Dear Friend of FFF:
Sometimes people say that the situation in America is so far gone that there is no way that we can turn things around and restore individual liberty, free markets, and a constitutional republic to our land. It is time to close up shop, they suggest, and just resign ourselves to omnipotent federal control over our lives and fortunes. The best we can hope for, they say, is to reform the system and, therefore, make the tyranny more palatable.
There is a good one-word response to all that: Nonsense!
No direction is inevitable, and especially not a bad one. Circumstances can change unexpectedly, as we saw when hundreds, then thousands, of people suddenly began overrunning the Berlin Wall and then dismantling it.
And thats not the only time when there was unexpected change in a positive direction. Remember how Richard Cobden and John Bright, supported by ordinary people who had educated themselves on the virtues and benefits of free trade, were successful in moving England away from the mercantilist philosophy that had guided it for centuries and toward the philosophy of economic liberty and free markets.
Indeed, think about the monumental accomplishment of our American ancestors. They not only enunciated the revolutionary principles of fundamental rights and limited government in the Declaration of Independence, they actually brought a government into existence based on those principles. Reversing the age-old direction toward omnipotent government control over peoples lives and fortunes, they employed the U.S. Constitution and their state constitutions to actually prohibit their own government officials from interfering with their religious, intellectual, and economic freedoms.
If the people of Eastern Europe could do it, if Cobden and Bright could do it, and if the Founding Fathers of our nation could reverse a direction toward omnipotent government that mankind had traveled throughout history, then we can do it too.
All it takes is determination and the dissemination of sound ideas on freedom. Thats where The Future of Freedom Foundation comes in. Our job is to provide the uncompromising moral, philosophical, and economic framework for a free society through the development and dissemination of sound ideas on freedom.
Are ideas on liberty important? They are everything! They are the necessary prerequisite to getting our nation back on the right track toward individual liberty, free markets, and a constitutional republic toward moral principles toward peace, prosperity, and harmony.
Long-time supporters of The Future of Freedom Foundation know that we have never deviated from our uncompromising moral and philosophical approach to advancing liberty. We have always believed that moral principles are the bedrock of a free society and, therefore, should never be compromised in the advancement of liberty.
Permit me to share with you a bit of FFF history. In our first year of existence 1990 I wrote an article entitled Letting Go of Socialism, which expressed the idea of separating school and state and which criticized school vouchers as a means to accomplish that end.
The article attracted the attention of Milton Friedman, whose own free-market ideas had played an enormous role in my intellectual development. Soon after my article was published, Professor Friedman delivered a speech entitled Say No to Intolerance, which was later printed in the July 1991 issue of Liberty magazine, in which he criticized Ludwig von Mises and Ayn Rand for being too intolerant and he criticized me (!) for rejecting the idea of using school vouchers as a way to end government involvement in education.
The story demonstrates that it is impossible to predict the ultimate impact of ideas once they are placed into the marketplace. When I wrote that article, I had in mind the 1,000 people we were reaching with our publication Freedom Daily, and the last thing I ever expected was that my perspectives would become the subject of a public critique by a Nobel Prize-winning economist.
In that speech 15 years ago, Professor Friedman also told his audience that The Future of Freedom Foundation was a group that is doing good work and making an impact. At that time, we were primarily reaching only subscribers to Freedom Daily.
With the help you and others have given us over the years, we have come a long way since then:
Our website (www.fff.org): We are now approaching 100,000 monthly unique visitors (different computers) to our website. Last month (October), the exact number was 98,634. The month before, 88,773.
Our op-eds: This past year, our op-eds were published 513 times in 203 newspapers with a combined circulation of 11,062,890.
Our radio appearances: This past year, we spread ideas on freedom on more than 48 radio programs across the country. Thanks to the generous support we recently received for our radio-outreach campaign, we have already done 15 radio appearances in the past few weeks, with more being scheduled.
Our FFF Email Update: For the past three years, our goal has been to provide people with the finest daily free-market editorial page on the Internet, again with the conviction that ideas rule the world. Every morning at 6 a.m. FFF is open for business, scouring the Internet for the finest, most uncompromising editorials, op-eds, articles, and editorial cartoons on different aspects of freedom. In the past year, we published 111 original FFF commentaries and 440 original FFF mini-commentaries (blogs); and we linked to 1,239 carefully selected Internet editorials and articles, 620 editorial cartoons, and 980 carefully selected news articles in the areas of the economy, law, drug war, and gun control.
Our monthly publication: In the past year, we published 88 uncompromising free-market articles in Freedom Daily, which we have published every single month without fail for the past 15 years.
Does everyone agree with every article we publish? Of course not, but thats not what matters. What matters is that people think independently and arrive at their own conclusions. Education is a seeking process, one in which a person seeks to improve his understanding by studying and critically analyzing the ideas of others. Our job is to provide the concept for a free society in order to serve as a guide to those who are seeking a better understanding of the principles of freedom. In this process, it is imperative that we maintain our integrity and conviction of principle.
We have been blessed with many authors, staff members, and independent contractors who have been doing excellent work for us for many years. Our success in spreading ideas on freedom would never be possible without them.
But our success in spreading the word would also be impossible without the generous financial support that you give us. There is no way to adequately express our gratitude for the confidence you show in us. We sincerely hope that our work has earned your financial support, to help us continue our work in the coming year.
Can we win? You bet we can! All it takes is renewed commitment, the development of sound ideas on freedom, and continuing to spread the word far and wide.
I repeat the pledge that we made at our inception 15 years ago: Never will we compromise that which we consider to be right and true.
Yours for freedom,
Jacob G. Hornberger
Founder and president
The Future of Freedom Foundation
P.S. To support our work online with a subscription to Freedom Daily ($25 for a one-year print subscription or $15 for email subscription) or (tax-deductible) donation to The Future of Freedom Foundation, please visit the Subscribe and Support section of our secure website.
You can also send us a check or MasterCard or VISA information (including expiration date) at:
The Future of Freedom Foundation
11350 Random Hills Road
Suite 800
Fairfax VA 22030
Tel.: (703) 934-6101
Fax: (703) 352-8678
fff@fff.org
www.fff.org