FORT COLLINS, COLORADO Monday, March 27, 1995 Harry Browne Via E-mail 73030.3256@compuserve.com Dear Harry: It was pleasant meeting you and Pamela this weekend. Since we couldn't discuss important matters amidst the noise and crowding of a convention, I thought I'd send you this letter straightforwardly stating where I stand on strategy and tactics, what you can count on me for, and what you can't. You'll recall how Michael Dukakis' 1988 presidential campaign stopped cold -- and never recovered -- the day a reporter asked whether, if his wife were fatally assaulted, he'd change his mind on capital punishment. A swift, confident, principled answer _either way_ might have salvaged the moment for him. But his conspicuous hesitation, so reminiscent of Jack Benny's at the words, "your money or your life" (except that it wasn't funny) cost him millions of votes. Today, any campaign that fails to address the events at Waco, Texas in the spring of 1993 (along with other, historically related occurrences) is similarly doomed. I've heard Libertarians, especially from the northeast and California, say that nobody they know cares about what happened at Waco; I've heard them say they don't care, themselves; and I'm sure you could have found Americans in 1770, perhaps even a majority, who didn't care about the Boston Massacre. Yet that didn't stop it from becoming pivotal to American history, nor can it stop Waco from becoming its 20th century equivalent. Even if it's conceded for the sake of discussion that recent government excesses in the west aren't comparable to those of the Revolutionary War, nevertheless Waco, the shooting of Vicky Weaver, the persecution Gordon Kahl, and hundreds of less-publicized events like these over the past few decades bear a striking resemblance to the pattern of Negro lynchings in the south. In either case, as Republicans are about to discover to their dismay, history isn't created by majorities, but by determined individual men and women. In an era when a government assassin uses a high-powered rifle capable of generating a ton of kinetic energy to _detonate_ the skull of a young mother while she holds her baby, and uniformed thugs are seen on national TV using tanks and helicopters to destroy the lives of 90 innocent people -- a dozen of them children -- "in order to save them", any hesitation on our part regarding these and similar events will be perceived by those who _do_ care as a lack of moral principle. Any gentleness will be perceived as weakness. Any moderation will be perceived as cowardice. In an era when the merest thought flashes, unimpeded, around the world in seconds, such opinions won't be limited to one locality. Harry, you can't run a campaign on a single slogan (even the title of your latest book) no matter how cogent or attractive it seems. People will ask, if "government doesn't work", why do you want possession of it? They'll ask whether, as president, you'll refuse to punish those responsible for the atrocities I've mentioned. What they'll really be asking is, would you change your mind on capital punishment if your wife were fatally assaulted, and you'd better have a swift, confident, _principled_ answer ready for them. My wife Cathy urges me to add that you can't afford to wait for someone in your audience to bring these matters up. You must bring them up yourself, early in your presentation, and deal with them in no uncertain terms. I agreed to advise your campaign because it _needs_ advising -- because I'd noticed certain disheartening omissions in your rhetoric and literature. I'd noticed you made no mention of the Second Amendment which, as I said in Salt Lake City at our last national convention, is the issue that, more than any other, will get our candidates elected. I'd noticed you made no mention of the Bill of Rights. I'd noticed you made no mention of the Non-Aggression Principle, the heart and soul of Libertarianism. It isn't so much that these omissions are reprehensible given current events (although they are) as that they're unpragmatic, when _not_ making them can gain you so much. Therefore, what I purpose, in addition to answering questions you may put to me from time to time, is to write you an occasional letter outlining my views for your consideration. I'll do my best to keep them pertinent and short, nor will it always be necessary for you to reply; I'm drowning in my own sea of e-mail just now, so I can appreciate your situation. However, if you stop reading them, tell me, and we'll part company as amiably as we met. On the other hand, if I should find that the only reason you asked for my help was to add my name to some list or letterhead, I'll have something to say about that, too, but I'll say it publicly. The issue of hesitation to one side, this country doesn't want or need a gentle presidential candidate just now, it doesn't want or need a moderate. What it wants and needs -- what our times cry out for -- is a righteous avenger, one willing to work within the highest law of the land, the Bill of Rights, to restore liberty and justice to America. Perhaps as importantly, if what we're creating here is history, and I believe it is, then let's not make our handwriting spidery and crabbed, but large and easily-read by our posterity and friends of liberty and foes alike. Sincerely, L. Neil Smith