Living with Purpose: Embracing a Life of Liberty

In this episode of Age of Reinvention, host Emily Bron speaks with Dr. Mary Ruwart, a biomedical scientist and libertarian activist. Mary shares her journey into libertarianism, her views on U.S. and Argentine politics, and her critiques of the FDA. She also discusses various Liberty International projects, her role on Institutional Review Boards, and her philosophy on embracing freedom and individual rights.

Join us for an inspiring conversation on liberty, community building, and sustainable living. For further insights into libertarian principles and the upcoming Liberty International event in Buenos Aires in 2025, please refer to [https://liberty-intl.org/](https://liberty-intl.org/community)

To learn more about Dr. Ruwart’s vision, check out her work at [ruwart.com](http://ruwart.com/). Let’s continue to explore, innovate, and live freely. Until next time, keep questioning, growing, and striving for fulfilling lives in liberty.

TIMESTAMPS:
03:55 Mary’s Journey to Libertarianism
04:41 Global Political and Economic Changes
05:59 Libertarian Principles in Action
06:31 Challenges and Criticisms of Government Policies
14:08 FDA and Medical Innovations
24:57 Libertarian Community Projects
39:10 Youth and Libertarian Movement

Listen to part II of the podcast episode here:

Watch Part II of the interview here:

Emily: Welcome to Age of Reinvention, Eco Living and Intentional Communities. I’m your host, Emily Bron, and today we have a truly inspiring guest, Dr. Mary Ruwart, a biomedical research scientist, award-winning author, and longtime libertarian activist. Mary has dedicated her life to bridging, divides and promoting freedom, compassion, and practical solutions for a better world.

Mary is passionate advocate for libertarian principles and ethicist, a board chair at Liberty International and the outer of three influential libertarian books. From her groundbreaking work and healthcare reform to her leadership in the Libertarian party, Mary brings a unique perspective on how individual liberty and community values can unite to heal our world.

In this episode, Mary will share her personal journey, insights on living a life centered around an intentional community. In this case, Liberty International, that promotes freedom, purpose, and advice for those looking to live their lives in freedom. Join us as we explore her vision and the future of liberty in action.

Hello, Mary. I’m happy to welcome you to the age of Reinvention Studio.

Mary: I’m happy to be here too because the world is over undergoing some kind of reinvention right now.

Emily: Absolutely. And you, as far as I understand, have been in this reinventive stage in spirit for many years. So actually, my first question you’ve had diverse career that has included scientific research teaching in the college real estate project.

How did your journey led you to become a passionate advocate for libertarian principles?

Mary: I found out about Libertarian principles when I was in college through Ayn Rand’s work. She wrote some great books and I felt good about that. There were some things I disagreed with her on, the beauty of that is none of us are perfect.

So hopefully the next generation which I was, could help change things. And the generation after mine will hopefully make things even better too.

Emily: We are living now in a time of big changes. We are experiencing actually all world, but we on the North American continent, enormous political and socioeconomic changes in the us.

And worldwide some of the President Trump emergency orders and latest government cuts align with some libertarian ideas. While others, I assume internal changes and international actions are still far from the spirit of the many libertarian. Other ideas At the same time Argentina’s President Javi, MA one year of power and government cuts and multiple economical changes in his country, spread the wave of libertarian economy implementation across the continent.

How this action in. Two different countries with two different president will affect libertarian movement in this year, 2025 and beyond. What is your vision?

Mary: Liberty International had one of the congressmen from Argentina at our convention in Grapevine last year, and we are going to Argentina, Buenos Aires this year and we hope to have Milei speak to us.

Although he’s a very busy man, so he can’t be sure and. My understanding is in the first few months of his administration, he was able to balance the budget, which is a, actually a fairly large miracle. I was gonna say a small miracle, but it’s actually pretty big. What we’re seeing here in the US of course, is Trump is at least trying to get rid of the waste and fraud in government, but the Democrats don’t seem to be interested in that, even though they’ve always said that they were interested in downsizing government and making it more efficient.

So I, can’t really address why they’re doing that. Other than I know there’s been a lot of resistance to Trump in general. And that’s the part I think that is most libertarian about what Trump is doing is trying to downsize government. Now, the tariff situation, of course, is. It’s a different story because, libertarians generally don’t support tariffs.

I, wonder though what I’m beginning to think is that at least for Mike, what I can gather, Trump, although he’s threatened big tariffs on Mexico and Canada, I think he more wants to level the playing field and have optimally zero tariffs for the Western world, which would be great. I think this is the way he’s pushing it, at least.

I hope that’s the, that’s his goal, and if it is, that would be a good thing. Don’t know if that’s gonna happen or not, but that would be good. I know he’s going to be pretty hard on China, which, of course is an enemy, so maybe that, at least a theoretical enemy, so maybe that’s not such a bad idea.

We’ll see. Terra, a general though. Our tax on consumers in both countries, really. Their attacks on the country, for example, let’s say the tariffs in China, how they would hurt the US is that we get a lot of Chinese goods that are very inexpensive, but if China has to pay a tariff or a tax basically to sell their products here, they’re going to have to raise their prices.

So it really is a tax on the American people, at least in part. And it hurts China too, because what’s going to happen with China is they are going to, they have to lay off workers and that’s going to hurt their economy too. So tariffs really in general are a no win situation for as far as the economies of the countries involved, which is one of the reasons, of course that libertarians aren’t too keen on them.

Emily: I live in Canada and we are one of these neighbor’s, friends who actually heated by this tariffs even. It’s not yet officially as far as I know implemented. But I understand why it’s happening with all this. Many other people are frightened anxious actually.

But I believe that it’s a temporary measure. Just I don’t know if it’ll be fully nullified. I don’t believe in 54 State personally Canada is being 54 first State. But the game is very non-standard, I would say, and looking on the methods of Javier, Milei, and Trump, only two months, maybe in a year we can compare them, but do you think that examples of the two, so different countries like US and Argentina might inspire other countries or leaders to do something similar?

Mary: Yes. In fact, I don’t generally make predictions, but one of the things I’ve always thought, I haven’t really said it very much publicly, but I’ve always thought that with the internet, the benefits of liberty are out there. And if I were in a developing country and the leader of a developing country, I might say this is interesting.

It looks like freedom is a very important part of a prosperous country. So I love my country and I wanna make it prosperous, so we’re gonna go for freedom. And so I’m not surprised in a way that Argentina elected a libertarian president because they used to be prosperous, and then they went more socialistic and they lost that prosperity.

And I think that’s not something that most people want. They want prosperous country. They want to be able to have a high standard of living. So in a way I’m not surprised. I have always hoped that if the United States lost its way, and I have to say under the Biden years, it sure looked like it was I would hope that a developing country.

