L. K. Samuels (born December 7, 1951), also known as Lawrence Samuels, is an American author, classical liberal, and libertarian activist. He is best known as the editor and contributing author of Facets of Liberty: A Libertarian Primer and In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action. He coined the phrase "social chaology", which refers to the studies of complex, holistic, and self-organizing nature of society in relationship to the linear, predatory and "planned chaos" predispositions of government.[1][2]
Samuels was born in Huntington Park, California, and moved two years later to the city of Fullerton in Orange County, California. He became politically active at Sunny Hills High School after listening to a speech by Dana Rohrabacher, who was later elected to U.S. Congress. Samuels co-organized a chapter of Speak-Out with Bob Conaway, and published an underground newspaper after a chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) became active at his high school.[3] He joined Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) in summer of 1969 and later became the Vice Chairman of Orange County YAF, which had 15-20 affiliate chapters on high schools and college campuses.[4] At a journalism convention, Samuels won second place in the "on-the-spot-editorial" competition at the 1971 Beta Phi Gamma National Convention in Los Angeles, California. In 1973, he won a scholarship to attend the "Seminar on China Studies for Sino-American Youth" and spent five weeks in Taiwan and South Korea.
Political activities
After interviewing Robert LeFevre, president of Rampart College in Santa Ana, for a college newspaper, Samuels organized the Jefferson-Libertarian Caucus within YAF in 1973.[5] In the same year he became the editor and publisher of The New Horizon, an underground newspaper at Fullerton College, while writing columns for the campus newspaper The Hornet.[6] Samuels was briefly the editor-in-chief of the official campus newspaper.
Designed by L.K. Samuels, the PorcuPeace symbol combines the twin principles of self-defense and non-aggression.
At University of California, Fullerton in 1973, Samuels became the founder and chairman of Society for Libertarian Life (SLL).[7] The student organization sponsored and co-sponsored speeches by Prof. Tibor Machan, Phillip Abbott Luce, Kenneth Gregg, Jr., Prof. George W. Trivoli, George H. Smith, Prof. Joel Spring, Prof. Nathaniel Branden, Prof. John Hospers, John Pugsley, Kenneth Grubbs, Jr., Sy Leon, Prof., David Bergland, Robert LeFevre, Jack Matonis, and Karl Bray.[8][9][10][11] SLL published several news journals, The New Libertarian Horizon and later Libertas Review, produced a dozen position papers and spearheaded a draft-card burning demonstration in 1979, which received national attention.[12][13] Samuels conducted a series of anti-tax demonstrations at IRS offices for almost a decade.[14]
In 1979 Samuels organized the Voluntary Census Committee to oppose the decrease of privacy by the 1980 Census with the "Count Me Out" campaign.[15][16] Society for Individual Liberty (SIL), the largest libertarian organization in the country at the time, awarded SLL and Samuels the 1975–76 "outstanding local libertarian organization" in the nation. In 1978 SLL sponsored a debate between State Senator John Briggs and libertarian gay-rights activist Reverend Eric Garris on Briggs-sponsored Prop. 6. This Californian initiative would have banned homosexuals from teaching in Californian schools. Briggs failed to appear at the debate and was sued by SLL and attorney David Bergland.[17][18]
Libertarian Feminism symbol designed by L.K. Samuels in the mid 1970s
In 1974 Samuels joined the Peace and Freedom Party and was elected to the PFP Central Committee in Orange County. He represented the 39th Congressional district as a delegate to the PFP 1974 convention in Sacramento, which resulted in a split between libertarian and socialist factions.[19] The libertarian faction was recognized as the legal PFP for almost two years. Samuels worked with feminist-libertarian Elizabeth Keathley's PFP campaign for California governor in 1974.[20][21] Samuels was expelled by the socialist faction in 1976 after the entire PFP State Central Committee resigned and joined the Libertarian Party.[22][23]
In the late 1970s, Samuels supported the founding of Rampart Institute. In 1980 Rampart Institute became a 503(c)(3) non-profit educational foundation, and Samuels became its president. Robert LeFevre, founder of Rampart College and Harry Hoiles, owner of the Santa Ana Register, were on its board of directors.[24] Samuels was editor of its quarterly journal Rampart Individualist, and he was the managing editor of the bi-monthly New Rampart.
Samuels managed two Freeland Conferences (1983–84) in Long Beach, California to examine ways to create communities on floating islands, space settlements and orbiting spaceports free of government coercion. Speakers included Spencer McCallum, Gary Hudson, Poul Anderson, Robert LeFevre, Anthony Hargis, Samuel E. Konkin III, Carol Moore and Jeff Hummel, Barry Reid and Terry Savage.
In 1992, Samuels sold his typesetting and graphics business and moved to Monterey County. He became involved in real estate and real estate investment and served as Northern Vice Chair of the Libertarian Party of California (2003–2007). An occasional writer for lewrockwell.com and Campaign for Liberty, he is one of the four founders of the Foundation to End Drug Unfairness Policies (FED-UP), an anti-drug war organization that sponsors speeches by Jack Herer, Ed Rosenthal, Judge Jim Gray, Valerie Corral, and Lynnette Shaw, and provided support to medical marijuana clinics.[29]
Samuels managed the campaign against Measure Q in Monterey County, California, a half-cent sales tax initiative in 2003. The countywide tax was initiated to increase funding for the money-losing Natividad Medical Center, a county-run hospital. Although the proponents for the sales tax increase spent almost 100 times as much as the opponents (approximately $500,000), the measure lost. Natividad Medical Center remained open, despite claims during the campaign that it would close, making record profits of nearly $13 million in the 2009-2010 financial year.[30] Once a columnist for "Libertarian Perspective," Samuels is one of the founders and the vice chair of the Seaside Taxpayers Association.
