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Liberty International
Includes information about Liberty International World Conferences, Liberty Camps, publications and a blog
History
A Brief History of ISIL | ISIL
Short description of the organizations and key individuals that founded and led to what is now known as Liberty International (formerly the International Society for Individual Liberty)
"ISIL began in 1980 as Libertarian International, founded by Canadian libertarian activist and publisher Vince Miller. LI started the international libertarian conferences in Zurich, Switzerland in 1982. The current ISIL was formed in 1989 through the merger of LI with the Society for Individual Liberty, the first explicitly libertarian grassroots organization which had been founded by Jarret Wollstein, Dave Walter and Don Ernsberger in 1969. The original SIL emerged out of an historic split between conservatives and libertarians at a Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) conference in St. Louis, Missouri in 1969."
Mission
Who we are | Liberty International
"Our mission is to enhance the success of the international freedom movement by facilitating collaboration between the individuals and initiatives that are promoting liberty around the world."
Staff and Associates
Jim LarkSecretary (Board of Directors)
Vince MillerPresident, 1989-2008
Mary RuwartChair of the Board of Directors
Ken SchoollandDirector, VP for International Relations
Dave WalterTreasurer (Board of Directors)
Jarret WollsteinCo-founder, Society for Individual Liberty; Director, ISIL
Web Sites
ISIL Freedom Network
This, in part, inspired the creation of FreedomCircle.com
"Browse the links below to find libertarian and pro-freedom websites, organizations, e-texts, books, action opportunities, and much more. ... This resource directory was established in 1995 as part of Free-Market.Net: The Freedom Network. It is now published by ISIL."
Web Pages
ISIL media - YouTube
YouTube channel of the International Society for Individual Liberty
The Advocates for Self-Government Dr. Mary Ruwart
Includes photo, biographical profile, quotes from Ruwart and from reviews of
Healing Our World
"Healing Our World has been published in Russian, Serbian, Lithuanian, Rumanian and Croatian, in addition to English. The International Society for Individual Liberty has established a fund that accepts contributions for further printings in Eastern European nations. 'The Martie Ruwart Memorial Fund' is named after Ruwart's sister, who died in 1992 and was a staunch supporter of the book. ... Dr. Ruwart is an in-demand speaker on libertarian ideas ... She has spoken on libertarian communication, and other topics ... at International Society for Individual Liberty gatherings ..."
Articles
A Libertarian Odyssey, by
Ken Schoolland
Autobiographical essay; part of Walter Block's autobiography archive
"By this time I read about the work of Vince Miller, Jim Elwood, and Bruce Evoy at the International Society for Individual Liberty (ISIL) and later joined their Board. ISIL was dedicated to translating free market literature and networking globally in order to spread free market ideas. Their mission was perfectly timed with the fall of the Iron Curtain and the opening of so much of the world that had formerly prohibited free market ideas. ... Close friends, Hubert Jongen, Virgis Daukas, Kerry Pearson, Mary Ruwart, and hundreds of others in ISIL, collaborated to bring this about."
David F. Nolan - The Advocates for Self-Government
Includes photo, biography and the essay "Nolan: Innovator for Liberty" by James W. Harris
"In late 1968, the Liberty Amendment Youth Council was dissolved. [Nolan] turned over a copy of the organization’s membership list to another young libertarian he'd met, Jarret Wollstein, who used it to launch the Society for Rational Individualism (SRI), one of the first modern libertarian organizations in America. SRI quickly evolved into the Society for Individual Liberty (SIL), for years one of the most important organizations in the liberty movement. In 1989, SIL merged with Libertarian International and Groundswell-USA to become the International Society for Individual Liberty that we know today."
Jeff Riggenbach on Samuel Edward Konkin III, by
Jeff Riggenbach,
Freedom Network News, 2004
Lengthy biographical and memorial essay
"Also, Sam writes as though SIL, the Society for Individual Liberty, already existed at the time of the St. Louis YAF convention. Its predecessor organization, the Objectivist-oriented Society for Rational Individualism (founded by Jarret Wollstein), had existed for about a year at that time. Still, this is somewhat misleading. SIL was founded in St. Louis in 1969, while the YAF convention was underway across town."
The Case For a Libertarian Political Party, by
David Nolan,
The Individualist, Aug 1971
A few months before founding the Libertarian Party, Nolan presents his rationale for establishing a new political party, after discussing four other libertarian activist strategies and admitting that "political approaches are inherently coercive"
"Four years ago, at the YAF convention in Pittsburgh, there was born a unique coalition - the coalition that is known today as 'the libertarian movement'. ... Where, in 1967, we had no organizational home save the semi-hostile Young Americans for Freedom, today we have the Society for Individual Liberty."
The Story of Roy A. Childs Jr. (1949–1992), by
Jeff Riggenbach, 21 Jan 2011
Biographical essay; transcript of "The Libertarian Tradition" podcast of 12 Jan 2011
"The fall of 1969 was, of course, a busy season for the nascent libertarian movement. At the same time SRI [Society for Rational Individualism] had jumped the Randian ship and turned Rothbardian, the student activists who had made up the Libertarian Caucus of the conservative youth organization Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) had decided to walk out of YAF en masse and seek institutional support for their activities elsewhere. That fall, SRI merged with the former Libertarian Caucus of YAF to create the Society for Individual Liberty (SIL)."
Vince Miller and the International Libertarian Movement, by
Jeff Riggenbach, 1 Jul 2010
Biographical essay; including background information on the libertarian movement of the 20th century; transcript of "The Libertarian Tradition" podcast of 23 June 2010
"By the end of this meeting, the Society for Rational Individualism had taken on several of the old YAF Libertarian Caucus leaders as directors and transformed itself into the Society for Individual Liberty (SIL), the first libertarian institution established by the first generation of libertarians for whom the libertarian movement was already a fact of life by the time they got old enough to be interested in ideas ... In 1989, the Libertarian International merged with the Society for Individual Liberty and became the International Society for Individual Liberty (ISIL)."