"[A]fter I got evicted from the Republican Party, I began reading considerably more of the works of American anarchists, thanks largely to Murray Rothbard...and I was just amazed.When I read Emma Goldman, it was as though everything I had hoped that the Republican Party would stand for suddenly came out crystallised. It was a magnificently clear statement. And another interesting things about reading Emma Goldman is that you immediately see that, consciously or not, she's the source of the best in Ayn Rand. She has the essential points that the Ayn Rand philosophy thinks, but without any of this sort of crazy solipsism that Rand is so fond of, the notion that people accomplish everything all in isolation. Emma Goldman understands that there's a social element to even science, but she also writes that all history is a struggle of the individual against the institutions, which of course is what I'd always thought Republicans were saying, and so it goes.In other words, in the Old Right, there were a lot of statements that seemed correct, and they appeal to you emotionally, as well; it was why I was a Republican—isolationist, anti-authoritarian positions, but they're not illuminated by anything more than statement. They just are good statements. But in the writings of the anarchists the same statements are made, but with this long illumination out of experience, analysis, comparison...it's rock-solid, and so I immediately realised that I'd been stumbling around inventing parts of a tradition that was old and thoughtful and already existed, and that's very nice to discover that—I don't think it's necessary to invent everything."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Activists from the United StatesPolitical leadersPhilosophers from the United StatesAnarcho-capitalistsTax resisters
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Hess
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Karl Hess
Karl Hess (born Carl Hess III; 25 May 1923 – 22 April 1994) was an American libertarian and speechwriter for Barry Goldwater. He was also a free-market anarchist political philosopher, editor, welder, motorcycle racer, tax resister, atheist, and libertarian activist. Although fundamentally a libertarian, his career included stints on the Republican right and the New Left.
24 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Karl Hess →
Related Quotes
"The Federal government of the United States today is guilty of exactly every sort of infringement, abuse, and denial …"
"We have the illusion of freedom only because so few ever try to exercise it. Try it sometime. Try to save your home f…"
"Laissez-faire capitalism, or anarchocapitalism, is simply the economic form of the libertarian ethic. Laissez-faire c…"
"Whenever you put your faith in big government for any reason, sooner or later you wind up an apologist for mass murder."
"[Republicans in Hess's youth] represented the only strong anti-imperalist political position. Anti-imperialist? Repub…"
"Radical and revolutionary movements seek not to revise but to revoke. The target of revocation should be obvious. The…"
"Big business in America today and for some years has been openly at war with competition and, thus, at war with laiss…"
"Libertarianism is rejected by the modern left — which preaches individualism but practices collectivism. Capitalism i…"
"Libertarianism is clearly the most, perhaps the only truly radical movement in America. It grasps the problems of soc…"
"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.And let me remind you also that moderation in …"