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With the presidential election now over, it is time to return to business — the achievement of a genuinely free society. It is our job as libertarians to lead America to higher reaches of freedom, peace, prosperity, and harmony than mankind has ever seen.
I am writing to seek your generous financial support for The Future of Freedom Foundation for the coming year.
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My favorite period in history is the 30-year period from 1880 until 1910, which is known as the Gilded Age. While certainly not a libertarian paradise by any means, it came closer to the libertarian ideal than any other period in history.
Just think — America was once a society in which there was no income tax or IRS. Americans were free to keep everything they earned — 100 percent — and there was nothing the federal government could do about it; there was no Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, farm subsidies, education grants, or other coercive welfare-state programs; virtually no economic regulations, including minimum-wage laws and occupational-licensure laws; no drug laws; no national-security state; no Pentagon, CIA, NSA, FBI, or vast, permanent, and ever-growing military-industrial complex; no warfare state, foreign military bases, invasions, occupations, coups, torture, state-sponsored assassinations, and indefinite detention; no involvement in European or Asian wars; almost no controls on immigration; virtually no public (i.e., government) schooling systems; no gun-control laws; no passports or other travel restrictions; and no Federal Reserve System or paper money.
That had to be an extremely exciting time in which to live. New inventions were coming into existence practically every day. Economic prosperity was soaring. There was sound money, gold and silver coins, which the Constitution established. Real wage rates were skyrocketing. Consumer prices were decreasing. Through savings and capital accumulation, people were going from rags to riches in one, two, or three generations. In fact, many millionaires began their careers at the bottom of the economic ladder. Moreover, when people were free to become wealthy, there was the greatest outburst of voluntary charity that mankind had ever seen. That’s what built universities, hospitals, opera houses, museums, and libraries all around the nation. Voluntary charity, including in medical care, sustained people in need.
[link removed] generations of Americans living during that 30-year period showed us what is possible when people are free. We need to reestablish those principles — and then build on them, especially through the protection of civil liberties and the fundamental rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.
How do we do that? By steadfastly adhering to our libertarian principles and continuing to make the principled, uncompromising case for liberty. Using that process, we will find the critical mass of people who can bring about a paradigm shift toward the genuinely free society for which we yearn.
That was how I discovered libertarianism. I was a young liberal practicing law in my hometown of Laredo, Texas. One day in my late 20s, I discovered a series of libertarian books entitled Essays on Liberty, which contained hard-core, principled, no-compromise essays on libertarianism. It was a “road to Damascus” experience for me. The power of those principled essays on liberty succeeded in cracking the thick layer of public-school indoctrination that had encased my mind and falsely induced me into thinking I was living the life of a free man. Those principled essays on liberty ended up changing the course of my life.
In the late 1800s, a small group of statists began proposing measures, including economic regulations and Jim Crow laws, that rejected the trajectory toward freedom. By the 1930s, statists had succeeded in transforming America from a society based on free markets and voluntary charity to one based on government welfare and a managed/regulated economic system. By the 1950s, the statists had succeeded in converting our nation from a limited-government republic to a national-security state with an overseas military empire, one that wields omnipotent power over our lives. To fund this statist way of life, a vicious tax-collecting agency known as the IRS and a fraudulent agency known as the Federal Reserve were created to plunder and loot us.
But what gives me hope is this: If a small group of statists could lead America in the direction of welfare-warfare-regulatory-interventionist despotism, then a small group of principled libertarians can succeed in leading America back in the direction of individual liberty, free markets, prosperity, peace, and harmony. That’s what we do here at FFF. It is what we have always done since our inception in 1989. Through the power of sound ideas on liberty, we strive to move America in the right direction — in the direction of genuine freedom.
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For 35 years, our donors have understood the critical importance of making the principled, uncompromising case for the free society. We hope you will help us continue doing so in the coming year with a generous end-of-year, tax-deductible donation to The Future of Freedom Foundation.
Yours for liberty,
Jacob Hornberger
P.S. Members of our FFF Freedom Club (those who make at least a $250 donation) receive periodic video messages from me in which I challenge viewers to think about liberty at a deeper level.
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