In 2008 he was elected chairman of the Project Area Committee (PAC), a citizens committee to advise the Seaside Redevelopment Agency and the city of Seaside over eminent domain issues.[31] Samuels is the winner of the 2007 Karl Bray Memorial Award, presented by the Samuel Adams Society.[32]
Samuels was active in the anti-war movement during the second war in Iraq, organizing peace rallies and speeches, mostly under the non-interventionist[33] organization Libertarians for Peace and the Peace Coalition of Monterey County.[34][35][36] Samuels designed the "porcupeace" logo in 2008, which displays a peace symbol inside of a porcupine, created to give libertarians their own peace symbol.[37] His magnum opus book, In Defense of Chaos: the Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, was published in 2013 by Cobden Press. In the book, he writes that war is chaos and that "government in and of itself is the foremost agent for destroying order and imposing chaos."[38]
In 2009 Samuels ran for city council for the unestablished Town of Carmel Valley as one of the leaders opposed to turning rural Carmel Valley into a city. Saying he did not want to become a politician, he asked voters: "don't vote for me, don't vote for the city." Samuels finished11th out of the 15 candidates with 4.55% of the vote.[39] The vote for incorporation failed.[40] Samuels organized and hosts (co-host Jonathan Krost) a weekly radio show on KRXA 540AM in Sand City called "Left Coast Liberty: The Classical Liberal Hour" on Monday evenings. The show's first broadcast was on May 28, 2012.[41]
In 2021, Samuels became the editor of Letters of Liberty, which posts published and unpublished letters to the editor.[42][non-primary source needed] In 2023, Samuels was elected as a "Platinum Founder" and Board Member of California Arts and Science Institute (CASI), a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization started in 2023 and located in Carmel-by-the-Sea California.[43]
Bibliography
Samuel's published works include:
Facets of Liberty: A Libertarian Primer, Freedom Press and Rampart Institute, 2nd edition, 2009, first published 1985. ISBN978-0-578-00310-8
The Peace and Freedom Party (PFP) is a socialist political party in the United States which operates mostly in California. It was formed in 1966 from anti–Vietnam War and pro–civil rights movements.
The Nolan Chart is a political spectrum diagram created by American libertarian activist David Nolan in 1969, charting political views along two axes, representing economic freedom and personal freedom. It expands political view analysis beyond the traditional one-dimensional left–right/progressive-conservative divide, positioning libertarianism outside the traditional spectrum.
Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) is a conservative youth activism organization that was founded in 1960 as a coalition between traditional conservatives and libertarians on American college campuses. It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and the chapter affiliate of Young America's Foundation. The purposes of YAF are to advocate public policies consistent with the Sharon Statement, which was adopted by young conservatives at a meeting at the home of William F. Buckley in Sharon, Connecticut, on September 11, 1960.
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Robert LeFevre was an American libertarian businessman, radio personality, and primary theorist of autarchism.
Alan W. Bock was an American libertarian author. He was a senior editorial writer and former editorial page editor for the Orange County Register for over 25 years. He wrote regular columns for WorldNetDaily, LewRockwell.com, and Antiwar.com and was a contributing editor at Liberty magazine. He had also been published in The American Conservative.
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Liberty International is a non-profit, libertarian educational and networking organization based in Dallas, Texas. It encourages activism in libertarian and individual rights areas through the 'freely chosen strategies' of its members. Its history dates back to 1969 as the Society for Individual Liberty, founded by Don Ernsberger and Dave Walter. The previous name (ISIL) was adopted in 1989 after a merger with Libertarian International was coordinated by Vincent Miller, who became president of the new organization.
Rampart College, also referred to as the Freedom College was an unaccredited American libertarian educational institution established in 1956 by Robert LeFevre in Colorado. The college was a four-year school for followers of LeFevre's autarchism and classical liberals. It was originally founded as the Freedom School.
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Society for Libertarian Life (SLL) was one of the early libertarian student organizations that eventually charted chapters and had a nationwide presence in the United States. Founded in 1973 at California State University, Fullerton (CSUF), SLL was considered one of the largest and most active libertarian organizations along the West Coast. By 1980, it was reported to have 2,000 members.
Rampart Institute is an incorporated non-profit educational foundation officially launched in 1980 to “bring public awareness to libertarian/individualist ideals through a unique education program,” and to revive some of the activities associated with the defunct Colorado Springs-based Rampart College (1963–1975) and Freedom School (1956–1973).
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Alliance of Libertarian Activists (ALA) was a libertarian student organization primarily located in the San Francisco Bay area, mostly active at University of California, Berkeley, established in 1965–1966, and considered the first campus group to adopt the term “libertarian.” ALA gained members from both the purged Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) Moïse Tshombe chapter and the Cal Conservatives for Political Action (CCPA) at UC Berkeley, which was a continuation of the 1964 Cal Students for Goldwater, both founded and first chaired by Dan Rosenthal.
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