"SFL - ILAFL NYC Regional Conference 2009"

October 10th, 2009 at Alfred Lerner Hall

Columbia University, 115th & Broadway

On Saturday, October 10, 2010 the Columbia University Libertarians will host the 2nd ever ILAFL Conference.
REQUIRED REGISTRATION HERE:

Following up on last year’s inaugural conference in which representatives from the Ivy League schools came together to write a founding Constitution and prepare coordinated campus events, this year’s conference will include students from all groups interested in the ideas of liberty.

Featuring speakers from the national liberty movement, including Students For Liberty, the conference will serve as a forum for learning from experts in fields ranging from economics to history, meeting libertarian leaders, discussing current issues, and sharing advice on best practices for advancing the cause of liberty on campus.

Along with a fantastic speaker line up, the ILAFL Conference will also feature three free meals and an evening social event at a local bar/restaurant for everyone registered.

- Conference Speakers -

*Fred L. Smith, Jr. – Fred L. Smith, Jr. is President and Founder of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market public policy group established in 1984. Mr. Smith combines intellectual and strategic analysis of complex policy issues ranging from the environment to corporate governance with an informative and entertaining presentation style. Well-known in academic and professional circles, Mr. Smith is a popular speaker at universities and conferences around the world.



*Damon W. Root – Associate Editor at Reason magazine and Reason.com, Damon Root regularly writes on legal affairs and constitutional history. A graduate of Columbia University, his writing has appeared in the New York Post, The Washington Times,New York Press, The Las Vegas Review-Journal, The Tallahassee Democrat, and other publications.

*Professor Mario Rizzo - Mario Rizzo received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He is an associate professor of Economics at New York University. His areas of interest include Austrian Economics, Law and Economics, Microeconomics, Ethics and Economics, and the Philosophy of Science. He has authored Economics of Time and Ignorance: 1996 Intro Survey and Time, Uncertainty and Disequilibrium: Exploration of Austrian Themes. He has contributed to Real Time and Relative Indeterminacy in Economic Theory and been published in many news outlets, including Forbes Magazine and the Wall Street Journal. He is also a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, IHS and the Foundation for Economic Education.

*Christopher Maloney - Vice President of Municipal Fixed Income Management at Neuberger Berman and contributor at Mises Daily.

Professor Salerno and Peter Schiff are unconfirmed speakers as well.

It's going to be great because I'm helping organize. Open to all students. Free booze at Campo after 9 o' clock if you've attended the conference. Come drink with us until our views start making sense.

"Students Rights Week?"

The majority of liberty-minded folk in the world usually conclude that women don't have special rights for being females, neither does your inclination to sexual preference or physical handicap grant you a right to a wheelchair or a right to some other form of entitlement. A strict "ethics of liberty" of the Rothbardian-Lockean strain would argue that you an inalienable natural right as individual to life, liberty and property.

So, does being a student give you a right to say whatever you want on campus?

Certain libertarian-minded student groups are recently teaming up with FIRE, (The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), to bring Students Rights week to a college campus near you.

They advocate free campuses, and freedom of speech, individual liberty on campus, and yes, students rights. Students Rights week has a mixed guise of a libertarian rhetoric and U.S. Constitutionalesque feel to that many liberty-minded folk can immediately seem as warm and amenable, especially since it is being so heavily promoted in a week-long, nation-wide event by the same liberty-minded organization. I can attest that many of my fellow group members felt the same way about the event at first few glances. The week-long campaign includes delivering copies of the movie "Indoctrinate U" to libertarian groups everywhere, pocket U.S. Constitutions, free books and pamphlets courtesy of FIRE, manuals on how to engage Students Rights on their campuses! They even offer a list of expert speakers, sign-up sheets and marketing materials.

A few side notes about that movie before I advance: It's poorly made, loses focus often and has actually very little to do with actually liberty. Its inconsistent from top to bottom. It spends time focusing on affirmative action, and uses Ward Connerly being bashed at a campus as an example of anti-free speech. It seems to be beside the point that Ward isn't even a student. Then it actually shows liberal students at Columbia University voicing their opinions on campus against the affirmative action bake sale, and pushing for a progressive, multicultural change in front of the alma mater statue. It seems like freedom of speech was pretty open there, and no one denied the affirmative action people their protest. Affirmative action isn't even a real issue, its a misallocated issue that is the result of too public goods in society and government meddling!

