ISIL: I can remember seeing your writings in publications of the original Society for Individual Liberty (SIL). How did you become a libertarian and how did you get started in the movement?

Maybury: During the 1960s, I was an air crew member in the 605th Air Commando Squadron, involved in some of the government's covert operations in Central America. Later I was a crew member, a sergeant, in the 75th Military Airlift Squadron, which flew cargo and troops into Vietnam.
     One day shortly before my discharge, I was talking with a friend about how we had been lied to, and how shocking it had been for me to learn that our beloved federal government had the ethics of Attila the Hun. As Senator Hiram Johnson said in 1917, "The first casualty when war comes is truth."
     On a slip of paper, my friend wrote Atlas Shrugged.
     I put the paper in my wallet. A few years later, when I was in college, I found it, and read the book.

ISIL: And that led to?

Maybury: My college major was Business and Economics, and our textbooks were full of statements such as: the dollar will never be devalued, we will never abandon the gold standard, there will never be peacetime wage and price controls, and it is impossible to have a recession and serious inflation at the same time.
     Nearly all my professors were Keynesians or socialists. Their answer to any national or international problem was always, more government.      To a person who had just spent four years in the military during the insane Vietnam war, this was like saying the cure for cancer is more cancer. I had learned, the hard way, that, as Ronald Reagan and a lot of others have since pointed out, government is not the solution, it's the problem.

ISIL: And those economic impossibilities in your textbooks?

Maybury: The statist professors would teach us about them, then, very often, while we were spending our valuable time memorizing them for the tests, the newspapers would report that these impossibilities were happening. The dollar was being devalued, the gold standard had been abolished, the recession was accompanied by inflation, and wage and price controls were being enacted.

ISIL: An enlightening time to be in college.

Maybury: Having been in the Air Force, often seeing the government's lying up close and personal, I had absolutely no respect for authority – still don't, of course – and made a game of asking questions that caused the socialist and Keynesian professors a certain degree of discomfort.      My classes were full of angry Vietnam vets. After I had asked a professor an embarrassing question, they would climb on the bandwagon. Occasionally there was some talk of tar and feathers.
     One day after a class in which we had left one of these statist instructors close to tears, a vet came up to me and asked, have you been reading Ayn Rand? He handed me a pamphlet, a copy of the libertarian party platform, and my life hasn't been the same since.

ISIL: You have written 11 books, the "Uncle Eric" series, with titles such as, Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?, and Whatever Happened to Justice? I believe these are geared to the home school market? Have you had success in this endeavor?

Maybury: The Uncle Eric series is read by adults, including the subscribers to my newsletter, but, yes, its main market is home schoolers and charter schools.
     The response has been amazing. Home schoolers know the government wants children raised by government-controlled schools, not by parents. The much-admired statist educator John Dewey explained, "children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society."
     Many home-school parents, even though they are within the law, are harassed by government bureaucracies. Some feel hunted.
     Nearly all school materials are written with a statist slant, because the publishers want to sell to the public-school market, which is huge. Home schoolers know this.
     Written as a series of letters from an economist to his 14-year old niece or nephew named Chris, the Uncle Eric books are the other side of the story, the non-statist side, which is rarely told in any other school books.
     A lot of home schoolers do not feel their children are fully educated unless they have both sides of the story and, of course, these people are naturally attracted to the non-statist side.
     It takes an adult about 25 hours to go through the whole set. Each family works their way through the series, usually starting with the little economics primer, Whatever Happened To Penny Candy? That book has sold 70,000 copies.
     Then, as the months and years go by, they move on to Whatever Happened to Justice? about law – 37,000 Justice have been sold – then the other books. Total sales of all Uncle Eric books is 192,000.
     It has been my experience that after a person has been through Penny Candy and Justice, he is dedicated to the philosophy of liberty. The remaining nine books are reinforcement, they give depth.

ISIL: 92,000. Not bad.

Maybury: Thanks, and these numbers are total sales, not total readers. In most cases, the books are first read by the parent, then the child, then passed along to other children in the family, then often to other home-schooling families. We'll never know for sure, but I would not be surprised if the books have created 100,000 libertarians.

ISIL: That depends, of course, on what litmus test you use to judge if a person is libertarian.

