The Druidic Candidate: Can California deal with a Druid for governor?

In a country just now coming to grips with its millions of Muslim residents, and in a county that not long ago freaked out about the construction of a Hindu temple in Buena Park, a Druid running for governor is bound to raise eyebrows. But Libertarian gubernatorial candidate and Druid Gary Copeland doesn’t just tolerate the flak: he welcomes it, like a guy who wrote the kick-me note he stuck on his own back—even when the flak is fired by fellow Libertarians.

"It doesn’t bother me at all," says Copeland. "It’s not an issue with me. It’s their issue, not mine. When people speak, they speak for who they are. . . . It’s my path to serve, and I’m doing that. I know not everyone’s going to agree, but that’s okay."

But everything’s not entirely okay. Copeland doesn’t mask his annoyance at a Newsweek article that dismissed him as a "whacko" or with postings on a Libertarian e-mail list that chastised him for noting that he’s a Druid in the California voter’s guide, although he didn’t note that he once advocated the use of LSD for spiritual purposes.

Indeed, it seems there’s unease within the party over Copeland’s unconventional religious beliefs—a "culture of peer pressure," Copeland calls it—that one wouldn’t expect from the liberty-loving Libs. It’s as if it’s all right for Copeland to harbor unusual religious beliefs so long as he doesn’t talk much about them.

"Since Libertarians are a third party, we find it difficult to be taken seriously or to be considered by voters," says Mark Murphy, director of a group called Libertarian Activists and a former member of the Orange County Libertarian Party Central Committee. "Obviously, we want voters to see we aren’t any different from many of them. So, when Gary—who’s a friend of mine, by the way—declares himself a Druid, there’s a concern that trying to be taken seriously just went out the window."

Doug Scribner disagrees. "I’m upset that people would find his beliefs a setback to his candidacy. After all, how many Christian politicians openly proclaim their beliefs in ballot guides?" says Scribner, vice chairman of the county’s Libertarian Party.

Copeland remains philosophical about the criticism; indeed, he remains philosophical about everything. When you talk to him, he’s philosophical at a hundred miles per hour and will frequently answer questions as if he’s reading from a Celtic I Ching. Why is he running for governor, for instance? "Because the path brought me here," he says.

It can be kind of frustrating. But beneath it, there’s a refreshing sense that Copeland is deeply invested in his beliefs, both as a Druid and a Libertarian.

"It’s an asset," he says. "I love my Druidry as much as I love my Libertarianism. I describe myself as an existentialist libertarian Druid. If I can’t find an answer from one philosophy, I go to another. Anything that’s indefinable, I go to Druidry."

Copeland says Druidry is a Celtic philosophy of magic, similar to the more popular Wicca. It’s a circle of logic and spirituality based on the ideal of service to others—like The Lion King minus the cheesy soundtrack. One of the central tenets of Druidry is that no one should have authority over anyone but himself or herself—a point Copeland illustrates with a reference to The Lord of the Rings, noting that the ring Frodo carries has "so much power that, even if you did good things with it, it would pervert, subvert and seduce you."

"That is the basis of all Celtic philosophy: that absolute power corrupts absolutely."

That idea led Copeland to the steadfastly secular Libertarian Party. Around 1980, Copeland was working with Timothy Leary’s Brotherhood of Eternal Love to spread the gospel of LSD and enlightenment when he got busted. Fortunately for him, he says, he was screwing the narcotics agent. Not wanting to deal with that, he says, the cops charged him only with low-level possession.

"I was using LSD to be spiritually enlightened," he says. "I was one of those peyote people who for thousands of years had been using hallucinogens to connect to the spiritual world. Who were the cops to tell me I couldn’t?"

Soon after, he began running the Orange County branch of NORML, the marijuana-legalization folks, and soon after that, he fell in with the anti-prohibitionist Libertarians. In 1992, he ran for Congress against Dana Rohrabacher—himself a former Libertarian—and got killed, garnering just 7.7 percent of the vote. In ’96, he ran for county supervisor, beating the Democrat in the race—which tells you something about the state of the Democratic Party in Orange County. He has worked in computers and recently founded his own company, NextCure, which will distribute information on drugs under FDA review.

