A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (And Some Bears)

by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling

“Government isn’t ruining capitalism. Capitalism is ruining government. I think that’s kind of obvious,” he says. “If you take capitalism out of government you get simple public representation. If you take government out of capitalism, you get slavery.”

“These assholes,” he rants, “these idiots who walk around open-carry, when there’s no reason to be open-carrying. You’re making people uncomfortable. You’re making them anti-gun. You’re making them vote against guns. You’re costing us our fucking gun rights. You’re not being responsible. You think you’re a fucking cowboy who likes to walk around with a gun on his hip because it makes you feel like you’ve got a big dick. No. No. Put that under your fucking jacket. If you really feel you need one, put it under your fucking jacket like a normal human being. Respect other people’s sensibilities.”

Some people felt harangued by Connell, or even intimidated. On the spectrum of human communication, his personal speaking style often hovered within the narrow range between somewhat shouty and very shouty.

As Adam leads me toward the Orb, I see that it’s in even worse shape than Adam’s camper. It looks like the kind of thing someone would hammer together out of an old carport and some siding. “We hammered it together out of an old carport and some siding,” says Adam.

And it’s likely, Sapolsky notes, that T. gondii is not the only parasite out there. Sapolsky has become a standard-bearer for a theory that free will is more or less something people have made up rather than face the far less satisfying reality that most of our decisions are driven by culture, chemical processes within the brain, bacteria in the gut, and, not least, parasites.

I’m unclear on whether owning three guns makes one feel thrice as safe as one gun, or if gun ownership is, like potato chips and birthdays, subject to diminishing returns.