Students for Liberty's LibertyCon Starts Today. Come See Reason Panels!
Katherine Mangu-Ward, Matt Welch, Nick Gillespie, Peter Suderman, Meredith Bragg, Austin Bragg, and Andrew Heaton will be there. So will a VERY SPECIAL GIFT.
Today marks the start of Students for Liberty's annual gathering in Washington, D.C. LibertyCon pulls together 1,500 students, activists, and supporters from around the world to discuss all aspects of the global libertarian movement. Go here for the full program.
Reason folks will be all over the event, celebrating our 50th anniversary while looking forward to our next half-century.
Among the Reason-centric panels:
Nick Gillespie Interviews Dave Rubin, Friday, 6:30 P.M. The "Lou Reed of libertarianism" (hey, not my call!) talks with Dave Rubin, the formerly lefty member of The Young Turks about why he left the left behind and gained a massive YouTube audience by hosting civil, thoughtful, and in-depth conversations about every hot-button topic under the sun.
The Future of Tech: Will Washington Outlaw Innovation? Saturday, 11:00 A.M. Reason's Matt Welch leads a free-wheeling discussion on how social-media platforms such as Facebook and other disruptive new methods of getting your voice out there are putting a stake through the heart of legacy gatekeepers such as CBS and The New York Times.
Unsuck Your Video: Five Tips For Making Better Political Comedy, Saturday, 11:30 A.M. Meet some of the warped brains behind "Libertarian Game of Thrones," "Attack Ads 1800," "Mostly Weekly," and many of your favorite comedy Reason TV videos. Meredith Bragg, Austin Bragg, and Andrew Heaton will cram decades worth of experience into 25 minutes of distilled wisdom. Free PowerPoint presentation included with every (free) purchase.
How To Talk About Freedom on TV, Saturday, 3:00 P.M. Katherine Mangu-Ward, National Review's and Fox News' Kat Timpf, The Federalist's and CNN's Mary Katharine Ham, and Young Voices' Liz Wolfe discuss how best to represent the radical ideas of libertarianism in ways that aren't just pure but are persuasive.
From Cocktails to Cannabis: How Prohibition Always Kills Your Buzz, Saturday, 4:00 P.M. More than 80 years after Prohibition, the craft cocktail scene is booming. Is pot next? Come watch Reason.com Managing Editor Peter Suderman demonstrate how to make the classic cocktail known as "The Old Fashioned." Suderman and Reason Editor-in-Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward will discuss the long-tail effects of alcohol prohibition—and how legalized pot is finally coming into its own.
SFL, Facebook
And on Saturday afternoon, from 4.30 to 5:00, I'm happy to announce the Reason will be giving away a special, super-secret gift to the first few hundred people who come to the "continuing the conversation room" immediately after Peter Suderman's panel. So make sure to stop by! Supplies are extremely limited and will run out incredibly quickly.
LibertyCon will be emceed by bitcoin maximalist Naomi Brockwell, and major speakers include the likes of Whole Foods co-founder and Conscious Capitalism co-author John Mackey, Overstock.com founder Patrick Byrne (whose PhD dissertation was on Robert Nozick's nightwatchman state), anarcho-capitalist legend David Friedman, "great enrichment" economic historian Deirdre McCloskey, ACLU President Susan Herman, and Guatemalan activist Gloria Alvarez. There will be knock-down, drag-out debates about immigration vs. nativism, capitalism vs. socialism, and bitcoin vs. gold. Dozens of panels about every possible topic you can think of.
Here's a Reason Podcast with the leader of Students for Liberty, the political economist Wolf von Laer. Take a listen to that by clicking below or going here now.
