Ari Armstrong speaking on the difference between individual rights and force at Liberty Toastmasters:
Ari does a great job of concretizing the meaning and importance of individual rights in this speech. I’m sorry to have missed the live performance!
Ari Armstrong: Individual Rights Versus Force
Mar 242011
NoodleCast #39: Stack the Deck
Oct 132010
On May 15th, I gave a short speech to Liberty Toastmasters entitled “Stack the Deck.” It offers a quick overview of the proper view of luck in life, then some practical advice on dealing with luck. Some of that practical advice was drawn from the book The Luck Factor by Richard Weisman. (The book’s conceptual framework is completely wrong, but the advice is good overall.)
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7:22 minutes
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Liberty Toastmasters
Feb 012010
This fall, I returned to Toastmasters — the super-effective organization of clubs for training people in the skills of public speaking and leadership — by joining Denver’s brand new “Liberty Toastmasters.” The club was created by Brad Beck, a classmate of mine from the Leadership Program of the Rockies (LPR). The members include most of my favorite people from that LPR class, a number of friends from Front Range Objectivism, and various other good folks.
Liberty Toastmasters is somewhat unique, in that it focuses on “issues such as personal responsibility, individual / property rights, limited government, free markets, and a strong national defense.” Of course, not all members do that effectively or consistently, but the group doesn’t assume that they do. However, I hope and expect that we will all learn to be more effective advocates for liberty — not only by cultivating our speaking and leadership skills, but also by refining and augmenting our understanding the theory and practice of individual rights in politics.
Happily, the club was written up in the Denver Examiner, with the focus on Yuriy Belits. I had the pleasure of evaluating his speech at that meeting.
If you’re interested in becoming a more effective activist, I’d definitely recommend joining a local Toastmaster club. If you’re already an experienced Toastmaster, you might think about creating a similar “Liberty Toastmasters” in your area. From what I’ve seen, it’s a great way to network with — and influence — people interested in defending this country from the statism of left and right.
