Seven Capacities for the Pursuit of Liberty

By Eric O’Keefe
Published on Friday, February 01, 2008
ARTICLES

The Soviet Union collapsed, the Berlin Wall was torn down, capitalism spread through Eastern Europe and Asia, and billions of people moved from perennial poverty to modern comfort in a single generation. The remaining pockets of communism are the economic backwaters of North Korea and Cuba.

Could history offer a more stunning display of the bankruptcy of socialism and the superiority of liberty? Didn't we win the war of ideas? And doesn't that mean we are pre-ordained to leave our grandchildren a world safe for liberty?

Yes and no. We won the war of ideas but the socialists did not concede. Convinced their discredited theories could still work, they merely changed their label to "progressive" and moved into the environmental movement, the labor movement and the media. From their new vantage, they are mounting a patient and persistent fight to centralize power and force us to obey their commands.

After discussions with Art Pope and others (see related cover article), my wife Leslie Graves and I began working with SPN president Tracie Sharp to develop a strategic framework for reclaiming the initiative against the surging Left. The goal is to create a counter-surge of institutions and policies that will move states toward greater freedom and limited governments.

We have identified seven capacities that a successful strategy must include: (1) providing intellectual ammunition; (2) investigating and exposing corruption; (3) using 501(c)4s to block tax hikes and win other legislative battles; (4) offsetting media bias by responding rapidly and effectively to disinformation; (5) launching strategic litigation; (6) identifying, recruiting and training likely candidates for public office who are philosophically aligned with the principles of a free society; and (7) training organizations to amplify their message through blogging/new media.

Intellectual Ammunition

Intellectual ammunition has been our arena of greatest strength nationally and in most of the states. This foundation is solid. However, in most states there is still a need to develop and market a customized and credible policy agenda informed by a thorough understanding of current political circumstances. We are much farther behind in the other six capacities.

Investigative Capacity

Newspapers around the country are laying off investigative reporters, meanwhile government continues to grow in complexity and corruption. Who will uncover this corruption? It will be increasingly left to the non-profit world. The Tennessee Center for Policy Research and the John Locke Foundation have set the standard here, exposing, respectively, Al Gore's giant utility bills and bribery that landed some state legislators in the prisons of North Carolina.

Political Capacity

Taxpayer groups in the states have had many victories over the years, but successes are usually short-lived because most 501(c)4 groups are part-time operations that alone cannot stop the relentless government quest for more of our money. We need full-time, non-partisan political operations in each state to sustain the movement. Americans for Prosperity is rapidly expanding in this arena. These political organizations will become among the most important customers for the work product of our state think tanks

Fight Media Bias Capacity

We can improve our capacity to counter media bias most effectively by training bloggers and building wikis. Together they can circumvent the old media and quell its leftist bias. In addition, we need a network of volunteers monitoring the old media and cooperating with each other so that errors are corrected and bias exposed. Some of this infrastructure is developing spontaneously, but it must be nurtured and supported if it is going to achieve its full potential.

Legal Capacity

Strategic litigation for liberty has been raised to an art form by the Institute for Justice. IJ co-founder Clint Bolick, who last year set up the Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation at the Goldwater Institute, wrote in the July/August 2007 SPN News: "Public policy paired with litigation can pack a powerful one-two punch in the fight for freedom." State-based think tanks and advocacy groups should take his words to heart and seize opportunities to increase litigation in their states.

Leadership Training Capacity

Leadership training and candidate recruitment may be the biggest void in the freedom fight. These functions have often been left to political parties more interested in power than principle. Local governments and school districts employ 15 million people. We need friends of freedom trained to participate at all levels of government. Ned Ryun has formed a new organization, American Majority, to aid and develop leadership training programs in the states.

New Media Capacity

Last, but not least, we need to increase our new media capacity. Blogging and wiki platforms can tremendously accelerate the spread of information and increase the transparency of government. Most government activity is obscured and concealed from scrutiny. School district and municipal corruption are becoming epidemic, as conventional media has neither the inclination or resources to pursue it. Transparency is a powerful political trend; when we combine it with new media training and entrepreneurship, we can enlist volunteer networks of thousands to scrutinize records and post their results on wikis.

Our challenges are many. Who is best positioned to develop these capacities and lead us out of this mess? It is the leaders, the donors and the employees already connected with the organizations of the State Policy Network. No one better understands markets, the rule of law and the political system.

Charlies Koch wrote in The Science of Success, "Sitting back and excusing yourself from action because you lack authority is unacceptable. Principled entrepreneurs in the marketplace face such challenges all the time. After identifying an opportunity, entrepreneurs must persuade investors, lenders, suppliers, customers and others to fund or otherwise support their vision for a new venture. Successful entrepreneurs are not deterred by their lack of authority to control resources."

You are the political entrepreneurs who must seize the initiative, call forth the needed talent and capital, and coordinate their application toward policy victories that beat back the onslaught of the Left and revitalize the institutions of liberty. We at the Sam Adams Alliance look forward to assisting you in these historic efforts.

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Eric O'Keefe is chairman of the Sam Adams Alliance. He can be reached at eokeefe@samadamsalliance.org.

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