November 22, 2004
Dear Friend of FFF,
Given the big mess in which our nation finds itself, both at home and abroad, and the enormous threat that the federal government poses to both our liberty and
well-being, the dissemination of ideas on freedom is more important than ever before. Our work depends entirely on your generous (tax-deductible) donation to The Future of Freedom Foundation, which is why I am seeking your financial support for our efforts to advance liberty. Tax-deductible donations to FFF can be made on our secure website (www.fff.org), by fax (703-352-8678), by telephone (703-934-6101), or by regular mail to: FFF, 11350 Random Hills Road, Suite 800, Fairfax, VA 22030.
As you know, socialism and interventionism are expanding at home and invasions and occupations are occurring abroad. Our country is in deep trouble, and it is moving in a very bad direction — embracing the principles of socialism, interventionism, and empire that currently hold our nation in their grip — and away from the principles of liberty, free markets, private property, and limited government on which our nation was founded.
How do we turn things around? How do we move our country in a better, freer direction? By spreading sound ideas on freedom now in every possible intellectual nook and cranny. In fact, that is precisely why, especially since 9/11, The Future of Freedom Foundation has dedicated itself to flooding the intellectual marketplace with free-market ideas, articles, essays, commentaries, editorial cartoons, and blogs — every day of the year.
Think about it: Why do totalitarian dictatorships try to shut down people who are dissenting against government policies? Because they know that ideas are among the most powerful forces in the universe — they move people to action. That’s why it’s been said that ideas have consequences.
Ideas on freedom cause people to change their minds — even their lives, motivating them to change the world, to make it a better and freer, more just and harmonious place. Ultimately, the advancement of liberty turns on spreading ideas on freedom.
Socialist programs and the money needed to fund them continue their never-ceasing confiscation of the income, wealth, and savings of the American people, not to mention the ever-increasing governmental dependency that such programs produce.
That’s why it’s more important than ever to flood the market now with our uncompromising perspectives on economic liberty, which not only emphasize the immorality and failure of socialism but also stress the virtues and benefits of free markets and free enterprise.
Assaults on civil liberties continue apace, with the USA PATRIOT Act’s secret search warrants, secret courts, and secret judicial proceedings, and, more ominously, with the Pentagon’s dangerous and unwarranted assumption of power over both Americans and foreigners as “unlawful combatants” in the “war on terrorism,” denying them such critical procedural rights as due process of law, habeas corpus, right to counsel, and trial by jury. What lies at the end of this road is the overturning of the Bill of Rights and the extinction of fundamental rights that stretch all the way back to Magna Carta.
That’s why it’s more important than ever to flood the market now with our uncompromising perspectives on the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and our heritage of civil liberties.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq, which have taken the lives of tens of thousands of innocent people, have now mired our government in one of the largest nation-building exercises in history, even while U.S. occupation of that country continues to destroy it on a daily basis. Long before the invasion — in fact, as long ago as 1996, when we published our book The Failure of America’s Foreign Wars — we were on the front lines arguing that it was time to reevaluate U.S. foreign policy and move it toward the noninterventionist philosophy of our ancestors. We have contended, repeatedly, that support of brutal dictators, taking sides in long-standing foreign conflicts, and stationing U.S. troops all over the world would ultimately lead to terrorist counterstrikes.
That’s why it’s more important than ever to flood the market now with our uncompromising perspectives on foreign policy, constantly emphasizing James Madison’s critically important point that a free society and constant war are mutually exclusive.
Federal spending is now out of control, resulting in ever-increasing debasement of our currency.
That’s why it’s more important than ever to flood the market now with our uncompromising perspectives on monetary policy and the dangers that the Federal Reserve System poses to our freedom and economic well-being.
The drug war continues to infringe on our freedom and our privacy, filling our jails, destroying families, and engendering a wide assortment of perverse side effects, including the rise of drug lords and drug gangs, exorbitant black-market prices, burglaries, robberies, muggings, thefts, bribery and corruption, and infringements on civil liberties, not to mention the never-ceasing calls for gun control to deal with drug-war violence.
