Section 1. Introduction
First off, I’d like to thank the Free State Project for inviting me to speak.

There is something ironic being here today, though, isn’t there?  Less than 2 weeks ago, the state voted overwhelmingly to have a socialist become the next president of the United States. The vote was split between a democratic socialist or national socialist, but either way, the support was for a socialist. Yet, just before then, the Free State Project reached a historical milestone: gathering 20,000 signatories to the Free State Project Pledge to move to New Hampshire to make it the freest state in the union.

I want to congratulate the Free State Project on reaching this remarkable milestone. There were many who doubted that it was possible. I admit, I was one of the skeptics for a while. Yet, as Matt Phillips described last night, it would be all too easy for the momentum to go away now that this goal has been reached. The conditions are ideal for it. On the one hand, those who have been working for this for over a decade and a half can breathe a sigh of relief knowing they accomplished something great. On the other hand, the state itself has recently indicated that it is not as friendly to libertarian ideas as many once believed. More importantly, it’s now time to get 18,000 individuals who have not yet moved to New Hampshire, uproot themselves and drastically change their lives. Honestly, it has the potential to be the perfect storm. And the next few years could feel like hell for you. That’s why I’d like to remind you of the words of Sir Winston Churchill: “If you are going through Hell, keep going.”
This is a message for the entire liberty movement. For years, we have been riding high with a seemingly endless wave of support from the success of Ron Paul in 2008 and 2012. We are entering a time when we will face great difficulties in standing up for liberty. We also live in a world of transience. It’s ironic that today, when people are living longer than ever and so have more time than ever, there seems to be less interest in making commitments that extend over time. Now, more than we have ever needed it in the past decade, we must embrace the virtue of PERSEVERANCE in the pursuit of a free future.
 
Section 2. Meaning of Perseverance
Perseverance is steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. There are four important qualities to this virtue: vision, action, adaptability, and patience.

1. Vision – Steadfastness requires a commitment to something, a belief, an end, a process, an idea. To keep striving, one must know what she is striving for. This has been a challenge for libertarianism as we advocate a process: respect for the individual and her liberties, whereas the statists advocate an ends: a particular kind of world they pledge to provide without being able to offer the means to achieve it. But that is all the more reason why we must offer a vision. As F.A. Hayek ended his highly influential essay, “The Intellectuals and Socialism”: “The main lesson which the true liberal must learn from the success of the socialists is that it was their courage to be Utopian which gained them the support of the intellectuals and therefore an influence on public opinion which is daily making possible what only recently seemed utterly remote. Those who have concerned themselves exclusively with what seemed practicable in the existing state of opinion have constantly found that even this had rapidly become politically impossible as the result of changes in a public opinion which they have done nothing to guide. Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds. But if we can regain that belief in the power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost. The intellectual revival of liberalism is already underway in many parts of the world. Will it be in time?” Perseverance is strengthened when the overriding goal is one of positivity rather than negativity. A negative drive may succeed in the short-term. It flames the passions and riles up the emotions, but it does not lay the foundation for sustainable action. The negative demands immediate elimination of whatever is identified as the problem. It is a fundamentally destructive drive. Only a positive drive can be constructive, which requires incremental steps, collaboration, and a long-term perspective. Look at the two most prominent movements that were created in reaction to the 2008 financial crisis: the Tea Party and the Occupy movements. Neither one enjoys strength or influence today because they were both centered around being against something rather than for something. The Tea Party was against government, against Obama, against the establishment Republicans. The Occupy movement was against big banks, against the bailouts, against cronyism. Yet neither one articulated a compelling vision for what they did stand for. When they tried, they realized that their movements were dependent upon hatred rather than appreciation, so they began to splinter, people decided to give up, and the movements have been pushed to the back pages of blogs that once covered them on a daily basis, no longer making the news, but not old enough to be part of the history books. They were not positive, and so they did not persevere. The most successful libertarian efforts in recent years have been those with a vision: Cato’s vision of becoming the pre-eminent public policy research center for libertarianism. Reason’s vision of constructing media to spread libertarian messages. The Free State Project’s vision of changing a small state through a (relatively) small group of individuals. And Students For Liberty’s vision of creating a freer future by educating, developing, and empowering the next generation of leaders of liberty.
2. Action – Thoughts do not change the world. Words spoken to oneself or amongst friends do not change the world. Only when thoughts and words are turned into action do they make a difference. Many people have great ideas. Few are willing to act upon them. And fewer are willing to continue acting upon them in the face of fierce opposition. Action requires effort to achieve some kind of change in the world, even if that is changing someone’s mind. This is risky. Effort does not guarantee results. That risk is what makes action so difficult, but also so important. Speaking out can be an action, but only when it is done to achieve a result other than make the speaker feel pleased with herself.
3. Adaptability – In the words of German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke, “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” When you encounter obstacles, you need to be ready to pivot your strategy and actions. It is one thing to have a vision and strategy for how to achieve it. Cautiously developing a rigorous plan extremely helpful in the pursuit of any objective. However, the greatest benefit of planning is not the plan itself, but the thought that goes into the planning. The more one considers what action should follow another, challenges that are likely to be faced along the way, and opportunities that may arise and distract (either to the advantage or detriment of the actor), the more likely one is going to be ready to do what is necessary when implementing the plan. Things do not remain the same. Society changes. Technology changes. Demographics change. Events change. And any good leader needs to be willing to change along with that.
4. Patience – Perhaps the most difficult part of perseverance is that it requires time. You cannot persevere if you enjoy immediate success. Whatever success you may enjoy in the short-term cannot compare to the success one develops through months, years, sometimes even decades of hard work on a project. Albert Einstein once said that “Compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe.” Investing early and achieving a steady rate of return on your investments allows you to reap significant rewards over the long-run. We can see compound interest at work not only in finance, but in every area of people’s lives: health, relationships, intellect, and even liberty. The longer you continue to work towards something, the more your investments will pay off (so long as you continue to derive valuable interest on your investments). This is not to say that you will always see progress. Even when investing in the stock market, you should expect to lose money some years. However, you need to be ready to ride those lows to benefit from the highs that come later on. And in remaining patient, you will give yourself more opportunities to develop new skills, determine how to respond to situations more effectively, and derive an even greater return than you did when you started.

