Young Americans for Freedom

About 90 young people at the Sharon, Connecticut estate of William F. Buckley, Jr. gathered to lay the groundwork for a new national conservative youth organization. It is here that Young Americans for Freedom is born and our statement of principles, the Sharon Statement, is drafted. New Guard magazine makes its debut as the official magazine of YAF.YAF scores a victory for free speech when the Supreme Court renders its decision in Boos vs. Barry. The ruling overturns an ordinance in our nation's capitol that forbids demonstrators against a foreign government to carry their protest within 500 feet of the nation's embassy. YAF stands solidly behind the Reagan Doctrine and supports Freedom Fighters around the globe through campus activities. YAF sponsors a variety of speaking tours by representatives of the Nicaraguan Resistance, the Mujahaddin of Afghanistan, UNITA from Angola, and the ARENA Party of El Salvador.At the 1999 Academy Awards in Los Angeles, YAFer's rally in support of the Academy of Motion Pictures decision to award famous director Elian Kazan with the lifetime achievement award. Confronted by over 600 commies, union thugs, and other leftist swine YAFers continued with their pro-Kazan rally. When the rally turned ugly YAFer Darren Marks went punch for punch with the day laborers until the cops came in and arrested the un-American commies.YAFer's of the new millennium look proudly at their elder YAF brothers who are now serving this great country at all levels of government. From Congress to State Legislators, across the private sector of public policy and organizations working to make government more accountable to the people being a YAFer carries more clout and greater responsibility than ever before.

The Sharon Statement

"Adopted in Conference, at Sharon, Connecticut, on September 11, 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; andTHAT American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: does it serve the just interests of the United States?