‘The Cannibal’ Has Another Convert

In attendance at the New York Junto gathering, where I was the month of May’s featured speaker, was Jay Taylor, a New-York based investor and broadcaster who invests and broadcasts in the Austrian tradition.

I was delighted to hear that the topic of the talk—“Natural Rights in ‘Into the Cannibal’s Pot’: Abstractions or Facts of Life?”—resonated with Jay.

Here’s what the New York money and media man has written:

“It is most important your insights are aired as widely as possible so I was going to have my producer at Voice America track you down if I didn’t hear back from you. [I reply to every single inquiry I get. It may take time—a week or two, or more—but I answer all civilized, normal, sane interlocutors. Few are the people who get struck off my list of interlocutors. I can count 2 individuals in total in the last 5 years. And that took years of displays of incorrigible, maladaptive and manipulative irrationality, the kind that verges on malevolence.]
I really loved your talk and the following discussion. It was very enlightening. What I would most like to achieve in our discussion is to help people see how the loss of property rights is dangerous to liberty and even our safety. And I would like people to realize that applies to America as well as anywhere else.
Then I would like to have that point hammered home to my many “liberal” friends who may have their hearts in the right place but just don’t understand human nature.
You opened up a huge number of philosophical questions that I am personally struggling with, having come from a very religious Mennonite background in Ohio. Where do Natural Rights come from? “We hold these truths to be self evident. That we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (I think it was originally property?)”
I think you are actually quite good at addressing topics and questions when they are raised. I thought you did a great job at NY Junto. … I think you did a great job of explaining the connection between private property and liberty. I will do everything I can to promote your book and the ideas contained therein…

I will be on The Jay Taylor Radio Program sometime in June.