False Supporters of Liberty

Precept and example, be they good or bad, are among the important seeds one plants. Then when words and admonitions are offered in a contrary vein they are ob vious lies intended to deceive. But they do not deceive; they merely present the tragicomic spectacle of a man, supposedly endowed with rational processes, looking one way and going the other. "Dissimulation is the coward's virtue." A Positive Harm There are numerous individuals relatively advanced in their understanding of liberty who insist on meeting in forums and radio debates irresponsible people who advo cate the idea of violence. Experience alone ought to dem 0nstrate that this sort of verbal fracas generates more heat 37 than light. It is a form of entertainment, no doubt. But it does a positive harm. It was Aristotle who said: "There are a million ways to be wrong and only one way to be right." Any irre sponsible person can say: "The moon is made of green cheese." The scholar cannot prove what the moon is made of in the few minutes allotted to him, and if he resorts to the tricks that will win the plaudits of an enter tainment-bent audience, he will destroy the most precious thing he possesses: his reputation for being a thoughtful, scholarly person. Liberty will have lost one of the few who can aid others in its explanation.

This same scholar, before the invention of radio, observ ing a small crowd gaping at some soapbox orator, would not have set himself up on another soapbox to engage in debate. He would have gone his way. Radio has changed the magnitude of the situation, but not the elements which go to compose it: the exhibitionist, the scholar, the gaping audience. One recent rebuttal to this argument was: "If we don't debate these fellows we will give the appearance that our side has no spokesmen." If we do debate these fellows "our side" will have fewer spokesmen. It is absurd to let the coercionists select the libertarian's means of conveying his thought. Imagine the poet Goethe in a pub, getting himself into a fight with one of the barflies. How would the onlookers judge him? Would they consider his in tellectual attainments in such a circumstance? No! They would rate him with the opponent he had elected to en38 gage in contest. They would form their opinions of him only as a brawler. And, further, by such action, the liber tarian unwittingly but implicitly acknowledges that vio lence and love, restraint and liberty, are on an equal foot ing and should be so debated.