Eric Sharp

8 Steps for Summer Chapter Growth

Apr 20, 2012 at 3:17 PM

By Eric Sharp

So finals are here or approaching soon, and so is the summer. Some of us will head home, far away from our universities. But some of us will be working or taking classes over the summer in town where we go to school. If this describes you and several members of your chapter, here's a short list of things to do maintain and grow your chapter over the summer.

MEET -- regularly, even with just a handful of people at a public place like a restaurant. This keeps continuity and community established and allow you to...
PLAN -- the fall semester activities over the summer IF you do this, you will be able to hit the fall semester like road runners and avoid the month of back-from-summer amnesia that many student groups seem to have when school starts up while they reorganize. Your YAL chapter can stand out big time if you are super organized Day 1.
RECRUIT -- any way you can. Try passing out information about the group at new student orientation sessions, and if your school has people on campus taking classes then do recruitment tabling.
ACTIVITIES -- If your school has summer classes then there will be plenty of students in town and on campus with zilch to do. So screen a movie, have an Independence Day party, etc. to engage the summer students.

Non-Aggression and Leadership

Apr 18, 2012 at 1:22 PM

By Eric Sharp

This week Indian mystic, Sadhguru Vasudev has something very libertarian to say about the state of leadership in this world today:

The more powerful are always bullying the less powerful. Whether it is in the form of nations, communities or individual human beings, bullying is happening everywhere, all the time. We have structured the world in such a way that if you do not learn to bully, at least in society’s eyes, you won’t get anywhere. Bullying can either be crude, just on the strength of muscle, or it can be done in subtle ways, but it is happening all over the place. I want you to understand, the world, the international situation, is not any different from the street corner. The strong lean on the weak in so many ways. It is still a caveman’s world of ‘survival of the fittest’ conducted in a more cunning manner. It is not straightforward.

Government Gone Wild At MTSU

Apr 3, 2012 at 9:47 AM

By Eric Sharp

mtliberty For MTSU's Government Gone Wild event, we tabled 5 days this past week Monday - Friday 3/26 - 3/30. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we had our fake body scanner and "Ken I. Seymore" officers on patrol. Friday we did some additional recruitment tabling. After Monday we made use of a pleasant shady spot to make our table inviting, though this is make our documentation shady as well.

We filled up 4 pages and got 66 signups and we were interviewed by MT TV, the campus news station. The content, I believe, has not aired yet. But I'll update this post when that content is available.

Check out this video round up of the week which I made:

Our student in the fake TSA outfit would motion students though the creepy scanner, we'd give them mardi gras beads, explain how the TSA violated their rights and then motion them over to the table for materials and to sign up.

Liberty Is a State of Being

Mar 6, 2012 at 1:29 PM

By Eric Sharp

Sadhguru Vasudev cautions those that want to change the world to first rid their own hearts of fear and pain, before embarking to change the way others live -- otherwise one will only transcribe one's own darkness upon the world and make a bigger mess.

Before you can bring the message of liberty to anyone, you must first "live in truth" and experience liberty in your mind and heart. If your heart, mind, and body, are not aligned to the same purpose your message will be muddled. As the saying goes, " No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care." But if you have dedicated your entire being to freedom and really feel it, then no force can stop our message.

Do it now. Break yourself apart from the archetypal authoritarian nested deep in your mind. Cease your fevered dreams of wandering the Stately Halls, searching for meaning that isn't there.

MTSU Semester Report Fall 2011 or "What has MTSU YAL been doing for the past 6 months?"

Feb 27, 2012 at 4:15 PM

By Eric Sharp

At MTSU, we kept meeting over the summer each week to maintain a sense of community and to plan for the upcoming fall semester.

As the summer came to a close, just before school started, the MTSU Anime Club put together a small anime convention on campus called ADACON. Now, it's an MTSU YAL tradition to attend the annual anime convention in Nashville dressed in the YAL BOT costume, and so a convention on home turf ought to be no different! So I and Galadriel Robinson attended the free convention passing out copies of the Morality of Capitalism, YAL palm cards, and Bastiat's The Law. I wore a libertarian YAL Van Helsing type get up, and Galadriel, as always, sported the YAL BOT suit.

yal bot 2

It was a really fun time, and is a fun, casual, and non-confrontational way to promote YAL and liberty. Click here to view the pictures inexplicably uploaded in reverse order.

