Nick Hankoff, member of Year of Youth and Young Americans for Liberty, discusses the YAL contingent attending the CPAC 2011 Conference February 10-12, in Washington DC; Donald Rumsfeld’s pending ‘Defender of the Constitution‘ award; and how young people can change the Conservative movement for the better, while arguing for a sensible foreign policy based on libertarian non-intervention.
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Alright, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's Anti-War Radio.
Our next guest is my friend Nick Hancoff.
He's from the Young Americans for Liberty.
Welcome to the show, Nick.
Hey, Scott.
So, uh, the CPAC convention is this weekend, yeah?
Yeah, I'm getting ready, getting my bag packed, and gonna be in D.C. tomorrow.
Right on.
Well, so, are you bringing the Young Americans for Liberty crew with you?
Yeah, uh, we've got a wide, huge contingent going this year.
I was there last year, and we nearly took over the place, so I think this year we'll just nearly, nearly, nearly take over the place again.
And, uh, really, we're going there to send messages to the old folks there that, you know, there's a new brand of conservatism.
We're traditionally conservative.
We're classically liberal, as a lot of the shirts will be saying around there.
So we want to hold on to some of the values that traditional conservatives would agree with on the foreign policy front, and then also show that, you know, libertarianism in economics and libertarianism in a non-intervention, neutral, armed foreign policy sort of needs to play a role, because everything else is the opposite of that, and it's not serving the interests of young people at all.
But, you know, along with Young Americans for Liberty, I'm going to be sitting there with some anti-war radio CDs, Scott, that I got made.
I'm sure they'll go over there real well.
Yeah, so you're going to be there in spirit, you know.
Oh, there you go, in recorded MP3 version, as so often happens.
Well, so here's the thing now.
I saw on the news that Don Rumsfeld is going to win the Constitution Award, and it seems like there's some cognitive dissonance here about a bunch of Ron Paul youth types going to a place, a convention that's sponsored by people who really prefer the Don Rumsfeld interpretation of the Constitution.
This is something that was kind of going on last year, too, where, you know, Dick Cheney last year got a huge reception, and so did Ron Paul.
So what sort of place can Ron Paul and Dick Cheney both fill rooms full of people who love them?
And it's going to be fun because I think a lot of what we experienced last year was you're either waltzing right into the room where you can easily find a seat, or they've completely blocked you off and there's no entrance in at all.
So we're going to definitely try and see what we can see about Donald Rumsfeld receiving an award.
I think it's just so quaint and petty.
The stature that he saw in America during the time when we were first invading Iraq in the first couple years that we were there, his stature was so elevated.
And now, even with this award, it's just ringing so hollow now, and it's such a sham, an obvious sham.
So, you know, there's going to be plenty of crossing over this year, where I think last year there was a lot of segregation, if you will, between the old right-wingers and the new thoughtful libertarian mind.
Sounds like it's going to be interesting.
The whole thing going to be on C-SPAN or what?
Yeah, I know that Tom Woods is going to be speaking and his speech is covered on C-SPAN.
Really?
Yeah, I heard about that.
That's music to my ears right there.
Yeah, so it's going to be a wild time at CPAC, and I remember last year, you know, there are the haters out there who just see libertarians.
It's like they can smell us a mile away or something, and they come right up and they get in our face and give us a hard time.
But it's actually not so hostile a lot of the time.
I think we are there for a good reason, not just there to cause mischief, but to let people know that there's a real remnant of liberty left somewhere and that we can learn from each other.
And so there is some open mind there.
I think it's a good opportunity for AntiWar.com, and I think it's a good opportunity for those who care enough about liberty to go there and spread that message there.
And yeah, CPAC is going to be Ron Paul's event again this year.
That's my prediction, and I don't see it going anywhere else.
The conservatives are, I think, getting a real taste of what the liberty movement is all about after these elections.
They're going to have to check their egos at the door and realize that the reality upon them is that the youth are going to decide the future of conservatism, and they can give every award, every medal they want to Donald Rumsfeld, but it's just the more they try to aggrandize him, the smaller he becomes.
And so I think all the efforts of the CPAC body from the top down are just going to be completely subverted and submerged even by the liberty movement that will be there.
I'm really excited to see some old friends, and we're all bringing our new friends out there, too.
So it's going to be a measure of our growth and our success over the past year.
And do a nose-call part, by the way, Scott, to your show.
You've educated a lot of young people out there, and so a lot of people are going there with facts on their side when we get into these debates.
And so thank you a lot for supporting that portion of the movement over the past year.
Yeah, cool.
Well, thanks.
Yeah, you know, I always like right-wingers better when they're out of power, and I guess they have the house now.
But when the president is a Democrat, right-wingers are a little bit better.
But I would just try to recommend as best I can, I guess, arguing your position from more right-wing than them.
You know, like if you've got to argue the drug war, you explain it in economic terms in the same way that, well, what if they outlawed guns?
Then you'd have to go to black market gun dealers who would be dangerous criminals instead of your local gun shop, you know?
But it wouldn't get rid of the guns.
It would just drive up the price and put criminals in charge, right?
Well, same thing kind of thing, you know, that sort of deal.
Be more conservative than all of them and push them to libertarianism that way.
And I expect even more so than these types of issues that we debate.
And, you know, we debated all the domestic issues and things last year.
I think this year they're going to want to talk a lot about Tunisia and Egypt and Saudi Arabia and just the whole way of interpreting what's going on in Central East Asia.
And, you know, what we've been learning and hearing from your show is that, you know, this is a perfect opportunity for us to bring up American foreign policy in a smart and intelligent way and not just a reactionary way.
And, you know, I want to say thanks again.
And as the world gets smaller here, NPR Radio is getting bigger and bigger.
Peace it up, Scott.
Thank you.
Hey, thanks a lot.
Everybody, that's Nick Hancoff from the Young Americans for Liberty.
Why not join them at CPAC this weekend?
