Here's an article I submitted to my school newspaper about the liberty movement and why it's growing:

How is it that a 76-year old man consistently attracts the youth vote? What is it about Ron Paul that allows him to completely fill every venue, turning enthusiastic supporters away at the door? Simply put, it is because the Ron Paul campaign is an idea, a movement.

This idea isn’t anything new, it is actually quite old -- 235 years to be exact. It goes back to the founding of this country; the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution, and to the Constitution. It is about the philosophy of liberty; free markets, peace, and the protection of civil liberties. It is also about being unwavering in those principles and being moral in one’s private life while being willing to tell the American people some truly inconvenient truths.

On this issue I'm not a propertarian.  I simply view it as a right to life argument and that all killing is wrong, and that's usually where I end.  However, I recently got into a debate with a pro-choice propertarian over the issue of abortion.  It was civil, although fierce, but I came to a new property rights pro-life view.

First, we must define a few terms and throw out some arguments that have no basis or simply make no sense.

What is life?  This should be a fairly obvious answer:  any organic organism which is not dead (a definition can be found here or here).  However, there is obviously something that separates us from plants and that is sentience, awareness, or conciousness.  This is what makes life all worthwhile and what makes it so scary to lose.  Now, animals are also sentient, but our amount of awareness is much greater, which is what separates us from them.  But why am I talking about this?  Because there are a few arguments that can be dispelled by this definition on both sides, mainly, "when does life begin?"

Many Christian pro-lifers want to assert that life begins at conception because that's when a soul enters the body.  This, however, is for me an inadequate argument as there is no scientific or conclusive proof, only the dualist argument, that there even is a soul.  And even if there is, there is no way to prove when it "enters" the body, if it "enters" at all.

Unfortunately our recruitment drive wasn't as stellar as we had hoped.  As a new chapter, we didn't have enough members to do things like flyering, dorm storming, or tabling.  However, we were still able to recruit nearly 50 people from announcements, the Student Involvement Fair, and Constitution Day.

September 13, our Student Involvement Fair, was the highlight of our recruitment drive where we recruited 37 new students!  We had a fairly good table, with lots of great free materials from some very generous groups.  We had so much in fact, that we even made 50 custom YAL folders.  We bought fifty 10 cent folders from Wal-Mart, and put the YAL logo on the front cover.  We then filled the folders with YAL palm cards, YAL stickers, and free materials from other liberty supporters. 

As a word of caution, if you plan to do this, watch what goes inside the folders.  Some of the materials you receive may be controversial to some students.  While we don't want to be politically correct, but we still want to be politically savvy.  Know your campus and tailor your folders to them.  At this stage, we are trying to simply recruit, not persuade.  Or you can always have multiple folders for students who support different issues. 

I just recently was accepted as a political opinion writer for my student newspaper.  As the only non-liberal opinion writer on staff, I cannot stress to you enough how important it is for you to do everything you can to be a part of your school's mainstream media and to give the student body a different point of view.  Even with all the stress you'll go through with the editors trying to censor or tone-down your position, it'll be worth it with the minds that you'll change, or at least open up to a new way of thinking.

For example:  In the first issue of the newspaper, another opinion writer wrote about 9/11, which is fine of course.  However, instead simply expressing his condolences or his reflections on the event, he had to go political on it.  So he decides that he's going to find a positive spin to put on it (I can see most of you squirming in your seats).  He says, "the repercussions of [al-Qaeda's] actions have benefitted our country in the long run" through the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security.

I ended up writing about 9/11 (seeing as the anniversary is just a week before publication), except with a little bit more of a critical spin.  Not towards the TSA or the DHS, which I'm sure will come later, but more towards a critique of U.S. foreign policy.  I did however, run into some snags with my editor on the first draft.  So here it is, with all the corrections for the second, and hopefully final, edition of the article.

Anything deleted will be in red.  Anything added will be in blue.  Editors' comments will be surrounded by *____*.

9/11 Revisited 10 Years Later

By Kendall Sontag

On this 10^th anniversary of September 11, I hope you took the time to remember where you were and what you were doing at that fateful moment.  I also hope that you prayed for *What if someone isn't religious?  Pray can stay, but another word is needed.* took the time to think about all the families of those who lost their lives, for all the first responders who acted so heroically that day, and to that day, and to thank all the troops who have fought and given their lives for our freedom.