As a brief introduction, the sheets which are signed are referred to as “ballot access petitions” and the act of collecting these signatures is referred to as “circulating petitions”.  At the end of the circulation period, all petitions must be gathered and turned in together.

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I don’t know who created this image, but it hits the nail right on the head.  It’s common to encounter people who misinterpret Libertarians’ love for freedom and distrust for politicians as the full extent of libertarian philosophy.  On the contrary, libertarianism is accurately described by Murray Rothbard:

The fact is that libertarianism is not and does not pretend to be a complete moral or aesthetic theory; it is only a political theory, that is, the important subset of moral theory that deals with the proper role of violence in social life.  Political theory deals with what is proper or improper for government to do, and government is distinguished from every other group in society as being the institution of organized violence. Libertarianism holds that the only proper role of violence is to defend person and property againstviolence, that any use of violence that goes beyond such just defense is itself aggressive, unjust, and criminal. Libertarianism, therefore, is a theory which states that everyone should be free of violent invasion, should be free to do as he sees fit, except invade the person or property of another. What a person does with his or her life is vital and important, but is simply irrelevant to libertarianism.

Time: 7:00pm – 8:30pm (arrive between 6:30 and 7:00 if you would like to order dinner).

Location: IHOP- 167 Danada Sq E, Wheaton, IL 60189  Click here for a map.

Details: In order to get Libertarian candidates on the ballot, we will need to collect several thousand signatures from registered voters between March 27th and June 23rd. Come out and learn how to effectively gather these signatures to ensure that our candidates have the chance to spread the message of liberty!

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Also, contrary to popular opinion, registering to vote in Illinois DOES NOT put you at risk of being selected for jury duty.  The state of Illinois selects jurors from driver’s license and state ID lists, so there’s really no reason to fear registering to vote!

On a similar topic (and quoted in Woods’ talk), below is a short excerpt from Murray N. Rothbard’s greatest work, Man, Economy, and State. Rothbard is no longer living, but he’s an excellent proponent of human freedom.

 The free market, in fact, is precisely the diametric opposite of the “jungle” society. The jungle is characterized by the war of all against all. One man gains only at the expense of another, by seizure of the latter’s property. With all on a subsistence level, there is a true struggle for survival, with the stronger force crushing the weaker. In the free market, on the other hand, one man gains only through serving another, though he may also retire into self-sufficient production at a primitive level if he so desires. It is precisely through the peaceful co-operation of the market that all men gain through the development of the division of labor and capital investment. To apply the principle of the “survival of the fittest” to both the jungle and the market is to ignore the basic question:Fitness for what? The “fit” in the jungle are those most adept at the exercise of brute force. The “fit” on the market are those most adept in the service of society. The jungle is a brutish place where some seize from others and all live at the starvation level; the market is a peaceful and productive place where all serve themselves and others at the same time and live at infinitely higher levels of consumption. On the market, the charitable can provide aid, a luxury that cannot exist in the jungle.

     The free market, therefore, transmutes the jungle’s destructive competition for meagre subsistence into a peaceful co-operative competition in the service of one’s self and others. In the jungle, some gain only at the expense of others. On the market, everyone gains. It is the market—the contractual society—that wrests order out of chaos, that subdues nature and eradicates the jungle, that permits the “weak” to live productively, or out of gifts from production, in a regal style compared to the life of the “strong” in the jungle. Furthermore, the market, by raising living standards, permits man the leisure to cultivate the very qualities of civilization that distinguish him from the brutes.

     It is precisely statism that is bringing back the rule of the jungle—bringing back conflict, disharmony, caste struggle, conquest and the war of all against all, and general poverty. In place of the peaceful “struggle” of competition in mutual service, statism substitutes calculational chaos and the death-struggle of Social Darwinist competition for political privilege and for limited subsistence.

• Chair: Josh Hanson
• Vice Chair: Jim Waldron
• Treasurer: Todd Zimmerman
• Secretary: Brian Lambrecht