On yesterday’s first day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand twelve, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-sixth, President Barack Obama has in one of his more strikingly Bushian moments (of which there are many) declared “Loyalty Day” as a national holiday to be celebrated annually.

Now, at first glance, this seems fairly innocuous.  The press release drops a lot of distinctively American, feel-good rhetoric — “Founders,” “Constitution,” “liberty, equality, and justice” — these are things which, by and large, we all like.  To observe Loyalty Day, we are encouraged to display an American flag or say the Pledge of Allegiance, presumably while pondering the principles and history the release discusses.

And yet — Loyalty Day is hands down disturbing, but I’m glad this declaration is getting so much attention.

You see, as it turns out, Loyalty Day isn’t a brand new thing, though you might get that impression from the White House press release.  It’s been around for decades, and most recent Presidents have made one declaration about it over the course of their time in office.  But, whether because ofgrowing cynicism in American politics or thanks to the GOP’s short-term memory loss in its opposition to Barack Obama, this particular declaration seems to be sparking more outrage.  Here’s why that makes the declaration, though not the holiday, a good thing:

1. That press release could have been written by Glenn Beck at the height of an on-air frenzy, but it was released by the Obama White House.  The tone has every bit of the most concerning strain of red-state genuflection before the military and other “patriotic” aspects of our government and history, but it isn’t a red-state document.  It demonstrates the equal willingness of both sides of the aisle to play on emotion — on love of country and pride in history — to advance uncritical allegiance to the state.

YAL chapters around the country have been turning up in all kinds of local and campus news reports!  Here's a small selection of recent articles:

• "Students protest sexual harassment in airports" -- University of Kansas YAL's "Government Gone Wild" protest against the TSA was covered by Kansan.com
• "YAL spreads libertarian awareness" -- YAL @ Bowling Green State's first meeting was covered by the campus news.
• "SRU student groups protests war" -- Slippery Rock YAL's protest of the War on Terror, and especially the War in Iraq, got coverage from the local paper.

Here at YAL National, we've been getting a little news attention of our own!

• A writer from the Examiner featured the first three endorsements of the YAL PAC
• Matt Welch at Reason Magazine posted about the interview with himself and Nick Gillespie in the upcoming issue of YAL's magazine!

On this ninth Iraqiversary, it seems important to pause a moment to take a look at the past, present, and future of this most notorious quagmire.

When we invaded Iraq in 2003, I was 15 and vaguely supportive of the war out of a naive assumption that if they said we had to bomb Iraq to keep from being nuked, then bomb Iraq we must.  Nine years later it is uncomfortably obvious (and indeed has been for quite a while) that I -- and quite a few other people at the time who lacked the plea of youthful error -- was wrong:  "The most popular argument to support the Iraq war in 2003 was the one about Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs)….All of it turned out to be lies. Iraq didn’t possess a single WMD. Far from being a military threat to the West, the country quickly collapsed in the face of invading forces.”

As it soon became clear that WMDs were nowhere to be found, the ostensible mission switched to “spreading democracy” -- Saddam was a bad, bad man, and we must kill him.  A bad man he was, and kill him we did, but at what cost?

Madeleine Albright may have thought that killing 500,000 Iraqi children (let alone adults) through sanctions in the 1990s was “worth it” to bend the erstwhile Mesopotamia to our will, but I can’t agree.  I especially can’t agree in regards to the additional 600,000 to 1 million (or more) excess civilian deathscaused by the war following our 2003 invasion.  Proportionally, this is analogous to killing everyone in Texas or California.  If this is what it takes to spread democracy, can anyone honestly claim spreading democracy is a worthy cause?

This past weekend, YAL was honored to be a Partner Organization at the 2012 International Students for Liberty Conference in Washington, DC.

More than 1,000 students were in attendence, and many of them packed into each of YAL's eight breakout sessions, which covered topics from earning media to the best way to convert the whole country to the philosophy of liberty.

The most popular session by far featured freshman Congressman Justin Amash (R-MI)! Rep. Amash's speech packed the room well over capacity, and even after the session lasted 15 minutes longer than scheduled, students were still following this principled young congressman out the door to ask him questions about his political career!

On Friday evening, YAL's after party at Microsoft's DC HQ was a huge hit too.  Unfortunately, some ISFLC attendees had to be turned away at the door because the party was so busy!

At both the party and YAL's booth at the conference, a full-size, professional photo-booth covered with YAL's logo and offering unlimited photos with a box of hilrious props was extremely popular.   See the photo results here!

YAL Executive Director Jeff Frazee and Corey Hubbard, a member of the spring intern class, pose with props from the photo-booth at the ISFLC.

YAL Director of Communications Bonnie Kristian (yours truly) and Northwest Regional Director Mikayla Hall take a turn in the photo-booth.