It's a silly documentary that entirely misdirects the freedom movement with diluted perspectives on what freedom and liberty actually means. So geting onto the most important question at hand:

Why are organizations like Students for Liberty that I am personally associated with, working with FIRE?

I've looked into FIRE, they aren't a libertarian organization whatsoever. I think they're using SFL as jumping bench to gain publicity if you want to be absolutely frank about it. I think their tactics are atrocious in doing so. They actually pursue court cases that will mandate freedom on campus from the demigods of a judicial bench? How does that qualify as freedom-like to private institutions?

Quote from the site:

"FIRE effectively and decisively defends American liberties on behalf of thousands of students and faculty on our nation's campuses. In case after case, FIRE brings about favorable resolutions for these individuals who continue to be challenged by those willing to deny fundamental rights and liberties within our institutions of higher education. In addition to individual case work, FIRE works nationally to inform the public about the fate of liberty on our campuses."

What does any of that even mean? Do students have a right to smoke pot on campus, because I consider that a fundamental right? American liberties on our nation's campuses? Perhaps they are mainly referring to public universities where the U.S. Constitution can be applied, but let us not get sucked away into the semantics and the adjectives and the ooohs and aahs of "defending American liberties".

Where in the Constitution is their even a provision that permits the federal government to provide block grants to public schools? The real question that should be postulated is the one that follows: Does government even supposed to have the moral legitimacy to tax, free American people, and set up a public college system with that money? The correct libertarian position would appear to me that public schools shouldn't even exist, much in the sameway libertarians find the post office, Medicaid and Amtrak inefficient and the result of misallocated tax dollars. and if so, funded and operated at the local school level. So why are we even defending the right to free speech on institutions that ethically speaking, libertarians and liberty-minded folk should be against? It seems to me like there are plenty more pressing issues at hand that libertarians should be more actively engaged in opposing then standing in a week-long coalition defending "students rights" to freedom of speech and individual liberties on publically subsidized campuses.

The overwhelming majority of private and public campuses actually permit their students to have freedom to voice their opinions, and even if they didn't, I don't see how that qualifies it as an issue? Private colleges are run by shareholders and a board of directors. They have a right to enact the standards they see fit because its private. There are plenty of Christian campuses and Jesuit run organizations that promote a socially conservative life style by not allowing secular bands and groups to exist on campus, not allowing certain articles to run in college newspapers and banning alcohol.

This is exactly one of the marginial benefits of why having a free market system means having the freedom to choose: because we can actually pick and choose what sort of environment we want to be in, whether its tolerant and diverse of thought like at Columbia University, where the Office of Multicultural Affairs runs a variety of multicultural programs each semester, or more moderate, conservative campuses that restrict the consumption of alcohol like Liberty University or others that separate male and females in residence halls like at Fordham University. This is certainly a far more desirable alternative then the one size fits all of public colleges that spend more time arguing for these "positive" rights in the Supreme Court than actually educating. These are examples of what Students for Liberty as an organization should be playing up and highlighting, the virtues and empirical evidence that freedom and markets work, and governments don't. By allying themselves with FIRE, they hurt potential friends by alienating campuses that are not so friendly to diversity of though, but are indeed libertarian-minded, like Grove City College, which was founded extolling the principles and ideals of a free American society, and openly states on its mission statement an anti-FIRE policy, "...while many points of view are examined, the College unapologetically advocates preservation of America's religious, political, and economic heritage of individual freedom and responsibility...", they certainly have a free-minded heritage in liberty that would be of most benefit to SFL.

Furthermore, I don't see what's the net gain in SFL being allied with an organization that's effectively promoting what could be construed as an activist Leftist agenda. The problem that many libertarians mistake coming so quickly to support other pro-freedom movements, arises from confusions in the word "freedom". The word "freedom", often takes a variety of positions in everday life, like the "freedom-to-hang out" that an adolescent living under household rules earns after completing their chores. FIRE definitely has the "freedom"-like ring to it that so many civil libertarians adore, but that doesn't actually extend to society, much in the same fashion that the government can't extend the 1st Amendment into your house.

All of our natural rights, are indeed derived from property rights. You don't have a "right to freedom of speech", you have a write to start a newspaper publication and write as many op-eds as you want. You have a right to rent out an auditorium, and bash the New York Mets for being a lousy baseball team. Property rights are the crux of liberalism, and the axiom from which all other rights are derived. Ludwig von Mises treatise on liberalism starts with private property as the basis for a classic liberal society. A civilization based on peace and freedom between individuals coexisting in a market economy where the social system of the division of labor is under private ownership of the means of production. Here's an excerpt from "Liberalism":

"The program of liberalism, therefore, if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production... All the other demands of liberalism result from his fundamental demand."

