Hey Readers!Just wanted to address you personally for a minute and let you know what's been going on with me lately. You may have noticed posting has gotten a little sporadic over the last two weeks and that's a good and bad thing.
It's a bad thing because I am committed to getting you the best quality, daily updates, commentary, and analysis on news and politics as well as direct you to activities that will put us one step closer to living in the freest, most open, most peaceful, most prosperous society possible to us.
I also have a great staff of volunteer contributors which I appreciate very much, and I'm still learning and figuring out how to be a good editor, and how to properly review, edit, and publish their contributions in a timely fashion.
So why's it a good thing?
And what's been up with the sporadic posting lately? I have been busy working hard for the liberty r3volution at a Summer Internship with Young Americans for Liberty. I wasn't super vocal here about getting the internship, other than featuring a lot of the work I've been doing with YAL (like all those videos I've been making for them), but now I want to tell you a little more about it:
This summer, I have been working in Arlington just outside of Washington D.C. at YAL's headquarters and learning more than I ever knew there even was to learn about political organizing, campaigning, activism, and leadership. I just spent the 15th - 19th (not this last weekend, but the preceding one) in North Carolina attending some incredible workshops and learning the sort of secrets that activist groups like local tea parties and political campaigns pay big money to learn from professional consultants and activists.
Then YAL turned me and 40 other youth activists loose on North Carolina to volunteer for a campaign of our choice and apply the knowledge we had just acquired. Most of us chose to work for a Republican tea party candidate challenging a Democratic incumbent for a U.S. House seat. His name is BJ Lawson and you can expect to hear more about him from me in the near future. When THL helped launch Rand Paul's campaign by organizing a $25,000 single day "money bomb" for his then-exploratory committee, we made history together. BJ Lawson is going to be my next project.
(Here's some more info on the North Carolina trip.)
Burnout: My experience with YAL has been invaluable. The tools I learned will no doubt improve the effectiveness of THL. But only for the first month or so was I able to successfully manage growing a top libertarian website (and a web development / blog consulting business) full-time while also doing a full-time internship with YAL. As the summer got even busier with the recent North Carolina trip (and now an upcoming youth leadership convention), I've started to experience burnout and keep putting off important projects that I want to launch here... but I am determined to rally and finish the summer out strong.
My internship with Young Americans for Liberty has been one of the most important things I have ever done in my life. If you are a student, JOIN your college or high school's Young Americans for Liberty chapter and get involved! If there isn't a chapter, start one! If you're not a student, e-mail me and ask me how you can help. I will say unequivocally that building a youth liberty movement on our nation's college campuses is the single most important thing we can do to advance the cause of liberty.
Big Announcement:
As for the future, I now have a big decision ahead of me: try to continue working in the political non-profit world to advance liberty, or take the leap into full-time self-employment as a political blogger, the administrator of this website, and a web developer and consultant for libertarian, conservative, and center-right bloggers and web activists.
And I think I'm going to do it!
Starting in August or September at the latest, I'm going to take an incredibly scary, yet exciting risk and try to grow The Humble Libertarian full time into the news and activism leader on the Internet that I know it can be. We've already accomplished so much and grown so fast without my full-time attention and work (I've been alternatively a full-time college student, restaurant server, and intern while growing this website since 2008).
Just imagine what we can accomplish if I take the leap into full time management of The Humble Libertarian! I'm going to need your help though. Please keep reading and sharing the content we publish here. Please keep spreading the word about us. And if you are one of those generous souls who has donated to or even signed up for a monthly contribution to support THL's mission, thank you from the bottom of my heart!
I will guarantee you that any more support you can offer in that regard, especially to help me
(And for what it's worth, your support will mean more to me personally than you could ever know!)
I'm so serious, that I will guarantee you a refund of any contributions you send if you find in five months that this website hasn't made the strides you expected it to, or had the impact that you'd hoped it would. While I do have the credentials and experience to apply for a good position advancing our cause at a political non-profit, and while that's definitely the safest choice (and oh so tempting!)... I just don't want to abandon all of you by continuing to give you only the second best of my time, work, leadership, and creative energy.
As I make this transition please help me get started with your most generous contribution, and I promise you'll be planting the seeds of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.
Thank you so very much!
For Liberty,
Wes Messamore
W. E. Messamore,
Editor in Chief, THL
PS: If you still have any doubts, read what some of THL's supporters had to say with their contribution:
- I'm so glad I found your blog. I've learned a lot over the last 8 months of following you. Good luck in all your endeavors!
- I like just about everything you have to say. It is spoken/written with, what I believe to be, common sense. With the state our country is in, anyone with common sense should be encouraged
- Love your show Wes! Great interview with Michael Boldin too! I just signed up as a monthly contributor. It's not much, but if everybody who listens did it, you know what could be achieved! Keep up the great work.
