RSS (All Tags)Cato Breakout Sessions at the International Students For Liberty Conference
At this year's ISFLC, there will be an entire day of breakout sessions with scholars from the Cato Institute, one of the country's most-cited think tanks.
Come hear them discuss current research and policy issues that will impact the country in the coming years and play a role in this year's election season. Space in each session is limited, so make sure to arrive early to ensure a seat.
Cato scholars and staff will be in attendance throughout the day and available to answer questions and talk about work in the think tank field.
Below is a schecule of their sessions.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
10:00am - 10:45am
Restoring Constitutional Liberty
[Roger Pilon, Founder and Director of the Center for Constitutional Studies]
The United States Constitution was written to ensure liberty through limited government, but today it's read to allow governments at all levels vast powers to control nearly every area of life. We'll discuss how than transition took place, and what you can do to start reversing our course, because it will take more than the courts to do so.
11:15am - 12:00pm
Privacy Under Attack
[Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy Studies]
Are the feds all up in your Facebook? Can Uncle Sam follow you home---via satellite? And why is the TSA putting hands on your mom? Come participate in this enlightening discussion of modern privacy issues and how they affect regular people.
[ LUNCH BREAK ]
1:30pm - 2:15pm
A Foreign Policy Consistent with Liberty and Peace
[Christopher Preble, Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies]
Americans have grown weary of war and of hyped fears of terrorism. Libertarian policies offer a different approach to the complex world in which we live. Whether the discussion is about U.S. relations with countries in Asia and Europe, revolution and reform in the Arab world, nuclear weapons proliferation, or the threat posed by violent extremists such as al Qaeda, libertarianism proposes strategies that promote liberty and peace, contrasting the two dominant ideologies that guide U.S. foreign policy, neoliberalism and neoconservatism.
2:45pm - 3:30pm
Free Markets: The Best Health Care You've Never Had
[Michael Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies]
The greatest trick advocates of socialized medicine ever played was to convince the American people that we don't already have it. But government hegemony is not the answer. The lack of free markets is responsible for excessive health care spending, shortages, and the dearth of cost-cutting innovations - both here at home and abroad. Only freedom can cure what ails all nations.
4:00pm - 4:45pm
Government Schooling for a Free Society? It Sounds Wrong Because It Is Wrong
[Neal McCluskey, Associate Director of the Center for Educational Freedom]
We're told that government-run schooling is essential to a free and prosperous society, that it's how people are made upwardly mobile and taught unifying values. In reality, however, government schooling forces diverse people to fight, subjugates them to the politically powerful, and limits students' potential. It's the very opposite of a how education for free people should work.
5:15pm - 6:00pm
Global Warming: How State-sponsored Science Threatens Liberty
[Patrick J. Michaels, Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies]
Science only recently became recognized as a public good, enmeshed in the political process and the distorting incentives of monopoly public funding. Global warming science and policy is archetypical of this process. A critical analysis of current science and policy reveals that it will be very difficult to prevent a loss of personal liberty and choice because of the distortions inherent in the public support of environmental science.
[ EVENING SOCIALS ]
Registration for the conference is currently open. To register, visit here.