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L. Neil Smith was born in Denver, Colorado on May 12th, 1946. His father was in the Air Force, so he grew up all over the North America in places like Waco, McQueenie, and La Porte, Texas; Salina, Kansas; Sacramento, California; and Gifford, Illinois -- all before he was in 5th grade -- and then St. John's, Newfoundland and Ft. Walton Beach, Florida where he graduated from high school. Along the way, Neil acquired a deep interest in science and history, and studied Latin and German. He began shooting when he was around 11 years old, through a joint program of the National Rifle Association and the Boy Scouts of America. Ultimately, he won the rank of Eagle Scout and "more sharpshooter bars than I can remember". Music -- primarily guitar and banjo -- has always been a large part of Neil's life. (Lyrics to several of his songs may be found in his novel The WarDove.) In high school and college, he led a number of small groups and bands including the Shady Grove Singers, The Roughriders, and the Original Beautiful Dreamer Marching Jug Band. His first "real" job was as a banjo player at a Shakey's pizza parlor. Greatly preferring science fiction to anything else, Neil's boyhood favorites were Arthur Clarke, Theodore Sturgeon, Isaac Asimov, Richard Wilson, Robert Scheckley, and of course, Robert Heinlein. It was through his interest in science fiction that he encountered the works of Ayn Rand in 1961, when he read Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged and knew he had found the worldview that would guide him the rest of his life. He also recognized the unique way the ideas of Rand and Heinlein compliment each other, and it was this direction he began to take philosophically and politically. Neil joined the Libertarian Party in 1972 (serving on the national platform committee in 1977 and 1979) and became a life member of the NRA in 1974. It was in 1972 that he met the great libertarian teacher Robert LeFevre. In 1977, f
According to an article in the New York Times online, the idiots and moral cripples who run Facebook have decided, in their complete absence of wisdom, to prohibit private gun sales on their system. Federally licensed dealers will not be affected, no
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Be that as it may, for several reasons, my concern has always been that libertarianism is more than just a political movement, and that if some kind of broader culture didn't begin to grow up around it, then it would die. If, however, it became a cul
It's a movie cliche as old as the hills. The very first western film adventure, made by Thomas Edison in his rotating New Jersey studio, was about a train robbery. The second almost certainly told the story I'm about to describe and which we've all s
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The Age of Authority, now drawing to a close after ten thousand blood-stained years, has also largely been an age of witlessness and fraud. Stripping history of all of its excuses and rationalizations, it is surpassingly difficult to find a single ru
As you may know already, the Tea Parties that rattled our keepers so thoroughly in 2009 began with an offhand remark made by some politician on the radio[*]. I can't remember who it was. I have tried to find out, but there are now at least a dozen in
The Libertarian Enterprise
A great deal of Alongside Night's effect rests on Kevin Sorbo's Herculean shoulders. He brings to the work a look and feel of style and grace, of warmth and strength, of gravitas and dignity that it might otherwise have lacked. He's the real thing.
The Libertarian Enterprise
Over the years, I've worn dozens of different kinds of holsters. Half of them I've designed and made, myself. And in the particular instance of knife sheaths, I hardly have one I haven't drastically altered, usually to bring the crossguard (if there
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I have never believed that there are any great differences in the "native" intelligence -- whatever capacity we are born with -- of healthy human beings, but that the differences we observe in children and adults are the result of patterns of greater
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History demonstrates that there is nothing, not policemen, not armies, not Hadrian's Wall, not the Berlin Wall, not even the Great Wall of China, that can stop a folk migration.
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For those who still believe that a frontier is as necessary to the security of a free state as the right of the people to keep and bear arms (and I happen to be one of hem), simply look up.
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Be free...
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People are inclined to believe that history repeats itself... I was never fond of this idea. A single individual is complicated enough. Human nature is governed by billions of variables rooted in genetic inheritance, life experience, and unanticipat
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The great libertarian philosopher and teacher Robert LeFevre believed that there is a certain type of human personality who will "crouch and freeze" instinctively, like a frightened rabbit, whenever it's confronted with change, whether that change is
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The question before us, as I understand it, is what will it be like on the other side, not of this plane of existence, but after we finally get rid every political threat to our lives, liberty, and property?
Host:
Ernest Hancock
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Today, the most dangerous and successful conspiracies take place in public, in plain sight, under the clear, bright light of day -- usually with television cameras focused on them.
Host:
Ernest Hancock
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As early as my pre-teens, it was obvious to me that something was seriously wrong with our culture, and that academia was not going to be the answer. Time has borne my observation out.
Host:
Ernest Hancock
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On at least a dozen occasions during its natural history, life on Earth has nearly been wiped out -- by falling rocks, by exploding mountains, by the collision of continents, by excessive heat and cold, by bacteria and viruses -- and almost had
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Most people who think about such things recognize that over the past couple of decades, a communications revolution has occurred.
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America's historically unprecedented degrees of peace, freedom, progress, and prosperity are all rooted inextricably in individual liberty, an outlook on life and society that the rest of the world still doesn't comprehend.
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The Bill of Rights, the thinking behind it, are what made everything else we celebrate possible.
The Libertarian Enterprise
you can learn everything you need to know about any politician if you find out where he stands with regard to your individual right to obtain, own, and carry weapons. If he won’t trust you, you can’t trust him.
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...there are families in America whose lives have been ruined and futures obliterated because the SWAT team got the address wrong, smashing down the doors of the innocent.
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Readers have occasionally complained that my columns are too conversational, too personal, or too intimate. That's okay with me.
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Parenthood, when it finally came to my wife Cathy and me, rather late in our lives, was something that we'd wished for and sought after for nearly a decade.
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Like any American with half a brain these days, I understand that our country -- in fact the whole of Western Civilization -- is at a crossroads.
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I received an e-mail message today (May 25th) about a proposed Constitutional amendment that would compel our elected representatives to be fully subject to the same laws citizens and taxpayers are all expected to obey.
