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Mackey has voted straight Libertarian since those early days in 1980. Still, he says he's had little success in converting people to the concept of economic freedom or to an understanding of how the world really works, to the concept of how freedom, prosperity, human progress, spontaneous order and overall well-being are inherently channeled through a system of voluntary cooperation, private property, business competition and individual incentives.

I, too, voted Libertarian in the '80s. Indeed, I was a Libertarian candidate in more than one election.

Then I realized that the central idea of a free society is not misunderstood at all - in fact, it is not desired by a population conditioned by government institutions.

Orwell might as well have stayed a policeman in Burma.

Then I realized that the central idea of a free society is not misunderstood at all - in fact, it is not desired by a population conditioned by government institutions.

So true, so true... John Mackey may be right that aggressive marketing might change this by changing peoples beliefs and perceptions, but I see it as a lost cause... the vast majority of people don't care about freedom, they only want security-- physical, economic, social... Sad thing is you can see this right here on FR every day.

Then I realized that the central idea of a free society is not misunderstood at all - in fact, it is not desired by a population conditioned by government institutions.

That's true, but the key is to get the top 5% who stand to benefit most to always remember it. Libertarians don't have to win elections as long as they can influence the best and brightest. Most of the public, on the left and right, is always going to vote for the demagogue who promises to give them free stuff and punish people they don't like. But if the politician who emplyes such tactics also needs campaign contributions from the clear-minded libertarian business man, the ideas will still triumph.

Brainwashed it is.

Our self interested educrats should be horsewhipped or hung for treason for 100 years of their lies.

A recent poll indicates the average adult can't name all three branches of his own Govt - just they way Govt likes it, as Donald Luskin propounds and exsposes in his excellent blog http://www.poorandstupid.com/chronicle.asp

And here are some great links - the ones educrats would destroy if they only could. These will bring anyone up to speed re: the progressive's hijacking of our constitution for elite benefit at taxpayer expense.

Taking money back (completely logical and constitutional)
http://www.mises.org/rothbard/moneyback.asp

How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution (video)
http://www.cato.org/realaudio/cbf-02-15-06.ram

The Issue of Tariffs: How U.S. Revenue Collection Was Turned Inside-Out (video)
http://mises.org:88/Sophocleus

Size Matters: How Big Government Puts the Squeeze on America's Families, Finances, and Freedom And Limits the Pursuit of Happiness (video)
http://www.cato.org/realaudio/cbf-02-02-06.ram

Big Business and the Rise of American Statism (exc essay)
http://praxeology.net/RC-BRS.htm

The Founding of The Federal Reserve (video)
http://mises.org:88/Rothbard-Fed

The Great Depression, World War II, and American Prosperity, Part I (video)
http://www.mises.org/multimedia/video/Woods/Woods5.wmv

Secrets of the Federal Reserve (the web of power is phenominal)
http://www.barefootsworld.net/fs_m_ch_01.html

Jackson's 2nd Bank US VETO (very important - what he correctly and constitutionally opposed is just what we ended up with in 1913)
http://alpha.furman.edu/~benson/docs/ajveto.htm

"The Separation of Commercial and Investment Banking: The Morgans vs. the Rockefellers" (the true thieves of the taxpayers and obsconders of the const)
http://www.mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae1_1_1.pdf