Rhythm of Youth
By 
Life in the Nation’s Capital has its drawbacks. For example, everyone wants to come here, which is great. But a subset of Everyone is Assholes. Less than great. This year the anniversary of Roe v. Wade coincided with the arrival of Snowzilla, which meant Metro was chock full of fetus fetishists and womb watchers because nothing says “I <3 Babbys” like giving one’s toddler an airing on the National Mall when a frigging blizzard is bustling your way.
Or take this evening. On the train home I made the mistake of reading one of the posters. Now I’m aware that something called the International Students for Liberty Conference will be here at the end of the month. This year’s theme is the liberty vote and based on the heavy focus on U.S. politics I assume the international part refers to the speakers, not the attendees. At any rate, the poster alerted me to the fact that P.J. O’Rourke is one of the headline speakers.
That makes perfect sense. Nothing says “Today’s Student,” like a man who is old enough to be great-grandpa to some. And this is the quote ISFLC pulled to introduce him:
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
Hawr hawr [hacks up half a tar-clotted lung]! Because if there’s one thing the Youth of Today adore, it is antediluvian curmudgeons who use their age group in analogies about recklessness and irresponsibility.
The other two headline speakers are promising, and one is under 30: Pussy Riot (well, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and an unnamed band mate) and Susan Herman.
The rest of the speakers are a mixed bag of … humans, heavy on the kind of wingnut gravy train riders who have their own private cars.
Grover Norquist will be there because if he isn’t allowed to come and do his drowning government joke, he sulks. And what conference on ‘Merican liberty and freedom is complete without the ruler of Liechtenstein, Prince Hans-Adams II?
The struggle for liberty takes many forms, and as a sitting ruler, Prince Hans-Adams II has thought a lot about what how to promote and protect the liberties of the people of Liechtenstein.
From irresponsible people such as the people of Liechtenstein, that is. I hope the title of his talk is “Take your toys and go to Monaco!”
And this all American Mom will tell her story:
Last year, her son Ross was sentenced to life in prison for running a voluntary, anonymous marketplace online.
I don’t know why these liberty loving libertarians are so shy about saying her son ran Silk Road. Weird.
At any rate. I won’t be able to attend because I have a spleen flensing scheduled. But if you want to go, the coupon code is PRIVATIZEIT. Gerrit?
Bonus fun quiz. See how many totally non-partisan liberty sponsors you can guess without peeking.
