Previous Conference Updates:
Speaker Spotlight: Ivand Eland and Tom DiLorenzo
Student Scholarships and Speakers Robert Scheer and Richard Ebeling
Student Scholarships and Speakers Justin Raimondo and Karen Kwiatkowski
Conference 2007 Speaker Spotlight: Lew Rockwell and Bob Higgs
Conference 2007 Speaker Spotlight: Jim Bovard and Ralph Raico
FFF Conference: Restoring the Repubic: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties
First of all, we have received an email from a man from Denmark who would like to share a room at the Hyatt Regency Reston with someone else who plans to attend our June 1-4 conference Restoring the Republic: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties. If you would like to split the costs of a room with him, please contact Bart Frazier at bfrazier@fff.org.
This week, Im highlighting two more fantastic speakers: Daniel Ellsberg and Joseph Margulies.
Daniel Ellsberg is one of our liberal speakers at the conference. In one of the most courageous acts in American political history, in 1971 he risked not only his career and but also his liberty by releasing the Pentagon Papers to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, New York Times, Washington Post, and other papers. That was the top-secret Pentagon study that showed that U.S. officials had been lying to the American people about the Vietnam War. The federal government indicted him, but the charges were ultimately dismissed based a judicial finding of governmental misconduct against him.
Joseph Margulies was the lead attorney in Rasul v. Bush, one of the Guantanamo cases that reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which he won. His book Guantnamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power is the finest book on the U.S. torture scandal that I have read. Not only does the book provide an excellent, easily readable summary of the scandal, it also passionately explains why the Guantanamo scandal violates the moral and legal principles of liberty and due process for which the United States has long stood. His talk will no doubt explain why lawyers represent unpopular clients and why everyone elses liberty sometimes turns on the outcome.
Why should libertarians attend this conference?
When it comes to economic liberty, most libertarians have mastered a proficiency in eloquently and passionately showing the libertarian case for free markets and private property, which has been the most burning issue during most of our lifetime. Over the years, they have steeped themselves in the works of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, and many others.
During all those years in which libertarians were mastering the principles of economic liberty, they had little reason to study the libertarian case on foreign policy and civil liberties with the same degree and intensity. That situation has obviously now changed, especially given the important role that U.S. foreign policy now plays in our lives and the massive federal assaults on civil liberties post-9/11.
It is up to libertarians to lead our nation to a free society. That now means becoming as eloquent and passionate exponents of libertarian foreign policy and civil liberties as libertarians have become in the area of economic liberty.
This conference is not only a fantastic crash course for beginners and intermediates in these two important subjects, it will also provide a good intellectual challenge to those who are already accomplished exponents of libertarian philosophy on foreign policy and civil liberties.
We hope to see you at the conference! Dont forget to make your reservations at the Hyatt Regency Reston (mention the conference for the discounted rate) after you register for the conference. Register here or call us at 703-934-6101.