Would take on the cause of liberty for prosperity of course. But in doing that, they would keep the flame of liberty alive. And that’s really what we need. We need at least one country in the world to really be pushing for freedom. And what’s happened in the US because of the Biden years is that I think a lot of people who were complacent have woken up to some extent and realize that having a really strong government is not always a good thing.

My hope is that the transformation of Argentina, coupled with the discontent that we had under Biden will re reignite the flame of liberty in both of our countries. And that would be so wonderful because if we are prosperous in both countries, then I think the rest of the world will look at that and say, we want that too.

If liberty is the way, then that’s what we want. And I think that will help our human evolution because, you think about it, prosperity isn’t just about having more money to buy what we have now. It’s about innovation, in other words, the ability to go ahead and try something, which is part of what they call the American spirit, that’s the way we get new inventions.

It doesn’t matter how rich you are. If the cure for cancer has not been discovered, you can’t buy it. So this is why it’s very important to have that freedom to invent and to try things. And that is something that, of course is lacking in dictator type countries to a large extent. And that’s why freedom is so important.

It’s not just about being able to buy fancy cars or whatever. It’s really about a matter of life, of more life and less death.

Emily: I think Argentina is actually happy to have such a personalities, Javier Milei, because like from my perspective, and I was born in socialistic country, like former Soviet Union and I’m familiar with Western Europe and the state of the former socialistic countries now even after so many years of freedom officially Democratic government, it’s so slow. Till you get prosperity as you say, yes, even, it’s kinda what people understand, but real freedom and the values of freedom, which actually ignite creativity and desire to shift your life to, to the different narratives. It’s not so easy for Argentina is what I see, because there’s a lot of pushback towards Milei, but his strong personality us, it’s different case.

But many countries like. Russia, for example, going back to auto models, I would say. And yes, the game is unpredictable sometimes, but I share your enthusiasm about the. Possible better future for United States, and I understand how it’s important for the western world and US in Canada and any other countries.

And my question are you involved in the current administration work in some capacity proposed changes in the scientific or health regulations?

Mary: Yes. I would, lemme say I would like to be involved. There were a number of people who put me up for FDA commissioner, which I didn’t expect to get and did not get.

But what I would like to do is consult on restructuring the FDA or maybe doing away with the part of it that approves drugs, maybe have it more of a certification type system. The difference is when you’re regulating. Like the FDA is now they can keep drugs off the market that they don’t like. And sometimes it’s very arbitrary, maybe they don’t like the company or the company’s CEO.

And so in the US there are several drugs. We don’t have that Europas because of personality conflicts. And also a certification method would allow not just the FDA to make a recommendation, but it would allow other certifiers out in the country or even throughout the world to look at the data and make their own recommendation so that somebody could decide that, yes, I wanna buy this drug, or no, I don’t.

Hopefully, hopefully in collaboration with their healthcare providers, of course. And that would be a better system because right now in the US we are really denied. Certain drugs and certain types of research cannot go forward in the us. What’s happened is it’s moved out of the US into the Caribbean or Mexico, or I don’t know if Anys moved to Canada, but at least Mexico.

Mexico and the Caribbean I’m well aware of. And for example, stem cell research. The FDA was really hard, came down hard on that, and it’s too bad because it’s really one of the new frontiers of modern medicine. And we had a situation where the FDA came down on a doctor who was taking out stem cells.

Of course he used to put them in the same day. But for older people it wasn’t it wasn’t as good, they needed a bigger shot of stem cells. So what he did is he basically put them in a test tube and grew them up and then injected them several days later when they were plentiful.

But the FDA said, no, that’s making stem cells a drug. So then you had to jump through the 12 to 14 years of hoops, regulatory hoops before that could be approved in stem cells. It’s a medical procedure. And this is really made stem cell research stop in its tracks, basically, because that was really a big breakthrough.

And the FDA actually has disallowed certain studies. For example, there was this little boy I shouldn’t say little, he was a teen. He accidentally injected his heart with nails from a nail gun. That wasn’t done on purpose, but he was rushed to the hospital. And of course what happens in situations like that is because of his heart damage, he would probably have a series of heart attacks and die.

So in desperation, his doctors gave him stem cell injections and lo and behold, it worked. And, two or three months later, he was out on the basketball court playing basketball. Again, this is basically a miracle. So what happened is the doctors said, Hey, what if we injected stem cells in the hearts of people who had severe cardiovascular disease and were gonna die in a year or two?

And the FDA said, no, you can’t do that because we don’t have any animal data. So you are going to have to, go through this procedure with animals. And show that it works in animals before you can do it in the hospital. And of course, the hospital didn’t have any animal facilities they couldn’t do it and these people were gonna die.

This is, this is the type of group that you want for a beginning experimental procedure. Somebody who has no choice. And that’s why the doctors gave it to this boy. He really had no choice. He was gonna die if he didn’t get some kind of treatment. And so this is really making it so difficult for people who want to advance medicine to do things.

And, this is again another instance of the FDA overstepping in my opinion. And in my book, death by Regulation, I have estimated that the US FDA has shaved five to 10 years off each of our lives. And I go through the research on the drugs that are currently on the market and how many lives they saved to get the first five years.

The second five years is due to the FDA’s war on prevention. They had SWAT teams going into health food stores in the 1980s, and even my doctor’s office had a SWAT team put in. And, this really discourages a lot of doctors from doing research and nutritional treatments because of that.

Now, a lot of people think taking supplements is not beneficial. But if you think about it, if we don’t eat, We die. Food is important, and the nutrients in those food is important. And if we don’t get enough of them, we don’t just get things like scurvy, we don’t get optimal health. And one of the things I used to do in the lab, the way we did it, this is back before of all this genetic manipulation of animals was possible, the way that we created animal models for disease was we took away a vitamin or two, and then they got things that looked like cardiovascular disease, like liver disease.

So the researchers, my age group, we know very well that there’s a problem if you don’t get the proper nutrition and proper nutrition is not the recommended daily allowance that the FDA. Believes in it is something much more usually. So anyhow, these are the different ways in which the FDA has hurt, not just the people in the us.

But in the world because everybody thinks the FDA is a gold standard and are copying it. And so it, this is rippling out to the whole world and compromising a lot of people.

Emily: Frankly speaking, we speaking about the food as a family, we were never following this diet, American diet.

We still have our Eastern European or whatever we understand. And it’s appear to be correct, but I understand, I see the damage on my children live in Hua north American and how, and it’s not only food, but all advertisement model, and all mentality around this healthy lifestyle, which only recently became really healthy.

But going back to you how has your perspective on freedom and individual rights evolved? As you transitioned from the different life and career phases, and especially after turning 50, did you notice that some things appear to be different after 50 for you

Mary: personally? I had a big I don’t know what to call it let me call it revelation, for lack of a better term.

