I went to FreedomFest 2022 in Las Vegas, NV. It was held at the Mirage. It ran from July 13th through the 16th, 2022. There were a huge number of sessions. I attended several, and unlike last time, I took notes for most of the sessions I attended. I also attended two films shown as part of the Anthem Film Festival, which runs concurrently with FreedomFest.
FreedomFest 2022 set an attendance record of roughly 4400 people.
On the drive out and back, I met with several people from Glibertarians and some H&R refugees who did not come over to Glibertarians. It was great meeting everyone. The last stop on my trip was at SP’s memorial service. I’m saddened that she has passed, but it was a fitting and good service. RIP SP.
This will be the first in a series of articles. I have a lot of notes. I will break up my FreedomFest coverage into one article for each day.
I missed several of the earlier sessions on the first day. The first sessions I attended were the big talks on the main stage starting at 4:30 PM. These talks were ten to fifteen minutes each.
Spike Cohen
Spike Cohen went first at 4:30 PM. The title of his talk was “Turning the Tide Towards Liberty.” His idea is to create a culture of liberty by showing people liberty works. To do that, he started an organization called You Are The Power.
You Are The Power sounds to me like an attempt at community organizing using liberty and libertarian principles as a basis. The idea behind the group is to find problems at a local level which people across the political spectrum agree are a problem. You use that to build rapport with people and introduce liberty based solutions.
An example Spike Cohen brought up involved Joshua Rohrer and his service dog in Gastonia, NC. You Are The Power’s involvement with Rohrer is mentioned on their website under the “Accomplishments” section. Unfortunately, there is no direct link that I can find.
Gastonia, NC police arrested Rohrer on a panhandling charge. Rohrer was also charged with resisting arrest. The police tased Rohrer’s service dog. The service dog fled the scene and died when a car hit the dog.
Cohen said the first step in assisting Rohrer was to get the police’s body cam footage released to the public. Rohrer, his attorney, and a few others outside law enforcement had seen the video, but the video was not public. At the time of FreedomFest, the police had not released the body cam footage but the courts had dismissed the panhandling charge.
Since FreedomFest, in early August 2022, the police released the body cam footage after a NC state court ordered them to release the footage. The police officers involved won’t be charged.
Tuttle Twins
Connor Boyack and Daniel Harmon went next to talk about the Tuttle Twins. Connor Boyack is the author of the books. Daniel Harmon created a Tuttle Twins TV show.
Boyack told us how being mentioned on CNN led to a huge increase in book sales. He also talked about a new Tuttle Twins history book, which was available for sale at the book store in the exhibition hall. I bought a copy.
Daniel Harmon introduced the Tuttle Twins TV show. The show centers around two children learning history from their grandmother. Their grandmother owns a time travelling scooter, which she uses to take the children to various points in history. He showed part of one episode. I enjoyed the clip. You can view full episodes on Youtube.
Jenny Beth Martin
Jenny Beth Martin of the Tea Party Patriots spoke next. The only notes I have on her talk is that the last Supreme Court term was the topic and that she called it a huge rollback of the administrative state. I don’t remember anything else of her talk.
Magatte Wade
Magatte Wade spoke about how liberty and free market capitalism can help Africa. She opened up her talk with a dig against BLM stating they aren’t serious about Black lives because they do not care about Africa. She talked about examples of how free market and less government interface helped Africans. Rwanda has engaged in economic reform and is now one of the fastest growing economies in Africa. The Central African Republic now has Bitcoin as legal tender.
She also said the Left thinks they have a monopoly on care and they are wrong. She talked about the corrosive effects the Left’s attempts to help have on Africans. She has worked against these effects by teaching and mentoring African women. She mentioned one woman who said after a teaching and mentoring session, “I now know that I’m not inferior.”
While working on this post, I found an interview she did with Jordan Peterson. She goes more in depth about some things she brought up at her FreedomFest talk.
Jeffrey Hazlett
Jeffrey Hazlett of the C-Suite Network spoke next. I only have two things in my notes about his talk.
One is that he had to pick up Ralph Nader for some event. Hazlett, inspired by Nader’s car safety advocacy, picked Nader up in a 1976 Ford Pinto. Nader refused to get into the car.
The other story involved Hazlett meeting his boyhood hero, Jacques Cousteau. At the meeting Cousteau told him about a near-death experience while SCUBA diving. Cousteau’s diving partner saved him. Cousteau told Hazlett to not be “scared when you are in good company.”
