Philosopher says progress being made toward liberty

 An April 15 Colonial Capital Tea Party planned for New Bern "could work" to call attention to the government intrusiveness in the lives of its citizens, a noted writer and professor of libertarian philosophy said Monday.

"It is a way for some people to take a stand ... a symbolic gesture with some potential to call attention and alert," said Tibor Machan, about a planned tax and spending protest by frustrated taxpayers across the country.

He was in New Bern to talk with editorial writers and staff of the Sun Journal and with its editorial page letter-writers and readers. He was introduced by Vernon DeBolt, Freedom ENC president and Sun Journal publisher, and took questions from those accepting an open invitation to an evening event at the newspaper office.

Machan criticized current government economic recovery efforts and the practical application of both conservative and liberal philosophies, which he said take positions against individual liberty. He was not representing the Libertarian Party.

"I am definitely for individual liberty," said Catherine Hood of River Bend, who attended the meeting with husband Vernon Hood. Both said they are regular readers of the Sun Journal editorial page and its letters but not letter writers.

 "America is in the early stage of its evolutional development," Machan said. "It needs to be brought into alignment with the sovereignty of the individual."

He said U.S. government is presently a combination of capitalism  and socialism with recent events moving it more toward the kind of socialism practiced in Sweden and France.

He warned that people should not consider the U.S. economy to have ever been a free market capitalist society, however.  He said the U.S. economy has always had government involvement.

He said people who pay 40 percent off the top of what they earn from regulated business to fund government can not accurately think they live in a free market.

"We get the atmospheric impression that freedom is losing ground" right now as government stimulus packages buy out corporations with money that may not be collected during our lifetimes, Machan said.

But progress is being made in the move toward individual liberty, he said. He gave as examples racial integration effective enough to see a black man elected as president, gay rights laws that have liberated a large sector of the population, and more freedom of the press than in the past.

"Freedom is a fragile thing and there are a lot of pressures on us to abandon it," he said. "People tend to abandon principles in panic," occasionally including their loyalty to liberty.

"The government habit is like an addiction," he said. People look for it to provide more and more of the society's needs.

Machan said the libertarian philosophy would not have government providing anything that the private sector could provide, including roads and other infrastructure or education. It would do nothing not aimed at protecting the general good. It would not try to protect people from themselves.

"Education is not a government job," said Machan. He said too much propaganda is involved in a government-sponsored education. "Education is the responsibility of the parents," he said.

Machan is a professor at Chapman University, where he holds the R.C. Hoiles endowed chair  in business ethics and free enterprise. He  is an adviser to Freedom Communications, which owns the Sun Journal, the Jacksonville Daily News, the Kinston Free Press and the Havelock News. He is a  research fellow at the Hoover Institution and  professor emeritus of philosophy at Auburn University,

The author of 36 books on political philosophy and business ethics since 1973, Machan has contributed to scholarly journals and written columns for national newspapers including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal. He has been a regular columnist for 30 years for the Orange County Register, the flagship newspaper for Freedom Communications.

Machan is also scheduled to meet with area readers in Kinston today and in Jacksonville on Wednesday.