Contributor

Ken Bank

Contributor

I grew up in an upper middle class liberal Republican household in suburban Philadelphia. My Dad was a fundraiser for the GOP and when I was ten years old I walked around our neighborhood handing out campaign brochures during the 1964 elections. As a teenager in 1968 I worked in various campaigns including Nelson Rockefeller, Eugene McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey.

By the mid-seventies I lost my enthusiasm for electoral politics. As the years progressed I became involved with the real estate business and picked up two masters degrees along the way; one in American history and the other in business. As a businessman my political views became increasingly conservative, and by the early nineties I got hooked on talk radio and Rush Limbaugh. During the late nineties I became disenchanted with conservative Republicans, especially after all the nonsense about impeachment and Bill Clinton's sexual escapades.

After splitting from the Republicans I became active in the Libertarian Party. I moved to New Jersey and worked for several Libertarian candidates. However, I discovered that too many Libertarians were like senior officers on the Titanic arguing over deck chair arrangements while the ship is sinking. I came to the conclusion that the only difference between organized Libertarians and Republicans was that the former preferred to be bigshots in Munchkinland than work for the Wizard of Oz.

When I retired from the real estate business a few years ago I spent more time reading about libertarian philosophy, anti-statism and free market anarchism. After reading about Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and visiting sites such as lewrockwell.com, I concluded that politics and crime are two sides of the same coin, and that government which governs best governs not at all. However, I do confess that as the lesser of two evils, I prefer the Democrat welfare state to the Republican warfare state.

Having declared myself a free market anarchist does not preclude me from observing and commenting on electoral politics, especially from a libertarian viewpoint. The ongoing jihad by Taliban Republicans against Hillary Clinton and liberal Democrats is just as entertaining as the gang wars among rival mafia leaders. I guess there is some truth to the saying that you can take the junkie out of politics but you can't take politics out of the junkie.