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Students for Liberty give smashing good show at ASU
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Seven years ago, when I was a young chap and a sophomore at Northern Arizona 
University, I attempted to create the first College Libertarians group on campus to compete with the College Democrats and College Republicans. NAU is a small school with just above 20,000 students, and unfortunately due to my political bashfulness at the time, I found few who wanted to commit themselves to such an ambitious project.
University, I attempted to create the first College Libertarians group on campus to compete with the College Democrats and College Republicans. NAU is a small school with just above 20,000 students, and unfortunately due to my political bashfulness at the time, I found few who wanted to commit themselves to such an ambitious project. Flagstaff, though a charming community lodged in the gorgeous green mountains just below the San Francisco Peaks, is a cesspool of hippy feel-good Marxists. Not counting Leftwing professors, imagine being surrounded by thousands of sneering Keith Olbermanns and smug Rachel Maddows—only they’re in their early twenties wearing never-been-washed warm hemp clothing instead of business attire. If you cross—that is, politically disagree with—most of these dogmatic creatures, you’re lucky if you escape their growls and screams with your ears still intact. I was wary of asking the wrong people to join the libertarian movement lest I be publically vilified as a “hate-monger” because freedom makes more sense to me than gulags.
With that said, and in comparison to my own experience, it’s amazing to see what young Americans are doing seven years later to promote liberty. Arizona State University hosted the national 2009 West Coast Students for Liberty Conference last Saturday. ASU Students for Liberty is a student organization dedicated to promoting peace, prosperity, personal responsibility, free markets and free minds. It’s also a chapter of the national Young Americans for Liberty—the grassroots student activist group that blossomed across the nation’s college campuses to support Ron Paul’s presidential campaign. Many impressive freedom fighters 
showed up to speak at the conference, including Tom Jenney from Americans for Prosperity, Clint Bolick and Nick Dranias from the Goldwater Institute and Bill Sumner, Director of the Institute for Humane Studies. Sumner, who’s probably in his eighties now, gave one of the most captivating speeches on why WWI, a topic not discussed much anymore by anyone, was the greatest disaster to the advancement of liberty in US history. Patri Friedman, economist and grandson of Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, also gave a great speech on the structural reasons why the US has failed to protect liberty. And keynote speaker and co-founder of the Libertarian Party David Nolan delivered a masterful speech on the various—though universally bleak—impending possible futures the US will soon face be
cause of current government monetary, domestic and foreign policies.
showed up to speak at the conference, including Tom Jenney from Americans for Prosperity, Clint Bolick and Nick Dranias from the Goldwater Institute and Bill Sumner, Director of the Institute for Humane Studies. Sumner, who’s probably in his eighties now, gave one of the most captivating speeches on why WWI, a topic not discussed much anymore by anyone, was the greatest disaster to the advancement of liberty in US history. Patri Friedman, economist and grandson of Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, also gave a great speech on the structural reasons why the US has failed to protect liberty. And keynote speaker and co-founder of the Libertarian Party David Nolan delivered a masterful speech on the various—though universally bleak—impending possible futures the US will soon face because of current government monetary, domestic and foreign policies. Perhaps it wasn’t the most uplifting of events. As John Stossel has said, “these are sad times for people who believe in limited government.” Each economics professor who spoke assured the young crowd that their country’s economy has less than a bright future ahead of it. And no one denied that the future for American liberty itself does not look bright. The inevitable downer of reality expressed by the speakers is probably the reason why the conference’s donors paid for everyone’s tab after the show.
Drinking alcohol at a Tempe pub with other young libertarians, paid for by other people, made me wonder how fun it must be to be socialist. (So why are so many socialists so angry all the time?) I got to drink “free” beer and talk economics one-on-one with Patri Friedman. What more can you ask for? I
’m beyond happy and inspired to see so many young people go against the socialist grain to stand up for liberty. Great show, SFL! Keep up the good work!
All photos by Daniel Heller: Top-Down: Clint Bolick, Patri Friedman, Bill Sumner, Bolick and Tom Jenney, David Nolan.
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