It’s easy to visualize what perseverance means in sports. There are countless movies that depict the power of hard work in striving for your dream. They can visually depict the blood, sweat, and tears that go into developing one’s physical fitness. They can do it all in about 2 minutes with a catchy montage set against an inspiring song like Eye of the Tiger. What is most important is to see physical development as an element of personal development. The reason Rocky 6 may be my favorite of the Rocky movies is because it does just that. It takes the next step and applies the principles Rocky has learned in the last 5 movies to life in general. During one powerful scene with his son, Rocky says: “Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!”
 
Section 3. How to Persevere
For those who are thinking, “This is all well and good in theory and Hollywood movies, but what does this mean for me? How am I supposed to apply this to my life, and particularly, my work for liberty?” On the one hand, perseverance is the kind of quality that cannot be taught via lecture or readings. It is a quality you have in side and must practice in order to strengthen. My goal here is to talk about the importance of practicing this virtue and finding ways to apply it to your work for liberty. But I will offer 3 tips for how to persevere:

1. Use Your Imagination – If you are trying to persevere, you are trying to change something either about yourself or the world around you. If you are having difficulty persevering, try imagining someone that you admire who has that quality. Pick any person you admire who has persevered through difficult times, imagine what they would do in your shoes, and do that. Or, if you are doubting why you should care about persevering at all, imagine the end that you are trying to achieve. Don’t think about the hardships you are facing now so much as the benefits you will derive once you have reached your goal.
2. Set Incremental Goals – There is an ancient Chinese proverb that says, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.” Trying to create a libertarian world is more than intimidating, it seems impossible. Recognize that such a grand end will require many small steps to achieve. And if you can measure your progress toward your goal, you can track how far you have come and inspire yourself with how much you have already been capable of doing.
3. Surround Yourself with the Right People – There is nothing so helpful in persevering as having others with you who share the same values or the same goals. 

Section 4. Examples for Inspiration
Fareed Zakaria has said that the “The reason that libertarianism seems narrow and naive is that having won 80 percent of the struggles it has fought over the last two centuries, it is now forced to define itself wholly in terms of the last 20 percent. Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice if you were in Prussia in the 1850s, but in America in the 1960s? Libertarianism has become extreme because the world has left it no recourse.”

