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What's all the fuss about? Healing Our World takes an entirely new and fresh approach to the subjects of government and freedom. It depends, like many other books on the subject of freedom of the individual, upon a multitude of common examples on how traditional statist policies have failed to provide the benefits they promised. In addition, Dr. Ruwart points out that one can readily observe that not only do these policies limit the freedom of American citizens, but they also inevitably amount to aggression by one group of citizens upon another. From the drug war...where the aggression is obvious...to government medical policies...where it is more subtle, Dr. Ruwart is largely successful in convincing the reader that non-aggression...as a strategy...is the way to peace and prosperity in the world of the future.
Coming as it does at a time when the entire world is once again engaged in warfare, it is a timely reminder that the main products of aggression and violence are more aggression and violence. This seemingly endless cycle...most visible in Israel/Palestine, but now also poignantly relevant to the United States...has been the main scourge of humanity through all recorded history, but especially since the start of the twentieth century. Dr. Ruwart...like Gandhi and Martin Luther King in the past...poses non-aggression and non-violence as the key to emerging from this vicious circle.
It also seems significant to us that this new approach coincides with the rise of the Internet, where talk-talk-talk...often in-your-face kind of talk...is fast replacing war-war-war. While a verbal slap upside the head is often a good way of getting attention, unless it is followed by sound policy prescriptions it seems to be doomed to failure. As we ourselves have often discovered, you do indeed catch more flies with sugar than vinegar.
Dr. Ruwart was the recipient of no fewer than eight copies of the columns (see: Principles, schminciples! and Hoax revealed!) that we "pushed" at leaders of the LP a couple of weeks ago. This was because her email address was listed on so many of the state LP home pages. She wrote to tell us that, while she found what we had to say interesting, she thought our approach was far too caustic. We had not yet read her book at that time, so our response was a vigorous and unrelenting defense of our methods.
After our first reading, we took her to task for her seeming disdain for democracy...a VERY important subject to us, as regular readers can attest. Assuring us that she, like the vast majority of LP members, had due respect for this methodology, she nonetheless stuck to her guns that even democratic rule often results in aggression of the many against the not-so-many. With patient argument, she eventually convinced us. We remain fans of democracy as an approach to conflict resolution, but now understand why non-aggression is so very important to its implementation.
So, we unreservedly recommend this book to all of our readers. If you are new to the subject of libertarianism, it may convinced you that now is the time to take the plunge for liberty. If you are an old hand, you will find a wealth of convincing arguments to throw at doubters. In any case, you WILL learn something.
We conclude by saying that...because of people like Dr. Ruwart who have been drawn to the libertarian cause by the existence of the Libertarian Party...that the LP remains the one and only best hope for the future of democratic politics. We further resolve...as a New Year's resolution...that we will endeavor during 2002 to soften our prose and to be less strident about what we see as faults of the LP.
With that, we wish you all a happy holiday...of your choice, of course...and a fruitful, joyous and PEACEFUL 2002.
Talk to you later...
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