Discussing foreign policy at Case Western University during the 2000 presidential campaign, I said, “It is not a question of if America would suffer a major terrorist attack because of our intervention in foreign affairs, but when we would be hit.” So when I first heard the slogan after 9/11 “they hate us for our freedom” it sounded absurd. To many Libertarians, Harry Browne and myself included, “they” hated us for our aggressive interventionist foreign policy.

But if “they” did hate us for our freedom, it seems that “they” have been successful in taking it away. Every time we go through a TSA checkpoint, we are reminded that this country is less free today than it was ten years ago. Government can now conduct secret searches and wiretaps in our homes without showing “probable cause,” and we can be jailed indefinitely without a formal charge and without the right to confront the witnesses or evidence against us. And it seems that “they” have gotten us into endless wars.