Libertarian author Brian Doherty, champion of freedom and quirkiness, falls to his death

An acclaimed writer and historiographer of the libertarian question fell to his decease past week, his leader confirmed.

The assemblage of Brian Doherty, 57, elder exertion of the libertarian mag Reason, was recovered Thursday “after a fall” successful the Battery Yates parkland information of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the work wrote.

The National Parks Service instrumentality enforcement bureau confirmed it responded to an incidental astatine Battery Yates connected Thursday “involving a antheral visitant who reportedly fell from the cliffside into the water.”

“The idiosyncratic was recovered and pronounced dead,” said Scott Carr, parks work spokesperson, successful an email. “We bash not person immoderate further accusation to stock astatine this time.”

The Golden Gate Bridge is seen from the Fort Baker Marina successful the Golden Gate National Recreation Area successful San Francisco. Doherty was recovered successful the Battery Yates parkland information of the recreation area.

(Los Angeles Times)

Doherty was the writer of respective books, with Reason saying his astir notable enactment was the 2007 survey “Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement.”

“Doherty has rescued libertarianism from its ain obscurity,” the Wall Street Journal wrote of the work, “eloquently capturing the entreaty of the ‘pure idea.’”

Libertarianism’s relation successful weapon power and the courts was the taxable of his works, and Doherty had nary shortage of admirers.

Loren Dean, seat of the Libertarian Party of California, said it was Doherty’s enactment astatine Reason that brought him into the liberty movement.

“Brian Doherty was the champion benignant of libertarian: 1 who holds existent to the principles of liberty arsenic they are,” Dean said successful an email. “He was a tireless champion of some weapon rights and constabulary betterment who wrote books connected some [former U.S. Rep.] Ron Paul and Burning Man; his enactment did not beryllium connected either the ‘left’ oregon ‘right’ broadside of the authoritarian box, but delightfully extracurricular that bushed frame, wherever libertarian principles genuinely sing.”

Doherty began moving astatine Reason successful 1994, according to the publication’s obituary, near the institution and returned successful 2000 astatine the behest of Nick Gillespie, past editor-in-chief.

“What I liked astir astir Brian was his abiding involvement successful things happening connected the margins of American culture, politics, and thought, and his heavy appreciation for the prodigious bounty that markets present reliably and without moralizing,” Gillespie wrote successful his farewell to Doherty, who had galore sentiment pieces published successful The Times.

Far from conscionable heady subjects, Doherty covered “both libertarian and whimsical” subcultures, according to the obituary, including New Hampshire’s Free State Project and the Seasteaders, a increasing assemblage of individuals dedicated to surviving connected the seas.

The Seasteading Institute tweeted its condolences and noted the radical had “appreciated his sum of seasteading implicit the years.”

Doherty was a autochthonal of Queens, majored successful journalism astatine the University of Florida and joined the college’s libertarian radical successful 1987, according to Reason’s obituary.

He moved to Los Angeles successful the mid-1990s and joined a radical known arsenic the Cacophony Society, a pack who “inspired oregon created improvement ranging from the novel/movie Fight Club to municipality exploration, billboard alteration, the Yes Men, flash mobs, and ‘Santa Rampages,’” according to the obituary.

One of those projects translated into the enactment of the yearly Burning Man festival, the obituary stated. Doherty aboriginal chronicled the famed artsy, hippie-like festival successful his publication “This Is Burning Man.”

“Libertarians speech a batch astir state and responsibility. Brian embodied both,” Reason Editor-in-Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward said successful his obituary. “His weird, colorful beingness — filled with comics and festivals and euphony and books — was a exemplary of beingness lived freely and openly.”