Libertarianism is not extreme because of our ideas. Libertarianism is extreme because we persevere with our ideas, whether they are popular or unpopular. We should learn from our forbearer movements and take their work as inspiration for our own:

• Democratic Movement – Born of the Enlightenment, the rise of representative democracy in the modern era took centuries to gain widespread appeal. The US Revolution took years, and the expansion of that revolution’s ideas to other parts of the world took much longer.
• Abolitionist Movement – Emperor Charles V of Spain passed a law abolishing slavery in the colonies in 1542. It wasn’t until 1865 with the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution that it was eliminated in the US and the last country to formally prohibit it was Mauritania in 1981. Consider: How many pamphlets were published before slavery was ended? How many meetings were held? How many lawsuits were fought in courts? How many debates held in public spaces? How many people lived and died in the pursuit of abolitionism? And are we not still fighting slavery on the black market?
• Women Suffrage Movement – The Seneca Falls Convention was held in 1848. The 19th Amendment was not passed until 1920.
• Anti-Prohibition Movement – From 1920 through 1933, the 18th Amendment was in effect. First, the anti-prohibitionists lost the fight to the prohibitionists after decades of work. Then, the anti-prohibitionists had to muster the strength and courage to pick themselves up from a devastating loss (a Constitutional Amendment!), to regain basic liberties.

Section 5. Perseverance and Students For Liberty
I can’t speak anywhere without tying the topic back to Students For Liberty. SFL is a US based nonprofit organization whose mission is to educate, develop, and empower the next generation of leaders of liberty. When we founded SFL 8 years ago, there was no libertarian student movement to speak of. Yet, today, SFL has over 2,800 pro-liberty student groups in our network and over 1,400 trained volunteer leaders in over 100 countries on all 6 inhabited continents. Last semester alone we ran 59 conferences for over 6,000 attendees. And we are still going strong.

There have been a number of reasons for SFL’s success, including external forces such as bad presidential administrations, new technologies, and the Ron Paul campaigns. But more than that, SFL’s success has been due to the people involved in the organization, and their embodiment of this virtue.

• Two years ago, when Maduro took over the government in Venezuela. Students For Liberty’s leaders and were amongst the tens of thousands of students who took to the street in protest. Our leaders were so actively involved that they and their families began to receive death threats. Ultimately, we evacuated two of them from the country for their well-being. Yet, Venezuelan Students For Liberty is larger than ever today, and there is more hope than ever before for change in this failed socialist state.
• Last year, during an SFL event in Serbia that drew over 150 attendees on the failures of the drug war, a group of neo-Nazis broke in and started throwing flyers, shouting insults, and accosting the attendees. The police closed down the event due to the Nazis’ provocation, but the Serbian Students For Liberty were undeterred and are continuing to raise awareness about libertarianism and the dangers of the drug war.
• One of SFL’s leaders was arrested in The Gambia last year, nominally for working with Gallup, the polling company, without proper permitting, but really due to his criticism of the government and work with Students For Liberty. Even though he and his colleagues were putting themselves even more at risk, they are continuing to speak out against the dictatorial regime today.
• When Marxist students attempted to shut down the University of Honduras including by chaining doors and physically removing students from classrooms, Estudiantes por la Libertad organized a counter demonstration and through peaceful, public pressure, ended the takeover.
• Most recently, students in Hong Kong have launched SFL and are holding public events even in the face of abductions and increasing pressure from the mainland government to silence dissent.

 
Section 6. Conclusion
Keep in mind: It will hurt. Others will doubt. You will fail at times, but you must find a way to learn from them and maintain the belief that failure is not an option. But remember, to close this as I opened, with words of wisdom from Winston Churchill: “Never, never, never, never, never, never, never give up.”

Thank you.

What does South Park have to teach us about strategy & planning? A lot, actually.

Matt Stone & Trey Parker, the creators of South Park, recently shared their #1 rule on writing a compelling story with a class at NYU. The short version: No scene should ever be disconnected. Every scene should logically flow from the scene beforehand. If the connection between scenes is not "THEREFORE" or "BUT", the scenes should be cut/changed. If the connection between scenes is "AND THEN", meaning a scene does not building upon or challenging the previous scene, then "you're f****d".

This makes obvious sense. A story is supposed to be interconnected. Every element of the story should strengthen the overarching narrative in some way. If you have disconnected elements, you're not building a single, compelling narrative.