In the late eighties, I was reading about US forward policy and all of a sudden a lot of things came together in my consciousness, so I had been a libertarian for, at that point, for 15 years. And what happened is I didn’t just see the libertarian ethic. I saw how. Christ stricture to love your neighbor as yourself was actually the political was actually what libertarians believe.

In other words, the libertarians believe in the non-aggression principle that you don’t initiate physical force fraud or theft against others. And if you love your neighbor, of course that’s what you do. You would not aggress against them. So I saw that connection and then I also saw the connection of what at the time was called New age philosophy, which was in trying to integrate, I guess the realm of the spirit and the physical.

So I just saw everything come together in, in a way that I hadn’t seen in the libertarian movement at that point in time. And that resulted. Healing our world. But when I saw this integration, it was, what I also saw was that as long as we don’t blow ourselves up, we’ll one day be libertarians because we are, we want the best for ourselves.

We wanna be prosperous, we want, we don’t, we want peace, in general. And so I saw that because it’s in our best self-interest to have liberty and that this concept is not well understood at this point in time. This is, remember now the late eighties that one day we would come to see all that and therefore we would have a libertarian world of peace and plenty.

And that was very exciting to me. I could hardly wipe the smile off my face for a couple weeks. So that was, that was just something that happened. I was just trying to understand things and all of a sudden I did. And so I had to write about it. And at that point in the libertarian movement.

The other part I should mention is that I saw the philosophy of liberty and the practicality of these two sides of the same coin that also so in healing our world, I talked about the practical application of our principles, and actually I got criticized for that by some libertarians who felt that making a practical case for liberty was somehow unethical.

That we should simply talk about philosophy. And of course, the philosophy’s great, if you don’t have if applying the libertarian philosophy made us poor, destroyed the climate. Made us more alike and always at war with everyone, I don’t think we’d like that very much. We want a world of peace and plenty, and that is exactly what Liberty can give us.

And so I tried to articulate those concepts, which were actually not articulated in this understanding that I had. I had a hard time articulating it at first, but I did try to do that with my sister Marty. And of course we were very close, so she got it. And she is the one who really helped me make the manuscript user friendly rather than a scientific treatise.

So that was a very, it was very rewarding for both of us. And now healing our worlds is a classic in.

Emily: You already answered my question about this book, but speaking about practical implementation of libertarian ideas like I am following several projects by free City Foundation that you know about the practical implementation.

And one of the best examples it’s a new country Free Republic of Liberal Land, which actually has 10 years old these days. It’s a example of. Implementing this ideas. It’s still baby, but this baby already making waves and the Romania, other projects in Montenegro, Montero, some new di already building, working, attracting people to live in communities.

What I and I invited some of them already. They’ve been a guest of my podcast. So it’s practical implementation. Obviously each community with some specifics, which is okay. They building now in Portugal, in Latin America. So the waves are. Going, over the continent in very interesting practical living.

Sometimes social experiments, sometimes I don’t know if you are aware about the community in Honduras, which was actually experimenting on biomedical fields as well. So attracting best minds and developers. So I was personally very excited. I came from this side to learn about libertarian, which I knew about, but okay, it’s not only theory, it there are people living, breathing, building, and inviting us to join.

So in again, it’s might be platform. It might be some other invention, but I personally get very enthusiastic about this development.

Mary: Yes. And the historically, what happened in the earlier days when people tried to establish a libertarian community is that the nearby government would either Rene on their promises to allow that area to be free, or they would, simply move in.

So I’m glad we seem to have been able to establish some footholds, and I hope that the governments won’t renege. There’s a lot of benefit to governments that allow that, because of course, if you have a private sector that’s very prosperous in your country, that attracts people to your country, and, if you have innovation in that area, that innovation, of course, ripples out into the rest of the country.

So it’s a really good thing for everyone involved.

Emily: As the Chair of Liberty International Organization, what are the current priorities and most exciting projects?

Mary: We have grown so much in the last few years primarily because about five years we hired Yass Spindel as our president and basically CEO.

And it took him a co couple years to of course find his footing. But now things have just exploded. There’s no other way to say it. We finally have really a true staff. I’m not sure of the numbers ’cause they change a lot, but we have nine or 10 staff people, they’re in other countries the cost is lower than it would be if we were hiring solely in the US and.

Beyond that, these people are young and eager. And that’s good because we were getting gray there at Liberty International and we needed to have young people to succeed, us those of us who were around for a long time. So that was good too. So they’ll be stepping up. But the projects we have, we still have our international conferences.

So we have coming up I mentioned earlier in August, we’re going to have our world conference in Argentina. Hopefully Milei will be there. And we also have had a lot of courses. I just. Got engaged with doing the mental and emotional freedom course, which basically looks at the beliefs that we pick up as children or in our subconscious that cause us to react in certain ways that may not be beneficial to us.

And this is really a concept that hasn’t really been explored in the libertarian movement because again, of Rand’s influence there’s a lot of belief that, we’re rational and we should act totally on our rationality and that our emotions don’t count, but our emotions really clue us into what we really believe, so we’ve had to, I had the feeling that we really ought to do something about that. So we have the mental and emotional freedom course. We have financial freedom courses, which help people understand how to be a full-time tourist so that, they don’t really have a base which they have to pay taxes in, or if they decide they want to have a base.

We’ve had this digital nomad program where people who we’ve put together like an index to let people know what the tax codes look like and what other restrictions there might be on working in there. Things like this, whether you can get a second passport, whether you can get a, like a what we would call ’em, the us a permanent green card or what.

So we’re doing things like that. And we also have an animation team. Now what they did is they have made, one season of Ken Schoolings, the Adventures of Jonathan Gullible, which is an illustrated book that he what he put together for his college students. But it’s pretty simple. It’s very neat because what it does is it kind of mocks certain things like minimum wage and protectionism of different I guess you could say different occupations.

For example, instead of cutting trees down with a saw, they beat the tree with stick to try average, which is ridiculous of course, but more people have jobs, right? So it’s a good thing, right? So Jonathan Gull will get stranded on an island where all these dumb things are done. And it’s really great because Ken, who’s a board member, has put together something that is.

It’s funny and entertaining, but it gets the point across. And so now we have an animation of that. So we have an animation department that’s working on a lot of different projects, and of course animation is, tends to be an expensive thing, but we’re incorporating some AI stuff and that’s, making it more reasonable.

And we’re going to hopefully by next year, we’ll hopefully have a libertarian journal which will have papers that have, research content, book reviews, commentaries, things of this nature. We’re aiming for a longevity issue. An issue that talks about what we did wrong in the pandemic, so we don’t make the same mistakes.

And this is, we

Emily: got a lot of things going right now. I know that Liberty International recently launched the Libertarian Solutions 3.0 course. It’s what you’re speaking about. It’s this this animation.

Mary: Yes. That’s some of it, yes. That’s one of the courses. Yes. Yes. And, we try to show the practicality and we’ve had such good feedback for these courses.

