Author
Welcome
This started out as a book, but I decided it would make a better website. People can read Diary of Ann Frank, Grapes of Wrath, Black Like Me, Gulag Archipelago, Silent Spring, Unsafe at Any Speed- other books which call on people for political action-and then put the book down without any opportunity to do anything about it.
You can do something here, immediately. Once you see the power this gives you, I hope you’ll want to support us.
The first thing we’ll ask you to do after you look at newlibertarians.com is forward it to someone you know. We seek their opinion of what we’re doing, too. We need to get many people involved very quickly, and word-of-mouth is the best advertising.
New Libertarians is not about me, it is about you.
About The Author
Few know anything about John Hancock except that his name was written largest on the Declaration of Independence. Except for that one thing, nobody would care. I don’t think I’m anything special, so this part of my website is obligatory to those who feel the need to know the person behind the work. I’d rather let the work speak for itself.
I’m not a politician. I ran for office four times in my life, won the first one- for president of my High School student council, and lost the other three. The first time I did it because I felt someone had to do it, and it might as well be me. I never liked the spotlight, leading pep rallies seemed kind of silly- but I got to speak at graduation,
It was 1966, and the Vietnam War was on, and a friend a year ahead of me was killed. Another was wounded and played dead while his gun, ammo and boots were taken from him by the Viet Cong. He said he saw his squad wiped out twice, he the only survivor- because everywhere he went he always looked for a place to hide. Another married “the girl next door”, a few years older than me but a very close friend. A West Point grad and tank commander, he had his head blown off by a sniper, leaving my sweet neighbor with a daughter he never met. Another worked on a surveillance ship, ostensibly watching the skies for MIGs- but what they were mostly doing was “thumping” the ocean bottom with sonar looking for oil. I became an anti-war activist.
At graduation I got The Kennedy Award for “Courageous Leadership in the Protection of Minority Opinion”, and gave an anti-war speech the local paper wouldn’t print.
In college I tried to run for student council president again. My opponent ran a very professional, organized and well funded campaign- and he was an engaging Southern boy, with a careful drawl- and very polite. The college paper printed a story about the election and compared me to Nixon, my opponent to McGovern- and he won in a landslide. That’s when I learned about media bias.
In 1970 I graduated. I was captain of the wrestling team, and I enjoyed some success as a sculptor- but my college career was otherwise unexceptional. My professors thought I was a “dumb jock”, and devoted their efforts to other students. When I entered college I wanted to become a rural doctor, but I graduated with a degree in Philosophy and no academic future. Medical school offered four more years of draft exemption, and the competition was ferocious. Med school wasn’t an option for me- I couldn’t afford it and there were no scholarships for my category of person.
At my Army pre-induction physical exam I told them I planned to organize resistance to the war inside the Army were I drafted, and made a Fifth Amendment objection to two of their test questions. They rejected me for a varicose vein I never knew I had- and it still looks the same today.
Although I was free of my military obligation, I wanted to do some kind of alternative service. My parents had both been in the Navy during WWII, and I felt that everyone ought to serve- in some way. My dad was a Pharmacist Mate on a destroyer escort in the Pacific and my mother was a WAVE. After the war, Dad got a PhD and became a psychologist, Mother got a Master’s in history and went to work for the State Department doing historical research into Pearl Harbor- a “dream job” she had to quit when I came along.
I tried to get a job teaching on an Indian reservation in New Mexico, but was told that job was reserved for an Indian. Those were the early days of “affirmative action”, and it was a recession. I had a long (too long… boring) series of opportunity “passovers” because of my race, sex and lack of religious affiliation and became aware over the many years how much our society is structured around political favoritism. I came to see, early in my life- many social ills as having a political origin, and only a political solution. Over my lifetime I have become even more convinced.
My first job was working in Montana’s state institution for the mentally retarded (as they were called, then)- where many Conscientious Objectors did Alternative Service. The politics of the era were “cost-cutting Republican”, and they intended to “de-populate” the institution, to save money. I objected to the plan and got “terminated”.
I lived a couple of years as a “survivalist”- they called me “The Mountain Man”. I worked as a logger, guide, trapper, found a job as a hod carrier and decided to learn the masonry trade. I tried to run for State Representative in 1976, as Democrat- and my “issue” was keeping the institution vital. I felt the “residents”(as they were called, then) needed the institution and the locality needed the employment. I lost in the primary, predictably.
As I began, my story is unexceptional. Many young men my age protested the Vietnam War, were unsuccessful in marriage and fatherhood, were deprived of opportunity, found themselves “overeducated” and employed in menial work- the work traditionally done by undereducated men from disadvantaged backgrounds. I knew, hired or worked over, under or alongside hundreds of them over the years. There were good and bad, but most just tried to hold on with the best they could do.
I also got to know others, my customers in the marble business, general contractors, building owners, executives, architects, bankers… all the people you meet in life and in the construction world. Some were the Salt of the Earth. Others were (how do I say it politely?) substandard human beings, their wealth and power being their only attribute of interest to anyone- those who wanted some of it.
I had the good fortune to have met the Kennedys – Bobby, Ted and Rose, I never met John- people with fabulous wealth, education, privilege who sacrificed it all in service of children, the poor and the Nation. I wasn’t going to genuflect to anyone- especially to someone I didn’t respect just to make a dollar. So, I wasn’t successful in business, either.
In my old age I decided to become a writer. I know I don’t have time to do everything I’d like to do- but I can write about it. Maybe someone else will choose to do it. At this time, newlibertarians.com is being launched after three years of construction- and I’m excited about it.
Like John Hancock, I may have had an interesting life story to tell- but nobody will care about it unless my name is on something important. It won’t be me who makes it important, either. Those four visages on Mount Rushmore are symbolic of the hundreds of leaders and the millions of Americans who have made this Nation great. Like many Americans, I cry for my beloved country. I think I understand what’s caused it, and how to fix it.
I ran for Montana House District 3 in 2014, as a Libertarian, as research for this project, I was going through a divorce in 2016 so I sat that one out, but I’m thinking about running again in 2018, perhaps as Libertarian for U.S. Congress, chriscolvinmt.com. will be the website…
I see myself as a reformer- rather an instigator of reform- one of many over the centuries. I have a vision of a better future to share with mankind. If anything is done with it- I’ll never know. It will take a long time and generations of mankind’s work to accomplish it. It won’t be quick or easy, and there will be resistance from very privileged and powerful people who will oppose the idea.
Martin Luther King repeated the words of Moses- “I won’t get there with you, but I’ve seen the Promised Land.” I’d like to tell you about it.
