Dang it, Harry, why’d you have to go?
The occasion of Harry Browne passing away is definitely a sad and oddly personal one. You see, I didn’t have the privilege of being personal friends with him, but I feel like I knew him because I knew his work for Liberty. It’s work that I and several thousand others shared with him. Harry Browne will always be more than a man to me. His name, to me, will always evoke memories of several years of my own life and be deeply intertwined with my recollection of the struggles and growth I went through in those years.
One example of his influence on me would be his approach to Social Security privatization that he unveiled in his 1996 campaign. Harry advocated a massive sell-off of federal assets to fund lump sum “buyouts” for those unfairly led into dependency on Social Security. This was instrumental in getting me thinking over the years about creatively deconstructing the State in such a way as to show mercy, compassion and justice for those among us who need it most. Because of that, I count him as an important milestone on my own intellectual journey toward becoming a left libertarian.
For his friends and family, I can only say that my own sense of loss at learning of his death makes it difficult to grasp the enormity of what your own surely must be like. I extend my deepest sympathies.
I was corresponding via email with Vince Miller of ISIL last night and he remarked that this seems like the latest in a string of far to many good people the freedom movement has lost lately. I have to agree. For those of us who remain, these are tense times akin to the approach of Winter. They say time waits for no man. If we are losing great ones, it is perhaps incumbent on the rest of us to each quickly discover our own greatness within. I think Harry would’ve wanted us to see it that way.
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