None of this really gives him a leg up in the gubernatorial race against überbland rivals Davis and Simon, but Copeland would rather run as he is than tailor his biography and message for the mainstream.

"The problem with most politicians is that they’re pretending to be something they’re not," he says. "They’re trying to be something outside their natures. They think people won’t like them if they’re different. But people like to go to a taco stand and try different tacos. I’m not stupid; when I put the Druid thing in, I knew it would be a hook. If I hadn’t done it, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now."

Hard for me to take that crap about not initiating violence seriously. I mean if someone threatens me, I'm a firm believer in a pre-emptive first strike.

I tend to believe the pre-emptive strike more appropriate in certain very limited aspects of foreign relations, i.e. Israel's 1981 takeout of Iraq's first nuclear reactor, after Saddam Hussein was fool enough to announce to the world the primary purpose of that reactor was to aid in the production of weapons to use against Israel. (The world screamed bloody murder when the Israeli jets went ring-a-ding-ding on the reactor, but Saddam Hussein sure was a good boy outside the Iraq-Iran war for almost a decade.)

It is, further, an accepted enough tenet of libertarian political philosophy that a nation - any given nation - has every last right on earth to prepare and sustain a defence for itself against any prospect, imminent or distant, of foreign aggression. (One of the questions I think valid to ask in the wake of the atrocities of 11 September is whether such atrocities might have been arrested had the United States prepared and sustained a more profound defencive defence apparatus, it being so that we actually have a strong enough offencive defence apparatus as witness our success in the physical war in Afghanistan.) I was, moreover, quite shocked to see a number of libertarians and Libertarians alike (the former do not always join the latter party, a distinction only too many FREEP anti-libertarians find only too convenient to forget or ignore) ignoring if not dismissing the salient point that, whatever had or had not transpired prior to those atrocities, those very atrocities were an explicit and deliberate exercise of force against the United States and, therefore, the United States was entitled unquestionably to respond as the United States deemed fit.

In a dispute between two individuals, though, it is one thing to make a threat but something else entirely to move toward executing the threat. If for example someone merely threatens to shoot me but makes no move toward doing it, he's done nothing except to shoot his big mouth off. But if he makes the threat and makes the move to execute it, at that precise moment I would be justified entirely in any action I deemed appropriate to take in order to stop him, even to the point of drawing and firing a gun, if I owned one, at the moment I saw him actually going for a weapon to use upon me.

Aside from which, the actual language of that position reads "initiation of force," which initiation does not always have to involve physical force, as witness blackmail or other non-physical coercion.

Liberty Magazine says that a lot of money donated to Browne's '96 and 2000 campaigns went for the enrichment of Mr. Browne.

I used to get Liberty Magazine. I moved about 5 months ago, and it didn't seem to follow me. Hmmm...

Anyway, I think you should supply both the issue where this allegation was made, and the amount of money by which Harry Browne was allegedly "personally enriched." Enquiring minds want to know!

But as long as we're talking about money. Harry Browne (and Howard Phillips, I think) were the ONLY presidential candidates in 2000 that refused to accept federal taxpayer money to fund their campaigns. To ME, that counts as much--or MORE--than what Harry Browne did with the money my fellow Libertarians and I gave him.

In my mind, what Pat Buchanan did...took federal taxpayer megabucks that were "earned" by Ross Perot...and used that money to destroy the Reform Party (not that it had much going for it anyway) is far more scandalous than a man being ALLEGEDLY "personally enriched" from the pockets of his own supporters.

Why is disproving so important.

It's only important--as a matter of The Truth--when a Christian states, "The Christian religion has proved its claims..."

There are any number of things in the Bible that are pretty clearly myths. The Ark (that held two of ALL the animals in the world) and the Flood (that killed ALL the animals on earth, and ALL the people) are merely two examples.