That’s why it’s more important than ever to flood the market now with our uncompromising perspectives on individual freedom and to show why the only humane approach is to treat drug addiction as a social problem, not a criminal-justice one.
The regulated society continues to send hordes of bureaucrats across the land,
controlling and strangling economic enterprise and, even worse, persecuting and prosecuting brilliant entrepreneurs, such as Martha Stewart, who have done so much to improve our lives.
That’s why it’s more important than ever to flood the market now with our uncompromising perspectives on the free market, showing people not only that moral principles undergird the free society, not only that the free market produces the best goods and services, but also that freedom nurtures the values that most of us hold dear — responsibility, self-reliance, compassion, and charity.
Can the tide be turned? Is it really possible to shift an entire nation in the direction of a new paradigm — one that rejects socialism, interventionism, and empire and instead embraces individual freedom, free markets, and a constitutional republic? Is it truly possible to succeed in the face of overwhelming odds?
Yes, absolutely, and one of the best examples of such success was the founding of our own nation when the Constitution was written in 1787! As the Framers understood, however, a free society ultimately depends on the expression of truth and the dissemination of sound ideas on freedom.
Why should you support The Future of Freedom Foundation? Because, while you might not agree with everything we write, you know that you can count on us to speak the truth about what is going on in America today. You know that we’re not going to deny reality or sugarcoat the situation in which we find ourselves. You know that you can trust us to speak the truth and to express a clear and succinct vision of liberty. You know that we will emphasize the moral foundations of a free society. You know that when it comes to ideas on freedom, we don’t compromise. And you know that our dissemination of ideas assists people to improve their understanding of freedom, enabling them to more effectively spread ideas on freedom, thereby accelerating the process by which a paradigm shift toward freedom takes place.
For the last year, we have worked unceasingly to speak the truth and disseminate ideas on freedom. Our website, where all the articles we’ve ever published are posted, continues to be a tremendous source of free-market ideas for people. In the last three months alone, we have received more than 300,000 “unique visitors” to our website. All year long, Alexa.com has listed us as either the most popular or the second-most popular libertarian institute on the Internet.
Last year, we told you that our website had won the “Outstanding Website” award from Congressman Ron Paul’s Liberty in Media Awards; this year, we have been advised that my essay, “Saddam’s Capture Means Trouble for U.S. Officials,” has been included in Congressman Paul’s most recent Liberty in Media Awards volume.
Our FFF Email Update, which we strive to make the finest free-market editorial page on the Internet, continues to grow in popularity and subscriptions. Every single day, we work to bring you the finest editorial commentary in the world on all aspects of the freedom philosophy.
Our op-ed program continues to spread ideas on freedom in newspapers all across America. In the last year alone, we’ve been published more than 600 times in more than 150 newspapers with a combined circulation of more than 3.5 million. (Since the inception of our op-ed program, we’ve been published in some 1,000 newspapers.)
Our newest program for disseminating ideas on freedom — our radio outreach campaign — now makes it possible for us to spread our philosophy and ideas through the spoken word. In the last several months, I have appeared almost 100 times on more than 60 radio stations.
And, of course, our original flagship publication, Freedom Daily, continues to bring you the longer, more thought-provoking pieces that we have been publishing since January 1990.
We need your support more than ever now to continue spreading the truth and our uncompromising ideas on freedom. If you believe that ideas have consequences because they move people … if our uncompromising perspectives on freedom are helping you to improve your understanding of freedom … if you like our flooding the intellectual marketplace with ideas on liberty … if you like our efforts to move America in a better, freer, more peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious direction … then please send us your generous (tax-deductible) donation to help us carry on our work in the year ahead. Working together, we can succeed in restoring the principles of freedom and the Constitution that our ancestors bequeathed to us.
Yours for freedom,
Jacob G. Hornberger
Founder and President
The Future of Freedom Foundation
P.S. Tax-deductible donations to The Future of Freedom Foundation can be made on our secure website (www.fff.org), by fax (703-352-8678), by telephone (703-934-6101), or by regular mail to:
FFF
11350 Random Hills Road
Suite 800
Fairfax, VA 22030.
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