Last weekend, I experienced one of those great libertarian highs that come with advancing liberty! I spoke at two separate venues in Portland, Oregon the first at a great private school named the Delphian School and the second at a great freedom seminar that has been held annually for some 20 years.
The Delphian School was an absolutely perfect venue to share libertarian ideas. The aim of the school is to encourage students to become independent, critical thinkers. Thus, the students are totally unafraid to consider new, provocative areas of thought. In fact, it was very obvious to me that they actually enjoyed such a thing.
As I was sharing the pure, no-holds-barred overview of the libertarian paradigm, I could see the gears turning within the heads of all 200 students in the audience. Not surprisingly, the discussion period turned out to be more fun than my talk.
Then, after the speech and discussion period, we adjourned to a different, more in-depth discussion with the high school seniors. It was just as enjoyable as the previous session.
Later, one of the professors who sponsored my visit, Mark Siegel, told me that many of the students were still discussing and debating libertarianism late in the day.
A special thanks to Mark Siegel and to Rosemary Didear, the Delphian Schools headmistress, for your kind invitation and reception. I sure had a great time!
Then, the next day I had the good fortune of preaching to the choir at the annual Freedom Seminar, which has been organized by longtime Oregonian libertarians David and Laurie Hendersen and Dick Foley (a Portland lawyer who has long written for The Freeman and Freedom Daily) for the past 20 years. Take a look at this link for a list of past speakers who have spoken at the seminar, including Hans Sennholz, Richard Ebeling, Sheldon Richman, Jim Bovard, Don Boudreaux, Robert Higgs, Burt Folsom, Tom Palmer, Lawrence Reed, Dick Foley, Robert Sirico, and many other libertarian luminaries.
This was actually my third appearance at the Freedom Seminar since 1991. It was great to see some familiar faces and many FFF supporters. This particular seminar was especially fun because there was another lawyer on the program (and another Jacob!) Jacob Huebert, a young libertarian lawyer who is working for a new public interest law firm in Illinois that is going to be fighting state cases based on the concept of economic liberty.
Jacob began the program with a fascinating talk on the prospects for liberty in our time. We then broke into two discussion groups. That was followed by a talk I gave on why civil liberties are so important. Jacob gave a second talk on intellectual property rights that, not surprisingly, generated all sorts of discussion and debate both after his talk and in the discussion session that followed. I then wrapped up the program with a talk on the principles of economic liberty.
A big thanks to Dave and Laurie and Dick for your kindness and affording me the opportunity to share ideas on liberty again with your great bunch of seminar participants.
The Delphian School videotaped my talks, which I anticipate will be posted on the schools website. As soon as it is, well link it in our FFF Email Update. The talks at the seminar were audiotaped and well see about sharing those with you as well.