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• NEW! A Landlord is a Local Government

• Paul Gagnon Reviews "Libertarian Party at Sea on Land"

• The Thomas Paine Caucus Proposes Platform Amendment to the Libertarian Party

• What Is the Thomas Paine Network?

• Look at these Views of Famous Libertarians on the Right to Land

• A Better Alternative for Government Revenues

• A Landlord is a Government

• Paul Gagnon's Review of "Natural Capitalism"

A Collection of Local Steps Toward Liberty NEW Spontaneous Order Out of Chaos -- A Fractal Republic Beyond Capitalism and Socialism

• Land, Liberty & Economy

• Corporate Statism in late Twentieth-Century America

Wisdom from Thomas Paine Agrarian Justice Great Quotes and Excerpts

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by Paul E. Gagnon

THE NEXT ORWELL

In a time when the political Left needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, political writer and literary critic Christopher Hitchens has begun the business in earnest. As a columnist for the Nation, he has been savagely attacked by fellow leftists for calling for the destruction of the Taliban, whom he calls Islamic fascists. His merciless criticism of the Clintons and Mother Theresa raises the hackles of the politically correct crowd. On the cover of his latest book is a picture of the author in a trenchcoat, smoking a cigarette with an in your face attitude. The man definitely has unmitigated gall. A very gifted writer for Vanity Fair and a frequent guest on the MSNBC television show Hardball with Christopher Matthews, this stern Englishman can puncture an opponent's arguments with fierce logic. He savagely exposes moral hypocrisy on the Left and the Right without compunction.

Hitchens, with his unrivaled writing style and classic Oxford demeanor, is both entertaining and intimidating. He is similar to another iconoclast, George Orwell. Hitchens is the only writer on the scene that would qualify to be Orwell's successor. His best work comes when he investigates a subject with his own eyes. Like Orwell, he is a former socialist with no patience for the cant of either political wing. Like Orwell, whose sympathies were with the anarchists during the Spanish Civil War, Hitchens has a libertarian bent. Interviewed by REASON magazine (Nov. 2001), he admitted a keen interest in libertarian philosophy. But much like Orwell, Hitchens is reluctant to embrace a single ideology; he measures the actions of nations and their leaders by his own solid code of morality and decency.

Letters to a Young Contrarian ostensibly advises a young person on the lonely journey of the Contrarian but is really an explanation of Hitchens himself. He is refreshingly not a leftist America basher. He is however like most libertarians, an unrepentant critic of our political leadership. His last book, The Trial of Henry Kissenger, is a tar and feather party for the former Secretary of State under Nixon.

As libertarianism evolves to meet the challenges of our century, it would do well to embrace unorthodox thinkers like Hitchens. By dispensing with dogma, one is freed to think creatively. By refusing to sanctify one political ideology, we are freed to be truly principled. This will be too shocking for most of the denizens of either political wing and no doubt, Hitchens would be a rude splash of ice cold water for most libertarians as well. But then again isn't that what we expect from a Contrarian?

This book is published by Basic Books and retails for $22 hardcover. To get a flavor of Hitchens writings, go to www.thenation.com and click on Christopher Hitchens or Minority Report.

To that end The Thomas Paine Network has been established to help this dialogue. The Thomas Paine Network was started by libertarians who wish to engage in a dialogue with: a) open-minded people in the Libertarian Party (in which there is a Thomas Paine Caucus); b) open-minded people on the left, such as open-minded people in the Georgist movement (in which there is a geo-libertarian network), as well as open-minded people in the Democratic Party (in where there is a Democratic Freedom Caucus); and c) open-minded people on the right, including open-minded people in the Republican Party.