I discover in my post-holiday reading that R W Bradford has died of illness.

I recall my first connection to the man - it was though the money and currency newsletter and precious metals exchange he operated in Michigan back in the 1980's.  What drew me was his avowedly libertarian take on global politics and economics, and how that might suggest future values for gold and silver moneys, from both the specie and numismatic value considerations.  The newsletter was always entertaining, his margins were always very small, deliveries extremely reliable, and as a result as a small provision against the dark times I have a small hoard (as he would put it) of Austrian 100 Coronas, British sovereigns, and US 90% silver coin.  By the way, Gold really does have a fantastic "ching" sound when it is struck.

But after those initial contacts, and based on my enjoyment of his newsletter, I became a founding subscriber to Liberty, the magazine he published after removing himself from the metals exchange, and it has been reading Liberty that I have since found more valuable.

Liberty published on a huge range of topics, with many different contributors, capturing perspectives across a broad swath of the libertarian landscape, with scope from global realpolitik to life in small backwaters, including historical analysis, current events, movie and book reviews, some fiction here and there, pointed cartoons sprinkled through the pages, and "Terra Ingognita" wrapping it up with oddities drawn from news sources scattered everywhere.   Liberty provided a home for analysis and discussion of philosophical foundations, political strategy and tactics, broad and focused cautions over the concentrations of power, and celebration of the vast differences among us, all with a perspective that on one level or another valued the individual's right to choose one's own path.

Which is not to say the editorial policy was all goodness and light, or that contributions were never in conflict;  far from it.  But those differences of opinion made the content all the more valuable to me.

And Bradford did not soft peddle problems in the movement, with the LP in particular;  informative reporting from the conventions, and the pre- and post--election analysis was insightful and quantitative in a way that blew away fallacious assumptions and exposed (oft-missed) opportunities for the party.

Notable among that work was his criticism of the presidential campaigns in 1992 and 1996 by Harry Browne, which were hobbled by huge staff expenses and conflict of interest problems that may not have had any airing were it not for Liberty.  As much as I admired Browne for having written "How I found freedom in an unfree world", and who had previously been an editor on Liberty's masthead, my esteem for him dropped considerably in the face of Bradford's dispassionate analysis of campaign fundraising, FEC filings, and LP HQ minutes.  Browne's stonewalling in response to these criticisms did not improve his standing in my eyes (and has colored my impression of all his subsequent activity).  But Bradford's point was not to tear down, but expose correctable weakness in the movement, which criticism I found to be very constructive for improving the prospects for liberty.

In recent years I have not been up to date in my reading, but once I sit down to it, I continue to find most of every issue to be engaging at some level, and it is a rare article that I skip entirely.

I have R W Bradford to thank for that

I hope the future editors continue to produce such a varied, intelligent, and entertaining magazine.