Vincent H. Miller

Vince Miller gave his life for liberty, by living for it, giving up a lucrative career as a marketing executive in Canada to become a frostback in America, founding an educational non-profit which he headed until the day he died. Originally Libertarian International (LI), it ultimately became known as the International Society for Individual Liberty (ISIL).

Vince made ISIL the “Johnny Appleseed” of the freedom movement, planting the seeds of liberty wherever they might grow, all around the world. By the time he died, it had gained members in over 80 countries around the world and had hosted more than 20 world conferences. ISIL members came from all walks of life, from students and academics to businessmen, legislators, and even a couple of heads of state.

Vince had no children of his own, and he left his family back in Canada, so he made the libertarian movement his family. He treated everyone with the utmost dignity, politeness, and respect, no matter whether they were teenagers who were brand new to libertarianism, or senior government officials. ISIL conferences were his family reunions, with the advantage of having lots of new members to welcome into the family each time, as well as renewing old friendships.

Karl Hess called ISIL the place where the intellectuals and activists of the libertarian movement met, and myriad new libertarian projects were catalyzed by ISIL, from publishing and distributing libertarian books in countries where libertarianism had never been heard of before, to helping newly-freed countries write their new constitutions.

While Vince and I came to disagree about the Iraq War, his opposition to it didn't stop him from meeting with the Iraqis who were writing their new constitution when he found out that they were doing so at the same hotel in Germany where he was having an ISIL conference. So, in addition to running the conference, he found the time to meet with them to give them the best advice he possibly could about how to make the new Iraq as peaceful, prosperous, and free as possible. Vince knew that liberty was too important not to seize every possible opportunity to promote it.

I first met Vince Miller at an event held at the old Laissez-Faire Books building on Howard Street in San Francisco, in 1993. I'd just recently finished working as a college campus co-ordinator for the Libertarian Party presidential campaign of Andre Marrou. Before that, I'd dropped out of UC Santa Barbara because it had turned out to be nothing more than high school with ashtrays and no roll call. Then I'd done some libertarian activist work for Robert Bakhaus in Santa Barbara, but I wasn't sure what to do next. Vince Miller told me there was another libertarian bookstore in San Francisco, and invited me to check it out. I couldn't believe there could possibly be two libertarian bookstores in any city in the world, much less San Francisco, which was right across the Bay from where I'd grown up in Albany/Berkeley, so I did. I ended up spending most of the next few years doing volunteer work there while I figured out what I wanted to do for a living. He taught me how to run the ISIL printing press and the folding machine for ISIL's pamphlets. I also helped edit and print the ISIL newsletter, the Freedom Network News, and helped him and ISIL Vice-President Jim Elwood run the first few ISIL conferences I attended. I eventually ended up going to ISIL conferences on my own dime, traveling to Mexico, Canada, and the Czech Republic twice each, as well as Greece, Italy, Germany, Lithuania, Costa Rica, New Zealand, and Australia. I probably wouldn't have made it to half these countries if it hadn't been for Vince Miller.

While Vince Miller had enjoyed shooting back in Canada, having grown up before so many Canadians became “allergic” to guns, I was the one who got him back into it here in America. He and I and Vince Cook used to go to the shooting range every Sunday, first to the Richmond Rod & Gun Club then to the Chabot range in the Oakland hills. We called it “Going to church.” When we told this to one of the other guys at the range, he replied: “Well, the Bible does say: Thou shalt make a joyful noise unto the Lord…” I eventually moved on to other lines of work, and took up another martial art besides shooting, but Vince kept on going to church to make joyful noises unto the Lord every chance he could get. He took pleasure in taking others with him, especially if they were visitors from other countries without as much firearms freedom as America. One of the greatest tragedies of Vince's death is that he was comatose when the Supreme Court's first ever Second Amendment decision came out, upholding the right to own guns for self defense in your own home. No one would've been happier about this victory for freedom than Vince.

Vince and I still kept in touch, seeing each other at regular events hosted either by myself and my wife Jeanie, or by other friends of ours in the Bay Area. I had the pleasure of his company at my birthday party in my home this past April, and we last saw him at the monthly meeting of the Silicon Valley Objectivists club that Jeanie runs, where we heard Glen Cripe tell us all about ISIL helped get Ayn Rand published in Russia, getting a copy of Atlas Shrugged onto one of the shelves in Putin's office (probably unread), and how ISIL helped start libertarian English-language camps in Eastern Europe each summer.

Vince was always brimming with some good news about something new ISIL was doing, or someone new he'd made contact with. He was always ready with a joke or a pithy comment, and had the gift of telling old familiar stories you'd heard many times before while making them seem new. He always found a way to see the good in the people he knew, no matter how diffcult or frustrating they were.

Once of Vince's favorite songs was the traditional Irish song, The Minstrel Boy. His mother was Irish. The song is about him, now:

My feelings about him are best summed up in these two poems by Berton Braley:

Other tributes to Vince Miller, in no particular order: