This is the fourth issue of From the Hawk’s Nest, the revamped Liberty Hawk Newsletter now migrated to Substack. Subscriptions are free, for now, but will eventually move to a paid subscription model in order to support my efforts as editor and owner of The Liberty Hawk.

This issue is a re-printing of the September 29, 2019 newsletter first published at The Liberty Hawk.

Hot Takes, My Recent Articles

Impeachment Is Coming

The Question of Military Grade Weapons | Part 4

Impeachment Is Not a Purely Criminal Consideration

The Gun Debates’s Fundamental Disconnect

My Thoughts on Red Flag Laws

Three Challengers - Sanford, Weld, Walsh

There Are No Purity Tests Here

If you’ve read any of this week’s articles in the editor’s corner or if you follow my Facebook feed or my Twitter page, you may have seen some of the vitriol over my argument for and consideration of Red Flag Laws. Some of the conversations have been good and some have been bad. The least substantial have been ones that seek to lay a purity test upon me and my ideas.

What is a purity test? It is the construction of a philosophical shibboleth. It is the demand that all must concur with the shibboleth and that any action, policy, or declaration which does not absolutely reflect the shibboleth must be considered verboten.

Purity tests are the surest path to irrelevance. Principles are extremely important, but if we don’t understand reality and apply our principles towards reality, we effectively become little more than an impotent peanut gallery.

For example: like many other liberty-minded Americans, I really don’t like income taxes. Given a magic lamp and three wishes, one of them just might be to repeal the 16th Amendment. But lessening and removing the tax burden on Americans isn’t something that’s going to happen in a single day or as the result of a single bill.

A purity test on my view of taxation might demand I never ever support a law or policy that continues to tax the incomes of Americans. But then I would miss an opportunity to bleed Leviathan. When it comes to taxes, the most influential liberty-minded conservatives have been the ones willing to sit at the table of discussion and infuse their principles into the language of the legislation as much as possible.

You should never compromise on principle, but it is often necessary to compromise in policy and law lest your principles become irrelevant.

So this week, my message is that there are no purity tests at The Liberty Hawk. True, you will need to use reason and logic in defense of anything you say and if you roam too far abreast from what can honestly be considered living within the broad realm of center-right philosophy, you will be called out. But you will never be expected to die impotently on a hill to be considered pure.

The Liberty Hawk seeks to make liberty-minded conservatism relevant. It is a platform for open debate that dwells in the realm of reality. It is solutions-oriented. It’s an open conversation. Bad points will only ever be met with good counter-points. I, for one, do not believe in silencing someone or shouting down a new idea based on my own idea of intellectual purity.

Liberty Hawks Speak Out, Articles From Readers Like You

From Thaddeus R. Winker

Now, What Have You Got?

Be sure to join the conversation. Connect with me and other liberty-minded Americans on Twitter or Facebook, submit your own article to The Liberty Hawk, or email me at JustinStapley@TheLibertyHawk.com.

God Bless and Stay Free My Friends,

-Justin