UNR Students for Liberty » ISFLC

Stossel and Boaz on War

Barry Belmont — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 07:58:08 +0000

A few members of the UNR SFL were not content to prattle on about academic matters nor bother with long, nuanced questions of narrow scope at the ISFLC. That’s why during many breakout sessions we more often asked what the lecturer wanted us to get out of the lecture than about what Hayek really meant in some obscure article that the presenter may or may not have ever even heard about.

As such, when given the chance to ask John Stossel and David Boaz, two leaders of the burgeoning libertarian movement, a question of fundamental importance in the acceptance of war, John Russell pulled no punches and asked the question that always stands all other issues related to war: “Is it okay to kill innocent people?”

~~EDIT: Due to copyright claims, we aren’t able to show this video right now. We’ll keep you updated when we know more…~~

EDIT OF THE EDIT: The video is back up since the episode has aired.

Video credit goes to Ty, the Guy From ~~Canada~~ Harvard.

This is the only time that John Stossel was not met with thunderous applause for his answer all evening. In fact, the loud boos and uncomfortable moans of discontent were quite out of place at the conference (which had a fairly positive attitude), only further emphasizing the poor responses of both Boaz and Stossel.

In fact, and I apologize to Mr. Boaz and Mr. Stossel if this ever gets back to them, but each of their responses is quite unacceptable. Stossel gives a broad “of course” type answer which fails to differentiate between what is perhaps necessary and what may be considered “justified.” While Boaz simply plays a pointless smug word game and dances around the issue. They should have taken more time to think of their answers, they should have taken more care: the issue is important, and the answer is a simple “Using violence against innocent people should not be legally justified.”

One would think that this simple (and fundamental tenant of libertarianism) would be well known to such prolific proponents of the movement, but it seemed to slip by both at the time. Perhaps it was nervousness, unpreparedness, tiredness, wanting-to-get-in-as-many-people-as-possible-ness, or a myriad of other things. Whatever the reason, we thought it was important to share it with people…because it certainly won’t be making it into prime time.

ABOLISH ASUN: International Event of the Year

UNR Student For Liberty — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 01:33:22 +0000

The Students for Liberty has named our original Abolish ASUN Festival its Event of the Year at its recent International Conference. This is an amazing honor and we will be sure to bring you more news, stories, and videos about how the whole conference went down in the coming week, but suffice it to say for now: we’re awesome, they’re awesome, liberty’s great, and the world’s getting better.

We want to thank everyone who helped make it happen (you know who you are [ahem, Abby]) as well as all of those who voted for us to win. It is important to note, however, that there were many great groups and events this year that helped spread The Good Word to more people than ever before, and they all deserve a great deal of admiration.

So again, thank you Big Papa Students for Liberty, all the groups in attendance, and especially all the governmental institutions that make it childishly easy to ruthlessly tear apart with sound arguments, logical conclusions, and mountains upon mountains of their own ineptitude.

(We're in the very back row to the right standing on our chairs)

Nominated: Event of the Year

UNR Student For Liberty — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 18:13:15 +0000

Our club (along with several other excellent organizations) has been nominated for the national Students for Liberty‘s Event of the Year. The event we were chosen for was our initial kick off of the Abolish ASUN movement, namely, the Abolish ASUN Festival, where, just in case you forget, we willfully wasted our student government’s funds to show that no governments can ever properly allocate the money of others.

The event inspired many spin-offs, gained a lot of local and national exposure, and lit discussions about the fundamental realities of governments amongst everyone who has heard about it.

So please check out all the award finalists and vote* for those individuals and groups you feel are propelling the libertarian youth movement in exciting and fertile new ways.

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*Gasp, I know, we’re advocating voting!

ISFLC, 3. The Guy From Michigan

Barry Belmont — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:44:05 +0000

Jonathan Slemrod, in addition to being the President of University of Michigan College Libertarians, is also the Editor-at-Large of the conservative and libertarian journal on his campus, The Michigan Review. Below is his boiling down of the conference to a tight, nice, and neat paragraph.

