Liberty Maven

I stumbled on some older (2005) audio of Harry Browne’s radio show when he had Eric Dondero on as his guest. For those that don’t know, Eric Dondero worked for Ron Paul for 12 years and parted ways with Ron Paul because of disagreements over the Iraq war. Ron Paul claims he was fired. Eric Dondero claims he quit.

Harry Browne was the Libertarian candidate for President in 1996 and 2000. He continued spreading the cause of freedom and liberty on his radio talk shows and Internet TV show until his death in 2006.

During the radio show Harry Browne took phone calls and the first caller happened to be Alex Jones, of infowars.com fame, who brought up Ron Paul sparking an interesting discussion.

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As the show moved forward Eric revealed some more of his neo-libertarian illogical views, mainly due to Harry Browne reasoning it out of him, along with some callers.

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Eric Dondero represents the exact type of voter (at least on the Iraq war issue) that Ron Paul is up against. He is a pro-war full speed ahead, the end justifies the means type of Libertarian. He is a self proclaimed Neo-Libertarian. The next clip shows this very well. Listen as Eric tells Harry Browne that he isn’t a Libertarian, a man who was nominated as the Libertarian candidate for President twice.

In the 3rd and final clip the current (at the time) national chairman of the organization (Republican Liberty Caucus) that Eric Dondero founded in 1990 calls in to take issue with Eric’s view, saying they don’t represent the views of the Republican Liberty Caucus.

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Basically it boils down to the fact that there are some who call themselves Libertarians (Eric Dondero) who are pro-war and there are those (Harry Browne, Ron Paul) who are anti-war. I was once the former, but now the later.

Why did I change? Well if you listen to Harry Browne’s calming and reasonable voice in the above clips you will understand why. Contrast that with Eric Dondero’s raised voice calling for blindly bombing the Middle East countries in an effort to “win” the war against “islamo-fascism”. Eric Dondero is now openly supporting Giuliani for president. It’s baffling how a self proclaimed Libertarian could support an authoritarian like Giuliani. The conclusion I come to is that Eric Dondero is not a Libertarian nor a libertarian at all.

One thing is clear, Harry Browne was a great patriot and human who died too early. Ron Paul is alive and fighting the same patriotic fight today as he runs for the GOP nomination.

One of my favorite speeches given by Ron Paul was the one where he recognized Harry Browne as a great champion of liberty after his death. Read that speech here at the Ron Paul Library web site.

Vote Ron Paul in 2008.