Maybury: Yes, you bring up a good point. I do not think the word libertarian appears more than once or twice in the whole set of 11 books.
     In my opinion, a person is more comfortable if he comes to the understanding before he comes to the label. Labels are scary.

ISIL: Scary?

Maybury: No one likes being labeled. We never know what others think the label means. If I say I am a libertarian, I mean, among other things, I try to be kind and honorable, and I want liberty and prosperity for all. I've met others who think libertarian means a cold, arrogant, greedy capitalist who wants to bring back the era of the so-called robber barons.
     This is why the premise of the whole set of Uncle Eric books – the foundation of all the analysis – is two basic laws, which are explained in Whatever Happened To Justice?

ISIL: Two laws?

Maybury: The first law is, do all you have agreed to do. The second is, do not encroach on other persons or their property.
     These two rules, the essence of libertarianism, are taught by all religions. Atheists agree with them, too.
     These "Higher Laws" – meaning higher than any government's law – give us a point of universal agreement. All the Uncle Eric books use that point as a launching pad for presenting the other side of the story, the non-statist side.
     In short, we deal with the label problem by ignoring it. My alter ego, Uncle Eric, is a philosophical descendant of the American founders, period. No label other than that.
     His ideology? He believes in the two laws.

ISIL: So, forget the label, and just teach the two laws?

Maybury: It's worked for us, at least so far. After all, how many people do you know who have been able to earn a decent living teaching about liberty?
     People find the message of liberty very attractive, they love it, and they pay their hard-earned money to hear about it, as long as it is packaged in a way that does not scare them.
     Liberty is the most valuable product anyone could sell. I think there is very big money in it, as long as the packaging is first class. In my experience, the two laws are the key, they force a person to choose between his government's law and his God's law.

ISIL: You have done well financially, using that approach?

Maybury: For twenty years I was a typical libertarian activist – totally dedicated, hard-working, and poor. If my dear wife had not subsidized me, I'd have starved to death.
     One day my wife pointed out that if I abandoned the missionary model and switched to the entrepreneur model, I might get better results.
     I tried it, began to view liberty as my stock in trade, and looked for ways to package it and sell it.
     For me, the entrepreneur model has been far more effective – and lucrative – than the missionary model.
     Again, I am convinced there is no product more valuable, or profitable, than liberty. Packaging is the key.

ISIL: This might remind libertarian activists of Peggy Lee's remark, "I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is better."

Maybury: I'm not rich yet, but I'm no longer in danger of dying from malnutrition.

ISIL: You emphasized packaging.

Maybury: Yes. The philosophy of liberty is probably the most maligned, most misunderstood in all of history, and its enemies plan to keep it that way. This is why I almost never use the word libertarian, or libertarianism.
     Notice the difference between asking a person, do you believe in these two laws? versus, do you believe in libertarianism?
     Try it yourself, put those questions to people you meet.
     That is what statists have done to the word libertarianism. They have successfully discredited the entire philosophy America is supposed to stand for, and replaced it with statism.
     The two laws enable us to get out in front of the statists, to grab the high ground, because they are a Higher Law.

ISIL: So you do not like the word libertarian.

Maybury: On the contrary, I think the word is noble.
     Please do not misunderstand. I am not saying there is no place for philosophical purism, or for precise language. There is, these are crucial.
     But there is also room for entrepreneurship. As an entrepreneur, I am interested in what works. It has been my experience that, as an outreach tool, libertarianism doesn't work, and the two laws do. At least, that's what our company's monthly P & L statement tells us, which means that's what the market tells us.
     We must be realistic. Statists won the battle over that word. We must adapt.

ISIL: It would be nice if the public schools taught both sides of the story, the non-statist side as well as the statist side.

Maybury: Some do. There are public school teachers who are closet libertarians. We sometimes get orders for classroom sets of the books, 30 at a time, from public schools.
     I suspect the war will cause more of this, especially increased demand for the three Uncle Eric war books.
     The Thousand Year War was published in 1999, it predicted and explained the present war. It grew from my 1981 report by the same name. That report 22 years ago concluded that the US government was blundering into a medieval religious war between the Islamic world and the Christian world.
     Then there are World War I, The Rest of the Story, and World War II, The Rest of the Story.
     If a person reads the war books in that order, he or she comes away with a view of US foreign policy that is, shall I say, a bit different than what we were taught in school and in the movies. I don't think many young people who read them will be rushing down to their Army recruiter to volunteer to die in the government's new religious crusades.

