The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

- Thomas Jefferson

Liberal institutions cease to be liberal¹ as soon as they are attained: later on, there are no worse and no more thorough injurers of freedom than liberal institutions.

- Friedrich Nietzsche
 

The attack on the World Trade Center reminded the world that freedom is why America was founded, and freedom is what our country means to all the people on this planet. But for all our historical attachment to the concept, in recent times we have moved further and further away from the ideal. As this book details, Government intervention to reallocate economic and social outcomes has undermined our infrastructure, set our people against one another, and caused our enemies to proliferate. Not only did this inattention to freedom open us up to the surprise attack on September 11, but the redistributionist ethos that brought us to this pass is pushing us even faster down the same road as we respond to it. As a result we could actually lose this war. Yes, the unthinkable is possible – indeed probable – on our current course.

Although we may still be more free than any other country, the backsliding on our principles must be checked and reversed quickly or we will find it impossible to maintain the moral and political cohesion on which our legitimacy to lead the world fight against terror depends. Moreover, without a return to freedom, the economic infrastructure that enables us to fight will rapidly erode. And most frightening of all, both the number and strength of our enemies will expand without limit unless we stand again for the principles our Founding Fathers enunciated two centuries ago.

With the exception of this Preface and the Afterward, this book was complete on September 10, 2001. The Introduction and the two chapters following it were written in June, July and August, respectively and might be thought of as the unpublished sequel to the various Auction Countdowns, Congressional testimonies and letters that I had written over 14 years in my attempt to launch an auction-based stock market. (All are available for download at www.stevewunsch.com.)

While September 11, as everyone says, changed everything, the chief difference with regard to my opinions as expressed herein is a heightened sense of urgency. The reaffirmation of freedom I call for, however difficult it will be, is now a critical and immediate matter of national survival. Consequently, from the title through the last chapter, I have not changed a word since September 10. You will find in the Afterward, however, a brief summary of the international dimensions of the policies I recommend, particularly as they affect our ability to fight terror.

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