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The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What’s Wrong with America

PublicAffairs, 2011

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Hayek Auditorium
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Featuring
Featuring the authors Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch; moderated by David Boaz, Cato Institute.


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Reason editors Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch introduce their new book with a multimedia presentation in the Hayek Auditorium. “In a world where our [political] choices are limited to John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi, the survivors envy the dead,” they write. But that’s not the world they actually see. They argue that despite our stunted politics, despite national bankruptcy, despite the war on drugs, revolutionary innovators have changed our world over the past 40 years: Vaclav Havel and the Plastic People of the Universe, Herb Kelleher and Southwest Airlines, Tiger Woods and the breakdown of categories, the personalization of media, and much more. It’s just politics that is resisting freedom and choice. And now millions of voters are trying to break out of stagnant political choices. Gillespie and Welch see a “future so bright, we gotta wear shades.”

At Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen writes, “This is the up-to-date statement of libertarianism. Not warmed-over right-wing politics, but real, true-blooded libertarianism in the sense of loving liberty and wanting to find a new path toward human flourishing.” Come see if he’s right.