A visit to a local bookstore brought home to me something that too many lovers of liberty tend to forget, take for granted or deny: Support for freedom, and an almost instinctive distrust of coercive and abusive authority, is deeply rooted within American society and history.
Such attitudes – while certainly not the same thing as consistent support for individual rights, non-aggression, free minds and free markets – show up nearly everywhere, including within many precincts of popular and commercial culture.
I was reminded of this truth anew the other day, when my husband and I visited The Book Loft, a famous and highly unusual bookstore in Columbus, for the first time in several years.