YAL MTSU's recruitment drive started with the We Haul Move-In Days. Kristen Breaux and I helped move in new students to their dorms wearing YAL shirts, Friday the 26th of August and Saturday the 27th.

Things really kicked off at the anual student organization fair, September 9th. We had been planning and prepping all summer, so we were ready!

MTSU Civil Liberties Tour Video

Feb 16, 2012 at 8:02 PM

By Eric Sharp

Did you miss the live streaming of last week's Civil Liberties Tour?

flier

Well, at MTSU local liberty activist Joey Fuller captured the event on video and can now be viewed on YouTube!

Jack Hunter Pt1 , Pt 2

Just because She's into Liberty Doesn't Mean She's into You

Feb 13, 2012 at 10:38 AM

By Eric Sharp

I have been called to rise to state that which should be obvious and that hopefully most libertarians realize:

Just because she's into liberty does not mean that she's into you.

love ron paul not you

That's right, I said it. I've been compelled to say so after hearing of a few hopefully isolated incidents in which otherwise respectable men in the liberty movement have been a little creepy and slimeballish, macking a little too hard and not taking a hint.

All Hail Campus Protectionism!

Feb 6, 2012 at 1:48 PM

By Eric Sharp

Check out this satirical letter I wrote for the Opinions section of MTSU's student newspaper Sidelines. If it reads like my previous satirical letter in Sidelines this is quite intentional.

Aramark, our food services provider, recently enacted a rule at MTSU that student organizations could only have one bake sale per semester (excluding Greek organizations of course). We speculate that this is because our YAL chapter sold too many tasty tamales and apple pies. MTSU is not the kind of campus where it is easy to walk or drive 5 minutes away for lunch at back in time for class, so the cartel granted by contract particularly effects what choices and prices students have to deal with. Aramark is a large company and may even be doing the same thing on your campus.

Anyway, on with the letter:

Dearest Aramark:

You, my favorite of food-service giants, have recently undertaken some measures, which I must praise.

Specifically, you have insisted that a section of your contact with MTSU be enforced – the one that binds radicals and hooligans in "student organizations" to a satisfactory one bake sale per semester.

Occupy Mordor or Destroy the Ring?

Nov 28, 2011 at 12:02 PM

By Eric Sharp

There has been mixed responses to Occupy Wall Street by libertarians. Some see the movement as a positive, while others see them as little more than lazy hipsters.

But libertarians must be sensitive why people feel the way they do about issues.

The occupiers point out a legitimate concern that "the 1%" control vastly more power and wealth than "the 99%," and corporations have accumulated more power and privilege than is healthy for an open society. Some other concerns and demands are absurd, but the heart of the matter is on track.

The contention is why has this happened?
While many on the left are quick to blame a nebulous thing called "greed," or lack of regulation, the matter is more complicated than that.

This calls for a Lord of the Rings metaphor.

YAL MTSU Marches against Victim Blaming

Oct 25, 2011 at 2:24 PM

By Eric Sharp

October 2nd, the MTSU chapter of YAL attended, tabled at, and was an official ally of the Nashville Slutwalk.

The ... what? Slutwalk is an international movement to fight the blaming of the victims of sexual abuse and violence for the actions taken against them. It was started after a police officer in Canada told a classroom of girls that if they didn't want to get raped then they should not dress like "sluts." But the fact of the matter is that women and men are abused and raped everyday irrespective of what they are wearing.

Slutwalk is a controversial event, even amongst feminists, but from a libertarian perspective sponsoring the event made perfect sense. Given that we all own our bodies, it would be utterly perverse to blame someone for violation of their right to self-ownership.

stop v blaming The message of the event was instead of solely teaching people how to avoid getting raped, they ought to be taught not to rape.

Everyone wore what ever they wanted to. Some chose to dress provactively, while others wore ordinary clothes some holding signs saying, "This is what I was wearing when I was raped. Did I deserve it?" [1] [2]

Some higher quality photos of the event were taken by Chris M. Scruggs.