Are there any interesting stories related to its founding, or early years?

The first day of that first conference is something I will always remember.  All the members of the Exec Board arrived in New York City the night before to finish preparations for the conference, and we went to sleep on the floor/couches of our Columbia member’s common room looking for a good night’s sleep before the chaos of the conference began.  We were woken up at 6am, though, by one student from the South calling to ask: “Is the conference canceled?”  We looked out the window and realized that a blizzard had hit NYC while we were asleep and the city was a mess.  We had put too much effort into preparing that conference to just cancel it, though, so we immediately began to call every single attendee and nonprofit representative to let them know the conference was still going to be held and encourage them to come.  It was a very stressful and frantic start to the first day because we not only had the added work of contacting everyone to overcome that snowstorm, but we had to carry boxes, flyers, coffee, and all kinds of other materials through 2 feet of snow to set everything up.  Our side of the story is just background, though.  The incredible part is how students reacted to the snowstorm.  While we were most worried about students canceling, students were most worried about finding ways to attend the conference by any means possible.  Students from California had their flights to NYC canceled, so instead flew to DC, took a train to New Jersey, then a bus to NYC.  Students from Michigan drove 18 hours straight through the blizzard to make it on time.  Only a handful of students canceled, but almost everyone, both students and speakers, were able to make it on time out of sheer will and perseverance in the cause of liberty.  Seeing the dedication of those students overcome any obstacle in their way to take part in the first SFL Conference inspired us in a way that I can’t describe.  The perseverance of those students cleared away any doubt there may have been about turning the conference into an organization: these students were willing to take on a blizzard to be part of this event.  There needed to be more opportunities and more support for these amazing students than a onetime event.

Anything else you want readers to know? Any other specific achievements you are proud of?

During my sophomore year, I applied to and was rejected by the Institute for Humane Studies Koch Summer Fellowship Program.  During my junior year, I applied to and was rejected by the Cato Institute’s internship program.  I ended up being accepted to KSFP and being offered a job at Cato the year following each rejection.  Instead of taking these rejections (too) personally, I used them as motivation to better myself and figure out what I really wanted to do.  So if you get turned down for an internship somewhere you really wanted, you never know what might happen… maybe they’ll offer you a job the next year.

Special thanks to Danny Shiner for putting this together and taking the initiative to get such a valuable product (the profile series, not mine in particular) off the ground!  The full post is here.

GOProud sponsor Lisa DePasquale, who organizes the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, the largest gathering of conservatives in the country, told TheDC that she has seen a general shift in attitudes toward gays among conservatives.

“The movement in general has been supportive of lots of different groups,” she said, adding that she was not speaking on behalf of her organization. “Part of it has to do with younger generations of people now running the other [conservative] groups and I think that probably helps. Most people seem to be okay with it.”

Could it be that Ms. DePasquale is referring to the group of young people below?  (And if so, can we start saying that SFL and the student movement for liberty is starting to change conservative minds?)

Read the full Daily Caller article here.

States Don’t Have Rights, People Do

In the wake of recent events such as the passage of Obamacare and the federal ruling that Prop 8 is unconstitutional, to name a couple, there has been much discussion about states’ rights recently. Touting the importance of allowing states to enact their own laws and reject subservience to the federal government, states’ rights proponents hold that the more local nature of state governments gives them wider power than the federal government. While I agree with the sentiment that individuals have more of a say at the state level than the federal level, I have to challenge the notion that states have the right to enact laws that violate basic rights.

I believe this for a very simple, but important reason: States don’t have rights. People do.

Most states’ rights supporters invoke the 10^th Amendment to legitimate and concretize their beliefs.  However, the 10^th Amendment has very specific wording:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

The 10^th Amendment nowhere provides for any rights of the states.  Rather, it recognizes that states have certain powers, an ability to do particular things.  And there are two conditions on the possession of any powers by the states: that they are not articulated in the Constitution to the federal government and that they are not reserved by the people themselves.  What’s more, the 10^thAmendment comes after the 9^th Amendment, which also has very specific, and noticeably distinct wording:

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

So not only are the powers of the states qualified by the authority of the people, but the Constitution explicitly says that the rights of the people shall not be denied, even if not enumerated in the Constitution. With the incorporation doctrine of the 14^th Amendment (that all rights protected by the federal Constitution may not be infringed upon by the states), this means there is a Constitutional guarantee that individual rights will not be denied by any government, state or federal, within the United States.

States do not have a carte blanche right to enact any law they want, even if done democratically. Their decisions are not irrevocable or immune from oversight. The use of state power is limited by the rights of the individuals within the state. If states violate the rights of those individuals, then there is just cause for intervention whether by the people or the federal government.

