[My wife, Marilyn Ackerman, has been raptly absorbed for more than a year in the works of such laissez-faire economists as Smith, Hayek, Mises, Hazlitt and Sowell. She is presently immersed in Rothbard, whose thousand-page tome, Man, Economy and State, she brought with her to my college reunion in Charlottesville last weekend. The blogging side of this quest for knowledge has put her into close contact with college students whose burgeoning interest in libertarian ideas represents a bright spot in the U.S. political scene. Below is her report from the field. RA].
The weekend commentary by Wayne Razzi, What Are You Going To Do? generated many dismal and depressing posts. It reminded me that neither Wayne nor his tormentors know what I know, namely that there is currently a rapidly growing movement of young Americans — on college campuses, no less — who understand the importance of preserving our liberties and combating tyranny. So, while it may seem to some jaded Rick’s Picks readers that there is nothing we can do about the ebbing away of basic freedoms, there is a whole new generation of liberty-minded young Americans who are not ready concede defeat. To the contrary, these kids mean business – and they have the smarts and the drive to take on the challenge.
One group at the forefront of this movement is Young Americans for Liberty. The group was founded to support Ron Paul’s presidential run in 2008 but has evolved into a fast-growing campus-based entity that gives a home to students who are uncomfortable with the liberal/progressive tone that dominates the academy in most locales. At Colorado State University alone, the figures on participation rose from a piddling three attendees at the first meeting in 2009 to an audience of more than 400 at an appearance by Tom Woods last fall, according to past president of CSU’s YAL chapter, Eric Roche. “Yes, we had to take money from the students to pay for the event, which we’d rather not do, but we just couldn’t pull it off on our own……but, we were really happy with the turnout.”
Not since William F. Buckley shook the shingles of Yale in the Fifties has there been such a surge in numbers of young, anti-liberal college students – right on the campuses. But, these are not your father’s Young Republicans. They aren’t Republicans at all; neither are they willing to be called “conservative.” No, these young, liberty-minded Americans are unabashed Libertarians. And, where the heck did they come from? Roche doesn’t exactly know, but he says their numbers “just keep growing……..students are clearly hungry for this type of information.” That their numbers are growing is very good news – indeed.
Some of these kids are simply rebelling against their progressive/revisionist public school educations, upon learning somewhat later than they should have that Thomas Jefferson did more than sire a bunch of half-breeds with Sally Hemings. They were on the global warming field trip when the 15-minute founding fathers unit was covered, and they are making it up on their own time. Also, they are the victims of some of the most appalling, repressive and over-zealous law enforcement that we’ve seen since the Civil Rights movement. (Click here for a report on protestors’ dance party last weekend at the Jefferson Memorial.) They don’t like being told they can’t dance. Or, what to eat. Or that they can’t own guns. In fact, like the young of every era, they don’t much want to be told what to do at all. But what is most surprising about them is their profound and passionate dedication to the Libertarian cause, to Ron Paul, to dismantling the Fed, to fighting big government and tyranny and to learning everything they can about economics…from the Austrian point of view.
More Than Guns and Abortion
I met a couple of these young Americans for Liberty at a Ludwig von Mises event last summer, and over the last year, mostly in Facebook posts and comments, I have come to understand exactly how they think. They are a formidable entity, not just forensic debaters in some onanistic exercise to preserve guns and outlaw abortion. No, these kids have read the texts and could hold their own in battle with any progressive pantywaist arguing for more spending, higher debt ceilings, and a broader reach for the nanny state. They know they are being gamed, and they are prepared to do what it takes to stop it.
Could they get Ron Paul elected in 2012? “With some help, yeah,” says Edward Furst, 21, an EMT, YAL member, frequent v-logger and organizer of the Renegade Rothbard reading group in Fort Collins, CO. Furst is two years into his Libertarian conversion, which erupted when he watched the YouTube videos “Peter Schiff Was Right” and Tom Wood’s “Why You’ve Never Heard of the Depression of 1920” and “Keynesian Prediction vs. U.S. History.” He says that the students who are finding their way into the liberty groups aren’t doing it in response to anything Obama has done – remarkably – but for more purely economic reasons. They see the price of food, gas…of everything going up, and their prospects for post-grad employment shriveling, and they see it as their issue. “Earlier student Libertarians were more interested in legalizing drugs and preserving gun rights,” says Furst. And while these concerns retain importance, it’s really the economic issues that are paramount to today’s students. “It was obvious that the Austrians were the ones that accurately predicted the meltdown [in 2008]……you know — Schiff, Mark Thornton, Jim Rogers, Doug Casey……they all had it right.”
They Know the Score…
These young people read, absorb, discuss and disseminate to others, vast amounts of literature that isn’t even in the syllabi of classes at our most prestigious schools of economics; Mises, Hayek, Rothbard (and Griffin, Woods, Paul and Stossel) are squarely in their sights. They know our money is phony, and they know that central banking is no more than an agent of servitude and malinvestment, corruption and control. They know that we are truly on the road to serfdom. They’ve also read Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, so they are aware of the dangers that await us at the end of that bumpy road.
So, what are you going to do? Well, I hope you will try to find a YAL chapter at a school near you. “We all have a lot of passion, heart and energy,” says Furst. “We just don’t have the resources to put on events, disseminate literature and – most importantly – create media.” Though, in reality, Furst is doing his part by organizing a group to read and discuss Rothbard’s Man, Economy and State over the summer. He has also created many wildly popular v-logs on the issues, the most pertinent being his treatment of the IMF ruse, following the recent Kahn/hotel-maid scandal. Take a look and you’ll understand how these kids think, how they see the world and how clearly they understand the need for, dare I say, revolution?
So, what are you going to do? Why not help the like-minded young among us take the helm, and steer our ship of state back to course. Obama youth don’t own the internet (thank the Maker). When we begin to think there is nothing we can do, we need to remember those coming behind us, the ones we’ve left this mess to. If they are willing to work this hard, to read and digest, to organize and proselytize, to spend their summer vacation reading…Rothbard! the least we can do is let them know we appreciate their efforts. The least we can do is support their efforts – with time, money, books – whatever you can spare. For the cost of a dinner out you could sponsor a great local speaker at an event, or the cost of flyers to announce meetings and events. If you think there is nothing you can do, at least give these students the opportunity to see what they can do.
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Murray, a hero for the college set? I can hear him chortling now! Murray was a dear friend of ours, and is greatly missed. It is wonderful to see that his brilliant works are now becoming popular. Re: messages above- Murray was dumped from Rand’s inner circle because he would not divorce his wife Joanne (she was a Presbyterian and Rand did not consider that “rational”). Young Americans for Liberty used to be Young Americans for Freedom and the 30 or so of us who were “purged” from the group (for being Libertarians) went on to form the Society for Individual Liberty which eventually became became the Libertarian Party; Re: Jefferson- Sally Hemmings was his wife’s half sister, the daughter of his father-in-law. Her mother was a half white slave on his father-in-law’s plantation. Sally was said to be very beautiful, intelligent and talented. It’s no surprise that Jefferson was attracted!