In his recent article What is America?, libertarian presidential wannabe Harry Browne waxed nostalgic on the Bill of Rights as if its demise was recent history.  Libertarians in general like to think of themselves as the preservers of true American values, that those who worship the state and empire have won the upper hand only in recent decades.  They look back nostalgically on earlier generations which defended freedom, unlike today's grubbers after handouts, subsidies and the spoils of war.  Many American authors have perpetuated the myth of an individualist America, including Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour. 

But they are mostly wrong.  With the exception of the radical heroes of American independence, our national history is that of conquest, theft and empire.  In fact, it is today's warmongering neocons who represent true historical American values, as they fight to win back the country they lost to the socialists a century ago.  The libertarians and their individualist heroes have been left on the sidelines for over 200 years. 

As early as 1812 our ambitious young nation embarked on a popular war to annex Canada under the banner of "manifest destiny."  After that failed, they moved to wrest much of the American west from Spain.  Once the secession of the Confederate south was crushed, the American Indians were the next targets.  With public support, the US reneged on one treaty after another, ethnically cleansing the territory, and providing land and security for the new white settlers.  As Ronald Reagan, America's modern neocon hero, gloated over a different land-grab, "We stole it fair and square." 

Many Americans deplored these wars, but their protests were swamped by the tides of empire and avarice.  Even the anti-war old right of the 1930s, represented by the "America First" movement (FDR's "isolationists"), was swept aside in the war fever that brought America into WWII.  Once the founding generation had passed form the scene, those who spoke out for liberty and self-determination have been almost universally ignored, ridiculed or silenced. 

None of these adventures in empire would have been possible without strong popular support based on chauvinism and greed, two of the kingpins of today's neocons.  The Republican Party was born in the 1850s to secure political advantage for America's growing industrial class, which favored protectionism, subsidies and profitable wars.  It was during the spring of 1861 that powerful northern business interests swung their support behind war on the rebellious south when they learned that a successful Confederacy would obviate their cherished protective tariffs.  Empire and capitalism grew up side by side in an inextricably linked mixed economy, just the way Americans like it. 

Not that America ever abandoned capitalism, so long as it filled the state's coffers and didn’t invade their turf.  Free market Microsoft came to dominate its industry in the 1990s, as did Ford Motor Company before 1920 and Standard Oil in the 1880s.  That two out of three were subjected to government anti-trust persecution when they grew too large tells us that the state is fearful of potential competition from any quarter. 

Perhaps America's greatest neocon heroes, and models for our own War on Terrorism, should be Republican Teddy Roosevelt and William Randolph Hearst.  Roosevelt's fame as a military commander during the 1898 war for Spanish territories propelled him into the presidency, and Hearst expanded his business empire by beating the drums of war, just as Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News is doing today. 

We are fortunate that our founding fathers left us a fine documentary record of their failed moment in history, though neither Washington nor Jefferson expected the union to last.  Events proved them right, as the "union" morphed into a monolithic "nation" under Lincoln.  Benjamin Franklin famously quipped that the young US would be, "a republic if you can keep it," for he too understood the fragility of liberty. 

Those of us who love freedom and loathe the state should understand that our goal must be not to recapture the past, but to create a future that the world has never known.  Our proper domain is not history (except to learn from others' mistakes) but science fiction.  We should look to the works of Rand (Atlas Shrugged), Smith (Prometheus Gap and Pallas) and Heinlein (The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress) to name just a few, and the non-fiction of Mises, Rothbard, Spooner and Hoppe for inspiration, recognizing that Jefferson's vision for America was a dream never realized.  With that understanding, we can stop mourning the loss of what we never had, and look toward a radical future.