Rick

I was born a poor bl…wait, that’s someone else’s bio.

My bio is not nearly as interesting — let alone as exciting — as that of my co-bloggers here at Nobody’s Business.

But going back to some time after I was born, in approximately the third grade, I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Fortunately for me, but not for the rest of the world, my mother decided the life of a zombie was not to be mine and after a brief stint on Ritalin, I was raised like a free-range chicken — that is to say, organically; i.e., medication-free; and running around like crazy — for pretty much the rest of my life.

As a side effect, my ADD matured into CDD: Career Deficit Disorder. Thus, after many years working in the medical field as an orderly, Emergency Medical Technician, Navy corpsman and then medical transcription service owner, followed by many years working in technology, including stints at the first two Internet Service Providers in Fresno, as the Director of Information Systems at a large yellow pages publisher, and several certifications relating to the Microsoft, Linux and Cisco platforms, I ended up in my current position as a criminal defense attorney.

Along the way, I obtained my undergraduate degree in Philosophy, my Juris Doctorate, and pissed off a lot of people by being stubbornly independent and, when others tried too hard to rein me in, so forgetful and distracted that I was usually just left alone.

I also learned a lot.

I think.

Libertarianism is something I’ve only relatively recently warmed to — at least under that banner. Thus, I don’t claim to know very much about what others have said regarding it. I do know, or at least I believe, that the United States of America was founded by libertarians who chafed under the rule of one they considered a despotic King.

To my way of thinking, the Constitution of the United States could as easily be called A Libertarian Manifesto. There is impliedly, in the Constitution, a recognition that we cannot do without government; explicitly, there is a recognition that we must tie the hands of that government if we wish to maintain individual freedom.

Of late, that hasn’t worked out so well for us, but primarily because government ignores the bonds placed upon it by the Constitution and we have ignored the Founders warning that liberty demands vigilance. We have not properly resisted governmental over-reaching.

But if recent developments are any indication, we are seeing a resurgence, albeit it in a grossly-imperfect form, of libertarianism in America. I’m referring to the Tea Party, both when I talk about the resurgence and when I talk about imperfection.

My goal in writing here at Nobody’s Business is to work to draw out, with a goal of hopefully inspiring others to work with me to restore, the libertarian heritage upon which this Great Nation was founded.

Meanwhile, I practice criminal defense in Fresno, California (also covering the counties of Madera, Kings and Tulare when I must) and I write at my own legal blogs. Probable Cause: The Legal Blog with the Really Low Standard of Review and Fresno Criminal Defense.