I figured this was worth breaking my CF hermitage to tell you guys about.
My father and I went to a lady's house to do some electrical work, and while we were in her basement we saw some very large and rather fancy homemade Ron Paul signs. So we asked her about them, and she said that her father had made them. She called her father and told him that she had discovered a Ron Paul supporter in the basement.
He made his way down the stairs - an old man, but obviously in good heath; 88 years old, with wispy white hair and a Mr. Rodgers-style sweater vest. He shook my hand, and we talked a bit about Paul and the election. He was interested that I had supported Paul in the previous election as well, since that was before the Campaign for Liberty and End the Fed kicked off. So I mentioned that I got into Ron Paul because of my interest in the Austrian School, rather than the other way around.
His face lit up like a beacon, and his daughter rolled her eyes with a "oh boy, here we go" sort of look. He said, "You're an Austrian? At your age?" and went off on how much he loved Mises and "what's-his-name, Mises' student who wrote that really big book - oh you know about Rothbard too?"
"Yes, I own and have read Man, Economy, and State."
"How about that German guy who was Rothbard's pupil, wrote a book about democracy that I have but I can't remember the title."
"Democracy: The God that Failed by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Yes I own that one too."
At this point he was beaming from ear to ear. Basically, he had no idea just how popular Austro-libertarianism is with younger people. He can use a computer just fine (he's printed off loads of pamphlets about Paul, the Austrian business cycle theory, and free market justice and defense theory) and he knows his way around the internet. He subscribes to Lew Rockwell and a few of the Mises fellow's blogs. But he still seemed extremely encouraged to know that those ideas will continue through our generation.
We talked for a good hour and he kept handing me pamphlets he'd made. Some of them are really good. One is a presentation of Franz Oppenheimer's dichotomy of the political vs economic means, and another some Bastiat stuff, designed for distribution among high school students. I think I'm going to give it to some young friends of mine to spam their peers with. >:}
It was a very cool experience, just randomly meeting a hardcore Austro-libertarian like that. Sometimes it's easy to think one is alone in real life, even though they may have a strong network of like-minded friends on the internet.
