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Freedom Action of the Week
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Free-Market.Net's F r e e d o m A c t i o n o f t h e W e e k
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Edited by Thomas L. Knapp. To subscribe or unsubscribe to this and
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----- Featured Action of the Week -----
Fifth Week of January, 2002:
State Your Case
Here in the United States, we have a tradition -- dating from the
presidency of Abraham Lincoln -- wherein the chief executive addresses
Congress annually on "the State of the Union." The purpose of this speech
is to describe the current status of American polity and policy and to
point out the direction the president intends to take in the coming year.
This strikes me as a surprisingly good idea, whatever the content of the
speech may be. It's sort of an annual reconsideration of the past year's
events and a tip-off to where the next year might take us. It's such a good
idea, as a matter of fact, that I think more people ought to be doing it.
Not just leaders, but individuals; not just in the United States, but
everywhere.
Action of the Week tends to concentrate on discrete, individual issues:
little things you can do to have an effect on this policy or that activity.
Sometimes, though, it's useful to consider things in the round, and I'd
like you to do something this week that I haven't asked you do in awhile.
I'd like you to write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper,
summarizing your views about where we've been and where we're going. You
might do so in the context of President's Bush's State of the Union Address
(link to the full text, courtesy of Free-Market.Net partner Citizens for a
Sound Economy, below), or you
might wing it and venture out on your own, but what I am looking for here,
as opposed to a specific recommendation on a specific matter, is a general
description of the world as you see it and how it can be made better.
You don't have to be an American to do this. Wherever you live, it's likely
that your community faces ongoing issues and that it needs ongoing
discussion about its political direction. Your "state of the union" letter
might be the "state of Scotland" or the "state of Slovakia" or even the
"state of [insert the name of your town here]."
It's not as difficult as it sounds. As a matter of fact, this action was
inspired by exactly such an article, written by Ted Lang for Etherzone,
titled "A Citizen's State of the Union." Not necessarily the content of the
article, but that Mr. Lang took the time to say "this is what I see. This
is what I believe. This is where I want to go."
It can't hurt, of course, if your letter refers readers to organizations or
sites that further detail what you're trying to recommend. The idea here,
from my point of view, is that libertarians are often seen simply as
contrarians: whatever is under consideration, we're against. You and I know
that that is not the case, but the non-libertarian reader can be forgiven
for thinking it is when we fail to offer an encompassing vision of what
we're after instead of ad hoc, position-by-position arguments about
specific issues.
To get started, let's look at some resources on the State of the Union
address as delivered by president Bush:
Citizens for a Sound Economy's transcript of the speech:
http://www.free-market.net/rd/461562719.html
CSE's commentary on the speech:
http://www.free-market.net/rd/587119765.html
Competitive Enterprise Institute's commentary on the speech:
http://www.free-market.net/rd/474353537.html
The Cato Institute's analysis of the speech:
http://www.free-market.net/rd/301195722.html
"A Citizen's State of the Union" by Ted Lang:
http://www.free-market.net/rd/662733132.html
Don't forget, if you need help or would like to share your work,
to visit Free-Market.Net's Letters to the Editor Forum:
http://www.free-market.net/forums/lte0101/
And, finally, for back issues of Action of the Week:
http://www.free-market.net/features/list-archives/activism/maillist.html
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J.D. Tuccille
Senior Editor
Free-Market.Net
http://www.free-market.net/
email: jdtuccille@free-market.net
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