Federalism does not mean that the federal government has restricted power and states have unlimited power.  The purpose of federalism is to provide multi-lateral checks on government to protect individuals from the excessive growth of any particular layer of government. The value in this decentralization of authority is that each layer is meant to stop the other when it is abusing its legitimate authority. For the very same reasons that we need to check abuses of federal power, we need to check abuses of state power.  Those checks don’t just come from the people and local governments below, but from the federal government above as well.

Yes, we need to restrict the federal government’s power. Yes, we ought to delegate authority to the states when we can. But no, don’t think that states can do whatever they want or are somehow an inherently better type of government than the federal layer.  The power of any government, federal or state, is derived from the people and accountable to protecting their liberties.  Individual rights trump state power every time. Speaking about “states’ rights” confuses the point. Governments have legitimate powers. Individuals have legitimate rights. Powers and rights are very different things.

The “States’ Rights” cause is a misnomer. It should be a “States’ Powers” movement, focused on the authority of the states to check the decisions of the federal government to protect the rights of its citizens from inappropriate government intervention in their lives.

Once this delineation is made, the appropriate justification for states challenging federal decisions can be more clearly articulated and utilized. However, it may also highlight the inconsistencies of those who wrongly advocate a “right” of state government to abuse any of the rights of individuals.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/States-do-not-have-rights-People-do-101667933.html#ixzz0xqRrbHjk

Girl: “I just think that’s heartless to let old people die.”
Guy: “I consider it heartless to steal from others to give to them!”

Girl: “I don’t want old people dying in the street.”
Guy: “They have families that can take care of them!”

Girl: “I’m willing to pay a little more to avoid people dying.”
Guy: “Then why don’t you give to charity?”

Guy: “But the economics just doesn’t back it up.”
Girl: “Then I guess I’m just one of those irrational, unselfish people.”

Based on this back and forth and the general feel of the conversation, I can honestly say that I, an adamant libertarian, was not persuaded by the guy in this case.  In fact, I worried that he was doing a disservice to libertarianism by preventing the girl from engaging in a meaningful dialog about liberty’s merits.  When trying to persuade others to believe in liberty, the way we present arguments is as important as the substance of the arguments themselves.  Yet this is often forgotten by liberty advocates and expressed by the inability to understand how people just don’t get it through logical reasoning alone.  So here are a few tips on what NOT to do if you want to be an effective advocate for liberty:

1. Don’t get angry.  No one is ever persuaded by the person who is angry.  Anger is good for rallying people who already agree with you, not attracting new allies.
2. Don’t just rehash stock arguments that other libertarians like.  I am sure the guy thought he was being clever in saying it’s heartless to steal from others in the case of social security, but it didn’t come off that way at all in the conversation.  To say that it’s heartless to take a little bit of money from someone with plenty of it to save the life of a person who has nothing is just foolish.  I’m a libertarian and I didn’t think that was persuasive.
3. Don’t offer piecemeal solutions to a large problem.  The guy’s reliance on the argument that family members can take care of old people who didn’t save money just seemed shallow.  Certainly it’s the case that some people won’t have that.  The answer is not in arguing against the sentiment that we should work to avoid old people dying in the street, but arguing against the proposed government solution and saying that the free market will be able to solve it better through experimentation and diversity of offerings.  When presented with a significant problem, people want a significant solution.  That is the strength of the call for government intervention: they can claim the ability to solve the entire problem in one fell swoop.  The free market alternative needs to be able to respond to the claim that the government can solve everything.
4. Don’t use rhetoric that will put the other person off.  Calling the government “a band of thieves” may rally your libertarian friends, but it’s something that many people think is absurd.  If you want to persuade them, don’t say something they are going to think is stupid.  Find another way of making your point in rhetoric they will understand and appreciate.
5. Most importantly: Do NOT think that you will persuade someone in a conversation to change their minds because of the sheer force of your argument.  It doesn’t happen, and usually you come off looking like a fool when you try.  Why?  Because the other person is defending their ground and arguing against you.  The nature of the exchange doesn’t really permit them to admit you’re right.  You put them on the defensive so that their mind is constantly trying to think of ways to rebut your point rather than internalize and digest it.  It’s far better to have an open conversation where you just search for the truth rather than try to prove them wrong.  Why do you come across as a fool if you try to beat someone down with your arguments?  Because your purpose is to make them look like an idiot, and most of the time, the tone, rhetoric, and bodily gestures that come with this purpose show it.  And whenever you try to make someone else look like an idiot, you usually end up looking like one instead.

