ABSTRACT
Tom invited me, and I in turn others, (including my dear friend Bruce K. Alexander, an important contributor to this volume) to join him at a special conference of First Nations People in Edmonton, Alberta, November 1995. (Before I met Tom I spent fourteen years studying and practicing the martial arts, specifically Korean Kendo and Iaido-Myosim style, through which I had achieved my third degree black belt, no small accomplishment.) When I introduced Tom, as he often requested, I included the following story from Zen and Japanese Culture by D.T. Suzuki, as my own thinking and behavior remains influenced by the unwritten code of the Samurai, the Bushido (https:// www.schaler.net/albertaintro.html):
Tom’s humor was infectious and even his staunchest adversaries could not resist a bow. Too many critics interpreted what he wrote about in ways that were just non sequiturs. While many libertarians acknowledge him as a hero, when it comes to understanding what he meant by the myth of mental illness, they told me on numerous occasions that his ideas about mental illness were crazy, often without addressing them substantively. This was more than a little disconcerting to those of us who consider ourselves classical liberals, that is, libertarians, understanding and comprehending the meaning of his work. Tom and I concluded that too many libertarians were concerned only with economics at the expense of morality, ethics, human dignity, freedom, and responsibility.