If we were to support everything that was free, then that would probably have us "libertarians" supporting proposals like "free healthcare" and "freedom from racial discrimination"? I'd argue that most modern-day, lower case "liberals" actually do have a distorted perversion of what freedom actually means. The following is the essay that shattered any preconceptions I had about libertarianism and flushed out most of the misconcepts I had remaining from my Marxist, pro-government days, which I have called, "the Early Days". Here, I quote Congressman Ron Paul, in the finest essay I have ever read:

"George Orwell wrote about “meaningless words” that are endlessly repeated in the political arena. Words like “freedom,” “democracy,” and “justice,” Orwell explained, have been abused so long that their original meanings have been eviscerated. In Orwell’s view, political words were “Often used in a consciously dishonest way.” Without precise meanings behind words, politicians and elites can obscure reality and condition people to reflexively associate certain words with positive or negative perceptions. In other words, unpleasant facts can be hidden behind purposely meaningless language. As a result, Americans have been conditioned to accept the word “democracy” as a synonym for freedom, and thus to believe that democracy is unquestionably good. The problem is that democracy is not freedom. Democracy is simply majoritarianism, which is inherently incompatible with real freedom. Our founding fathers clearly understood this, as evidenced not only by our republican constitutional system, but also by their writings in the Federalist Papers and elsewhere. James Madison cautioned that under a democratic government, “There is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual.” John Adams argued that democracies merely grant revocable rights to citizens depending on the whims of the masses, while a republic exists to secure and protect pre-existing rights. Yet how many Americans know that the word “democracy” is found neither in the Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence, our very founding documents?... Few Americans understand that all government action is inherently coercive. If
nothing else, government action requires taxes. If taxes were freely paid, they wouldn’t be called taxes, they’d be called donations. If we intend to use the word freedom in an honest way, we should have the simple integrity to give it real meaning: Freedom is living without government coercion. So when a politician talks about freedom for this group or that, ask yourself whether he is advocating more government action or less.

The political left equates freedom with liberation from material wants, always via a large and benevolent government that exists to create equality on earth. To modern liberals, men are free only when the laws of economics and scarcity are suspended, the landlord is rebuffed, the doctor presents no bill, and groceries are given away. But philosopher Ayn Rand (and many others before her) demolished this argument by explaining how such “freedom” for some is possible only when government takes freedoms away from others. In other words, government claims on the lives and property of those who are expected to provide housing, medical care, food, etc. for others are coercive – and thus incompatible with freedom. “Liberalism,” which once stood for civil, political, and economic liberties, has become a synonym for omnipotent coercive government.

The political right equates freedom with national greatness brought about through military strength. Like the left, modern conservatives favor an all-powerful central state – but for militarism, corporatism, and faith-based welfarism. Unlike the Taft-Goldwater conservatives of yesteryear, today’s Republicans are eager to expand government spending, increase the federal police apparatus, and intervene militarily around the world. The last tenuous links between conservatives and support for smaller government have been severed. “Conservatism,” which once meant respect for tradition and distrust of active government, has transformed into big-government utopian grandiosity.

Orwell certainly was right about the use of meaningless words in politics. If we hope to remain free, we must cut through the fog and attach concrete meanings to the words politicians use to deceive us.
We must reassert that America is a republic, not a democracy, and remind ourselves that the Constitution places limits on government that no majority can overrule. We must resist any use of the word “freedom” to describe state action. We must reject the current meaningless designations of “liberals” and “conservatives,” in favor of an accurate term for both: statists.

Every politician on earth claims to support freedom. The problem is so few of them understand the simple meaning of the word."

Why don't we just support free everything then? I believe, that having FIRE in a free-market society, would act as a consumer protection group, or an advisory board that would make policy reccommendations for campuses across America, much in the same way we have hundreds of magazines, institutes & consumer product committees that try out and test vehicles and consumer goods and issue reviews and commentaries on them. While I support a free environment on campuses personally, I don't see that as a role for a libertarian/freedom movement oriented group to be in league with.

I'm sorry, but I know that organizations such as SFL are still starting out, but I don't feel that they have to resort to being the jumping pad for the propoganda of Student Rights organization. Students for Liberty is an excellant organization, that is well-run, and is increasing in numbers, but I feel that by highlighting certain rights, we dilute the core message of liberty, and misdirects the intentions that an an organization of this nature is supposed to be for. I think I'm bringing up more than reasonable objections to libertarian organizations that have noble intentions and excellant prospect in exerting greater influence across campuses.