If you are not a believer, ok. I don't bash Druids just because they can't tell me if the lady of the lake really kept the sword for Arthur. I really don't care what other's beliefs are as long as they are not out to kill me.

I don't care what people's beliefs are EITHER...other than when they claim their religion is The Truth, while other religions are myths.

As they say, "Those living in glass Arks should not throw stones." The same would go for Druids...or my church, the "Church of the Cosmic Revelation." (Congregation size, 1. At least that I know about.)

I used to get Liberty Magazine. I moved about 5 months ago, and it didn't seem to follow me. Hmmm...

Did you notify the magazine of your move and your new address when you moved?

Meanwhile, I can answer your questions re Liberty and the Harry Browne contretemps in the Libertarian Party. In the magazine's July 2000 issue (an issue I did not possess until well enough after the 2000 elections; I found my copy on a library table for sale for a dollar and bought it thus), there was a series of three stories that covered the issue under the rubric, "Crisis in the Libertarian Party," and included: "Project Archimedes" (R.W. Bradford), "The 1996 Browne Campaign" (R.W. Bradford), and "Browne and the L.P.: Conflict of Interest?" (Peter Gillen). I lost some track of the magazine for awhile but began a subscription last fall; the November 2001 issue includes "Showdown In Las Vegas," a story about the LP convention in that city and an apparent refusal to address formally and even punitively (where necessary) the issues raised by the Browne contretemps. And, in the March 2002 issue, Harry Browne himself responded at long last to Liberty's writings on these matters, with a demurral from R.W. Bradford.

Also, Jacob Hornberger - whose original allegations actually sparked the Liberty probe in the first place - has maintained a fat passel of writings on the matter at his own Website, Jacob G. Hornberger. Best to read them yourself and draw your own conclusions, of course. Good luck.

The magazine has been following that one for months. So was Jacob Hornberger, a writer with the Future of Freedom Foundation who is also a longtime LP official and activist. But the money issue, while certainly impossible to ignore (I was unaware of it myself until well enough after the 2000 elections), is matched even-up by an even more disturbing point: that Harry Browne violated the Libertarian Party's explicit enough rules against engaging members of the party's national office or various party-employed workers to work on behalf of a specific candidate before the candidate has the final LP endorsement for office.

Whatever.

I don't mean to be flippant. This is important WITHIN THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY. Who OUTSIDE the Libertarian Party was harmed by this? And it's even less important now that Harry Browne will never be a candidate again.

This nation may well need a libertarian party yet, but the incumbent Libertarian Party, I fear, is not quite it.

Oy, vey! "This nation may well need a libertarian party..." Do ya think??! The frigging federal government is spending 25 PERCENT of the national income! Do ya see the Republican Party doing anything about that? (Rhetorical question: Of COURSE they're doing something about it...G.W. Bush proposed to RAISE federal spending by a whopping 9% in FY 2003! That's a greater percentage raise than BILL CLINTON ever did!

If you're at all interested in a small federal government (not to mention your civil liberties, like free speech!), you certainly won't get it with Republicans! But I have serious doubts whether most people on these boards really ARE interested in a small federal government.

Also, Jacob Hornberger - whose original allegations actually sparked the Liberty probe in the first place - has maintained a fat passel of writings on the matter at his own Website, Jacob G. Hornberger. Best to read them yourself and draw your own conclusions, of course. Good luck.

I don't think I need to read much more. I read both some of Ray Bradford's articles in 2000 and Harry Browne's response, after the 2000 campaign. (I'm on his his LibertyWire email service.)

When I read some of Ray Bradford's articles, I admired Ray Bradford for digging out important issues WITHIN THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY. When I read Harry Browne's response, I was surprised that he claimed that Bradford misrepresented some key points.

But once again, this is internal to the Libertarian Party. It simply shows that people high up in the Libertarian Party...as people high up in ANY party...want power, and cut corners to get it.

