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Why should I join the Minnesota Young Americans for Freedom?

 

Well the most obvious answer to this question is because you are a young American who believes in the freedoms that our great nation was founded upon, and wishes to help defeat the socialist agenda of leftwing activists. Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) and its members have been dubbed “the Guardians of Freedom” and have proven themselves worthy of the title for over 40 years. YAF has been around since the 1960’s and has been a premier organization in pushing forth conservative views in public policy. Some estimates say that about 8 in 10 members of YAF go on to do something significant in the conservative movement (where only 1 in 100 College Republicans do as a comparison). Those who have been connected with YAF at its founding include William F. Buckley Jr., Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan, who has been on YAF’s advisory board for 40 years and is currently the organization's honorary chairman.

 

Minnesota Young Americans for Freedom (MNYAF) has recently become active in Minnesota and wants YOU to join! Our mission statement declares that we are “an organization dedicated to educating and empowering young Minnesotans around the fundamental values and beliefs set forth by our Founding Fathers, and encouraging active participation in the political process in order to promote the principles of freedom and liberty as defined by the Sharon Statement of the Young Americans for Freedom." We are committed to defeating, not coinciding with, the left wing socialist views that seek to harm our society. We believe we are over-taxed and over-regulated by an ignorant government elected and allowed to grow by a complacent citizenry vastly beyond its designated power, that accepts the killing of innocent children, deifies nature above its Creator, and too often ignores its own Constitution. We have a very impressive advisory board including talk show host Jason Lewis, Senator Michelle Bachman, Maple Rive Education Coalition President Renee Doyle, Attorney Karin Fanfulik, Sec. of State Communications Director Kent Kaiser, Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer, Legislative Evaluation Assembly of Minnesota Chairman Brian LeClair, Representative and former Gubernatorial Candidate Allen Quist, and Minnesota Taxpayer League Chairman Mike Wigley. Please JOIN US in our fight for freedom!

 

Membership Benefits: 

(Your membership dues help to cover the cost of the membership benefits. Every member, no matter how involved, of MNYAF is a volunteer and does not get paid.)

 

 

What kind of freedoms does YAF support?

 

(by Erik Johnson, YAF National Chairman)

We are YAF. As young people we are acting to preserve the liberties handed down by the founding fathers of this great nation. 

The Sharon statement says: THAT liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom. 

We fight for all freedoms. We focus on a number of key issues. We fight for economic freedoms by working to reduce taxes, spending and burdensome regulation. 

We fight for civil freedoms by working to preserve the right to worship as one chooses and for the freedom of speech, which is now under assault by the politically correct campus crowd. 

We fight for the freedom to associate, and to not associate, by working to end forced unionism. We also fight for the right to keep and bear arms. 

Also, since liberty is not merely indivisible but as Thomas Jefferson has said "the God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time, the hand of force may destroy but can never disjoin them," we also fight for the right to life. 

When it comes to foreign policy we fight for the sovereignty and security of this great nation because the Sharon statement says: THAT we will be free only so long as the national sovereignty of the United States is secure. 

The Sharon statement also says: American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: does it serve the just interests of the United States? . . . 

And we believe it! 

So, we do not sanction putting US troops under command of entities like NATO and the UN.

YAF wants you!

 

What is the Sharon Statement and what does it say?

 

About 90 young people at the Sharon, Connecticut estate of William F. Buckley, Jr. gathered in September of 1960 to lay the groundwork for a new national conservative youth organization. It is here that Young Americans for Freedom was born and our statement of principles, the Sharon Statement, was drafted. The Sharon Statement says the following:


Adopted in Conference, at Sharon, Connecticut, on 9-11 September 1960.


IN THIS TIME of moral and political crises, it is the responsibility of the youth of America to affirm certain eternal truths. 
WE, as young conservatives believe:


THAT foremost among the transcendent values is the individual's use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force; 


THAT liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom; 


THAT the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice; 


THAT when government ventures beyond these rightful functions, it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty; 


THAT the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power; 


THAT the genius of the Constitution - the division of powers - is summed up in the clause that reserves primacy to the several states, or to the people in those spheres not specifically delegated to the Federal government; 


THAT the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government, and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs; 


THAT when government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation, that when it takes from one to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral autonomy of both; 


THAT we will be free only so long as the national sovereignty of the United States is secure; that history shows periods of freedom are rare, and can exist only when free citizens concertedly defend their rights against all enemies; 


THAT the forces of International Communism are, at present, the greatest single threat to these liberties;


THAT the United States should stress victory over, rather than coexistence with, this menace; and 


THAT American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: does it serve the just interests of the United States?