Call it intransigence, I call it being principled.

Stay free, America. More than just the world is watching.

Disclaimer: This commentary does not necessarily represent the position taken by any of members of the Executive Board or the Board of Directors of SFL.

"...Picking away at "In Defense of Libertarianism"..."

Sometime last year, the Columbia Daily Spectator had a blarticle titled "In Defense of Libertarianism", written to no surprise by someone who clearly does not understand libertarianism. He makes a fairly unbiased, but albeit, misinformed analysis of the pros and cons of the libertarian doctrine. I speculate that the impetus for writing it was a mixture of the CUL blog and the growing freedom movement, especially since it has been more vocal in the past couple months.

I was upset by this blog post. Not that I dislike libertarianism from appearing, in an blog post, media is always good. Despite a few flaws here and there, I can actually swallow this.However, the writer makes one comment towards the end, which showed me he had studied libertarianism more than I perceived:

"Well, not really. That's a facile, straw-man understanding. Libertarians aren't anarchists (at least, not the smart ones)-they understand that some government is necessary just to make people get along. How much government? A police force seems necessary. A defense force probably, as well. Other institutions? Perhaps. But does the government know what crops should be grown, and when and where and how much, let alone what farmers should do the growing? Libertarianism predicts what experience shows: over-regulation is a recipe for naught but pork-barrel cronyism."

It's a pretty loaded statement he makes (which I highlighted in bold) because if he's read most serious libertarian papers, he would have realized that the "smartest" libertarians are indeed anarchists. That's because most libertarians follow the non-aggression axiom, and the logical deductions that are derived from that principle is that you can't support a coercive monopoly of law and public security.

"A Response to the Obama Administration"

A Libertarian Response to the Obama Administration

J. David Fernández & the Columbia University Libertarians

“If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we'd see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies.”

That was Senator Barack Obama addressing the U.S. Senate in 2006. If only he could apply that advice to his existing actions as head honcho in Washington D.C. The fiscal irresponsibility with which Obama and the federal government are currently operating is beyond belief. Our present national debt is a staggering fiscal nightmare, over $11 trillion. That means every American including every school child, owes approximately $37,000 of U.S. debt. We are running a bigger-than-gigantic-government budget at the same time as a large tax break, continuing the same behavior Bush was vilified for. An increase in spending and reduction of taxes? It’s possible when the government borrows money from China and walks over to the elephant in the room, the Federal Reserve. The former is coming to an end and the latter is at the root cause of our economic calamity today.

Obama appears to be neither pragmatic nor ideological, but an adept player in the traditional political game. There aren’t substantial differences between elected Republicans and Democrats; besides a few singular exceptions, both agree on higher levels of government spending and foreign action abroad. Both reserve the right to seize assets and power away from citizens, and use it as they—not the people—see fit. Both break their own promises, and violate principles they claim to hold for the sake of winning elections and staying in office. When bailout programs like TARP, miserably fail at their intended purpose, instead of getting abolished, it receives more funding. With political parties like ours, unabashed “liberalism” has been around way before 2009.

And where are tax dollars flowing to? They’ve become life support to bankrupt corporations, insolvent automobile companies, the pockets of crony CEO’s and a volley of make-work programs to come. The Obama campaign ran on a platform that prided the now popular monikers of “yes we can,” “change” and “hope.” However, the first few months of Obama’s administration have already proven to be alike to the previous one. Spending hasn’t decreased from the reckless levels of the Bush administration; it has gone up, astronomically! Our military interventionism hasn’t decreased; and by all signs it will continue to shoot upwards with a perpetual foreign policy overseas, with over 20,000 U.S. Marines shipped out to Afghanistan in the next six months and military spending is projected to increase by next year. It’s nice to see the anti-war vote was well cast. Additionally, there is no dialogue over fiscal or monetary policy issues like the Federal Reserve and significant plans to reduce overall spending.

An economist once wrote to me saying, “Like Rodney Dangerfield, libertarians get no respect.” He’s right. That’s due to the fact that libertarianism is an ethical philosophy that believes in liberty across the board with the smallest degree of government necessary. Hence, libertarianism is neither right nor left wing, and so there isn’t much of a distinction between Obama and Bush. We should call Obama, Bush and other Republicrats and “liberals” by their actual name: Socialists.