Libertarians React to the Raid
Libertarian reaction was negative to news of the law enforcement activity in Evansville. Blay Tarnoff, a former chairman of the Libertarian Party of New York, a statewide organization, said he could not think of any good rationale for the raid as long as the company issuing Liberty Dollars was not misrepresenting their coins as government currency. "People can trade anything they want of value," he said. "It wouldn't surprise me if the government would want to seize Liberty Dollars if they believed that people were actually beginning to use them."
An East Village resident who was co-creator of the Ron Paul dollar, Nicolas Leobold, said the raid was like "the behavior of a schoolyard bully."
A regional currency officer for the Liberty Dollar in south-central Pennsylvania, Pete Hallock, said he had ordered silver dollars in various denominations and would probably never get his money back. He said, "I don't like it when my money is stolen whether it is the federal government or anyone else." He added, "Why should I be penalized?"
Not surprisingly, independent-minded libertarians have varying opinions on the Liberty Dollars themselves. The chair of the Libertarian Party of New York, Jeff Russell of Saratoga County, said the Liberty coinage should bear descriptions such as "one ounce of silver" and not bear the term dollar at all.
