"When we achieve freedom, the economy will flourish. Prosperity will be common. Poverty will be eradicated. I can hardly wait..." the speaker began. For the next 10 minutes, he spun out fantasies of how great freedom was going to be. If You Can Dream, and Not Make Dreams Your Master ...
by Michael Cloud
This dream was uplifting and inspiring.
"When we End the Insane War on Drugs, when we End Drug Prohibition, drug abuse will be such a minor problem, we probably won't even notice it," began another. For 15 minutes, he held court as libertarians imagined a world without Drug Prohibition.
This dream was pure oxygen for people suffocating from Big Government.
"In a self-regulating free market economy, a laissez-faire economy, we'll see safer, cheaper, and better products. Ever-diminishing defects. Ever-shrinking flaws," began a third libertarian dreamer. He showered possibilities and likelihoods on the new libertarians who had come to hear him speak.
This dream was exhilarating.
Libertarian dreams point us True North.
They ignite our passions and inspire our minds.
They fuel our efforts.
They focus our energies.
We must begin with libertarian dreams. Or we'll never begin.
But we cannot stop there.
Ayn Rand addressed this question in her story "Ideal." Two characters wondered why life was of no account. Who made it so?
"Those who cannot dream," said one.
"No. Those who can only dream," answered the other.
Those who cannot dream of liberty will never want it.
Those who can only dream of liberty will never seek it. They will fantasize and rhapsodize, but they will not act.
Does your dream of liberty inspire you to act? Does it motivate and activate you?
Does your dream of liberty whet your appetite to do? Does it make you hungry for a libertarian America in your lifetime?
Does it toss you into conversations about politics and economics? Does it make you feel like "I've got to tell everybody about these libertarian ideas"?
Does your dream excite and thrill you? Does it get your feet tapping and your heart pounding?
Does it set your soul afire? And do you burn so brightly you've just got to light the world for liberty?
Most people go through life without big, bold dreams. Share yours with them.
Without dreams, there's a hole in our hearts. We want dreams and we need them.
If necessity is the mother of invention, dreams are the father.
To invent a better America, we must dream liberty. A dream big enough to fill millions of hearts.
A dream big enough to inspire and activate.
We libertarians are Dream Merchants. When we talk with family or friends. When we offer a libertarian solution to a talk radio audience. When we write a letter to the editor. When we run for office.
We do not worship dreams. We work for our dreams. We do not serve dreams. Dreams serve us.
But only if we work to make them real. Only if we roll up our sleeves and act. And only if we keep working on them and for them.
We must love our dreams. Then we must live our dreams.
"If You Can Dream, and Not Make Dreams Your Master..." said Rudyard Kipling.
We can bring our libertarian dream to life.
Michael Cloud is the Persuasion columnist for the Liberator Online and The Libertarian Communicator. In July 2000, at the Libertarian Party national convention, Cloud was voted the Most Persuasive Libertarian Communicator in America and honored with the Thomas Paine Award.Michael Cloud is creator of "The Essence of Political Persuasion," the classic 3-tape libertarian communication course, also available exclusively from the Advocates at the *give-away* price of only $7.50 postpaid (includes First Class postage!). For more information, or to order, click here.