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On the http://www.studentsforliberty.org/ website, part of their introductory paragraph mentions that, "The cause for liberty is often underappreciated on college campuses today. Those students who enter college with a belief in liberty often lose sign of that belief because of the overwhelming presence of alternative ideologies. Many students give up because they are alone."
When we created this group, our mission was to unite and support fellow liberty loving individuals to spread the message of liberty into the market-place of ideas. Through this unity, we accomplished many tasks from joining with the Ron Paul Pack in spreading Ron Paul's message of liberty, creating the bi-monthly newsletter The Liberty Report, to just recently participating in a Tri-Partisan Debate. For a club to have no guidance from a national organization such as the Republican or Democrat clubs, we quickly have become one of the most active, organized, and cooperative political clubs on campus.

We are becoming a steadfast beacon of liberty to the campus of UNR, and we shall continue to do so in the years to come. Our numbers our growing, but our work is never finished. After talking with fellow members, I propose new plans for next year:

  • A quick search of Libertarians (Liberty loving individuals) on Facebook shows over 120 individuals on the UNR campus. We will continue to reach out to these people and show them that they are not alone, and to unite them under the common cause of Liberty.
  • I propose we disassociate ourselves with the word: "Libertarian" as I believe that it damages our mission of spreading the word on campus. Not only do our values not fully line with the party; their apathetic, isolationistic, and stubborn attitude is damaging and dangerous towards our cause. The Libertarian Party was an idea that our parent's generation created, and it has failed. I suggest we find new and more effective ways of transforming our campus, our state, and our nation, and this is why I propose we change our name to that of a national organization we can actually be proud of: Students for Liberty. I suggest we change our club constitution to include our party stance, our goals, and eliminate all ties with that of the Libertarian Party. Through this, under the support of the newly founded Students for Liberty organization, we can effectively become more attractive to like-minded Americans.
  • Liberty is brewing in America. With the huge outcry of support the Ron Paul campaign has created, I propose we become a community outreach to fellow liberty loving individuals in the Reno area by creating a meet-up group. There is a severe lacking of such an organization in Reno, and I believe we can fill the void, long after the election is completed.
  • Finally, I believe we need to strive to create events and do activities which will bring us closer together. This year was used to create and lay the groundwork for such an organization, but now we must strive to plan fun and constructive events where we can learn about each other and become friends.

I conclude by sending out a special thanks to Travis Wright, who helped start the club with me; to Alyssa Cowan and Ian Robinson, who gave me the encouragement and support to continue on, to Robert Terhune, who allowed us to co-host some events in the beginning to get us off our feet; and finally Robert Burr, who shared his ideas and gave support of advancing the club. I would like to thank every one of you who came out to our events, our meetings, and wrote in to our newsletter, for it is the members that truly make this work. Over this summer, I hope we can still continue the battle through writing our experiences and thoughts down to this site. I believe that constant communication and support is vital to maintaining a successful organization, and to become stagnant for 3 months time would be detrimental. We will be having club elections the first meeting we reconvene in the fall, and I hope you consider becoming an active proponent in liberty and stepping up for a position: President, Vice-President, Treasurer, Editor for the Liberty Report, Historian. I will be putting up a poll to see what the most convenient times for everyone to meet are. It has been a great joy in leading this group, and I hope to see you all again next year.

In Liberty,
John Russell
President '07-'08 – College Libertarians