only people in the world whose opinions matter:
Solid trip. Would be good to know where you’ve already been. Assuming no-where else. Hit up; Prague to Vienna, or Munich to Vienna. LAKE COMO when you’re in Milan. All else is solid.
Prague was in the original itinerary, but then I found out that the car rental agencies don’t allow their higher end cars into eastern Europe. We’re renting a BMW 5-Series, so if we take it to Prague the insurance is void, which would really suck if something happened. We’re not sure if we want to risk it. I suppose I could valet the car, but I’ve never been to Czech Republic, so I’m not sure how safe it is to drive around in a BMW without insurance.
As for which of the destinations in our itinerary I’ve been to, only Paris and Amsterdam. Everything else will be new to me.
So, about ISFLC 2012…
I said I would make a detailed post about the International Students for Liberty Conference, but I don’t know where to begin other than to say that it was awesome!
As usual with libertarian conferences/gatherings, the speaker lineup was great. Among the best were presentations given by Anthony Gregory (who is slowly becoming my favorite person), Radley Balko (though he always seems to disappoint just a little bit by making way too many concessions to the state), Peter Thiel, Chris Coyne, Jacob Hornberger, Bruce Fein, and Jack Hunter. Noticeably absent from my list are Nick Gillespie, David Boaz, and other non-libertarians who were invited to speak so that certain people in the movement could make a statement about what they think (read: insist) libertarianism properly ought to be, rather than what it actually is.
Then there was the John Stossel taping, which was…interesting, to say the least. By far the most entertaining part was when Stossel interviewed former UN Ambassador John Bolton, who was deservedly the victim of loud and incessant booing when he defended the extrajudicial assassination of American citizens and perpetual warfare and evaded a question from an ex-military guy who rightly described his experience in the Middle East as the savagery that it is. Hilariously (in a sad sort of way), Bolton seemed to have a few supporters in the crowd, as some of his most asinine comments elicited applause and cheering from one corner of the room.
On a side note, some of us Tumblr folk were able to get a picture with the Souther Avenger:
Which brings me to the best part of the weekend: meeting all you Tumblrtarians!
I honestly was not expecting to see so many of you guys (since you guys all failed miserably at replying to my repeated posts asking who is going!), but it was pretty cool to have so many Tumblr friends in the same place at the same time. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get a group picture that included everyone, but I can assure all of those who were excluded from our group picture that it was not intentional — we just didn’t have everyone’s phone number.
There’s no way for me to comment on this without it sounding like a humblebrag, but I can’t tell you guys how hilarious it was that so many of you recognized me and came up to me like, “Hi, you’re StateHate right? I follow your blog.” If there was ever an indicator that I post way too many pictures of myself…hahaha. I was already following some of you guys, but for those of you who I’m not following, I don’t remember all of your URLs, but I want to follow you back, so send me a message and I shall!
Special shoutouts to Bonnie, who I forgot to get a picture with, but luckily some creeper had us covered:
And Adam:
And Nate:
And here’s a group picture of the guys, including Dustin:
Others in attendance included stagstuff, 100percenthipster, thestormyjordan, sabersandphasers, rae-elizabeth, racetobitchmountain, tylermittan, brittanysaysrelax, asuperfluousman, apostrophewar, libertymoot, lalibertarienne, statistsgonnastate, logicallypositive, rogue-philosophy, perpetualjourney, daaaanial, anti-stateaaron, operapourlepaix, and andrewpaladino. I’m also told that fareastlibertarianmovement was there, but unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to meet them. I’m sorry to anyone I missed, but there are just too many of you! I should also mention that absent from the conference were laliberty, whakatikatika, conza, anarchyagogo, libertarians, haereticum, satans-advocate, and a-petro-manifesto, all of whom I intend to meet at some point in the future (especially laliberty, who lives too close to me for there to be any excuse for us having yet to meet, and whose super secret identity I will reveal if he doesn’t show his fellow Cuban some love soon). Also, freemarketliberal and shecallsmeartemis, who I’ve met, and were also missed at the conference.
All in all, the conference was a great experience and I loved hanging out with all of you guys. I’ve met some of the best people ever through Tumblr, and you tumblrtarians are no exception. My expectations of you guys, which were already pretty high given what I knew about you from the internet, were exceeded by far and you guys are even cooler in person than you are online. In fact, a few of us were lamenting the fact that we don’t live closer because, if we did, there’s no doubt that we’d hang out all the time. I can’t wait for next year’s ISFLC and I hope that the Tumblrtarian group is even bigger then.