A FAR more important issue, to me, is what the Presidential candidates from the various parties would have done, if elected. There is simply NO doubt in my mind that Harry Browne would have fought bitterly for a SMALL federal government. He SAID he would veto every bill that came across his desk that wasn't within the bounds of the Constitution--which is basically EVERY bill that would come to him--and I believe him.

I want a SMALL federal government. Harry Browne was WITHOUT QUESTION the candidate who would have fought hardest for a small federal government. That's why, in my opinion, he was without question the best candidate in 2000.

Stonehenge

Who Built Stonehenge? The question of who built Stonehenge is largely unanswered, even today. The monument's construction has been attributed to many ancient peoples throughout the years, but the most captivating and enduring attribution has been to the Druids. This erroneous connection was first made around 3 centuries ago by the antiquary, John Aubrey. Julius Caesar and other Roman writers told of a Celtic priesthood who flourished around the time of their first conquest (55 BC). By this time, though, the stones had been standing for 2,000 years, and were, perhaps, already in a ruined condition. Besides, the Druids worshipped in forest temples and had no need for stone structures.

The best guess seems to be that the Stonehenge site was begun by the people of the late Neolithic period (around 3000 BC) and carried forward by people from a new economy which was arising at this time. These "new" people, called Beaker Folk because of their use of pottery drinking vessels, began to use metal implements and to live in a more communal fashion than their ancestors. Some think that they may have been immigrants from the continent, but that contention is not supported by archaeological evidence. It is likely that they were indigenous people doing the same old things in new ways.

This is important WITHIN THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY. Who OUTSIDE the Libertarian Party was harmed by this? And it's even less important now that Harry Browne will never be a candidate again.

That Mr. Browne will never be a candidate again (or so he says, anyway - time alone will tell, as always it does in these matters) is a very small point beside the far more important point that the so-called Party of Principle allowed such a violation of its specifically written rules and seemed, from most indications, almost unconcerned about the fact that this kind of thing could be happening within the party even as over a good many years they had - rightly, in my opinion - castigated the Major Parties for, among other things, precisely such game playing. As for who outside the Libertarian Party was harmed by this, I dare say that any purportedly serious political party (if we believe that a serious political party seeks to try to shape as well as seduce its actual and prospective constituency) in a purportedly free society which allows this sort of thing to transpire inflicts a wound upon the voters it would otherwise hope to try to shape as well as seduce.

Oy, vey! "This nation may well need a libertarian party..." Do ya think??! The frigging federal government is spending 25 PERCENT of the national income! Do ya see the Republican Party doing anything about that? (Rhetorical question: Of COURSE they're doing something about it...G.W. Bush proposed to RAISE federal spending by a whopping 9% in FY 2003!)

Do ya think you're really telling me what I don't know? Unless, of course, you have not seen many a prior thread, over the past three years almost, on which I stood and enunciated such libertarian precepts as freedom, individual rights and sovereignty, and properly construed government (whose sole legitimate business is to stay the hell out of your business, my business, and everyone's business unless one citizen would obstruct or abrogate another citizen's equivalent rights) as opposed to the improperly consecrated State. I stand by my previous suggestion, with one minor semantic adjustment: This nation needs a libertarian party, but the Libertarian Party as now constituted - and apparently indifferent to the implications of corruption within its ranks despite its right and proper prior denunciations of corruption in the Major Party ranks when called for, not to mention so blatantly witless to understand that steady shrinkage of its voting numbers and membership numbers does not equal victory of any sort, contrary to what Mr. Browne and his discipleship(s) like to spin - simply isn't it anymore.

If you're at all interested in a small federal government (not to mention your civil liberties, like free speech!), you certainly won't get it with Republicans! But I have serious doubts whether most people on these boards really ARE interested in a small federal government.

As for those around here who are uninterested in smaller government (or, stated more properly, the demolition of the improperly consecrated State and the restoration of properly construed government), my standard guide is what I like to call Chodorov's Law: Let them rant their heads off - that is their right, which we cannot afford to infringe - but let us keep from them the political means of depriving everybody else of the same right.

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