First I want to congratulate Daren on his Market Fundamentalist
Award from NC Policy Watch. I have to admit that I am somewhat jealous
since he received the award for an area that I have spent a great deal
of time studying and writing about without receiving such accolades.
Because of this I have felt a need for some reflected glory. In pursuit
of this I started investigating Daren?s background because, given that
his views are so close to mine, I truly believed that there must be a
genetic link. Not deterred by the fact that he is (allegedly)
German/Jewish and I am Italian/Catholic, I started my investigation.
And low and behold I discovered the truth. That?s right–Daren Bakst is
my long lost son.

    It is all stems from an incident in my life that
occurred when I was very young (17 years old) and the illicit
relationship that I had with the great, great, great granddaughter of
19th century anarcho-capitalist Lysander Spooner?Lysandra
. (Karen, I?m sorry you?re finding out about this through a blog
post?but it is the 21st Century) Shortly after the birth of our son,
who we named after his great, great, great, great grandfather (we
called our darling boy Lysie for short) Lysandra was killed by
government agents while resisting their attempt to close down her mail delivery service (a family tradition) that was operating in competition with the U.S. Postal Service.

    When Lysie was 2 years old I took him on a
pilgrimage to the birth places and home towns of the four greatest
market fundamentalists of the 20th century, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and Murray Rothbard. 
While visiting Vienna Austria, home of Hayek and Mises, I turned away
for a brief moment to have a conversation with some of the locals to
discuss what I might do to increase mercury levels in the fish stock,
and when I turned back my Lysie was gone. After spending at least an
hour looking for him I finally realized that all attempts to retrieve
him would be futile and, in my despair, I booked a flight back to the
United States. I thought I would never see him again.

    What I didn?t know is that Lysie was taken in by a
German Family named Bakst who gave him the first name of Daren.
(Apparently they asked him his name when they found him and when he
said Lysie they thought he was complaining about a hygiene problem and
so they searched his body for bugs.) It turns out that little Lysie
(now Daren) drove the Bakst family crazy with his wild sloganeering. He
spent all day yelling and chanting market fundamentalist slogans like
?socialism sucks? and ?I love capitalism.? And during his more radical
moments he would break into ?smash the state? and ?the government that
governs best governs not at all.? There was only so much of this
ranting that the Baksts could stand so they shipped little Daren off to
America to be raise by their relatives in Florida. The American Baksts
were apparently much more tolerant.

    While growing up with the Bakst family in Florida,
young Daren not only nurtured his appreciation of market fundamentalism
and therefore his hatred for government regulations but he also
developed a deep appreciation for mercury. You see, he was a very
sickly child and, well, his parents had to take his temperature a lot.
It is this combination of interests that ultimately lead him to earn a
law degree and to seek out employment at a market fundamentalist think
tank like the John Locke Foundation where he could combine his two
passions?fighting government regulations while promoting the
proliferation of mercury.

    So there you have it, a father and his son reunited
to fight in a common cause, for truth, justice, environmental
degradation, and the market fundamentalist way. Thank you Grandpa
Lysander and all I can say about Daren is ?that?s my boy.”