Steve Forbes
Steve Forbes then gave a talk on inflation.
Forbes talked about causes of inflation. He talked about how increasing the money supply drives down the value of money. He also talked about non-monetary causes. He states that inflation from these non-monetary events tends to end quickly after the event ends. For inflation from non-monetary events, the best thing the government can do is to leave things alone. Otherwise, the government will drag out the inflation. He reminded the crowd that government takes wealth, it does not create wealth. Also, while the government cannot create wealth, government can create an environment conducive to creating wealth.
Forbes added that inflation does more than drive down the value of money. Inflation, according to Forbes, destroys trust and undermines social cohesion. An inflationary environment encourages speculation and short term time preference.
Forbes ended his talk with by reiterating his support for the gold standard.
Treasure Investment Corporation
Michael Shepard and Mark Russo from the Treasure Investment Corporation presented the unveiling of the world’s largest cast silver sculpture: Michelangelo’s Pieta. The sculpture contains more then 18,000 ounces of silver.
You can see the whole talk and the unveiling here.
Jeremy Cordon
Jeremy Cordon is the founder of Goldback. He went on earlier than scheduled. Dog the Bounty Hunter was supposed to speak before Cordon, but had to cancel due to a medical emergency.
Cordon talked about sound money and a practical sound money. One of the problems with gold based currencies is that it is difficult to have coins for practical day-to-day purchases. Modern technology has a solution allowing layering tiny amounts of gold. He gave an overview of how Goldbacks are made. I didn’t take notes on these details.
He claims Goldbacks have never been counterfeited due to the technology behind Goldbacks. I suspect the real reason is that they are too small of a target.
All attendees received a coupon for a free Goldback. The coupon was redeemable at the Goldback booth in the FreedomFest exhibition hall. I redeemed the coupon.
Cordon, in his wrap-up, said that Wyoming Goldbacks are coming soon.
Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald spoke on the evolution of independent journalism.
Early in his talk, Greenwald made a joke about not having gone to the Columbia School of Journalism. He was a lawyer and writing on blogspot was his hobby.
Greenwald talked about the early days of blogging. Technological changes made it easy to spread information. As blogging spread, Greenwald thinks bloggers were co-opted by existing media outlets. The outlets offered the bloggers jobs.
Now we have podcasts and Twitter. Greenwald stated he thinks Joe Rogan is the most influential media person since he was about 15 million viewers.
Greenwald also talked about the NY Post’s coverage of Hunter Biden. He said the “Russian Disinformation” story came from the CIA.
Greenwald brought up Trump and Parler. Parler was at one point of the most popular apps out there, and then not. The Democrats, according to Greenwald, leaned on Google and Apple to kill Parler.
Greenwald wrapped up by saying that the government is pushing censorship. His final point is that we need to be able to communicate freely in order to persuade others.
Fini
Those were all the first day talks that I attended. The next part will cover Day Two of FreedomFest 2022. The second day was a big day with talks on school choice, anti-aging, a film on Jimmy Lai, a short film on the Berlin Wall, and more.
Nice writeup.
Forbes seems like a nice enough guy, but did his speech really tell anyone at this event anything they didn’t already know?
Probably not, but remember he had only about ten, fifteen minutes.
He was part of a longer panel discussion on financials on Saturday. I didn’t go because I was at another panel discussion.
All the more reason not to just say things everybody knows.
The talks sound interesting but ten or fifteen minutes don’t seem like enough time.
Every day has a set of short talks like these. A few were definitely not long enough for the speaker to get in what he/she wanted.
Every day also had longer talked/panel discussions/debates. On Day One, I missed all of those talks.
Quality trolling. And Nader lived down to expectations.
Forbes ended his talk with by reiterating his support for the gold standard.
Clearly, fiat currency will always lead to inflation and hyperinflation. So we need some kind of monetary base. Gold has history behind it (although specie has also been abused in the past). Baskets of commodities have also been proposed; the key being, I think, that the monetary base not grow faster than the actual economy.
This is a deadly serious issue, and one that is, unfortunately, abstract and technical so it is difficult to engage with it. I think I can confidently say I am in the commodity-backed currency camp, with a bias toward gold. Unfortunately, this is an issue that will not be engaged with, and the (catastrophic) consequences are quite predictable.
I agree on this, but I don’t know how we could ever take our hyper-inflated dollar and convert it.
I’m sure there are workable plans out there, but I haven’t read them.
Phase 1: Burn a shit ton of dollars. Use them to heat Europe this winter, possibly.