The same goes for developing any strategy or plan. Whenever you're putting together a plan for a business, student organization, event, or project, you should make sure that every element of the plan build upon what has come before. If one section of the plan is connected to another with "AND THEN" rather than "THEREFORE" or "BUT", you have a problem.  

Compare these two plans for an event:

Event A: We'll have Person X speak, and then we'll serve food, and then we'll let people talk.

Event B: We'll have Person Y speak to a group of 20 students to introduce Idea Z they may have never considered before, therefore we'll want to facilitate a conversation amongst the group about the idea so they can really internalize it, but they will be hungry after an hour so we'll need to supply food and refreshments to keep them happy.

Both events are utilizing the same basic elements, but Event B is almost certainly going to be more successful than the former because the organizers understand the connection between each element and can align activities to them.

More importantly, though, making sure there is a logical connection between the elements of the event helps eliminate unnecessary elements (which will likely cost you time and money otherwise). Here's another example of how this might happen: 

Event C: We'll have Person H speak, and then we'll sell Books by Person G, and then we'll have a short talk by Person J, and then we'll invite people to go play foosball. 

If the only things connecting each element of this event is "AND THEN", the event isn't going to make sense to participants and you'll be wasting a large amount of your energy and resources on activities that aren't designed to achieve your ultimate goal.

This is the second post in a series about my holiday in Asia. The second place we stayed for an extended period of time. We actually landed in Hong Kong on Christmas Eve, but we left within 24 hours for Bali. When we returned, we spent several days in the city and it was absolutely wonderful.

The first thing I realized was that Hong Kong is an amazing city. It's beautiful. The architecture is unique. The islands are enchanting. The technology is advanced - riding on the subway was actually an enjoyable experience. And the vibrancy of the economy is infectious - walking down streets that included local vendors selling live fish and major multinational banks next door to each other was an inspiring sight. One of the most interesting things about Hong Kong is how it seems to embrace its contentious history. You see the interplay between Chinese, British, and local Hong Kong identities. Instead of downplaying any of them,  you can see their melding throughout the city in the signs, shops, and practices of the city. While there is a vocal localism movement in Hong Kong today advocating for an emphasis solely on the latter of these 3 cultures, it is apparent that the reason there is a vocal movement is because of how strongly Hong Kong has been and still is influenced from diverse cultures and histories.

One night in Hong Kong, I had the pleasure of spending an evening with 3 impressive libertarians from the island. One is the founder of Hong Kong Students For Liberty. One is the president of the Princeton Libertarians back in the US (from Hong Kong, though). And one is a supporter of their work. Throughout the dinner, one of the topics of conversation was about how restrictive the Hong Kong government is, particularly on economic issues. As an outsider, I was surprised to hear this because Hong Kong is consistently ranked as the most economically free place in the world (e.g. by the Economic Freedom of the World Index). Back in the US, it is common for libertarians to think of Hong Kong as the economic utopia one dreams of. No doubt this is also partly due to Milton Friedman's portrayal of Hong Kong in his PBS series:

As I learned about the local policies, I began to appreciate what they were saying about zoning outside the island, difficulties for small businesses in contrast to large ones, etc. There are also serious threats from the mainland government to the political integrity of Hong Kong and the freedoms that its people enjoy compared to the mainland. But, I also began to realize something else: It is a natural tendency for people who spend a lot of time thinking about freedom and oppression to focus on restrictions of their liberty than the liberties they enjoy. I see this often in the US as well, fellow libertarians claiming that the US is incredibly restrictive and fails to recognize the full set of rights of humanity. It should go without saying that there is no perfectly free place in the world; there is work to be done everywhere to promote freedom. However, some places are freer than others. We ought to appreciate it if we do live somewhere that is comparatively more free while also working to make it even freer. (Something I believe describes everyone I had dinner with that night.)

The last lesson to take away is that freedom leads to prosperity, not just in economics, but in culture as well. My wife was enamored by the fashion and how "cool" the people in the city were. I was blown away by the diversity and quality of the food. And we both agreed that we saw our best live jazz performance to date when we stumbled upon a place called Fringe.  It does not do justice to the full experience, but here's a recording from the show (and check out Trio Soundscapism on Facebook):

My conclusion: Hong Kong is one of the most exciting cities in the world. Its unique history and embrace of freedom today has led to incredible prosperity. While there is work to be done and threats to the future freedom of the city-state, it is an inspiring and exciting place to learn from.

