A few days before a contentious vote for Libertarian Party leadership, we received a reminder of what really matters.
We have met some truly horrible people in our journey through the LP.
We have also met some of the most amazing humans on earth and they make it all worth it.
To say the last year has been rough for me and my family would be the understatement of the year.
The last year has also been an exercize in overcoming challenges that seemed overwhelming at the time, but ended up as catalysts which afforded the opportunity to showcase the power and strength of our ideals.
We have been afforded an opportunity to see the tremendous love and generosity of our Libertarian Party and American Guard tribes in deed, not mere word, as they supported us in our time of darkness.
We are blessed with new life and move forward with the knowledge that we are proof tested for resilience.
The strength of mind and body long cultivated served to carry us through, and dramatically increased the courage of our convictions.
Yesterday after an OB/GYN appointment Brandi and I stopped at the post office box.
I limped in on my sore ankle, bruised ribs aching with every breath, remnants of my recent car accident. My pride a bit stung by my disqualification from November’s ballot on a technicality.
We opened a small package and rock fell out. Puzzled, Brandi picked it up and read the letter it came with, pictured above and below.
It was no ordinary rock, but a piece of the Berlin Wall, and a touching note about its significance.
Brandi was moved to tears. I was also moved, but in my case a wave of memories washed over me, and they transported me back to the genesis of my life’s work as a freedom fighter.
The sender, LPF Fundraising Chair Marc Golob, had unwittingly flooded me with these recollections, decades old, that put many things in perspective at a very important time.
This piece of the Berlin Wall is the second one I own. The first came from my (Great) Aunt Alice, who loved freedom so much, that she had to go there herself and chip away at it. She brought me a piece of it I keep as one of my most cherished possessions.
It reminds me of the “good old days”, when hatred of Communism didn’t get you accused of being a Nazi.
I remember running through the nursing home doing wheelies with Alice in the wheelchair, and she loved it. The spark of life and liberty was in her eyes every moment I spent with her, even as her body failed.
When she passed away she left me a couple thousand dollars, which I spent on my first Harley Davidson. A 1964 XLCH 900 Sporster.
I named it “Alice”, in honor of a truly free spirit. I was 19, in the Navy at the time, and life was never the same once I rode her.
22 years later, I am still recovering from wrecking my Harley Davidson last summer, the LP is besieged with a vein of infighting, so toxic that it has subjected my family and I to being labeled the most vile and slanderous things imaginable.
My brother’s thoughtful gift of this talisman flooded me with a wave of clarity.
Honestly, I would gladly trade 2 fingers and let my hand be shattered in order to have over 2 decades of motorcycle adventures across the US.
This talisman reminds me that whatever drama the political world has to offer, it is in service of a fight against an ideology that killed over 100 million people in the 20th Century.
It also reminds me that dealing with the infiltrators, agitators, and assholes is worth it, because had I left, I would have never met Marc Golob. I would have never met so many superhumans like him in the LP.
It is such an honor to be among people who spend their lives saving humanity from a fate of tyranny, even though so many citizens do not even appreciate it.
Thank you my friend. We love you, and we will forever cherish this totem, along with the moment of clarity and flood of fond memories that came with it.
The Libertarian Heathen 