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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. [1] 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. [2] By 1980, it was reported to have 2,000 members. [3]
SLL rose out of a non-credited experimental college course at California State Fullerton (now California State University at Fullerton—CSUF) in 1973. Lawrence Samuels, a third-year commercial art and journalism student, taught the college course on the fundamentals of libertarianism. [2] After the class concluded, the participants launched the Students for a Libertarian Society. Two years later the name was changed to include students and community members.
Samuels became SLL's first chairman and is considered its founder. In an interview, he claimed that SLL's primary goal as the elimination of victimless crime laws. [4] In later years Samuels became the national chair and executive director until he moved to central California.
The organizations first publication was entitled The Libertarian New Horizon until it was changed later to Libertas Review: A Journal of Peace and Liberty. The organization also adopted a declaration of principles (May 5, 1973)—"The Libertas Statement", which was critiqued in Ayn Rand's book, The Voice of Reason: Essay in Objective Thought. [5]
SLL produced a prolific amount of educational material. In a newspaper interview of SLL leaders in 1974, the Fullerton News Tribune reported that the organization had "an entire propaganda machine of books, newspapers and magazines" touting the libertarian cause. [6]
The organization arranged a number of notable speeches by academicians and authors from across the nation. The first public activity was a lecture by author Phillip Abbott Luce on in March 1974. [7] Luce had defected from the pro-Red Chinese Progressive Labor Party in 1965. Before his break with the PLP, Luce had organized trips with Jerry Rubin to meet with Fidel Castro in Cuba. [8]
Luce's speech was controversial. During his speech, he advocated the "demise of tax-supported education," and that taxation could be considered legal theft. [9] The "uproar in facility circles was extensive," since the speech was fund by the university. [2] Two other organizations co-sponsored the event, CSUF Economic Association, which provided the funding, and the California Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). [10]
Another controversial speech sponsored by SLL was the appearance of Elizabeth Keathley, a 21-year-old UCLA student who referred to herself as a leader in the feminist and libertarian movement. [11] She spoke at CSUF as the Peace and Freedom Party's candidate for California governor. A former Maoist, she touted the virtues of capitalism, libertarianism and anarchism, telling the audience that "Government keeps the people poor and limits business growth." [12] Earlier, she had campaigned in the nude at Venice beach, proclaiming that she had nothing to hide. [12]
The largest paper in Orange County, California, The Register , described SLL as "not a band of political activists, but rather an educational group dedicated to infecting the campus air with pro-freedom ideas—a bias of which they are uncompromising." [13] Also in 1975, an editorial writer for The Register in Orange County, Ken Grubbs Jr., spoke to SLL in Anaheim on "The State of Libertarianism Today." [14]
In 1976 other speakers included Prof. Tibor Machan, author of The Libertarian Alternative. A professor of philosophy at State University of New York at Fredonia, New York, he spoke about the "Assault on Human Rights." [15] [16] It was cosponsored by the CSUF Philosophy Club.
In the same year, Dr. Nathaniel Branden, a former associate of novelist Ayn Rand, spoke at an SLL-sponsored speech at Fullerton College on economic and civil liberties. Devon Showley, a physicist at Cypress College, emceed the event. [17]
Other notable speakers included attorney and Libertarian Party candidate for U.S. Vice President David Bergland at Chapman College in the city of Orange, on 1976 presidential election and the nature of law, [18] USC professor of philosophy John Hospers, [19] and professor of educational policy studies, Joel Spring. [20]
In 1977 SLL co-sponsored with the Cato Institute and the William Koch Foundation two lectures by Austrian economist Prof. Murray Rothbard at the University of California, Irvine. Some 200 students attended the evening lecture on "The Economic Future." [21]
From its early days, SLL had affiliated with the nationwide libertarian organization known as Society for Individual Liberty (SIL), which was founded after the infamous split between traditionalists and libertarians at the YAF 1969 national convention. [22] In 1976 SLL won SIL's 1975-1976 "outstanding local libertarian organization" award.
For over a decade, SLL organized annual anti-tax demonstrations in Southern California. One of the largest occurred in 1976 in downtown Santa Ana, California, along with the Libertarian Party. Protesters staged a "mock funeral, complete with coffin and flowers" which represented the "Tomb of the Unknown Taxpayer." [23] According to news reports, Karl Bray, a famous tax resister who had been imprisoned at Terminal Island was denied bail "to prevent him from attending" or speaking at the anti-tax rally. [24] Karl Bray's wife spoke in behalf of her husband. [25] The rally coincided with National Tax Protest Day.
