Given the antipathy among the American people toward Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the Libertarian Party’s recent nomination of former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson and former Massachusetts Governor William Weld is certain to make libertarianism a hot topic of discussion around the country during this election season.
This presents a grand opportunity for libertarians. It is one of those unforeseen events that enable us to advance libertarianism by providing educational resources for people who are discovering libertarianism and deciding to explore it more deeply.
That’s what The Future of Freedom Foundation, with its uncompromising presentation of libertarian principles, is all about. The political arena does not lend itself to in-depth analysis of the issues. The educational arena, on the other hand, enables us to delve into the deep moral, philosophical, and economic libertarian principles behind the concepts that are being discussed in the political arena.
All we hear from the Democrat and Republican candidates (and the mainstream press) is a litany of socialist, interventionist, and imperialist positions. Should we preserve Social Security and Medicare or expand them? Should we provide shorter or longer jail terms for drug users? Should we drop more bombs or fewer in the Middle East?
The socialism, interventionism, and imperialism of those positions increase the federal government’s out-of-control spending and borrowing and destroy our fundamental rights and liberties.
But it’s almost as if the worse things get, the faster the libertarian movement grows. It is a vibrant, dynamic movement, consisting of people from all walks of life and all ages, especially young people. If we keep the momentum going, we can reach the critical mass needed to restore a free, prosperous, peaceful, and harmonious society to our land.
Here’s what we want to do in the coming months and beyond the presidential election, when people will still be discussing libertarianism. We want to do a series of video courses on different aspects of libertarianism, featuring speakers who can competently provide the libertarian perspective on the burning issues of the day. These courses will be posted on the Internet — a proven cost-efficient educational vehicle.
Thanks to a generous grant we received, we will soon be launching a 9-part video course on the principles of Austrian economics delivered by Richard Ebeling, who is the BB&T Professor of Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at The Citadel (and former president of FEE, former Ludwig von Mises Professor of Economics at Hillsdale College, former vice president of academic affairs for FFF, and current co-host of FFF’s weekly Internet show The Libertarian Angle). Simultaneously, we are launching an ebook by Richard entitled Understanding Austrian Economics, an introduction to the principles of Austrian economics. The topic of Austrian economics will almost certainly arise within the context of the presidential race, much as it did during Ron Paul’s two bids for the presidency.
We need your help to do more. We want to do a second video course, this one on the drug war. We will pull together speakers critical of the drug war, with the aim of providing the libertarian case for ending this vicious war that has wreaked so much death, destruction, and corruption around the world.
The war on drugs is clearly teetering. Never have there been so many editorials, op-eds, articles, and speeches calling for its demise. In the presidential race, we will have two former governors publicly calling for ending this horrific federal program. Now is not the time for passivity. We need to keep pushing until Congress has no choice but to repeal federal drug laws. Once that happens and people see that the level of violence in America has plummeted, they will inevitably give more serious consideration to other libertarian positions.
We then want to do a video course on libertarian foreign policy, since the federal government is wreaking even more destruction in foreign affairs than it is with the drug war.
All this depends on your generous financial support. We simply can’t do it without
your help.
One year ago, your financial support helped us with our ebook project. To date there have been 25,221 downloads on Amazon of FFF ebooks plus hundreds of thousands pages read through Amazon’s library program!
We need your help to launch our Libertarian Video Series. We need to seize the day and keep pushing toward the free, prosperous, and harmonious society that libertarianism will bring us.
Sincerely,
Jacob Hornberger
P.S. Everyone who donates $250 or more to this project will be acknowledged as a sponsor at the end of the drug-war videos.
