Featured speaker: William Shatner
The future of liberty?
A Trekkie convention?
See here
for my previous posts regarding this so-called “freedom fest.”
Are you convinced yet that many organizations who claim to
be for freedom and liberty are in fact working to promote the exact opposite?
The link to past posts brings up only this same one.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, on the page that then opens only the one post is included; normally 4-5 are included per page. If you look at the bottom of this opened page, you will find a link "older posts." This will leaqd to several earlier posts labeled "Mark Skousen," some of which related to freedom fest.
DeleteLibertarianism is a marginally philosophy. I have no problem with using this to get someone in the door.
ReplyDeleteDiedre McCloskey is there. Lawrence Reed is there. Shatner will get people in the door to hear them.
If they want to get people in the door, there are dozens of celebrities, political hacks, and interventionist economists with great name recognition. Why not one of them?
DeleteAs to who will be there, in terms of other speakers, I haven't looked in a year or two at the list. As I recall, for every good speaker there were three or four that would be better suited for any one of a republican / neocon / libertine convention.
People won't be drawn to liberty if the topic is something other than liberty.
McCloskey is reasonably libertarian but wildly overrated. Reed is a lightweight in the "school vouchers are great" vein.
DeleteYour ratio of 3 bad speakers to one good seems to not hold this year.
DeleteOther Keynote Speakers:
Robert Frank, NYT Columnist and best-selling author
Deirdre Nansen McCloskey, Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication
Steve Forbes, Publisher, Forbes Magazine
John Mackey, Co-CEO, Whole Foods Markets
Jennifer Grossman, President, Atlas Society
Lawrence Reed, President, Foundation for Economic Education
Conrad Black, publisher
Jim Rogers, Rogers Holdings
Let me know when the "Keynote Speaker," the "Big Debates," the "Top Panels," and "Mock Trials" focus on the fundamental issues of freedom and liberty:
Delete- End foreign wars and overseas adventurism.
- End central planning of money and credit
- End all government involvement in education
When Freedom Fest focuses on these and forcefully comes out to end each of these, I will change my mind.
Until then, it is a wanna-be Trekkie convention; the only difference this year is that they finally came out of the closet.