Impressive Work on Display by Students for Liberty

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Congratulations are in order to our friends at Students for Liberty and their CEO Wolf von Laer on a successfully annual conference recently held here in Washington, D.C., LibertyCon 2018. In addition to the many great speakers and panels crammed into only a couple of days, SFL also recognized some of their most impressive members from around the world with awards. Student leaders like Aimable Manirakiza from Burundi, Piotr Markielau from Belarus, and David Gallegos-Rubio from Mexico are doing impressive (and at times dangerous) work in their home countries, building civil society and advocating for individual liberty.

The editorial team from Reason magazine was there as well, with panel appearances by editors Katherine Mangu-Ward (“Women in Media”), Nick Gillespie (interview with Dave Rubin – C-SPAN video here) Matt Welch (“The Future of Tech”), and Peter Suderman (“80 Years after Prohibition”) attracting crowds of interested students. The boxes of rolling papers emblazoned with the Reason logo, handed out after Suderman’s session, proved especially popular and were happily autographed by the editors present. The delegation from Universidad Francisco Marroquín also attracted a lot of attention with their depictions of famous economists as superheroes, including Milton Friedman (pictured above).

The C-SPAN cameras were also present for the Business Leaders Panel featuring Overstock.com CEO and co-founder Patrick Byrne and business news legend Steve Forbes, and the welcome remarks from emcee Naomi Brockwell and SFL’s fearless leader Wolf von Laer. Jennifer Harper of The Washington Times also wrote up the events of the weekend (“‘Don’t Tread on anyone’ — LibertyCon draws young Libertarians”), highlighting such speakers as Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI), Whole Foods founder John Mackey; Cato Institute executive vice president David Boaz; and UK politician and leading Brexiteer Daniel Hannan. And, of course, the spontaneous commentary throughout the event on Twitter and Instagram was a fun ride.