When having a conversation with someone who disagrees with liberty, it’s best to adopt one of two simple strategies for how to produce the best outcome in the situation:

1. Persuade the other people around who are listening to the conversation.  Most of the time when you’re having a debate with someone in a social setting, the debate isn’t just for the two of you; it’s for an audience as well.  Whether it’s a single other person listening over drinks or a group at a dinner party, there are other people watching how you and the other conversationalist engage one another and evaluating both sides in their mind.  Since you and the person you are conversing with take opposite sides of the issue, it’s often a good strategy to not actually try to persuade the other person, but to try and persuade the people who have not taken a side in the debate and just looking on.  They are the ones open to influence (if they didn’t care about the debate, they wouldn’t be listening).  They are the ones digesting everything you and the other person say and evaluating which side they think is stronger.  Present yourself and your position in a manner that commands the onlookers’ respect and intrigue.  Treat the conversation not as a debate against another person, but as a performance for the other parties and you can influence many more minds.
2. Plant seeds of doubt in the other person’s mind.  You are not there to win a debate.  You are there to expose them to a new idea or to create new connections between ideas in their head that they didn’t have before.  The best thing you can hope for is that the person thinks about the points you made after they leave the conversation, weighing their value.  Perhaps they will start to follow the reasoning of the argument themselves.  Perhaps they will go and read up on the topic some more.  Or perhaps they will want to talk with you again to learn more about your perspective.  Focus on persuading them in the long-term, not in the conversation itself.

I’ll finish this post with a story as told by Brian Doherty in Radicals for Capitalism of how FEE founder, Leonard Read, effectively converted one individual:

Leonard Read wrote a piece in the Freeman arguing against the right of striking airline workers to forcibly prevent anyone else from doing the jobs they chose to stop doing.  It was a standard FEE piece.  Objections to union violence and coercion were a common thread in the minds and writings of early libertarians.  Read received an angry three-page diatribe from a labor union organizer, a fellow known as Whitey.  Read replied carefully and with scrupulous politeness.  The labor organizer wrote back to apologize for his rudeness.  Read sent him a couple of FEE pamphlets, including F.A. Harper’s Why Wages Rise.  (The answer, you can bet, was not “union agitation.”)  Whitey was fascinated and wanted to know more.  After a couple more rounds of correspondence, he told Read that he’d love to read anything the sage from Irvington might deign to send him, and include whatever invoice Read thought appropriate.

Soon they were fellow libertarians and good friends, and Whitey was no longer a labor organizer.  Read revealed to him the simple wizardry he’d performed to nip their feuding in the bud.  He’d removed the tension, given the angry man nothing to push against.  When the former union man was hospitalized after an auto wreck, he wrote his friend Leonard to tell him that “you should see the interest my three doctors are showing in our philosophy.”

And that, many of his old friends would say, is the kind of man Leonard Read was.

Leonard Read was one of the strongest proponents of libertarianism and was without question of the most pivotal figures in popularizing the ideas.  We could use a few more people like him.

Her essay, “Milton Friedman’s Ideas in Action: Privatizing Social Security in Chile as a Model for the United States” provides an argument for how the U.S. can successfully reform the Social Security.  As Liya writes, “The United States is now where Chile was thirty years ago. With the application of Friedman’s ideas on the U.S. Social Security system, the United States would be yet another success story that is much needed in today’s world.”  Read her full essay here.

To many people, “Berkeley” is synonymous with “protest.” Mentioning the University of California, Berkeley often conjures up images of bearded bohemians and flower children peacefully rallying for a “hippie” cause of the past, such as the famous Free Speech Movement of the mid-sixties. Indeed, Berkeley’s protest culture has given the university a reputation for being a bastion for freedom of expression, which can be quite attractive to prospective students looking for a unique college experience. I know because I was once one of them. At Berkeley, so I thought, I would be immersed in an Eden of free speech, a liberal’s utopia, where all opinions were tolerated.

Unfortunately, I have found this idealistic vision of my university to be more fiction than fact nowadays. While Berkeley’s tolerance for free speech (for the most part) lives up to its reputation, my school has also come to tolerate many illiberal and even unlawful actions that make a mockery of the marketplace of ideas.

As University of Wisconsin -Madison professor Donald Downs pointed out in a recent article (which was also highlighted in a July blog post by Adam), Berkeley has a long history of allowing “free expression” to go too far. Just last November, a group of demonstrators illegally occupied a landmark building on campus, Wheeler Hall, for an entire school day in protest of recent tuition hikes while hundreds of supporters outside cheered them on. Although the police easily gained access to the building briefly after the occupation began, the administration insisted on hearing out the protesters’ demands, thus leading to a twelve-hour standoff in which an estimated 3,800 students were not allowed to attend classes-including many of my close friends.

Of course, the demonstrators have every right to express their frustration in a peaceful manner following the university’s reasonable, First-Amendment-compliant rules. Indeed, there had been several rallies in the preceding days in which their grievances were aired in a lawful fashion. However, by occupying a university building, subsequently damaging property, and denying thousands of students access to their paid education, the protesters went too far.