And of course they’re, we have them online with Udemy, at least some of them. Were having to refresh some of them according to Udemy’s guidelines. So we’ll be doing that. And so they’re available to people who are interested for a pretty nominal price. So

Emily: I, is it intended to young people, children, adults, what kind of

Mary: basically anyone, children might have a harder time, but as long as they’re if they’re homeschooled children, they won’t have a hard time. I say that because I can see the difference between homeschooled children, which the children of my renters are, and then other children.

They were so different from the day I walked up there to hand them the keys and they’re moving in. I could see the difference. That’s how dramatic it’s, and, they’re, when one of their sons was 14, he built me these catios to put cats in because I was trying to socialize feral kitties.

And he had a whole tool set bigger than mine because, his father and his older brother had handed them down and, so even as he was going to high school, he was working as a helper to his older brother who was doing a lot of repairs in our area. So it’s pretty interesting to watch these homeschoolers really just get themselves integrated into the workforce very quickly.

And they like it, it’s not like an obligation. It’s something that they’re excited about.

Emily: You know what I’m going to the Liberty International in Buenos Aires as well. I get my tickets already. Yes, we will meet. But reviewing the other day the website of the event. I remember I noticed one young school age boy, I think from United States is a speaker because they put the speaker.

So I was really impressed. I don’t know if this guy you’re speaking about or somebody.

Mary: No, it’s not him. But yes, we probably, and we do have some very intelligent children of our longtime libertarians and our, and grandchildren now, and it’s exciting. It’s very exciting. A

Emily: little bit different perspective.

How does Liberty International collaborate with local communities in different countries and activists abroad to foster freedom, innovation, and sustainable living? Do you have some projects or initiatives in this direction?

Mary: Oh, yes. Yes. Actually we have two in particular that might be of interest.

We’re going to actually I think it’s already happening as we speak or maybe has happened. We’re having a woman’s empowerment group going in Nepal now. We had we had some, we had a lady from Nepal that I met when she was in Project Arizona. We bring in international. People we hope will be future leaders.

And she was telling me how different it is for women in Nepal and ’cause she’s still going through the barriers that women in the US and the western world went through 30 years ago. There’s, they’re just getting started on that. So we have a project to help empower women in Nepal to be able to cope with the changes and help make them.

And then we have another project which is a reverse project, Arizona, where instead of bringing international folks to the US we’re looking for youngsters in the US who might think socialism is a good idea and we’re gonna send them to a socialistic area and let them see it in action. And we figured that will be

Emily: very educational.

So what countries do you have in mind? Because Nepal for me is not socialistic country and Argentina. So

Mary: it’s

been, satellite countries that have not, I think it may be in Asia. I’m not quite sure yet. So

Emily: there’s still some countries in Asia. I know this kind of region. I’m personally very interested because I can tell you from my perspective and from my experience communicating with young people children, I would say children of my friends growing up in Ukraine, say in Bulgaria, in former Soviet Republic, they’re more practical.

They more, they, they going to the west with ideas. And, it’s not so easy to sell them socialistic ideas. They quickly understand what is about. They have real, points of reference or stories, parents or something that is still going on in their countries.

So I believe many American young people with best intention should spend at least months or two in other countries to see what socialism brought to people and to learn from it because unfortunately it was not provided as a part of educational system. I was surprised to learn that in, and I’ve seen the same in Canada and United States in school.

They teach a lot about Nazi regime, about fascism, but nothing like, not enough about style and persecution and socialism as a system and as implementation. That’s why I think we have so many issues and people don’t value freedoms. They have, usually people don’t value whatever they have. They need point of reference.

Mary: That’s right. Our educational system has been I think the socialists have penetrated our public educational system.

Emily: Absolutely. I noticed it’s long ago, but I thought it’s only in Canada when I realized that it’s the same in us. I was really horrified because I understand that it’s like whole direction.

I would say even couple of generation already see the world in the different perspective, which is, does not have support in history, just the stories, just, sometimes vice versa to reality. So as far as I understand from the projects you are working on already implemented you believe that showcase the potential of libertarian principles in community building and environmental projects.

It’s really what can teach young and not only young people. Correct.

Mary: Yes. Basically this is something you can learn at any age, but, hopefully we can share it with young people because I think the youth of the entire world has been, I dunno, contaminated is the right word, by these socialistic ideas.

And we really have to have a counter to that now, I have to say in the US where students for Liberty and young Americans for Liberty originated and now has spread throughout the world, students for liberty. Surely I really feel that we’ve got quality people, in my generation, the movement was just getting off the ground, right?

And to do that you have to be a little bit of a nerd, or you have to be a little outta the normal social dynamic because you’ve gotta be willing to stand up for something that. Very few people understand, but this upcoming generation is very mainstream and I’m really excited about that and seeing that because that’s, and that’s the normal progression I think, of any movement.

The A movement that’s different than the culture it’s in is going to start out with people who think differently and they have to think differently and be bold enough to express themselves differently. And that takes a certain kind of person. But now the libertarian movement is becoming more mainstream, and so we’re getting.

Of the mainstream, which is fantastic. That’s really when you know that the intellectual battle is being won. When you see that the mainstream folks are coming in and in the US that happened a lot because of the pandemic. I think people never thought. The government would take their freedoms away or take their jobs away if they didn’t get the jab, for example.

And that’s now getting reversed in the courts. My understanding from a gentleman I, I met at one of the conferences who’s a lawyer who handles a lot of this, he says there’s 40,000 lawsuits against the federal government alone in this country, which I think is a good thing. This is all over the covid vaccine.

I think it’s a good thing because I think people need to be held accountable so this doesn’t happen again. It’s like this situation in Germany, after World War ii there was a really strong sediment that this should never happen again. And I think that’s been reactivated to some extent with the pressures that were put on people through the governments when they were pushing the covid vaccine.

Emily: But I would tell from what I know, there are not so many cases against governments in Germany and France and UK and there’s not a lot of discussion in questions. Maybe there were some in Parliament, but kind, there’s so many other issues that this one subside I under the carpet and I believe there are a lot of changes.

Hard to follow, but not too many people unfortunately, and to my surprise, really care about freedom. Many people, even in my circle, believe that the best intention, lockdowns, and they believe in this official narrative. And for me personally, it was the biggest shock that so many people believe, believed, I don’t know.

Now they’re trying not to speak about it. But maybe it’s our belief. We are coming from the Eastern Europe, that in the west it’s so differently, like open and honest and discussions are coming here and there. For me, it was the biggest shock and wake up call. I would say this time in lockdowns, critics sometimes argues that libertarianism as a, teaching and movement is too idealistic or impractical. Okay. We spoke about some implementation as a community living, but how do you respond to this concerns, especially when it comes to address poverty environmental challenges and social justice, which is again, these case understood differently from, I would understand it before.

