A Strange Liberty: Politics Drops Its Pretenses

In my more than fifty years in academia and as a writer, I have found there are few people who see things as I do. Jeff Deist may be one of them. Along with many of his colleagues at the Mises Institute, Jeff carries on the traditions of the Old Right: opposed to leviathan state, antiwar and thus deeply suspicious of foreign interventionism, and traditional in cultural outlook.

Jeff is a student and an admirer of the late Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek, two giants in the world of Austrian economics, but given modern realities he does not share their faith in democracy. Both men identified democracy with a political system that would allow peaceful transfers of political power according to prescribed procedures. In the twenty-first century, Deist is not so sure.

In A Strange Liberty, Jeff, who is a legal scholar, political thinker, and social critic, argues persuasively that the faith in democracy as a force for internal peace and dependable constitutional restraints has not worked as its defenders Mises and Hayek predicted. Instead, we are left with centralized tyrannies, highly disputable election results, ideologically driven media, and state educational systems that have made war on “traditional” gender identities and whiteness. The question, then, is not “How do we preserve our democracy?” but “How do we escape from a totalitarian administrative state, its surveillance operations, and the lies told by its public relations allies?” Jeff does not believe these problems will simply resolve themselves. It will take action.

A Strange Liberty calls for the relentless pursuit of decentralization in whatever manner this course is still open to decent, freedom-loving citizens. Quoting from, among others, the late Angelo Codevilla, a bold scholar of government and an unabashed critic of our democratic decadence, Jeff proposes that states that oppose federal overreach and woke indoctrination react against these evils through noncompliance. He shows again and again that the federal government’s behavior has been blatantly unconstitutional for a very long time. As the book chronicles, the Department of Justice, the IRS, and other federal agencies have all been repeatedly unleashed on those whom the one-party state wishes to target. In light of this situation, state governments should not be obliged to serve slavishly a federal administration that is making war on some of its citizens. Up until Joe Biden’s election, it was in fact the Left, with media incitement, which was calling for resistance to the federal government, on behalf of marijuana use, sanctuary for illegals, and gay marriage before that. Why shouldn’t the Right or the non-Left have the same right to disobey federal directives which are coming from a regime that is openly hostile? Jeff here has given outraged citizens a voice and heartens them to pursue this practice of resistance through state or local governments where they can. Although he knows it’s not clear this strategy will be sufficient to work against federal overreach, he encourages us to get out of our chairs and be proactive in finding ways to push back.

In A Strange Liberty, there is more of the mood and wit of H.L. Mencken’s American Mercury than the spirit of National Review. This anthology does not just duplicate the positions of a previous generation. It is a creative return to truths that were never lost and should be given an active voice again.