The third annual Students for Liberty Conference was a valuable experience for students to discuss what works and what doesn’t when it comes to promoting freedom on campus. I am encouraged that the student movement is not discounting the role that elected officials and the political process can play in protecting individual liberty. Indeed, the influence of Congressman Ron Paul, as well as enthusiasm surrounding former Governor Gary Johnson’s speech, was readily apparent. Since Congress is not going to slow down on its mission to experiment with our health care system, ration cheap sources of energy, and waste money in the name of “stimulus,” students need to know how to push back on campus, but also in the halls of Congress.

ISFLC, 2. The Girl With Pretty Eyes

Barry Belmont — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:11:09 +0000

So, I’ve wanted to record the experiences of those involved in the International Students for Liberty Conference. This is in an attempt to unify the disparate libertarian groups from around the country that attended that conference. A few people have responded thus far and they all have important perspectives to add.

The first account I want to relate is from Stacy Litz from the Student Liberty Front (hence forth known as The Greatest Club in the World) from Drexel University. I met her only briefly, but she left a fairly distinct impression (and a fairly wicked awesome business card) with me. As a co-leader of The Greatest Club in the World, she is an important leader in the growing youth-oriented libertarian field. She wrote this on her blog and has given me permission to reprint it here.

Please do enjoy.

WOW. The past two weekends have been very busy, and it’s now time to settle down (for a second or two) and relax.

At the ISFLC, SLF brought home the award for GROUP OF THE YEAR! This was amazing — all that hard work finally earned us some serious recognition! And some major competition for next year!

The ISFLC was well worth the countless hours spent planning to get 17 or so members out there, with great opportunities for education, networking, finding internships/scholarships, and more.

The next weekend, a few SLF members attended CPAC, which was interesting, to say the least.

Students For Liberty’s (SFL) co-founder and President, Alexander McCobin, sparked what has become a controversy this weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference when he thanked the event’s organizers for allowing conservative gay-rights group GOProud to co-sponsor the conference.“I would like to thank the American Conservative Union for inviting me to speak,” said McCobin. “This panel is titled, ‘Saving Freedom Across America.’ And so, in the name of freedom, I would like to also thank the American Conservative Union for welcoming GOProud as a co-sponsor of this event. […] The typical student’s response is to be socially tolerant and fiscally responsible. Students today recognize that freedom does not come in pieces. It is a single concept that we must defend at all times.”

While there were some initial boos, McCobin’s statements were greeted with widespread applause from the audience. The real controversy began soon afterward when another panelist, Ryan Sorba, rose to condemn CPAC for its open-mindedness toward GOProud and to attack homosexuals, which led to him being resoundingly booed off stage before completing his remarks. Full videos of the two speeches, including views of the audience’s reaction, can be found at www.StudentsForLiberty.org.

I would definitely check out those videos. While CPAC was full of true liberty lovers, there were definitely many opponents who made their views well known. All that I can say is that I hope our presence at the conference converted some into believing in true, principled liberty.

International Students for Liberty Conference, 1. Introduction

Barry Belmont — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 07:13:08 +0000

Rarely are things what they are made out to be. Issues, objectives, events — indeed, all things people are able to describe after the fact — hardly capture the attitudes had, feelings felt, and experiences experienced with the force that were once present before us.

To sound less pretentious: the International Students for Liberty Conference was good, it was bad, and quite often somewhere in between. There were amazing speakers (contrasted with boring speakers), there were excellent workshops (contrasted with the NotSoExcellent), and there was inspiration to be found around every corner (to the exclusion of the dull straight parts).

In the four or five articles to follow, I’ll highlight the good, underscore the bad, and convey what it is that the ISFLC meant to me. Rest assured, it meant a lot. My mind was grown, blown, and spread in the wind. I can only hope a seed or two of my newly liberated grey matter can find some fertile ground within some of you and bloom.

Granted, this is as after-the-fact as after-the-fact things go, and because of this is prone to the same flaws and defects that ravage accounts of the past, but I will try to capture as best I can what I felt, what I saw, and why it’s important. If anyone from this conference can add to my narrative I would greatly appreciate it because while the thread of my story may be of passing interest, it is the tapestry of our collective narrative that has lasting significance.