Mary: Actually Liberty helps that a lot, in this country we had segregation, not because individuals wanted it. We had segregation because. We had the stores and everything servicing our black communities, and the government didn’t want that. So it had to put in laws to have segregation, right?

So now that’s not to say some people weren’t prejudiced. They were, of course. But the thing is, in a free market, a store owner, for example, he wants to sell his goods, right? So if, he doesn’t really care usually what the color of the skin is because he wants to make a sale. Now, if he decides, or he, she, it’s not just men, but back in these days, it probably was mostly men.

If the store owner would decide that it didn’t wanna sell to people of color, then they would lose money. So they’d pay a financial penalty for discrimination. And so because of that market penalty fewer people discriminated. And when that happens, people start mixing, right? And that interaction, the trade interaction that’s happening really establishes things a lot different.

So the governments of the time didn’t like that. They wanted to create the segregation and they had to pass laws to do it. And so one of the things that I found in my research is that most of these things, including environment, was incredibly destroyed in the Soviet Union because the government.

Didn’t have to compensate their victims. But in a free society that’s different. If our corporations pollute something, they are obligated to clean it up unless the government interferes and protects them. That’s the beauty of property rights and what happened out west, for example, when the American West was settled, it was a true anarchy.

There were no there was no government out there. And what people did so that they would have security is the wagon train or whatever, travel arrangements they made, had a covenant or a contract that you signed when you got on board and said, okay, if we have a dispute, we’re going to have so and maybe the person who was in charge of the the wagon train or what, whatever it was, transportation would take care of it. And then when they got to the area, they settled, they would elect somebody to take care of disputes and stuff. And what was interesting about this is that there were, so there’s multiple courts in all different kinds of regions, but it was actually, pretty straightforward.

Terry Anderson and I can’t remember his first name. I remember his initials, I don’t remember his first name, wrote something about this in the Journal of Libertarian Studies. It was about 48 pages long, and it was really great. It described how the anarchy worked because people believed in property rights.

And like for example, if somebody upstream polluted the stream, so the downstream people had polluted water for their cattle, they could sue the upstream polluter. And they did and then they got reparations for those cattle. So it was very interesting the, at the time there were certain expectations about property rights, and it wasn’t until the government of the US decided that it owned all the waterways that we started having polluted waters.

Because what, in fact, I remember when I was living in Northern Kentucky. I had a lady knock on my door and say, would you help us out? We wanna go talk to the polluters on the Ohio River and ask them to quit polluting. I said have you called the EPA? Oh, yeah, we called them, but they don’t do anything.

And the government has not taken care of the environment. And when the Soviet unions, when the Berlin Wall fell, and you could find out what was going on, Russia was pretty polluted. They were polluted to a degree that we would never tolerate in the western world. In fact, national Geographic had a picture of these children on the cover from the Soviet Union, and they were totally blackened by this coal dust that was there coming off these towers that you could see in the background.

That was what they played in, talk about pollution. We would never put up with that at any point in our time here.

Emily: So you had legislation, you have a law and rules, environmental rules implemented for different industries. And with all this, there is somewhat trespassing what you would say

Mary: when the government’s in charge.

Yes. Now, when the government isn’t in charge, and it’s what we call common law that pops up when people are left to their own devices, that seems to take care of things because property rights are considered to be very important, but the government doesn’t care about property rights. In fact, you probably haven’t followed our Supreme Court, but it wasn’t so long ago, I think maybe 10, 15 years ago that a libertarian legal firm took Emin domain to the Supreme Court because the.

One of the cities in Ohio wanted to take this woman’s house that she wanted to live in till her dying day and hand it over to a private developer because they thought they’d get more money. In fact, the private developer was Pfizer. And what happened is, unfortunately our Supreme Court said it’s okay for a city to take a person’s land and give it to a developer if they’re gonna get more taxes.

And that was such an unpopular decision that Pfizer actually pulled out of developing anything in that town. So the house was raised and

Emily: no, at least she received some money priced for the home and land.

Mary: No they offered her money, but she said she didn’t wanna move. And so what, okay, what they do here is if you won’t move, when they offer you money, they condemn your property.

It’s worth very little. And the city buildings division will condemn your property. In fact, when I was a landlord in Kalamazoo, they came and inspected and they said the kitchen counter is two inches too short. You’ll have to replace it, and a bunch of other things like that. And I said, listen I rent to low income people.

They can’t afford a rent raise, and if you make me do all this, I’m gonna have to raise the rents. And they said, yeah, that’s what we want. We don’t want those people here in our city. And what happened is, yeah. So what happened is the landlords couldn’t pay, their mortgage and they defaulted. And all these properties ended up going back to the city eventually.

And so now the city, instead of having property taxes for these buildings, they had these properties they couldn’t maintain. So they had to raise the buildings. And landlords left Kalamazoo. Yeah, I was part of that. And then eventually Institute for Justice, which is the one that took Emin domain. The Supreme Court eventually sued the city buildings division in Kalamazoo because they thought they could go into a tenants home anytime they wanted and get a list of infractions that the landlord would have to of course fix.

And it

Emily: would be

Mary: different

Emily: if they did something recently. Now I’m shocked. So if United States does not fully respect property law, so what other countries do you know countries where property laws are really for property and for the owner like Latin America? I believe they more respect property law or,

Mary: I don’t know for sure.

All I can tell you is that the things that US citizens used to take for granted. To be taken for granted anymore. Our government has become predatory.

Emily: But now you have sheriff in a town, as I heard, you’ve had sheriff, and you have sheriff in FDA and Health department Kennedy Jr. So I, I believe that things will shift to the previous positions, kind of nothing new and fancy, at least to go back to the classical rules and constitution.

Mary: I hope so. I hope so. I think that this is a chance to change things and I don’t know if anything will happen. I did meet with one of our senators to talk about the FDA and basically we’re in a waiting period until his staff can go through everything we gave them, and we’ll just have to see what happens.

It’s not easy because Trump has gotten so much pushback. For finding all of these waste and fraud things that are going on with Social Security and Medicaid and loans to people for, covid things that, that don’t really go to. They go to five year olds, so clearly there’s some fraud, right?

But he’s getting so much pushback from the Democrats on this which is surprising because I would think they’d be really happy to see fraud and waste stopped unless they were the beneficiaries, of course. And I don’t know that they are, but it just seems like it’s really a silly thing to fight over and they’re making it difficult.

Emily: In such political climate, do you believe that this new type of intentional communities Eco living, libertarian township can survive not only survive, but thrive

Mary: I hope so. I hope so. We’ll have to wait and see because historically, this isn’t the first time we’ve established libertarian communities, that’s been going on since the seventies, maybe even before that.

I just know it’s been going on since the seventies. And eventually the governments that are close by have decided that this is not appropriate and they’ve basically forcibly taken over the area. So I just hope that we have more enlightened politicians in these countries where this is going on, and they will see the benefit rather than the downside of these communities and will keep them because they bring prosperity to their country.