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Profit!
Is that why we’re sending cash to Ukraine?
This was the plan under Trump and Mnuchin.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/23/mnuchin-says-treasury-studying-50-and-100-year-bonds.html
Hell if I know if it would work.
I found an interview she did with Jordan Peterson.
She also did 3.5 hours on Lex Fridman a couple of weeks ago.
Thanks for the summary. I hear they won’t be back in Vegas, so maybe I’ll go next year!
Sorry, forgot to close my “a” tag…. Such a cheese doodle.
Yes, they will not be in Vegas next year. They will be in Memphis, TN in 2023.
That makes it a possibility, and the girlfriend does want to visit Memphis.
Glibs meet-up?
Glibs booth? 🙂
That is a MARVELOUS idea!
Hmm…. the FSP had a booth two years ago. If they could get a booth, so could we.
What would the actual goal/function of such a booth be?
The FSP or Glibs?
The FSP was trying to get people to move to NH and help with pushing NH towards liberty.
A side benefit was networking with folks already living in NH that didn’t know about the FSP. I stopped by to chat with the guy manning the booth. I had met him at some FSP events in NH. While we chatting, someone that lives in NH but never heard of the FSP came up to the booth. She was very interested in the FSP. We gave her some information so she could get in touch with the FSP and attend events in NH with the FSP.
For Glibs? I don’t know what we’d do with it. Scare the normies?
Increase sales in your novels?
How do you end up at FreedomFest from NH and not know about the FSP?
@DEG I was asking about a Glibs booth. Other than selling merch and books, we’ve not got much to push to attendees.
How do you end up at FreedomFest from NH and not know about the FSP?
Honestly, I can’t remember. It came up in the conversation. I think she had recently moved to NH for other reasons and hadn’t had much of a chance to get involved in politics/libertarian “stuff” in NH since the move. I think? I can’t remember but that sounds right.
Invite people to join our band of miscreants, and raffle off a free meeting with STEVE SMITH.
Since my novels are very markedly libertarian, I think I would be a good fit. However, because they have sessytime, they might not be a good fit.
‘sessytime, they might not be a good fit.’
Phrasing?
Pfffft. Who does that?
STEVE SMITH MERCHANDISE
I learned a lot about religion from visiting Graceland.
Thanks for the write up, DEG.
You’re welcome!
Thanks, DEG!
Interesting group of speakers.
Agreed. Some good ones in that lineup. A lot less, er, kooky then I had envisioned such a conference. I’m sure the exhibition hall made up for that.
Maybe I’ll head there next year.
At least on the panels I attended, it wasn’t very kooky at all.
I don’t remember much kookiness in the exhibition hall. On the other hand, most of time in the exhibition hall was spent at the bookstore. Not only were the ladies working it lovely (and unfortunately married), but they had a lot of good books there. I bought more via their Amazon store after I got home.
I did catch the tail end of Jim Rogers’ talk on the main stage where he took questions from the audience. I forget what day it was. I might have it in my notes. Anyways, the questioner wanted to know about his relationship with George Soros. Rogers had done some work with Soros in the 70s. I don’t remember on what. Rogers’ response was along the lines of, “Asking me about my work with Soros is like asking me about my ex-wife that I haven’t talked with in 40 years.” The questioner insisted Rogers must have some current relationship with Soros. She got cut off as it was time for the next speaker.
John Cleese was there?!
Yes. His talks were on Friday, day three of the event.
I’ve started the day two write-up. Day three will come after that runs.
Er, so I gathered. He strikes me as still! philosophically uncertain. LibDems, ugh.
Saw him on his divorce tour. Perpetually kicking myself for not buying the “I Saw John Cleese While He Was Alive” t-shirt.
He is very anti-woke and against the cancel mob. I think that’s part of why he was there.
You’re welcome!
Wow that is some lineup. Thanks for the writeup. This is something I might be interested in next time.
So how many guys with the same khakis and sunglasses were hanging around?
“Hi, fellow freedom-person, would you like to do an insurrection?”
My guess is 4,000.
DEG! Love the article. Looking forward to more writeups.
I’ve started the Day Two write-up. I plan to submit it for publication over the weekend.
You’re welcome!
I don’t remember any obvious Fed plants.
I do remember Las Vegas Metro Police, in addition to the casino’s security, patrolling the casino and convention area.
“Dog the Bounty Hunter was supposed to speak before Cordon, but had to cancel due to a medical emergency.”
