On May 10, Keli Carender -- more commonly known as "Liberty Belle" -- visited the University of Washington. Regarded as one of the original founders of the modern-day Tea Party movement, she spoke to a group of grassroots activists and members of Young Americans for Liberty and the UW College Republicans about The Tea Party Patriots. 

"I used to be normal," Carender joked, "but after awhile you realize it's not normal to be okay with your friends or your professors making you feel bad for your principles." 

Much of Carender's talk focused on empowering the "minority." Minority, that is, being conservatives/libertarians in Western Washington. Some points I took away from her visit:

• Conservatism is local, and you can wear yourself out by trying to focus on national, state and local politics. Try breaking it down and prioritize the area on which you focus. For example, city council meetings are often unattended--but your city officials are capable of waste and corruption too!
• The American notion of "You have a voice in the nation" is only true if you are willing to put in the hard work to be heard
• The Tea Party is normal. It is made up of average people who finally got fed up with government waste. There is no "Tea Party monolith." When people go on the news and say "The Tea Party believes..." they forget the greatness of the Tea Party movement is that it is made up of many smaller groups
• Many of the smaller groups in the Tea Party have specifically chosen to not discuss foreign policy and social issues, choosing instead to focus on something more grassroots people can agree on: the economy.

It was a great opportunity to hear about the Tea Party from someone who has been involved since the beginning. For more on Liberty Belle and The Tea Party Patriots, check out their site here. 

On March 31, the University of Washington chapter set up their debt clock in Red Square, the busiest part of the Seattle campus.

The chapter now has some new recruits and the overall response was quite positive, particularly when we passed out fliers illustrating war-time spending. Most people just walked by with a saddened look on their face or stopped to take a picture.

If you ask anyone in the chapter, the highlight of the day was when a large group of 4th graders walked by. After a brief discussion with their teachers about how their generation will be left with the debt, they wanted to have their picture taken next to the debt clock/YAL table. Suddenly a number of students and a few professors crowded the debt display to take photos of all the children. Afterwards, the teachers asked if any of the students could say the entire number. After saying $14 trillion, one young boy said, "I lost count. The number is just too big."

For more photos from the UW-Seattle event, check them out here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/61286669@N05/

On the 2nd anniversary of YAL's first activism event, Real Change Requires R3volution, the YAL chapter at the University of Washington continues to remain in the forefront of campus political activities. After a successful Autumn Quarter, the UW College Republicans asked YAL members Steve Heidenreich and Justin Clements (the YAL-UW chapter president) to debate on their behalf, this time on the repeal of the Health Care Bill. Following last night's debate, Justin's face was on the cover of UW's newspaper, The Daily:

College Republican Justin Clements argued that the Affordable Care Act leads to too much government control and that the bill represents “one of the more terrifying aspects of government expansion.” 

...[Steve] Heidenreich offered some right-wing solutions to the health-care issue, including allowing insurance to be sold across state lines. He said that there are hundreds of health-insurance companies in the United States, but they can’t compete against each other nationwide.

“You can’t lower prices without competition,” Heidenreich said.

To read the rest of the debate coverage, The Daily article is here.  To watch footage of the debate, part 1 can be found here. Parts 2-4 will be posted soon.

The YAL chapter at the University of Washington recently participated in the school's first joint policy forum. It featured YAL, UW College Republicans (CRs), UW Young Democrats (YDs) and the International Socialist Organization (ISO) discussing NAFTA. YAL-UW was a leading force in pushing for the forums, after being blocked from the quarterly debates. It is safe to say that going into its third year, YAL has become a constant fixture in UW's political activities. Check out new members, Michael and Will (a freshman!) argue for YAL: 

From my understanding, these are the groups' stances on NAFTA:

ISO: Fair trade, not free trade!

YDs: NAFTA has good intentions, but needs tweaking.

CRs: NAFTA has good intentions, but needs tweaking.

YAL: Why do we need a 2,000 page document to create free trade?