Emily: And the other tool, as they say, it’s free economic. To be established on certain countries and certain places that really attract trade and creation of new job opportunities I wanted to tell. But now AI is coming to the play, which was before not known. So the new player, which coming now helping from one side, but actually make a lot of HAC and anxiety for many people, especially young one who are looking for work now and have issues and people after 50 60 who still need to work but fired or retired and find that they cannot leave as is because of cost of leaving.

Yes. So for listeners interested in joining or maybe starting intentional Living Communities, and I know some of them in US as well which is rooted in liberty and sustainability, what first steps would you recommend?

Mary: Oh, you mean for establishing such a community?

Emily: Yeah. Or to joining or for, look, I’m trying to provide more information of such projects, but there is still hesitation, because of all these changes.

So what you would recommend?

Mary: I think you have to have a certain type of person to get involved in those. There is and it’s such an intentional community in South Austin, which is not too far from where I live, and their goal is to be fully sustainable. That means to be off the grid and to raise their own food and things like that.

And that’s, that’s something I might have been interested in when I was a little younger. Right now I’m, I’m probably not there. But I’m in a different place. And, but I think the thing to do is to actually visit some of these communities if that’s an interest. And there’s different types of these communities.

So the thing is, if you go to one, they’re usually connected to many more. So that’s what’s helpful. So if you find one near you, then you can go and get information from them. Of course, with the internet, you don’t have to wait to do that in your area. You can communicate with others in different areas and if, you decide you want to communicate with the one in South Austin, I can certainly hook you up.

Emily: I’ve heard about community for 50 plus. People actually retired or pre-retired to be billed. I don’t know, maybe it’s the same, but in Texas with all, modern amenity close, actually on the nature, but very modern and with all what is required, like medical clinic, sport halls and different activities for people.

So I’m not sure they no, the guy was actually, I met him on this libertarian conference I believe that it, it’ll be variety. Maybe they’re still not fully completed of options for you, Mary, as well, to par. At least. To visit. At least to visit.

Mary: Yes. Yes. I’m in a rural community right now.

Because there’s so few of us that are here full time, we pretty much know each other, so that’s nice, in other words I’m almost, I didn’t move into here to be part of an intentional community, but basically I, if something happened to one of us, there’d be support for them.

And there has been, if I get sick, incapacitated people bring me food and stuff, but, of course I haven’t been in that position very much. But a few times I have. It’s just amazing. People step up and they take care of me and of course I’m happy to take care of them when they’re in that situation.

Emily: It’s great. It’s one of the reason to be living in a community of nice like-minded people, even different type of people, but who care about each other. And here I would like to elaborate to hear you elaborating a little bit more about Libertarian community because again, it’s movement and different type of people joining this movement maybe with different targets with different professional background.

What unite all these people do you think, other than libertarian ideas? There is some denominator, common denominator.

Mary: I think the current, I’m not so active in the party itself now. I’m more active in the nonprofits clearly. And what I’ve seen is the young people, like I said earlier, the young people coming up are very intelligent.

They’re mainstream, but there are a lot of ’em still that of course are very good with the internet and technology, and that’s a really great concentration of people to have. The other thing that’s happened recently, as I think we’ve become more tolerant in some ways, and libertarian community, not so much the Libertarian party.

I don’t, politics has a way of polarizing people, I think. And there’s, yes, there is a juggling for position and things of that nature in the Libertarian party that have become. I think very off putting and divid, divisive. Divisive is a good word. And so that, that is not so attractive to me right now.

But what is attractive? Like I said, it’s working in the nonprofits because I think we’ve got, we finally have gotten young people in and one of my great pleasures has been our staff because they’re very talented and they come from all different countries. We’ve got some from Africa, some from Asia of course some from Europe as well.

And it’s south America. I don’t think we have any from Canada yet, but I could be wrong because we’re having, we have enough increase in turnover that. We may buy now anyhow. But it’s really wonderful to see these young people coming up. And they will eventually, of course, be the people who available, stay with Inter Stay with Liberty International and move up into the systems, the board eventually maybe they’ll become president, after Yassic is ready to move on.

That’s really been my excitement for the US is that it’s not just us anymore for and for Liberty International. It’s really, we’re really becoming integrated as a movement over the world. That’s what I find extremely good. And in the early days of Liberty International, of course, when we were known as International Society for Individual Liberty too we had a lot of great educational material and it was appropriate for the.

We actually I learned on Liberty International Materials all about the philosophy and the practicality of it. So that was very inspirational. And now we’re getting out all over the world in a way to really help individuals develop. And that’s been our, I think that’s been our focus.

There are some places like the Atlas Network, where they are focusing on helping to make nonprofits grow in different countries. We really focus on training the individuals and we’re getting a really good crop of individuals too. So that’s what’s exciting for me.

Emily: Absolutely. Your book healing Our World has been influential in libertarian circles, and you have written about connection between freedom and healing.

Can you elaborate on how embracing Libertarian principles might lead to personal and societal healing?

Mary: Yes. Of course, when I wrote Healing Our World, I was thinking more of the political ramifications. But as I said, I had this integration of the idea of love of neighbor, that the practicality and the philosophy of liberty were two sides of the same coin.

And this was new when I, I put my book out in the early nineties, and the first criticisms I got were that it was two, very fairy and feely, touchy feely. That I’m proud of that. I’m proud that compassion and love and concern for others was to me part of the libertarian message.

And that was something that I think Rand didn’t do a very good job on, partly because she was very much into judgment. And so what I was trying to do with healing our world is heal that rift that occurs when we judge each other, because that’s what we’ve done in the Libertarian party. And it’s caused us to be very it’s difficult to work as a team if you’re always judging the other person.

We have to. Recognize that people are gonna make mistakes, that they aren’t all going to think the way we do. And that, there’s a certain amount of okayness with that. Now I say a certain amount of okayness because obviously if my colleague is out killing people just because they feel like doing it, that’s not okay, and that’s not somebody I wanna work with.

But if they think, for example, differently than I do about tariffs, I’ll try to educate ’em. But, sometimes takes people to takes them longer to grasp a concept. It took me a while. And the thing is, that was the message in healing our world because this opened up li Libertarianism in a way that hadn’t been expressed before in the movement.

And it’s been very well received, especially in latter years because this has been. This idea of judgment and pushing people away if they don’t agree with you. 100% has not been a very as popular let’s just say, as popular as it used to be. Maybe it is in the Libertarian Party, but it’s not in the libertarian movement, and the movement is now quite a bit bigger than the party.

And I think that’s a good thing.

Emily: Speaking about movement, it just reminded to me what I’ve heard from some podcasters. They say that the libertarians. But on another occasion they speaking about anco capitalism, anco, socialism and like I, I don’t believe any government, and I go just a moment, but it’s not exactly libertarian ideas.