Cocaine’s a hell of a drug.
I went to FreedomFest 2022 in Las Vegas, NV – Las Vegas is all gambling hookers and booze not an appropriate place for a freedom fest
Your sarcasm is noted, citizen .
Sadly, no legal prostitution in Clark County.
How far is the nearest bunny ranch?
I think Pahrump is a little more than an hour drive away.
legal – how very unlibertarian
FreedomFest 2022 set an attendance record of roughly 4400 people. – 42 of which women
I met with several people from Glibertarians – careful those people are not to be trusted
careful those people are not to be trusted
They are all feds.
There were far more than 42 women there. I’d estimate maybe a third of attendees were women.
LIES! There is no such thing as a female libertarian.
So they were spies.
Feds.
“Hello, fellow Liberty-person. I too am interested in goverment bad.”
She’s quite the honey-pot.
Or feds.
Glenn Greenwald is still a commie though
True.
*Revs up the copter*
His husband has been in the ICU in critical condition for the last two or three weeks. A vaccine injury?
The Magatte Wade talk sounds fascinating. I think it would behoove the agency I work for to bring her in as a consultant.
(that’ll be the day!!!! 😄😄😄😄😄😄)
If they don’t doesn’t that mean they’re racist?
Or is she not the right kind of black woman for that to count?
On a serious note, she is rather impressive.
She’s clearly a black white supremacist
And I only like her because I am such a racist (obviously).
Just like Larry Elder.
Her talk was really good. Unfortunately, my notes weren’t very good. I struggled a bit with what to put in here because I wanted to do her talk justice. Then I found the Jordan Peterson talk and said, “I’M SAVED!!”
In all seriousness, I think my agency could do a lot of good with this lady’s thinking. But that would mean it would have to be something other than a massive cash washing machine.
A lot of agencies and activists groups could do a lot of good with that kind of thinking.
But the the grift and outrage opportunities would be limited, and we all know that’s not an option.
Nice summary DEG.
Thanks!
Wait a second… is that the same Daniel Harmon from Community and Rick and Morty? Or just someone with the same name?
Different person.
After some searching… appears to be just someone with the same name.
/patiently waits for a Community movie and more Rick and Morty
Community: 8-bit animated or live action?
I believe they’re going for live action. News keeps popping up in my newsfeed about it. I’m pulling for it just for concluding the joke from the series if nothing else.
Unfortunately, he went off the rails with TDS a while back. Also socjus – third season Rick and Morty suffered because of it. The dude seems self-destructive as all getout (I think he even lampshaded that in one of the Community codas.).
Nice write up.
I occasionally want to go to events like this, but then I wonder what I’d really get out of it. If I want to hear speeches or interviews or read books and papers they’re all available online. The only benefit I see, is showing other liberty lovers they’re not alone.
Thanks!
Recordings of all the talks are available for a fee from the FreedomFest organizers. A handful are available for free on youtube, like the one I linked with the unveiling of the Pieta. I plan to link another when I put together my write-up of day three.
There were some things I learned that I didn’t know before.
And yes, networking with liberty lovers is a plus.
/kicks self for not getting contact information from that cute Brazilian lass
“/kicks self for not getting contact information from that cute Brazilian lass”
You’re a mad man. You never know if you’ve just met someone who could be your wife. You miss all the shots you don’t take.
You’re an idiot
mad manFixed it for you.
That is supposed to be a joke at my expense. I think it probably didn’t come off that way.
No worries, that’s exactly how I took it.
Thanks.
If it helps, I have the same problem. Can’t take yes for an answer.
Heh.
Watching night of the living dead. The black guy just cold cocked a white lady who slapped him. I didn’t see that coming!
Didn’t help that he told her to calm down…
WHARGLEBLARGLE!
Our CHRO is “retiring” (at an unusually young age) and being replaced with a “Chief People Officer” described thusly:
I wonder if I should express my profound disappointment that they hired someone so heteronormative. She’s not even BIPOC!
Sounds very Indo-Aryan.
The San Fansisco Bay area is the biggest red flag.
What if I don’t identify as a person?
Also, ‘chief’ we’d better get some native Americans in here to analyze that.
No. They don’t get to appropriate our Chief Culture.
Good point
My company changed our Recruiting Department to the Talent Acquisition Department.
Our COO said it was to “catch up to the current year”.
What the hell does that mean?
“We don’t have any actual ability to help the company, so we chase fads and hope no one notices.”
I think Neph’s favorite baseball team got it right. The proper term is “Guardian of the People”.