Legitimate exercise of the freedom of expression, after all, does not include disrupting classes or events, physical violence, or property destruction. Perhaps Oliver Wendell Holmes explained the limit of free expression best when he said, “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.” People are free to exhibit their anger in nonverbal ways up until the point where it interferes with the rights of others.

Therefore, although the intent of the Wheeler Hall occupants to end tuition hikes may have been noble, the vehicle through which they expressed their demands was not. In my experience, the failure of Berkeley’s administration and political activists is that they often confuse the two. As a result of this misunderstanding, any movement that claims to have good intentions (or is deemed as such by the administration) is essentially given a green light to violate campus rules and even state laws. Thus, civil libertarianism at Berkeley has often evolved into libertinism, as demonstrated through several events following the Wheeler Hall occupation.

For example, less than two weeks after the occupation, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s house was attacked when 40 to 75 protesters overturned plants, broke windows, and threw lit torches at police. “My wife and I genuinely feared for our lives,” recalled the Chancellor. Sadly, this is just one example of lawlessness. In February of this year, more than 200 rioters took to the streets of Berkeley, vandalizing private businesses, burning public property, and even hurling dumpsters at police. Berkeley’s student newspaper, The Daily Californian, captured the riot in this chilling video.

Unfortunately, Berkeley’s confusion about the limit of expression has morphed into some lawless protesters’ illiberal acceptance of violence as a means of activism. Such reckless actions do not promote freedom of speech but hinder it. How, after all, can two parties have a true exchange of ideas when one side is threatening violence? To be fair, the demonstrators who committed the illegal acts are a minority of the larger protest movement and are unrepresentative of the whole. However, this fact does not excuse the acceptance of lawlessness as a method of expression by many administrators, students, and protesters.

As a California Golden Bear, I am proud of my university’s history of open discourse. In practically everything, my college experience at Berkeley thus far has been everything I expected and more. I am unafraid to admit that I genuinely love my college. Yet, love is not equivalent to blind devotion. I recognize the faults in my school and urge it to change- partly because it is in my self-interest. The free exchange of ideas cannot survive where there is also a free exchange of fists. Until my university fully comprehends this principle, free speech will continue to be chilled by lawlessness at Berkeley.

The mission of LOLA is to build a female leadership base through education and fellowship, and to cultivate and empower the community of liberty-minded women.  If you are interested in becoming part of LOLA’s leadership, LOLACore, email Allison Gibbs at allison@iamlola.org.

One of the exciting upcoming additions is the LOLA store (still under construction) which will feature your favorite liberty swag – made to fit a woman’s body.  Keep an eye out for the opportunity to rock liberty gear without looking like you are wearing pajamas!

With new leadership and robust goals, ladies in the liberty movement no longer need to feel lost or isolated.  While we are all on the same team, a little friendly competition never hurt.  So boys look out, because the girls are going to be doing big things.

This week SFL showcased FIRE’s campaign to protect the freedom of speech on campus.  As students continue fighting for the right to protect themselves on campus, the war for concealed carry on college campuses is heating up.  The question now is: Will other students join the fight to have their freedom recognized as well?

While the ramifications of the recent Supreme Court decision, McDonald v. Chicago, may take a few more years to see any actual change, Utah Valley University senior Nick Moyes may become a model for students joining the fight for these rights on their own campuses.

Utah isn’t alone – Michigan, Colorado, and even Arizona have started discussions on allowing permit-carrying students to have the right to protect themselves while on campus.

Read more at www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-o2/handguns-on-campus-make-utah-colleges-model-after-court-rulings.html.  You can also check out information on FIRE’s new video and campaign on a previous post or at the FIRE website.

Unfortunately, on the 28th of June, 2010 the Supreme Court announced a 5-4 ruling which undermines the freedom of association on campus.  FIRE’s announcement explains the impact this ruling has for student groups on college campuses:

“In a blow to freedom of association and religious liberty on campus, a sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that a public university may require its student organizations to admit any student as a voting member or officer, regardless of whether that student openly disagrees with or is even hostile to the group’s fundamental beliefs.”

It is important to consider “the rights of expressive campus organizations to form around shared beliefs and for the principle that the College Democrats have the right to be Democrats, the College Atheists have the right to be atheists, and the College Christians have the right to be Christians,” as stated by FIRE President Greg Lukianoff.  As students of liberty, we know that ideas matter.  Especially on college campuses, supposedly an open forum of ideas, students should be able to organize themselves to advance whatever ideas they hold.

A university’s ‘accept all comers’ policy casts student groups like the Christian Legal Society off campus and diminishes the diversity of viewpoints that are supposed to be hallmarks of our public universities.  It is imperative that we stand up for the rights of all student groups, whether we agree with their ideas or not.