The Ballad of Carl Drega: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1994 to 2001

In a free country, individuals have almost limitless rights -- to travel as they please, carry private arms, consume any plant or drug, keep what they earn, raise their kids as they see fit ... all without showing any license or permit. Bureaucrats have few powers, specifically listed.

But that hardly describes America today, where the default settings fast approach those of a slave state. Bureaucrats claim expansive power and privilege; the rights of the individual are crushed. Carl Drega fought back ... and died. Peter McWilliams fought back ... and died. Garry Watson fought back ... and died. Donald Scott fought back ... and died. ...

Not all their desperate acts were wise or admirable. But Libertarian columnist Vin Suprynowicz insists we should at least start cataloguing and honoring the names of those who have given their lives in this War on Freedom, being waged against us from the lowliest government classroon and "code-enforcement office" to the loftiest temples of Washington. Because we're next. Eight died on that bridge at Concord, back in 1775. How many will it take this time?

Vin Suprynowicz grew up in a nice, Politically Correct Democratic family, fine folks who taught him that it was wrong to steal or hate people for being different from them. He still feels that way, but has since expanded the list of those deserving such tolerance from merely homosexuals and members of racial minorities to also include machine-gun owners; militiamen; folks who choose to vote their conscience in the jury room in defiance of the judge's instructions; who use intoxicants other than those approved by the current government; who decline to vaccinate their children or turn them over for government indoctrination; or who decline to contribute any portion of their earnings to support the welfare/police state.

He landed his first newspaper job at the alternative Hartford Advocate in 1972 after graduating from Wesleyan University. He went on to become the star reporter at the daily Willimantic Chronicle, news editor of the Norwich Bulletin, managing editor of the daily Northern Virginia Sun, and founder and publisher of the weekly Providence Eagle. Suprynowicz was named three times to the Golden Dozen (the top 12 weekly editorial writers in the U.S. and Canada) by the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors.

A resident of Las Vegas, he's now an editor, editorial writer and weekly columnist at the daily Las Vegas Review-Journal. In wide demand as a dinner speaker at Libertarian and gun-rights gatherings throughout the U.S. and western Canada, he also pens a twice-a-week column appearing in 20 or so newspapers around the country, and publishes the monthly newsletter "Vin Suprynowicz's Privacy Alert."