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Dear fellow libertarian,

This newsletter marks the beginning of a new libertarian think tank, the Free Nation Foundation. We will work to describe how a hypothetical libertarian country would work. We will focus on critical institutions such as national security and domestic security, and work to develop practical, believable descriptions of these institutions.

This work plan grows out of a few simple beliefs:

      1. I believe what we have been told by our leaders, such as Mises, Hayek and Rand: That our understanding of humans and their interactions can produce a better society, both more humane and more prosperous, than any which could be produced by competing visions which rely upon use of force.

      2. I also believe that we have resources: a good fraction of the people on this planet would gladly move themselves to a realm where freedoms were secured, not stolen, by collective action. And many business interests would gladly invest in such a realm when they knew that their investments were secure.

Since I believe these things, that we are strong with both knowledge and resources, a question keeps returning to me, "So what is stopping us?" I will address two obvious answers.

The first is we are not coalesced. We share a common complaint, too much government, but not a common vision of what institutions would do critical jobs now performed by government. This first answer motivates the Free Nation Foundation.

The second answer is we cannot convince the majority of voters in any existing democracy to see things our way. I try to draw others toward our view, and support several organizations working on this front. But I am not as confident as I would like to be that persuasion will one day win our cause. And I think we sell ourselves short if we put all our eggs in the basket of persuasion.

This explains why I address this letter to fellow libertarians. The Free Nation Foundation will strive to build shared vision among people who already think themselves libertarian. This will be difficult enough.

In other contexts I will continue trying to persuade non-libertarians, but not in the Free Nation Foundation. In this organization let us take what we share as a starting point and try to build. I believe we can.

Rich Hammer

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