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Dear [email protected],
 
As a kid growing up in Laredo, Texas, I naturally learned the story of the Alamo. What I could never understand is why those men chose to stay there and fight in the face of overwhelming odds rather than simply cut and run.
 
It was in my late twenties, after I had returned to Laredo to practice law, that I discovered the answer. While searching for something to read in the local public library, I discovered four little books entitled Essays on Liberty, which were compilations of principled, uncompromising essays on libertarianism. It was truly a Road to Damascus experience for me, and it ended up changing the course of my life.
 
It was then that I realized that those men inside the Alamo stayed and fought for two reasons: One, they wanted to be free men, and two, they knew that standing for freedom was the right thing to do.
 
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The biggest revelation for me when I discovered libertarianism was learning that I didn’t really live in a free society, even though for all my life, I had been taught that Americans were free. Like so many others, that was the result of the indoctrination that I had received in the public (i.e., government) schools to which I had been subjected for 12 long years. And then I read those four short books and came to the realization that the welfare-warfare state and the regulated-managed-economy way of life had destroyed the freedom of the American people a long time ago.
 
As a result, thirty-six years ago, I founded The Future of Freedom Foundation. Inspired by those four books that enabled me to break free of the state’s indoctrination, our methodology here at FFF has always been to present the principled, uncompromising case for the libertarian philosophy.
 
There are those who claim that libertarianism is a utopian philosophy — one that is impossible to achieve. Nothing could be further from the truth. Longtime FFF supporters know that my favorite period in history is the 30-year period here in the United States from 1870–1900. Imagine what it was like: No income tax or IRS, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, subsidies, bailouts, welfare state, national-security state, Pentagon, CIA, NSA, FBI, drug war, war on immigrants, foreign aid, foreign military bases, foreign wars (except the Spanish-American War that statists foisted onto the American people in 1898), wars of aggression, undeclared wars, regulated-managed economy, administrative state, minimum wage, gun control, paper money, Federal Reserve, state-sponsored assassinations and torture, indefinite detention, war on terrorism, occupational licensure, public (i.e., government) schooling systems, and massive infringements on civil liberties. It had to be a very exciting time in which to live, especially given the massive increase in living standards from the enormous accumulation of savings and capital as well as the new inventions that were coming out practically every week.
 
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Of course, it wasn’t a libertarian paradise, especially given that American statists were already making inroads with things like Jim Crow laws, economic protectionism, the Chinese Exclusion Act, and the Sherman Antitrust Act. But it came pretty darned close to a free society! Most importantly, Americans proved that it is possible to achieve economic and political freedom. I figure that if they could do it, so can we — and maybe even surpass what they accomplished. As we have long maintained here at FFF, by embracing libertarianism, Americans can once again lead the world to the highest levels of freedom, peace, prosperity, and harmony that mankind has ever seen.
 
Are we guaranteed success in our endeavor to achieve a genuinely free society? Of course not. All we can do is to stand fast for liberty and continue making the principled, uncompromising case for freedom to our fellow Americans. As George Washington once stated, “Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the event is in the hands of God.”
 
For 36 years, our donors, both large and small, have kept us going, something for which we will always be honored and grateful. I hope that our work for liberty has earned your generous support for the coming year. You have our word: We will continue doing everything we can to bring liberty to our land. As those brave men at the Alamo understood, it’s the right thing to do.
 
Yours for liberty,
 
Jacob
 
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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The Future of Freedom Foundation
11350 Random Hills Road, Suite 800
Fairfax, VA 22030

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