Responsible Libertarianism
An interview with District 2 lead John Hauer
By Percy Wegmann
For some time now, I’ve been wanting to start a series on responsible libertarianism, highlighting the close relationship between freedom and responsibility. When I saw that our District 2 lead John Hauer was organizing a park cleanup in Topeka, I realized he’d be a great place to start. I managed to catch up with John on his way to Garden City on one of his work trips, and we covered a fair bit of ground.
Like many, John found his way into the libertarian movement through Dave Smith’s Part of the Problem podcast, and of course Ron Paul. John calls himself a “whatever works” person–he’s not concerned with ideological purity, he just wants a better world for everyone and agrees with Ron Paul’s diagnosis on many issues ranging from the ills of drug prohibition to the harmfulness of our foreign forever wars.
As someone who served two tours of duty in Iraq, foreign wars aren’t just theoretical for him. On his first tour, John saw the cost of war as he escorted supply convoys in a gun truck. On his second tour, he came to understand the hollowness of the mission as he led a squad working to construct bases for the Iraqi army, only to see those bases torn down for materials to sell as soon as they were handed over to the locals. As John put it, we would have been better off just handing them the money.
In his own words, this was a “dark time” for him and his colleagues. Everyone knew that their mission was pointless, but no one could change course because they had to follow orders and the chain of command. I was struck by how this is the exact opposite of the Kaizen practices one finds at a private sector employer like Toyota, which explicitly empowers individuals to do everything from making small improvements all the way up to stopping the entire assembly line if they see something wrong. On one hand, we see a system built on obedience and control that ends up misallocating resources on a staggering scale, while on the other we see a system built on freedom and entrepreneurship that builds the most reliable cars in the world.
While John’s experience soured him on needless foreign wars, he still believes in the value of a professional military for national defense, but if he were in charge, it would be much smaller, without all the foreign bases, and without all the equipment procured from the military industrial complex. As he sees it, without a massive instrument of war sitting around and ready to go, politicians will be less tempted, and less able, to engage in needless foreign interventions.
Eventually, John found himself in another kind of service, working for Shawnee County Parks on trail maintenance and combatting invasive species. John loves the natural environment and has a passion for restoring the balance of nature, so in some ways this was his dream job. However, it wasn’t everyone’s dream job, and some of those for whom this was just a paycheck would do the bare minimum with which they could get away.
Photo from the Libertarians of North East Kansas park clean up in Topeka on Nov. 1st. John Hauer is pictured second from the left.
In John’s view, caring for the natural environment and parks is something that the private sector could handle on a volunteer basis. Enough people care enough about this stuff, and derive satisfaction from helping others enjoy it, that they would do this work for the joy of it, which brings us full circle to John organizing a park cleanup. John no longer works for Shawnee County Parks, but his stewardship continues, and without requiring anyone to pay taxes. As the Libertarians of Northeast Kansas put it: “amazing what 4 people can do in an hour without the government”.
Some Democrats recently made the news by urging the military to “refuse illegal orders”. As J.D. Tuccille put it in a recent Reason article, “What if the IRS, ATF, and EPA did the same?”. Whether in our personal, professional or civic lives, what would the world look like if we exercised our freedoms and chose what we know is right over what we’re told is required? John Hauer gives us a glimpse, and it’s a vision I can get behind.
