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Freedom Book of the Month
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Free-Market.Net's F r e e d o m B o o k o f t h e M o n t h
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Edited by Thomas L. Knapp. To subscribe or unsubscribe to this and
other lists, click to: http://www.free-market.net/features/lists/
FREEDOM BOOK DOUBLE FEATURE:
Freedom Book of the Month
and
Freedom Book of the Year, 2001
FREEDOM BOOK OF THE MONTH
The State vs. the People: The Rise of the American Police State
by Claire Wolfe and Aaron Zelman
Mazel Freedom Press 2001, paperback, 557 pp.
I'm not sure if a country has ever needed a book like "The State vs. The People" as much as America needs it right now.
I'm not trying to be hyperbolic. I acknowledge that there is debate, even among libertarians, on the merits of various security measures taken since the terror attacks of last September. People on both sides of these issues should be able to agree that there are valid concerns for civil liberties involved.
"The State vs. The People" is the first book-length collaboration between libertarian firebrand Claire Wolfe ("101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution," "Don't Shoot the Bastards -- Yet," etc.) and Aaron Zelman, executive director of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership ("The Mitzvah," "Hope," "Death by 'Gun Control'"). To characterize both writers as staunch defenders of individual liberty versus state power would be a gross understatement.
In this book, Wolfe and Zelman attempt to come to grips with exactly what a police state is, drawing on historical example to define the idea and isolate specific elements that comprise such a state.
The conclusions -- whether drawn by the reader or explicitly stated in the book -- are chilling.
Wolfe and Zelman differentiate "traditional" and "totalitarian" police states from a third type which they call the "modern authoritarian police state." This third type is defined by an increasingly powerful executive branch versus other institutions of governance, and by increasing power of government as a whole. The power to make and enforce law is shifted, more and more, into the hands of executive branch bureaucracies which are not accountable to the people but which, more and more, function as de facto legislatures.
The modern authoritarian police state isn't built, like the "traditional" police state, on Enlightenment notions of improving the population's lot and ensuring the military security of the state; nor does its rationale resemble that of the "totalitarian" police state which is predicated on forcing a populace to adopt an idea (Communism, for example) as a quasi-religion.
The modern authoritarian police state isn't built. It grows organically, feeding on the fears of a society and transforming those fears into incremental, concrete measures that, over time, become tyranny. Fear of crime is exploited and turned into "gun control" measures. Fear of terrorism is exploited and turned into demands for identification schemes. Fear of drugs is exploited and turned into no-knock raids, mandatory minimum sentencing and "war."
If you're beginning to see the United States in this description, you're not alone. As J.D. Tuccille puts it, the book provides "compelling evidence that the 'free world' increasingly maintains only the facade of liberty, cloaking an iron-fisted reality."
Different readers will find themselves in agreement or disagreement with Wolfe and Zelman on different points, or in their level of concern over different issues, especially with regard to the chapter on the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. We ignore this fine book and its analyis of history and current events, however, at our peril.
o Order "The State vs. the People" from
Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership
($19.95 postpaid, with bonus materials included):
http://www.free-market.net/rd/249878584.html
FREEDOM BOOK OF THE YEAR, 2001
If you didn't participate in Free-Market.Net's Freedom Book of the Year poll, you robbed yourself of excellent odds for winning some great prizes. Of more than 800 Freedom Book of the Month subscribers, not to mention readers of the web edition, only about 150 of you bothered to come by and cast a vote. What gives, folks?
Oh well -- you do the math. We gave away six prizes, and drew from among 150 entrants. That translates to a 1 in 25 chance of winning. If you didn't vote this year, I bet you will next year.
Chris Waichunas of Holt, Michigan, Bruce Sommer of San Jose, California and Dave Kennedy of Brentwood, Tennessee will be receiving "free-marketeer" coffee mugs in the mail any day now, courtesy of Free-Market.Net's CafePress store.
Gil Guillory -- by day a mild-mannered chemical engineer at Kellogg Brown & Root, by night Texas's Libertarian "Shadow Congressman" -- won a $50 gift certificate from Laissez Faire Books.
Our grand prize winner, Rick Watras, is a libertarian activist in Massachusetts. Rick's considered response to the news that he had picked up a cool $100 worth of books from Laissez Faire? "OH YA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Rick is now busy whittling his $400 wish list down to size.
But wait ... that's only five prizes.
As I mentioned in the mailings about the poll, we don't always tell you everything. In this particular case, I didn't want to skew the poll in favor of any particular book, so Gary York of Lenexa Kansas was pleasantly surprised to learn that he had won an autographed copy of "The American Zone," courtesy of author L. Neil Smith.
There was, of course, one more winner. You picked a Freedom Book of the Year for 2001 (that's what this was all about, remember?)
The voting was close. It would be strange if it _wasn't_ close, with 150 people voting on twelve books (and write-ins). Steven J. Milloy's "Junk Science Judo" and L. Neil Smith's "Lever Action" tied for second with 16 votes each; Smith's "The American Zone" and "Total Freedom" by Chris Matthew Sciabarra tied for third with 15 votes each. And we had 14 write in votes, five of them for Hans-Hermann Hoppe's "Democracy: The God That Failed."
One dedicated, but honest, prize-seeker even cast a write-in for "I didn't read any of them."
But enough of that. The envelope, please:
With 18 votes, the 2001 Freedom Book of the Year is "Hope," by Aaron Zelman and L. Neil Smith. If you haven't read this novel of a near-future libertarian presidency, consider yourself admonished to do so. Our readers picked it as the single best, most important work on freedom published in 2001.
It's no accident that I selected books by L. Neil Smith for three monthly awards in 2001, or that his "Forge of the Elders" was Freedom Book of the Year for 2000. I'm pleased to find that libertarian readers agree with my considered opinion that he's hands down the best living libertarian author on the scene today. You put "The American Zone" in a tie for third place; "Lever Action" in a tie for second; and "Hope," his second collaboration with Aaron Zelman (executive director of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership) squarely atop the pile.
I could go on about "Hope," but I don't need to. Sunni Maravillosa does so, at length and in style, in the guest review she wrote for its Freedom Book of the Month award, which you can read at:
http://www.free-market.net/features/bookofthemonth/hope.html
As a matter of fact, every one of the twelve Freedom Book of the Month selections is worthy of note, and you can read all about them at:
http://www.free-market.net/features/bookofthemonth/
I'd like to thank our prize sponsors from the bottom of my heart.
First and foremost is Laissez Faire Books, who put up a prize that came to one dollar for every person who voted in the poll. They've got the best selection of, and the best prices on, books about liberty, and I hope that you'll drop by their site. You won't be disappointed, and your library will never be the same again:
http://laissezfairebooks.com/index.cfm?aid=FM
Next, I'd like to thank L. Neil Smith. When I mentioned the poll to him, he said he'd like to participate, and he agreed that announcing an autographed copy of one of his books in advance might unduly influence the voting. If you're interested in his writing -- and you should be -- the place to start is his personal site at:
http://www.lneilsmith.com/
Finally, I'd like to take this opportunity to flog Free-Market.Net's free-marketeer gear. We gave away some pretty nice mugs, but there's more: shirts, hats, mugs and tote bags featuring the Free-Market.Net logo or the Gadsden rattlesnake "Don't Tread on Me" graphic. Versace doesn't have a thing on our line. See it all at:
http://www.cafepress.com/fmn
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Managing Editor
Free-Market.Net
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