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In this week’s episode we’ll talk about the pounding war drums. We’ll tell you about a small-town Kansas mayor doing big things in the fight for the Second Amendment. And we’ll share with you the latest NSA spying revelations. Plus, how about a little walk to go with the talk?

Host: Michael Boldin.

Content Production: Mike Maharrey

We get our fair-share of criticism here at the Tenth Amendment Center.

I’m not complaining. It comes with the territory. And truthfully, sometimes its warranted. We often learn new things and develop new ideas based on comments from constructively critical readers and listeners. We welcome these kinds of comments. They make us better. Iron sharpens iron.

But some critics are really frustrating! I’m talking about the folks who simply want to throw rocks from the peanut gallery. Often, these attacks come from people who happen to agree with our overall goal – increased liberty. But they don’t think we’re going about it the “right way.â€

As the old saying goes, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. We certainly realize our focus and the things we advocate, like nullification, aren’t the only way to advance the cause of liberty. We don’t view other liberty-minded strategies as competition. They are all vital pieces of the same puzzle. We need them all to fill in the complete picture. This is a team effort!

But I am running out of patience with critics who come up with all kinds of theoretical reasons to oppose our work, but offer zero practical strategies to advance the cause of liberty. These soapbox philosophers have all kinds of great reasons to knock our focus on constitutionally restrained government, but can’t articulate any concrete steps that will move society toward the freedom and liberty they claim to yearn for.

It’s all talk…no walk.

Take this guy, for instance. He thinks we should just abandon all of this Constitution nonsense and get on with a government-free utopia.

“So, in the end what do we have that will work? It is not shifting power from one team, to another. From one area, to another… from one system to another. From one fox, to another.

What will work, is for free people, to have the freedom and the ability to enter into, and enforce their own contracts.â€

Here’s my question for his gentleman. If this is the future he wants, how does he get us there? What steps does he have to offer that will move us from the top-down, centralized, government controlled world we live in to a more free society? We are so far from his ideal, it might as well be on Jupiter.

Murray Rothbard asked a similar question. “We face the great strategic problem of all ‘radical’ creeds throughout history: How can we get from here to there, from our current State-ridden and imperfect world to the great goal of liberty?â€

Certainly, a United States with a federal government operating under the Constitution as written, limited to a few clearly defined powers, would bring us quite a few steps closer to liberty than where we currently stand.

Let’s get there, then we can debate the next step forward.

Rothbard gives us some very wise counsel in the fight for liberty.

“(1) that, whatever the transitional demands, the ultimate end of liberty be always held aloft as the desired goal; and (2) that no steps or means ever explicitly or implicitly contradict the ultimate goal. A short-run demand may not go as far as we would like, but it should always be consistent with the final end; if not, the short-run goal will work against the long-run purpose, and opportunistic liquidation of libertarian principle will have arrived.â€

At the Tenth Amendment Center, we always measure our work against this kind of criteria. Our end-game is liberty. And we firmly believe re-establishing constitutional government moves us toward that end.

We need people out there articulating the philosophy of liberty. But those folks cut off their own hands and feet when they turn on us and act like we’re the enemy. Philosophy without concrete steps to implement it is nothing but more noise. We understand where they are coming from. And we just need some help to get there!