ISIL: Speaking of Washington's campaign to rid the world of "evil-doers," you write a newsletter called Early Warning Report, on geopolitics, military affairs and investments. Much of the content is centered around Asia, east Europe and north Africa, an area you call "Chaostan". Can you briefly describe the dynamics of the region?

Maybury: Like the books, Early Warning Report is based on the two laws. About once a year I remind the subscribers all the analysis builds upward from these fundamental principles.
     As for Chaostan (pronounced Chaos-tan), the underlying principles of America's 1776 revolution were these two laws, which were the foundation of the old British Common Law.
     After the revolution, these principles began to spread around the world.
     Countries that developed legal systems based on these principles became known as the "free world."
     It is no accident that these countries also became the most affluent. Liberty is the source of prosperity. This, incidentally, is the meaning of our company's logo. Henry Madison Research is named after Patrick Henry and James Madison, and our logo is a chart, inside the Liberty Bell, showing economic progress.
     Unfortunately, socialism came along in the mid-1800s and stopped the spread of these principles.
     The most important area that never got the principles is what I call Chaostan – the land of the great chaos. I coined the term in 1992, and have warned incessantly that if Washington did not stop meddling in that area, we would end up in a gigantic religious war between the Islamic world and the Christian world.

ISIL: When was it in your newsletter's Ongoing Forecast that you started using the term "world war?"

Maybury: 1996.

ISIL: How have your suggested investments done?

Maybury: In Early Warning Report, our attitude all along has been, we can't stop this insanity – we have little control over Washington – so we might as well make money from it.
     EWR has long recommended investments that profit from war: real estate, raw materials, certain foreign currencies, precious metals, and defense stocks. Since 1990, more than 100 wars have broken out, killing over five million. Dozens of these wars are now coalescing into a single world war, with Washington at the center. If an investor got into these investments in 1996, when I began predicting the Third World War, he is now a very happy camper.
     As long as the war continues, I think the money will keep pouring in.

ISIL: Your subscribers have apparently done better than most investors over the past several years.

Maybury: Our subscription renewal rate tells the story. We have 8,600 subscribers, and the renewal rate usually runs between 80 and 90 percent, which is one of the best in the industry.
    In weak moments I flatter myself to think this is because I am so smart, but the truth, that my wife quickly reminds me of, is that the two laws are that effective. People naturally like them, and they produce excellent results.

ISIL: How long do you think the war will continue?

Maybury: The Pentagon is planning on 20 to 30 years. I see no reason to disagree with that.
     Friend Doug Casey calls it the "For-ever War". Doug is exaggerating, but not much, the war has already been going on for ten centuries.
     Again, my attitude is, we cannot stop this insanity, so we might as well continue making money from it.
     When you have your money in investments that profit from war, there is a certain cool confidence that comes from knowing you have Washington, Moscow, London, Nato, the UN and the EU all working hard to make you rich.

ISIL: Returning to the two laws – do all you have agreed to do, and do not encroach on other persons or their property – we assume you have copyrighted these 17 words.

Maybury: Yes, but anyone can quote them, as long as they do so word for word, and mention me as the source.
     Notice that the Uncle Eric books express these principles mostly in regard to ethics, with lots of history to make them colorful; but the newsletter uses them pragmatically, as a forecasting tool. When governments encroach, wars happen, and wars have economic and investment ramifications.

ISIL: How much do governments encroach?

Maybury: I would not know how to measure it except to say that since the year 3600 BC there have been more than 14,000 wars. War is the most reliable economic and investment trend.

ISIL: You are quite critical of the US government's foreign policy. What is fundamentally wrong with it? How has it gotten us so heavily involved in "Chaostan," and what are the ramifications for Americans and other Westerners?

