The New Year is traditionally seen as a chance for a new start, with new resolutions to do better. Our founder David Theroux viewed every day as a chance to do better, an opportunity to make the world a better place, and he lived a wonderful example.
Yet although he was himself remarkably well read and brilliant, he chose to direct his career to promoting others’ careers. For he understood that the best way of advancing a culture of liberty was to amplify the voices of those most adept at framing and communicating the principles and practices of a free society.
The great news is that in the midst of a culture in which politicians and the media pound a constant drumbeat of fear and doom, each of us can be a voice for the wonder and joy of liberty, and the opportunities it affords all.
Government offers scarcity and fear: a dangerous world, dangerous streets, bad schools, expensive healthcare with long waits, and arbitrary limits on how we can apply our talents in products and services others want. We offer dignity, agency, and participatory solutions.
We can each offer it by honing our skills in sharing with others the immeasurable opportunities that more liberty gives everyone; how the choice provided by free and open intercourse enriches and blesses us all:
- Schools that uplift every unique child.
- Healthcare matching everyone’s unique situation: when, where, and how we want it.
- True public security and restorative justice, including for those who currently have none.
- And the chance to pursue what each of us wants to do with our lives, free of onerous and monopolistic barriers and regulations that protect the powerful.
We can embrace true patriotism in reclaiming the Founders’ vision of good faith and justice toward all nations, in peace and harmony with all.
We can be the shining city on the hill.
Imagine the numbers we could attract by effectively sharing the opportunity-based narrative of our membership in one family—each of us equally blessed with inalienable rights, worth, and the ability to join with others in community to provide for every need.
This has been the great story of the modern era: free people breaking thousands of years’ history of poverty and misery. Let’s tell it.
Thank you for your partnership that has made David Theroux’s legacy of hope possible, embodied in such book projects as The Voluntary City, A New Way to Care, Entrepreneurial Economics, To Serve and Protect and In Search of Monsters to Destroy; our Golden Fleece® Awards; and our video projects Love Gov and Beyond Homeless: Finding Hope.
We stand ready to extend and expand that legacy—our communities, country, and world need these inspiring visions of what can be more than ever. We hope that you will join us in shining the beacon even more brightly in the days and years ahead, by making your tax-deductible contribution now.
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In the meantime, I hope that every day is a Happy New Day and 2023 a year of untold blessings for you,
Mary L. G. Theroux
Chairman and Chief Executive
Independent Institute
100 Swan Way
Oakland, CA 94621
(510) 632-1366
www.independent.org
P.S. And for more detail on all our projects this year, please be sure to see our newly-released 2022 Annual Report: Together for Liberty—in mailboxes and online now!
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