Times, they are a-changing.
This morning I was walking my son down the hallway of the elementary school to his classroom. A great number of the parents and kids were late to school, and the teachers were grumbling about difficulties caused by Daylight Savings Time.
I asked my four year old, “don’t you think it’s strange that no one wants to do Daylight Savings Time, but we all do it anyways? Do you know why that is? Cause the government sucks,” I said.
Of course, he didn’t really understand what I was talking about. But, he did ask me “why does the government suck, Dad?”
I smiled and said, “that is a long story.”
My oldest son is turning five in May. As the years pass, like him, we are all growing older and seeds that we planted years ago are taking root.
I met Kyle Anzalone about seven or eight years ago when I was in my second or third year of law school (can’t remember exactly when). Now he is the Opinion Editor at antiwar.com and regularly appears on Judging Freedom with Fox News great Judge Andrew Napolitano.
I met Keith Knight around the same time. He is now our Managing Editor at the Libertarian Institute. He also has two books to his name. We all think he is the next Tom Woods.
Now our friend Dave DeCamp just won the prestigious Pierre Sprey Award along with independent media greats Max Blumenthal and Gareth Porter. Him, Kyle Anzalone, and Connor Freeman evolved from being volunteer contributors to quite literally becoming the future of Antiwar.com.
Its incredible to see our careers grow as time passes from year to year.
As I have discussed in my writings, sometimes film can really frame our perspective as the years tick on.
This weekend I finally got around to watching the 2014 film Boyhood. As the title might suggest, the movie follows a young boy as he grows into adulthood. It was shot over the span of 12 years with the same actors. The result was incredible film odyssey where the viewer experiences an entire childhood in about two and a half hours.
The film especially resonated with me, because the main character was born a year after I was. The boy in the film experiences life events at exactly the same time that I did. Aside from having divorced parents, we are very similar people, even down to the fact that we both drove blue manual-transmission two-door trucks.
The thesis of the film is offered during its closing scene. A new love interest muses to the main character: “You know how people say ‘seize the moment?’ I think it’s exactly the opposite. I think the moment seizes us.”
I can’t help but feel like current events have “seized” us in the same way.
Justin Raimondo often wrote that Antiwar.com existed to oppose the Big One—the major war between the US, Russia, and China. Of course Justin died during the Prelude and before the First Act, which maybe began in February 2022.
But Eric Garris is still at the helm of AWC and Scott brought us all up to carry the torch at both the Institute and AWC.
And for the last few years, it’s been about turning that corner from freelance writers and middling podcasters to becoming important voices in the broader liberty and peace movements. I think we’re well on our way there.
I try to write pieces like this from time to time to document our journey, because the last seven years have somehow disappeared.
We are ever grateful to all of you guys who read, listen, comment, support, and buy our books.
On a personal note, its always been about juggling time and energy between my legal career, my young family, and liberty. Often I am battling myself with managing that time.
As I get better and take on more difficult challenges, I know it will all come together. It has to.
Now that my youngest son is seven months old and my family is a bit more settled, I am hoping to set a more consistent, albeit less frequent release schedule. My goal is one column per week, to release Oppenheimer Part II by the end of the Summer at the latest, and to release episodes at least 3 times a month.
I am also excited to announce that I will be the keynote speaker at the Wisconsin Libertarian Party Convention. This is a pretty major opportunity for me that I am grateful for—especially to Tom Leary, who suggested to the organizers that I speak. I did not expect to be the keynote.
If you are able, come to the convention and say hello! It’s April 12-14 at DoubleTree Hilton Madison East hotel.
This article first appeared as an email to Patrick MacFarlane’s email list. If you like my work, you can join here for free.
