to this country nor have we dissuaded anyone from using marijuana in this country. It is time to acknowledge this reality and regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol.
To add just a bit of my own commentary on this issue: I agree with Armentano, but I think the drawbacks of having marijuana prohibition – especially in a supposed free society – can be probed even deeper and even more philosophically.
Even though prohibition has already empirically proven itself to be more harmful to society than helpful, shouldn’t we also be supportive of marijuana legalization simply due to the principles of freedom and self-ownership?
A free society should be obligated to respect the individuals decision on what does and doesn’t go into his or her body, as long as it doesn’t infringe on anyone else’s rights. If this holds true for a persons actions, then it is a victimless crime, and the person should not be punished for pursuing their own sense of happiness. If this individual right is not respected, then we have to ask ourselves as a society what side of freedom do we really stand on?