Los Angeles

After World War II, and as bizarre an array of adventures as any man ever had, I found myself living in Falcon Lair, the beautiful home Rudolph Valentino had constructed. (He built the place for love, as the story had it, seeking approval from his enamorata, Natasha Rambova.) The property dominates a knoll on Bella Drive, part way up Benedict Canyon, and high above Beverly Hills. Living there with my wife, Loy, and our small son, Tom, ... I had my first opportunity to take stock of my life and to realize fully the width and breadth of the ignorance with which I was bountifully supplied.

The riots were the last straw for me. They were a nightmare, those supposedly 'spontaneous' riots. I lived quite high on a hill, and had a view of the city; from my terrace, I saw ten or twelve very large fires start almost simultaneously in widely separated areas of Los Angeles. ... And on television, I saw the concerted effort of the rioters to destroy Korea Town and everyone in it, to destroy—no, that’s too polite a way to put it, 'to kill' is exact—the most hardworking, industrious, and intelligent people imaginable, motivated of course, as mobs always are, by bitterness and envy.

But there was in the Los Angeles area a small cadre of businessmen who were critical of all New Deal policies. The most articulate man in this group was W. C. Mullendore, an executive with Southern California Edison ... The man to guide the Los Angeles Chamber ... was ... Leonard Read, who became general manager of the nation's largest Chamber in 1939 ... It was important that the Los Angeles Times was what we might call a conservative paper, which gave Read a fairly friendly press ... Reverend James W. Fifield, minister of the 4,000-member First Congregational Church of Los Angeles ... was a foe of the New Deal ...

Not long ago, the patriotism of Mexican-Americans was called into question at an international soccer match in Los Angeles. Anglo-Americans were outraged that Mexican-Americans booed during the playing of the American national anthem and then cheered for the Mexican ... soccer team. what angered the Anglos was what they considered the obvious point that the Hispanic fans, by cheering for Mexico instead of the United States, were acting unpatriotically ... But patriotism can be a tricky business. Were the Mexican-American soccer fans in Los Angeles, in fact, behaving unpatriotically?

In the libertarian intellectual and social scene in Los Angeles in the early '70s, everybody was from somewhere else ... [I]n the early to mid-1970s, you seldom saw an entire week go by without at least one opportunity to get together with local and visiting libertarians, especially if you were willing to drive a few miles ... Sam [Konkin] was one of the great eccentrics of the libertarian '70s and '80s. You've heard that it's impossible to live in Los Angeles without owning a car, getting everywhere on public transportation the way many New Yorkers do? Sam did it in L.A. for 25 years or more.

Self-defense does work. ... During the Los Angeles riots, armed Korean merchants successfully defended their stores from looters after police retreated. Many undefended stores were burned to the ground. In Los Angeles, many neighborhoods were protected from rampaging mobs only by residents blockading their streets and brandishing guns. If guns had been illegal, their homes would have been looted and burned, and many would have been raped or killed.