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The Society for Individual Liberty will be experimenting this Fall with large advertisements in major college and university student papers. They will be built around the theme "Who Owns Your Life?" S.I.L. is particularly interested in placing the ads in college papers where a libertarian, or a group of libertarians, will be willing and able to follow up on any leads the ad produces. S.I.L. suggests that college libertarians willing to have an ad appear in their campus paper, write to them and provide an advertising rate schedule in addition to circulation details…In honor of the Fifth Anniversary of the founding of the present day libertarian movement, S.I.L. will be sponsoring a number of conferences around the nation in November. They plan to provide at least one top libertarian speaker at each location, in addition to local speakers. Tentative plans call for an East Coast Conference, a West Coast Conference, and conferences in the South, Southwest, and Midwest. Full details should be available from S.I.L. by the time you read this. Write to them at P.O. Box 1147, Warminster, PA 18974 for an informational brochure on the conferences.

YAF TEN YEARS LATER

Frontlines correspondent Tom G. Palmer reports: On the tenth anniversary of Barry Goldwater's presidential nomination, the conservative Young Americans for Freedom held what was billed as a gala commemoration of this event.

It got off to a nostalgic start Thursday evening with a banquet honoring Senator Goldwater. His speech that evening might be described as reminiscent, but the old individualist fire of 1964 was sadly lacking. Barry Goldwater just isn't what he used to be. It was as if the voice of a movement was breathing its last gasp. That campaign, which involved a number of libertarians, was the high mark of a conservative philosophy that is on the wane today.

The bright point of the evening, however, also came during that banquet. Banquet moderator and Indianapolis Star editor M. Stanton Evans announced that the Libertarian Party would be hosting a suite that evening, and that everyone was invited. The suite was a smashing success, crowded all that evening with conservatives curious to learn about this new party and its philosophy. During those four days, they learned plenty, thanks to the efforts of the YAF libertarian contingent, and the Bay Area libertarians who attended and helped proselytize.

By the end of the conference, the attendees had all been exposed to the fact that laissez-faire entails more than just hands off the economy, and encompasses opposition to victimless crime laws, amnesty, isolationism, etc.

Dr. John Hospers' speech was well received, with a standing ovation when he finished. It's been five years since the libertarian-conservative split that YAF experienced, and a lot has happened to America, to libertarianism…and to YAF.

Speakers like Congressman Symms, Crane, Rousselot, commentator Evans, and others constantly made reference to libertarianism in their speeches. In terms of the future of liberty, this correspondent was most enthused by the conference's conclusion. The 160 young attendees from across the country were exposed to a real philosophy of freedom, not just the rightist rhetoric about it. As more and more conservatives and liberals realize their inconsistencies, we are bound to pick up momentum. All that needs be done is to point this out to them.

Making its debut at the conference was the California Libertarian Report, a libertarian analysis and rating of the voting patterns of the California state legislators. Its author, Walter Olson, is an area director of California YAF and the vice chairman of Yale University YAF. The report analyzed legislators on the basis of their votes on victimless crimes, taxation, zoning, and other issues.