There are some common elements, but libertarian libertarians are against big government, but not against any government and any kind of I believe there’s such a solid lately, at least with some people who are juggling this terminology. What would you say?

Mary: Yes. What’s happened is, as the word libertarian has become more common usage.

A lot of people have tried to co-opt it. I’ve even heard libertarian socialism, which like, no that’s an oxymoron. And we had a presidential candidate, the libertarian party presidential candidate, who was saying, that there shouldn’t, there is no property rights, no property.

And that’s, yeah, no, that, luckily he did not get the nomination. I did not expect him to get the nomination. But yeah, that doesn’t really work. The guiding principle of libertarianism is the non-aggression principle. So we don’t initiate physical force fraud or theft against others.

That’s putting it in a nutshell. And the problem of course, is that government itself does initiate force at least the governments, as we know today, do initiate force fraud or theft against others. And even a government that is solely one that. Has protective services such as police, fire national security, they still claim a monopoly on that.

And that’s where if they want a monopoly, the only way they can have it is by force, by initiating force. So in one sense, it’s having a government is an initiation of force, but we are so used to having government that it’s, I think, and justifiably I think people need to see if it will work.

And that’s why I like this article of Terry Anderson’s the Not So Wild, wild West. And PJ Hill was the co-author. It really does a very good job of describing a, an anarchy that happened in the US not very long ago. It was basically the 18 hundreds, late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds. And of course, eventually.

The west became part of the states, but for a while it was truly an anarchy. So it’s interesting to just look at it as an example and then look at what happened after the US government took over. Is there a way we could have a government and have it be not aggressive? I think the only way that would happen is if it gave such good services that there was no competition, because nobody could beat it in terms of providing a service.

In other words, yes, you could have another security service if you wanted. You could have different different fire and police, but nobody wanted it because it was so good. Then that would be a free market government. I don’t know. Again it’s really, something that is hard to even think about because we have so few examples.

Emily: For me anarchy is a entropy in biology and physics, like it’s transitional period, so be before it’s balanced. It’s it, there’s entropy and after then it’s going to the next level. We say government level, economical level.

And it’s became system is a question after then how to manage the system, which might be state economical system but without competition. As far as I understand, libertarianism, it’s not only non-aggression principle, what is very important, it’s small government in market system. Yes. Open market system for development and for healthy competition.

Mary: Yeah. The only way you can not have competition is be so good that nobody wants to even try. And actually there was Alcoa Aluminum actually held a market monopoly like that, and the courts decided they, they went after it for antitrust. And they said that providing such excellent service was definitely an antitrust thing because they had a monopoly.

’cause they were so good, nobody wanted to compete with them.

Emily: Now we have different cases and companies for antitrust to be treated on. Because they just eaten all competitors. It’s not because they so good, but because they pushed away everyone. But. We live in such a area.

And I’m very interested how, this direction will be developed. But again, going back to you, medical research evaluation is unique field. And how did you get involved with Institutional Review Board IRB? Yes. And what insights from your libertarian perspective do you apply in this role?

Mary: Okay, so basically what happened after World War II is the Nuremberg trials.

Of course everyone thought yuck, all this stuff happened with the Nazis. We don’t ever want this to happen again. So there were international treaties mostly in the Western world, which basically said we are going to have to make sure that human research is never done on willing participants and there was a series of discussions and things that eventually evolved into the idea of IRBs, institutional review boards, and these boards, including the one I sit on review the human research that a doctor wants to do. A pharma company wants to do, basically anybody wants to do and they have to go through an IRB and get approval.

And the reason they have to do that is we, the IRB is supposed to make sure that the informed consent that the individual gets that’s considering going into study has all the right elements. In other words, they’re told they can leave at any time, that they won’t lose any benefits by going into the study and we have to make sure that what is offered to them as just compensation is not so great that it would inhibit their ability to say no.

If they say we’ll give you a million dollars to be in this study, that would be considered coercive. And what’s interesting is during Covid, while we are holding pharma’s feet to the fire on these principles, the US government is threatening people who don’t get the job with losing their job.

That’s coercion. And that would be outlawed. And also we did, we had emergency use authorization, but we didn’t have that 14 to 30 page informed consent that

people normally get when they are in experimental study, which this basically was, it was an experimental drug. Every individual who got the jab should have been given an informed consent before they sat down and took it, but they weren’t, in fact, the package insert was deliberately left blank. So even the doctors could not pull out a document and look for the side effects or anything else.

They had no way of knowing what they were giving the patient. And that’s really, yeah, it’s right. It’s basically Nazi Germany all over and these, okay I’m in the sciences, so I’ve been reading the Pfizer documents that came from the FDA and other people’s analysis of the documents, and I can tell you.

The company I worked for would never have let that material come out the door. It was really poorly done. And I haven’t read every single thing, it’s definitely put together in such a way that it’s confusing. And on the other hand, Pfizer said quite clearly in its documentation, we did not test for transmission.

And yet you hear government officials I know. And then, but you hear it all the government officials saying if you take this vaccine, it stops with you, the virus stops with you. They didn’t know that because it never was tested. So why were they saying that I mean Pfizer didn’t say that. At least certainly not to the degree the government did, but the government came out and you heard all kinds of government officials saying that Fauci, for example, and Biden said that, but there was no basis for that.

Emily: Many leaders repeated the same. And look I believe that in some time sometime we’ll learn more if, there are so many other actors now. War here, were there economical probable collapse I think it’s this actually valid noise about different problems make the covid like event of the past, which is important to learn and understand.

But okay, I believe there are people who are working in this direction to make people responsible and at least not to repeat this very sad fact, actually not in only one country, but all over the world. Reflecting on your personal life journey, what philosophy do you live by and how does it influence your work and personal life?

Mary: I guess in addition to the libertarian philosophy, I do believe that there is value in loving your as yourself. Not necessarily just for your neighbor, but for you. And that’s because if you if you’re always critical of your neighbor and always judgmental of your neighbor, that kind of comes back to bite you, because we all have.

You know what we were talking about earlier, conditioned beliefs, right? So one of the things that I like to do and encourage people to do is look at those beliefs and bring them up from the subconscious so they’re conscious and you deal with them. Either keep them or get rid of them. And the problem is we all have conditioning.

Most of it most of the conditioning is, does tell us to be judgemental. But the problem is, if we are judgemental of others, we’ll eventually be judgemental of ourselves. The scripture says, judge, not lace to be judged. I don’t believe that means the God in the sky is gonna judge you. I think you’ll judge yourself.

If you find yourself. Having beliefs that you didn’t know you had just from your upbringing, some prejudices or whatever that you didn’t know you had. And then when they come to light, you’re gonna think, oh my gosh, I must be a bad person. Because you judge somebody else for that very thing and thought they were a bad person.