In late October 1978, SLL sponsored a debate between state Senator John V. Briggs, R-Fullerton, and libertarian pro-gay rights activist Rev. Eric Garris at CSUF. Hours before the debate, SLL co-sponsored an anti-Prop. 6 rally, headlined by Ed Clark, the Libertarian Party candidate for Governor, and later a candidate for U.S. President. [26]
Moderated by The Register editor of the editorial page, Ken Grubbs Jr., the debate centered on Sen. Briggs' Proportion 6 (Briggs Initiative) that would ban gay teachers and administrators from working in public education. The proposition would have made it illegal for gays and lesbians, and potentially anyone else who upheld gay rights, from working in California's public school system.
Over 300 students attended, but Senator Briggs failed to appear at the debate, substituting at the last moment UCI professor George Kent. SLL and three other plaintiffs filed a $3,500 breach of contract suit against Sen. Briggs and California Defend Our Children. [27] Newport Beach attorney David Bergland volunteered to take the case pro-bono. [28] When the suit was filed, Briggs was quoted as saying that the lawsuit was ridiculous, similar to "suing someone for breaking a date." [29] Don Sizemore, an aide for Briggs, remarked that the senator decision not to debate was due to receiving "several threats on his life" and that the debate site offered poor security. [30] The lawsuit failed two years later, but so did the Briggs Initiative, by a wide margin.
One of SLL's largest demonstration and media event occurred on May 1, 1979 at CSUF with two hours of rock music, anti-war songs and anti-draft speeches. The demonstration garnished nationwide media attention with front-page newspaper coverage along with representatives from all three LA area TV network stations. [31] [32]
With over 100 student onlookers, national SLL chair Lawrence Samuels took a match and burned his draft card to protest Carter administration and U.S. Congress attempts to reinstate the draft and compulsory draft registration. Other anti-draft speakers included libertarian historian Kenneth Gregg, Jr.; SLL chair at CSUF, Howard Hinman; Association of Libertarian Feminists, Janice Allen; economics CSUF instructor, Prof. Jack High; and, California Libertarian Party leader, Dan Mahaffey. [33]
Three other SLL chapters in Orange County arrange anti-draft protests at local college campuses, which were also co-sponsored by the San Francisco-based Students for a Libertarian Society (SLS).
An offshoot of SLL, the Voluntary Census Committee (VCC) gathered census forms from protesters across the nation in 1980. During a protest, the census questionnaires were torn and burned in public view. [34]
In a New York Times article, Samuels "cited the use of census data during World War II to round up Americans of Japanese ancestry." [35] In another newspaper story, Danny Twedt from "the 2,000-member Society for Libertarian Life in California," worried about the loss of privacy due to the U.S. census. [36]
One protest letter distributed to reporters read: "Here is my census form. Do with it as you wish. I want no part of it…for you to fold, spindle, mutilate and burn." [37] SLL and VCC handed out buttons in opposition to the 1980 census that read "Count Me Out." [38]
Robert LeFevre, author, TV broadcaster and founder of Rampart College in Colorado (1911–1986) presented two SLL-sponsored lectures at Santa Ana College that were published as two separate booklets by SLL and Rampart Institute Press.
LeFevre's "Good Government: Hope or Illusion?" speech in May 1977 was turned into a 32-page booklet. [39] [40] [41]
LeFevre's "Does Government Protection Protect?" speech on in May 1978 was turned into a 42-page booklet. Asserting that "Governments have provided us with laws of retaliation, not laws of protection," LeFevre spoke to a large college crowd. [42] [43] [44]
Over 45 issue papers and posters were produced from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s. [45] There were a number of SLL ad hoc committees or offshoots including Voluntary Census Committee (VCC), Libertarian Anarchist Alliance. Freedom of Speech Coalition, libertarian faction within the California Peace Freedom Party in California, Freeland I, II and III New/Free Country Conference of 1983 to 1985, Libertarians for Educational Choice (LEC), Rampart Institute, six The Future of Freedom Conference and the Libertarian Supper Club of Orange County operated by the main co-founders Jack Dean and Dyanne Peterson.
Under the direction of Bradford J. Rodriguez, SLL was one of the first libertarian organizations to set up its own computerized bulletin board and electronic mailbox by 1983. [46]
SLL's advisory board included many prominent libertarians: Prof. Murray Rothbard, Robert LeFevre, Prof. John Hospers, Robert Anton Wilson, Prof. Thomas Hazlett, Prof. Leonard Liggio, Karl Hess, Harry Hoiles, Prof. David Bergland, Prof. Tibor Machan, Dana Rohrabacher, Prof. Charles W. Baird, Eric Garris, George H. Smith, Tonie Nathan, Shawn Steel, Ed Clark, Prof. Jack High, John Pugsley, etc.
