An acclaimed author and historian of the libertarian movement died last week, his employer confirmed.
The body of Brian Doherty, 57, senior editor of the liberal magazine Reason, was found on Thursday “after a fall”. Battery Yates Park Part Golden Gate National Recreation Area, The publication wrote.
The National Park Service’s law enforcement agency confirmed it responded to an incident at Battery Yates on Thursday “which involved a male visitor who reportedly fell off a cliff into the water.”
“The individual was recovered and pronounced dead,” Park Service spokesman Scott Carr said in an email. “We have no further information to share at this time.”
The Golden Gate Bridge as seen from the Fort Baker Marina in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco. Doherty was found in the Battery Yates Park portion of the recreation area.
(Los Angeles Times)
Doherty was the author of several books, with Reason stating that his most notable work was the 2007 study “Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement”.
The Wall Street Journal said, “Doherty rescues libertarianism from its own ambiguity.” wrote about work“Eloquently capturing the appeal of ‘pure thought’.”
Gun control and the role of libertarianism in the courts were the subjects of his works, and Doherty had no shortage of admirers.
Lauren Dean, chair of the Libertarian Party of California, said that Doherty’s work at Reason is what brought her to the libertarian movement.
“Brian Doherty was the best kind of libertarian: one who is true to the principles of freedom,” Dean said in an email. “He was a tireless champion of both gun rights and police reform, writing books on both (former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul) and Burning Man; his work was not on the ‘left’ or ‘right’ side of the authoritarian box, but happily outside the tired frame where libertarian principles really sing.”
Doherty began working at Reason in 1994, According to the publication’s obituaryIn 2000, at the behest of Nick Gillespie, he left the company and returned. then editor in chief.
Gillespie bid farewell to Doherty, writing, “What I loved most about Brian was his deep interest in what happens on the margins of American culture, politics, and thought, and his deep appreciation for the singular bounty that markets provide, reliably and without amorality.”
According to the obituary, far from just alcoholic topics, Doherty covered “both liberal and eccentric” subcultures, including New Hampshire’s Free State Project and the PirateA growing community of individuals dedicated to living on the ocean.
Seasteading Institute expressed its condolences by tweeting and noted that the group had “Appreciated his coverage of seasteading over the years.”
According to Reason’s obituary, Doherty was a native of Queens, NY, studied journalism at the University of Florida, and joined the college libertarian group in 1987.
He moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1990s and joined a group called the Cacophony Society, a gang that “inspired or created phenomena ranging from the novel/film Fight Club to urban exploration, billboard alterations, Yes Men, flash mobs and ‘Santa Rampages,'” according to the obituary.
One of those projects translated into the annual Burning Man festival, the obituary said. Doherty later scripted the famously artsy, hippie-like story Celebration in his book “This is Burning Man”“
Reason editor in chief Katherine Mangu-Ward said in her obituary, “Libertarians talk a lot about freedom and responsibility. Brian embodied both.” “His strange, colorful life – full of comics and festivals and music and books – was an ideal of a life lived freely and openly.”
