Why You Should Either Come With Me Or Go on Your Own to the Symphony
Loyola University of Chicago used to have a law school professor named George Anastaplo.
I learned about him in my late teens through a long piece in The Chicago Tribune Sunday magazine, which was written before most newspaper journalism turned into irredeemable garbage.
I think it if fair to say he is someone who the informed readers of these pages should want to know. I wanted to know him better, so I showed up at his office one day.
Anastaplo was the brilliant and stubborn son of Greek immigrants. He came of age during World War Two. After serving as a B-17 and B-29 navigator in Europe during the war, he came back and graduated with a law degree from the University of Chicago.
When asked during the Illinois State Bar Association application process if someone who was a member of the Communist Party should be admitted to practice law, he answered, “Yes.” When questioned further, he explained that the belief in revolution was a founding premise of America, citing the Declaration of Independence. He said free association was a premise of the First Amendment to the US Constitution and that no one should be asked about their political affiliation in order to be a lawyer. It is worth noting that since the state bar association had a state-provided monopoly with total control over who could practice law in Illinois, this policy was as good as government asking about political affiliation in order to be admitted to practice law.
Anastaplo’s law school classmates who agreed with him simply said whatever they needed to say in order to get their law licenses and move on with life. Anastaplo effectively threw away his law career by taking this stand. He actually ended up driving a taxi to make ends meet. And he wasn’t even a communist. He was, in fact, quite the patriotic American.
He just thought the questions were a lousy thing to ask in an allegedly free country. He took the matter over the next ten years through the court system and eventually lost his case In re Anastaplo at the US Supreme Court.
Justice Hugo Black wrote the dissenting opinion. After reading it, Justice William Brennan told Black that his opinion would “immortalize Anastaplo.” Part of this opinion was read at Black’s funeral in 1971. The last line of the opinion was, “We must not be afraid to be free.” The dissenting opinion used to be required reading in my classes when I taught material covering that period.
I believe the Mises Institute, one of my favorite non-profit organizations, exists partly to inspire young men and young women to be more like Anastaplo and to fight the principled fight regardless of the cost. I like people who stand on principle, even if I am not in total agreement with them. I like organizations that do the same. On top of it, Anastaplo had such a keen and hungry mind that allowed him to see all angles of an argument, rather than just being one who blindly followed. As far as the students of Leo Strauss go, the father of American neo-conservat
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LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.
