This article was originally published on the Daily Caller. To view the full, original piece, click here.

It seems Ann Coulter is upset that students laughed and booed at her remarks during the 2013 International SFL Conference. She is now trying to deflect the libertarian critique of her social conservatism by claiming we were acting purely upon “groupthink.” Unfortunately for Ann, her latest message reveals her misunderstanding of libertarianism almost as much as her comments during our conference revealed her misunderstanding of the basic principles of justice and reasonable discourse.

I can think of no more thoughtful and debate-prone group than the young libertarians in Students For Liberty. If Coulter had taken the time to attend one of the 92 diverse sessions we ran at the conference, she might have heard students debating the relationship between libertarianism and abolitionism, the proper limits of open immigration, standards for intervention in foreign affairs, and much more. If she had looked at Students For Liberty’s table when walking out, she would have seen one of the 175,000 copies of our latest book, After the Welfare State, that we have distributed for free to students around the world to educate them on the dangers of bloated entitlement societies. (more…)

There have been many references to Second Wave Libertarianism on the SFL blog last past week.  To provide background on where this term came from and what it means, I am posting an updated version speech I gave at the 2012 Libertarian Party National Convention and 2012 FreedomFest on the subject, the first public explanations offered of Second Wave Libertarianism.

A new generation of libertarians is developing, forming our own identity and crafting a new strategy for social change.  It is a generation that strongly promotes libertarianism, but it is a libertarianism of a different stripe than that which was advocated throughout most of the 20^th century.  If Brian Doherty’s tome, Radicals for Capitalism, documented the founding of the modern libertarian movement, then the period where the book ended (the late 80’s, early 90’s), saw the birth of a new wave of libertarianism.  While this second wave is a continuation of the principles developed in the 20^th century, we are diverging in many ways.

This new wave should not be surprising or deplored.  It’s important to remember that libertarianism is not new.  The term is historically unique, but the ideas are the oldest in political philosophy.  Fareed Zakaria has argued that the problem for contemporary libertarianism is that we have already won the major battles: ending slavery, expanding suffrage to more people, guaranteeing civil liberties, even defeating communism.  What we are now arguing for is the last 5% of liberty when we have already achieved so much over the past several centuries.  If we take this point seriously, the historical legacy of libertarian thought extends long before the first ardent proponents of the term: from the defense of democracy in Ancient Greece to the Magna Carta in the United Kingdom to the founding fathers of the U.S. to the abolitionists of the 1800’s to the women’s suffrage movement in the early twentieth century.  While I will be explaining the divergence between a first wave of libertarianism in the 20^th Century and a second wave of the 21st century, and arguing that the libertarian movement ought to embrace fundamental changes, it is important to remember that just as there was unity to the cause of liberty throughout the centuries, there is still unity in our cause as we respond to new threats to liberty and adopt new strategies to create a freer world.

(more…)

This letter was originally published on Mediaite on February 25, 2013. Read the full, original content here.

–

Dear Mr. Beck,

There is no reason you should have heard of me before. I’m just a guy who became enamored with the principles of liberty in 9th grade and grew to appreciate the philosophical rigor and enormous individual and societal benefits that flow from them. I’m now a graduate student in philosophy, and co-founder and president of a nonprofit organization called Students For Liberty (SFL) that began 5 years ago to support libertarian students and student organizations.

Today, SFL has over 900 student organizations in our network, is run by over 250 volunteer student leaders who are working to change the world, runs dozens of conferences for thousands of students around the world, provides a plethora of resources to young libertarians everywhere, such as 175,000 free copies of our 3rd publication, After the Welfare State. SFL is dedicated to expanding the younger generation’s understanding and appreciation of the philosophy of freedom and the benefits that may be derived from it.

This is admittedly an ambitious and long-term goal, but one that I am optimistic about and pursue because of the inherent value of liberty. I am writing this letter today because of the comments you made about me on your show this past Friday, February 22, 2013. Regrettably, you called me a Nazi, a fascist, a jerk, a guy who “thinks he’s God”. I submit I am none of those things, or at least I don’t try to be. I have no intention of getting caught up in name-calling or responding to the many strawmen you constructed and then ridiculed. There is no profit in that. It’s water under the bridge. (more…)

Given the requests for this that I’ve received, below is my opening speech at the 2013 International Students For Liberty Conference.

Last year’s International Students For Liberty Conference redefined the student movement for liberty by bringing together, for the first time ever, over 1,000 attendees at a libertarian student conference.  This year, we are proving that number wasn’t a fluke.  It was the start of something much greater.  I am humbled to see so many young libertarians gathered together in the same room to begin an incredible weekend learning about the foundations of a free society, strategizing for how to create a freer future, and forging relationships that will last with you the rest of your lives.  It’s something I once didn’t think was possible.

For me, all of this began in 9^th grade when my father gave me a copy of Atlas Shrugged for my birthday.  I remember him opening the book up and pointing to the first sentence, “Who is John Galt?” and saying, “That’s the line.”  It took me a month to read over that summer, but when I finished, I said to myself, “This is what I’ve always believed, put into words.”  I spent the rest of high school reading as much on Objectivism and libertarianism as I could, and by the time I went off to college at the University of Pennsylvania in 2004, I was excited to move to a place where I thought I would be surrounded by other young advocates of liberty who would help me develop my ideas.  Unfortunately, for the first 2 years, I didn’t meet a single other libertarian.  I began to feel so isolated and alone, I actually said to myself, “Alexander, if you’re the only person on this campus who thinks this way, you must be crazy.  Just give up and become a socialist.  Life would be so much easier.”  But, I didn’t.  I decided to take a chance and start a group, the Penn Libertarians, to see if there were others out there.  Within a year, we had over 200 members on our list-serve.  Students, even professors came out of the woodwork and I realized: there had always been libertarians on campus.  We just had no way of identifying one another until a group existed.  But I was making it up as I went along.  There was no handbook for what to do, no national organization to give me guidance.  I was making lots of mistakes.  When I found myself surrounded by 60 other libertarian students while interning in DC the summer before my senior year, I thought, “When will I ever be around this many libertarian students again?”  I put together a roundtable discussion on best practices for student organizing for liberty.  Twelve people showed up, and what was supposed to be a 1 hour conversation turned into 3 hours, until we were kicked out of the room.  Without any institutional backing, we started planning what we thought was going to be a 30 person roundtable.  That event turned into the first International Students For Liberty Conference with over 100 attendees, and here we are, five years later, at the 6^th edition of that conference with over 1,200 attendees, put together by an organization that has over 900 student groups, ran 20 Regional Conferences in the US and Europe, launched our first in Venezuela, has inspired several more in Brazil, printed 175,000 copies of After the Welfare State, and has over 250 volunteer leaders changing the world.  Even as someone who has seen the growth of the student movement for liberty from within over the past five years, it’s almost unbelievable to me.

(more…)

What’s an OWL?

An OWL is an Older, Wiser Libertarian who has been in the shoes of today’s students before and understands what they’re going through.  OWLs are as excited about the cause of liberty and the future of a freer world that is available to us today as today’s students, but have the experience, knowledge, and resources that students lack.

That’s why SFL created the OWL Society: to provide a venue for alumni (i.e. non-students) to give support to the student movement for liberty today. (more…)