The following post was contributed by Sarah Harvard, SFL Campus Coordinator, for our continuing series on the Campus Coordinator program.

Like many families of immigrants, life was hard. My family and I had to live through phases of poverty, discrimination, and prejudice. My father immigrated to the US because he knew that there were no hopes of freedom in his home country and that America was the Promised Land for opportunity.  

I have witnessed my mother and father working long nights to ensure that my sister and I would have food on the table and that I can continue on with my swim practices — in hopes of having their daughter receive a swimming scholarship for college. My father always told me that with honest hard work and perseverance you can make it in America. However, I’ve witnessed harsh regulations imposed on my family’s business. I have witnessed my mother and father talking until 3 am about how close they are to having their business shut down and how they’re going to afford my education. It was heart-wrenching, and because of it I vowed that I will do everything I can so that the state will never hurt innocent individuals.

(more…)

Jenga (verb) Swahili: “to build”

Unfortunately, it is a common thought among many students in our generation that the involuntary transfer of another individual’s wealth, property, or income is the way to “build” an economy. This thought is often rooted in the student’s perspective on what is fair and moral. Many have pointed to the rise of poverty as the imperative for wealth redistribution. Students often fail to realize that the incomes of the poor and rich are independent. As Professor Seth W. Norton of Wheaton College recently explained in the Cato Journal, “The term ‘trickle-down’ is a misnomer: growth actually entails a cascade, not a trickle. The quality of growth may be important, but growth itself is the surest way to reduce human deprivation around the world.”

For ages, libertarian student organizations have struggled to communicate why wealth redistribution is not a good answer for economic recovery and poverty elimination. Fortunately, Young Americans for Liberty has found a light at the end of the tunnel – interestingly, through the game of Jenga.

(more…)

I have been on this earth for 19 years, and not once had I ever felt that the United States was the greatest country in the world. All my life, I have never experienced a time of peace, prosperity, and freedom.  I live in an era of recession, restricted freedoms, and war. To many, my sentiment towards the country I call home may seem unpatriotic. This is not true. I am an outspoken critic of the United States because I am a lover of my birth country. I care for it. I speak up when we do wrong. I speak up when we do wrong, because I want us to do better. I want us to succeed; indeed, I want us to become the greatest country in the world. I am patriotic. Before my time, we used to be the leaders, the revolutionaries, and the free; the land we call home used to be the path to opportunity, prosperity, and liberty — but we have lost the way.

(more…)

“As the bomb fell over Hiroshima and exploded, we saw an entire city disappear. I wrote in my log the words: ‘My God, what have we done?’” -Captain Robert Lewis, on the tenth anniversary of the devastating atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

It has been sixty-seven years since 140,000 lives were abruptly cut short by the B-29 Bomber Enola Gay. The death toll included the men, women, and children killed instantly and those who failed died several months after the attack due unforgiving effects of radiation. It has been sixty-seven years, but the screams of children and the utter darkness of the burning hell of the once crowded city continue to haunt the world to this day. (more…)