Maybury: Do not encroach. The US government has become the biggest encroachment engine in all of human history.
     You will never meet anyone who admires the American founders more than I do, but they were human, they made mistakes. Perhaps their worst was that their Bill of Rights stops at the border. Inside the US, the federal government has been limited. Beyond the borders, the government has been able to do anything it wanted.
     Early Warning Report is forever citing the dangers of foreign aid. The federal government gives money, weapons, ammunition, military training and other forms of support to 114 governments, 94 of which are run by crooks and tyrants.
     All these crooks and tyrants have enemies, so now their enemies are our enemies. This is why 9-11 happened.
     The US empire is a brutal, awful thing. Gangsters that the US taxpayer has been forced to subsidize have included the Shah of Iran, Marcos in the Philippines, Manuel Noriega in Panama, Mobutu in the Congo, Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan, General Park in Korea, President Diem in Vietnam, Suharto and Habibie in Indonesia – the list of cutthroats goes on for pages. The US taxpayer has even been forced to aid Castro, Osama bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein.

ISIL: In your book, The Thousand Year War, you offer a peace plan for Israel which is quite different from the ones we hear about every day. What are the key elements and why would they work when mainstream plans will not?

Maybury: I don't think they will work. As of 9-11, I think it is too late. But, people ask for a plan, so I offer one, but I think Israel is a lost cause. It will be nuked.

ISIL: Good grief. Nuked?!

Maybury: Israel is a Jewish state in the center of the Islamic world, and it contains Jerusalem, which is Islam's third holiest city.
     Israelis number about six million. Moslems number more than a billion; 167 to one.
     One Islamic state, Pakistan, already has more than 30 nuclear weapons, and Iran, Iraq and probably other Islamic states are working to get them. It does not take a military genius to see where this is leading.
     I don't know when, but in an era of miniaturization, when an atomic bomb will fit in a small suitcase, I think it is a near certainty that someone will find a way to smuggle nukes into Israel. Maybe they will use cardboard boxes delivered by Federal Express. The Israelis would never know who did it.
     To avert this catastrophe, the Israeli government could try my plan. The first step in the plan is to renounce the idea of a Jewish state – that is, enact a constitution that requires separation of church and state, and a non-religious name for the state, so that Israel is remade into a genuinely free country with no religious affiliation whatsoever.
     But, again, I think it is too late. World War III has begun. The top decision-makers in Israel and the US have let themselves be infected with war fever.

ISIL: What do you think about war against Iraq?

Maybury: Americans have been led to believe all governments are sane and honorable, except for a few "rogue states".
     The truth is that most of the world is a nasty place, and always has been. Many governments are every bit as evil as Saddam Hussein, and some are far worse.
     The world is infested with rattlesnakes who are loading up on nuclear, chemical and biological weapons (weapons of mass destruction, or WMDs). The Federation of American Scientists reports 29 governments – all members of the UN – are pursuing or already have WMDs.
     At least 12 of these 29 are every bit as evil, dangerous or crazy as Saddam Hussein. They are, in alphabetical order, the governments of China, Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan and Syria.
     Again, all these lunatics and gangsters have or are developing WMDs, and eight are known to aid so-called terrorists.
     And, all are members of the UN.
     The UN is really just a giant rogues' gallery, a fraternity that power junkies can join to cloak themselves in legitimacy.

ISIL: So why the war?

Maybury: It's a vendetta, the Bush family vs. Saddam Hussein. The Hatfields and McCoys with WMDs.
     Political power corrupts the morals and the judgement, history teaches no clearer lesson.

ISIL: What is your prognosis for liberty in America and the world?

Maybury: In the grand scheme of things, over the long run, I am wildly optimistic. The current war, and the government's attack on liberty, are no more than a speed bump in the road to a truly free and prosperous world.
     We hit the speed bump at a hundred miles per hour, so things will be scary for a while, but hard times never last forever.
     Throughout history, the two laws have been discovered, then forgotten, over and over. Eventually they will stick, and mankind will be on its way to more freedom and abundance than we can imagine.
     The more people become dedicated to the two laws, the sooner it will happen.

The normal subscription price of Richard Maybury's Early Warning Report newsletter is $200 per year (ten issues) but we have arranged for readers of Freedom Network News to get a year's subscription, plus Mr. Maybury's books Whatever Happened to Justice? and Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? for just $149. This special offer goes away May 31st, so respond now. Mention code 534 when you call 1-800-509-5400, or write Henry Madison Research, Box 84908, Phoenix, AZ 85071; fax 602-943-2363.