We all make mistakes and we all have a conditioning that we may not recognize. And I think being generous of spirit with each other is a really good idea.

Emily: Okay, thank you. And the last question that I’m asking my, any guest. For our listeners who may be in the midlife, and considering a significant life change, what advice would you offer based on your experience reinventing your life and career, what you would see for other Midlifers after 50 who are now hesitating or, rediscovering the next life chapter?

Mary: I can only speak from my own experience. I would never have guessed that I, when I was younger, that I would do the things that I do. I would never have guessed that I would’ve run for president or tried to become the nominee for the Libertarian party. I never would’ve thought I would do that. I really didn’t think that I would have any career after my scientific research career, but I got surprised by that too, because here I am sitting on an IRB for 15 years, 10 of which I actually chaired the board.

I became Chair of Liberty International kind of by accident. We did a big transformation of Liberty International, and as we’re walking out the door, happy with what we’ve done, somebody said, oh, we don’t have a chair of the board. I said, I can run a meeting. But it turned out to be I ended up as CEO, which I never wanted to do, but I was for about 10 years.

You never know what you can do until you actually do it, is what I would tell people. And so if an opportunity comes up, don’t just think you can’t do it. You might surprise yourself.

Emily: I would agree with you and thank you for your honesty and for being you, Mary, and for all what you did, being it on the scientific side for Liberty, international writing books educating people of all ages and being still so full of life.

Hope and work towards the freedom. Thank you, Mary.

Mary: It’s just, we all have our talents and one of the nice things about having a career change is that you often get a chance to do things that you really. Wanna do and never had the chance to do so I hope all your listeners will get that chance.

Emily: I like it. Thank you, Mary, for so much for sharing your wisdom with us today. And your journey of scientist to, and transformation to libertarian advocate is really inspiring. And your insights on personal freedom and societal healing are invaluable. And I will see you in Argentina, in Buenos Aires.

Mary: You’ll, we’ll get meet in person.

Give each other a

Emily: thank you. Thanks a.

Mary: Thanks for having me, Emily, and thanks for what you’re doing, because you are helping get the word out. That is very important.

Emily: Thank you for joining us on Age of Reinvention with Dr. Mary Ruwart. We’ve just scratched the surface of Mary’s wealth of knowledge. Her insights reminds us the true change begins with respect for individual freedom, thoughtful cooperation, and a commitment to healing both our communities and our world.

To learn more about Mary’s Work and Liberty International and her vision for liberty, movement and sustainability, visit her website at ruwart.com. I will include the link in description. Stay inspired. Keep reinventing your life and remember the future of freedom and Eco living. It’s something we built together.

If today discussion has sparked your interest in libertarian principles or personal invention, reinvention, we encourage you to explore. Father, until next time, I am Emily Bron, wishing you a purposeful and empowered journey ahead. Thank you very much. Until not next time, keep questioning, keep growing, and keep striving for the life of liberty and fulfillment.

Mary Ruwart

Board Chair at Liberty International

Dr. Mary J. Ruwart is a research scientist, ethicist, and best-selling libertarian author. She holds a Ph.D. in biophysics from Michigan State University and developed new therapies for diseases like AIDS during her career at The Upjohn Company. Dr. Ruwart later focused on ethics in medical research and public policy, teaching at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and consulting for scientific organizations. Her award-winning book, Healing Our World, explores the ethical foundations of libertarianism. An advocate for personal freedom, she has also been active in community service and political education.

In the latest episode of Age of Reinvention, we explore a future where liberty, community, and innovation converge to redefine societal norms. Host Emily Bron engages in a riveting conversation with Dr. Mary Ruwart, a trailblazer in libertarian activism, acclaimed author, and former biomedical researcher. Together, they uncover how embracing libertarian ideals can bridge societal divides, inspire innovation, and create sustainable solutions for decades.

Meet Dr. Mary Ruwart

Dr. Mary Ruwart is a beacon of the libertarian movement, blending ethical foresight with unyielding advocacy. As the board chair of Liberty International, Mary has dedicated her life to advancing the principles of liberty worldwide. She is best known for her influential books, including “Healing Our World” and “Death by Regulation,” which have become cornerstones of libertarian thought.

Whether through healthcare reform, leadership roles in the Libertarian Party, or her work on intentional communities, Mary exemplifies how balancing individual liberty with communal values can foster global healing and growth.

Mary’s Journey to Libertarian Advocacy

Mary’s libertarian journey began in college when the writings of Ayn Rand opened her eyes to the transformative power of individual freedom. Her academic pursuits ranged from scientific research to teaching and real estate, yet her enduring belief in libertarian principles fueled her activism.

Through her writing and advocacy, Dr. Ruwart offers hopeful solutions to some of society’s biggest challenges—all based on the ethos of self-ownership, non-aggression, and personal freedom.

Libertarianism in a Changing World

This podcast episode dives deep into the shifting global dynamics shaped by libertarian ideals. Emily and Mary discuss pivotal figures like Argentina’s President Javier Milei and former U.S. President Donald Trump—examining their influence on libertarian policies.

The conversation highlights how bold leadership and disruptive economic strategies can inspire nations to adopt free-market economics, limited government, and personal responsibility—values essential to the libertarian philosophy.

Challenges and Opportunities for Libertarian Movements

As a leader within Liberty International, Dr. Ruwart shares critical insights on how grassroots libertarian efforts are thriving despite political resistance. Under Yass Spindel’s leadership, Liberty International has spearheaded global conferences and education programs designed to teach freedom principles, cultivate innovation, and empower youth worldwide.

While challenges remain—with authoritarian governments often pushing back against libertarian principles—Mary remains optimistic about the movement’s evolution, noting that young leaders increasingly drive transformative change across borders.

Intentional Communities and Sustainability

The episode also spotlights intentional communities, an emerging concept where libertarian ideals come to life. Mary advocates for these communities as spaces for innovation and sustainability, where individuals are free to shape their environments. By prioritizing freedom of choice, resource efficiency, and collaboration, these communities demonstrate practical applications of libertarian philosophy.

Freedom and Healing: A Philosophical Perspective

Dr. Ruwart’s book, “Healing Our World,” exemplifies how libertarian principles can foster societal healing through compassion and love. Her philosophy emphasizes non-aggression, urging people to judge less and embrace each other more—a sentiment resonating deeply in today’s polarized world.

Conclusion

Dr. Mary Ruwart’s conversation with Emily Bron illustrates the profound interconnectedness between libertarian philosophy and real-world applications—from governance models to personal transformation. This dialogue serves as a call to action for anyone seeking to redefine their life and contribute to a world built on freedom, innovation, and sustainability.

For more insights into Dr. Ruwart’s work and the progress of Liberty International initiatives, visit ruwart.com and learn how you can support global libertarian efforts. Additionally, discover how you can participate in the Liberty International Event in Buenos Aires in 2025 at liberty-intl.org.