I have only ever received one movie recommendation from John Allison, the former CEO of BB&T and the Cato Institute: Whiplash. After it appeared in theaters a year and a half ago, he emailed me and basically said, "you should watch this." John is one of the most impressive and inspiring leaders I know, so when I received this email, I paid attention.

In the movie, a student passionate about drumming, Nieman, gets the chance to perform under the tutelage of one of the most accomplished, demanding, and overbearing instructors in the world, Fletcher, and follows Nieman's rise, fall, and rise again in the pursuit of excellence of his craft. It is an artistic portrayal of Jim Collins' famous line, "Good is the enemy of the great." The overriding message of the movie is the unfathomable nature for most people of the requirements to excel, which are:

1. Excellence requires hard work. There are very few people who achieve excellence from pure talent alone. Almost everyone must put in tremendous amounts of practice to refine their skills and develop their ability.
2. Excellence requires pain. Excellence is not easy. You will lose sleep. You will experience physical pain. You will have emotional duress at points because of how much you care about what you're doing. (Although, and spoiler alert, hopefully you won't go through a car crash.)
3. Excellence requires perseverance. If you're willing to give up when you encounter obstacles, you can't excel. If you're more concerned with comfort than with pushing yourself, you can't excel. If you get to a point where you think, "that's pretty good and I'm happy with that," you'll do fine, but you won't be one of the greats.

Some might challenge this by saying that this is actually a much darker story than the one I depict here. I agree that this interpretation has merit, and don't think one should watch the movie believing everything Fletcher did or Nieman accepted was appropriate. What matters most, though, is what you primarily take away when watching the movie: Do you appreciate the core message that excellence requires hardship and unrelenting dedication? Or do you see it as a morality tale of the ills of pushing the limits? 

Here's another way of putting it: Which interpretation will do more to help you in your journey? There's a reason John Allison recommended the movie to me and the rest of SFL. And so, i'm going to say here that if you haven't seen Whiplash yet, you should do so as well.


There's a lot to be said about the echo chamber that dominates Washington, DC across party lines. (Great articles on this are here and here.) It is something that especially dominates the Republican Party elite, though, who were convinced they were going to defeat Obama in 2008 and 2012 when the rest of the country made clear they were going in another direction. Both times, Obama's greatest appeal factor was that he was not Bush. The Republican Party ignored this and lost presidential elections because of it. This time around, the Republican Party ignored it and is at risk of losing the party itself. (Some have said that a Trump nomination would change/compromise the ideology of the Republican Party - see this, this, and this. Republicans ought to be worried about a more fundamental problem - that a Trump nomination, or even his success to date, would change/compromise the viability of the Republican Party as a serious player in the future.)

Trump's unique role in the primary race was from the start and still is, the anti-Bush candidate. Consider this:

• Bush is not just a career politician. He comes from family of career politicians. Trump as the outside businessman has contrasted himself from people like Bush since he entered the race.
• When Trump says he can't be bought because is so darn rich, who is he contrasting himself against? Jeb Bush, the candidate who has spent "almost $2 million more than the combined total of the next three biggest spenders (and their super PACs and outside supporters): Marco Rubio ($32.6 million), Hillary Clinton ($12.8 million), and Bernie Sanders ($11.6 million)."
• Donald Trump's refusal to apologize for absolutely anything, no matter how inappropriate he has acted, seems awfully odd on its own. But consider how much this is in contrast to Jeb Bush who has apologized to France, apologized for a falsely claiming an award, and called upon Trump to apologize to his wife for a personal remark.
• The first issue that propelled Trump into the national spotlight was over a clear division with Jeb Bush - immigration/a wall with Mexico. See this and this.

Trump is clearly garnering much of the anti-establishment this election cycle. But how strong would the anti-establishment fervor be amongst the Republican base if a Bush hadn't been the frontrunner a year ago? How much traction would Trump as the extreme outsider have been able to gain if there wasn't such an extreme insider to compare him against? It doesn't matter so much for this election anymore. The die has been cast. America won't be getting another Bush presidency this time around. Given the results in Iowa last night, I'm also hopeful that America won't get a Trump presidency. However, what we will end up with as a result of the Republican Party elite trying to anoint another Bush is up in the air.