Magatte Wade
Unfortunate name. I have a niece named Margaret (after a family matriarch) and we affectionately called her Maggot for several years.
Malgorzata, pronounced Ma-GOASH. Or Raymond Luxury Yacht.
Apologies to our Polish friends.
I thought it was pronounced Mawgoshata. This is the L with the slash through it right?
I think it’s pronounced throat warbler mangrove.
You might be right. A coworker of a friend, never met. Intimidating language, that and Hungarian.
Not Maggie Mae?
Daniel Harmon introduced the Tuttle Twins TV show. The show centers around two children learning history from their grandmother. Their grandmother owns a time travelling scooter, which she uses to take the children to various points in history. He showed part of one episode. I enjoyed the clip. You can view full episodes on Youtube.
If you are not
brainwashingplaying the Tuttle Twins for your kids you are a terrible parent. It is such a well done show.My daughter likes it.
I was annoyed by the voice acting in the first scene, so I stopped watching.
I don’t have any monotone cartoons to recommend to you.
Greenwald stated he thinks Joe Rogan is the most influential media person since he was about 15 million viewers.
If only Joe would stop having fucking Mike Baker on the show ever 4 months.
And holy shit he has Zuckerberg on today.
Thanks for the writeup, DEG. Funny how avowed socialists turn out to be the ones warning us about the dangers of totalitarianism, isn’t it? First Eric Blair, now Greenwald.
You’re welcome!
Don’t forget Orwell in your list of socialists warning about totalitarianism.
Perish the thought! Eric Blair = Orwell 🙂
How dare you Deadname him!
I honestly never knew Orwell was a pen name.
I almost said the same thing, but I looked up Eric Blair first.
They’re the ones who thought humans are naturally kind and mean what they say.
Just got the following slightly redacted slack message from our crack QA team:
” was tested and all testes passed”
I tell ya, those guys drive me nuts.
People who can’t spell should be sacked.
How about sacking spellcheck?
Taint enough time in the day to spellcheck
That joke is low-hanging fruit.
You just want to give them the shaft. Perhaps just give them a heads-up next time?
No way, one bad egg spoils the bunch
*coughs to one side
The people who sacked the poor spellers have been sacked.
Bollocks!
I guess they did the needful.
^^^ This guy gets it
and Kindly at that!
Passing all those testes, that takes balls.
Shitty situation
https://twitter.com/jacksonhinklle/status/1562853428262408194
Scheisse!
It will always be Scheiße to me.
PREACH!
No one’s going to be squeezing the Charmin in Germany.
Sucks to be them.
Enjoy the go!
It’s bizarre that such a commodity can’t cross national borders freely.
Especially in a continent spanning free trade zone. Makes you get a tiny suspicion they are looking for a bail out/subsidy/hand in the taxpayer pocket…
LOL. Check out the EU requirements for tissue paper.
http://www.perinijournal.it/Items/en-US/Articoli/PJL-29/Product-safety-for-tissue-products-the-European-perspective
They’ll be using tree bark before long.
Lol no.
That they will be burning for heat.
Left hand, Scruffy. Left hand.
Can’t do a modern bidet. Those need power. Poor Europeeps.
Johann, grab the douchebag! I need some help over here!
“Your poop rag, M’Lord.”
“EU Directive 76/768/EEC”
At least they didn’t ask for a Form 27B/6.
Hillary strikes again?
Dun.. dun… DUUUNNNNNN!
.
They aren’t taking chances.
Isn’t it a little late to observe next-of-kin-notification protocol after it hits the international news wires?
When they arrived, they found a body “in a state where a visual identification could not be made.”
So probably been dead a long time, and ew.
You’d think they would know enough to set up a dead man’s switch by now.
Here’s a summary just to keep you up to date.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELVt6cWhwJM
Thanks DEG
Did you have time to sell Glibs to anyone? A Glibs booth would be great, 6 introverts sitting behind a counter not talking to each other. All trying to have the other(s engage a potential recruit.
Should we set up a booth to sell “STEVE SMITH SAY RELAX” shorts and Hat and Hair merchandise next year?
Shirts. Edit fairy?
Shorts is much funnier.
Agreed. Little coach shorts.
When speaking of STEVE SMITH, shorts may actually be more appropriate.
Thanks.
I did not talk about Glibs with anyone beyond the H&R refugees that I was at FreedomFest with.
Good report, DEG. Looking forward to the rest of the story.
Thanks!