Major SLL leaders included: Howard Hinman, Rod Boyer, Bradford J. Rodriguez, Kevin Kordes, Daniel d'Avignon, Kenneth R. Gregg. Jr., Jim Gallagher, Barry Turnbull, Paul O'Neil, David Moore, Pat Walsh, Danny Twedt, Pam Maltzman, Neal Glass, Alan Heath, Ted Barnes, Judi Barnes, Karen Poe, Ted Rogers, Bob Blair, Ray Irvine and Jeff Smith [47]
By the late 1980s, SLL began to fade away as many of their long-time leaders moved to other areas.
Fullerton is a city located in northern Orange County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 143,617.
California State University, Fullerton is a public university in Fullerton, California. With a total enrollment of more than 41,000, it has the largest student body of the 23-campus California State University (CSU) system, and its graduate student body of more than 5,000 is one of the largest in the CSU and in all of California. As of fall 2016, the school had 2,083 faculty, of which 782 were on the tenure track.
Phillip Chen is an American politician and member of the California State Assembly. He is a Republican representing the 55th district, encompassing small parts of Los Angeles, Orange, and San Bernardino Counties. The district includes the cities of Diamond Bar, Rowland Heights, Brea, Yorba Linda, and Chino Hills. Prior to being elected to the state assembly, he was a school board trustee for the Walnut Valley Unified School District.
Robert LeFevre was an American libertarian businessman, radio personality, and primary theorist of autarchism.
The Freedom School was located in Colorado, United States, offering a series of lectures by libertarian theorist Robert LeFevre from 1957 to 1968. LeFevre extended this work to the related Rampart College, an unaccredited four-year school, in 1963. Both shared the same campus. In 1965, a flood devastated the campus, and the school and college were moved to Santa Ana, California, where they lasted until at late 1975. They were succeeded by the Rampart Institute. LeFevre stepped down as president in 1973, succeeded by Sy Leon. A new Freedom School was established in January 2010 to carry on in the LeFevre tradition.
Eric Garris is an activist in the libertarian movement in the United States, reaching back to the Vietnam War. He is the founder and webmaster of a daily nonpartisan, news source Antiwar.com which was launched in 1995.
The California State University, Fullerton, massacre was an incident of mass murder committed by a custodian, Edward Charles Allaway, on July 12, 1976, at California State University, Fullerton, in Fullerton, California, United States. It was the worst mass murder in Orange County until the 2011 Seal Beach shooting, in which eight people died.
Harbor Boulevard is a north–south road corridor in the counties of Los Angeles and Orange. One of the busiest routes in Orange County, the thoroughfare passes through some of the most densely populated areas in the region and carries about 8 percent of the county's bus riders. The route provides access for local residents to travel to work and for drivers travelling from Valley Boulevard in the City of Industry via Fullerton Road to Newport Beach.
Rampart College was an unaccredited libertarian educational institution established by Robert LeFevre in Colorado, United States, in 1956. The college was a four-year school for classical liberals and individualist anarchists.
The Cal State Fullerton Titans football program represented California State University, Fullerton from the 1970 through 1992 seasons. The Titans originally competed as a member of the California Collegiate Athletic Association from 1970 to 1973 before moving to the Pacific Coast Athletic Association in 1974 where they remained through the 1991 season. The Titans would compete in their final year as an I-A Independent prior to the program being disbanded. Fullerton played its home games at multiple stadiums throughout their history with the most recent being Titan Stadium, in Fullerton, California.
The Cal State Fullerton Titans are the athletic teams that represent California State University, Fullerton.
The Cal State Fullerton Titans baseball team represents California State University, Fullerton in NCAA Division I college baseball.
L.K. Samuels, 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.
Occupy Orange County is a Southern California chapter of the Occupy movement, which began with a rally of over 1,000 people at Irvine City Hall on October 15, 2011. Occupy OC has helped victims of what they called "fraudclosure" to delay their evictions. Members regularly protest political fundraisers, for example as the satirical "Billionaires for Romney."
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Ernest A. Becker was an American tennis player, coach, and college athletics administrator. He was a founding dean, first athletic director, and important influence at the beginning of Orange County State College, which became California State University, Fullerton. According to the Orange County Register, Becker
typed the first college catalog and launched the first student newspaper. He also staged an amazingly successful attention-getting event designed to put the young campus on the map: the "First Intercollegiate Elephant Race in Human History," held in 1962. It started as a joke but drew more than a dozen entries from universities around the world and was covered in 82 news publications. The elephants were rented from a Hollywood studio, and the largest was ridden by the editor of the Harvard University student newspaper, the Crimson.
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The Cal State Fullerton Titans women's basketball team is the basketball team that represents California State University, Fullerton in Fullerton, California. The school's team currently competes in the Big West Conference.
The 1986 Cal State Fullerton Titans softball team represented California State University, Fullerton in the 1986 NCAA Division I softball season. The Titans were coached by Judi Garman, who led her seventh season. The Titans finished with a record of 57–9–1. They competed in the Pacific Coast Athletic Association, where they finished first with a 22–5–1 record.
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