Tag Archives: Libertas Institute

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Selling Freedom: The Libertas Institute is Coming to Oregon

Histrionic stories about Prager U, a nonprofit (not a university) which produces and distributes conservative videos and online programming aimed at millions of young people in homes and schools across the country, are commonplace in the media.

“PragerU and its right-wing propaganda machine spreads racist poison,” says Daily Kos. 

“…more than a few (of PragerU’s videos ) function as dog whistles to the extreme right ,” says the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Regardless of such reproval, in September 2023 PragerU won state approval to offer online classes to high school students in New Hampshire, in July 2023, the Florida Department of Education approved PragerU materials for use in classrooms as supplemental resources and recently PragerU became a state licensed vendor in Texas. Oklahoma and Montana are also allowing videos from PragerU in classrooms.

Meanwhile, flying under the radar almost unnoticed by media, there’s another outfit pursuing similar outreach efforts, the Lehi, UT-based Libertas Institute. 

The Libertarian Institute describes itself as “a 501(c)3 non-profit “think tank” and educational organization” with a “mission to change hearts, minds, and laws to build a freer society…” and an “educational media platform dedicated to promoting pro-American values.” 

And now it has set its sights on Oregon.

Founded in 2011, in the policy arena Libertas works on reforming state and local laws in Utah, but it also partners with similar free market-oriented groups and legislators in other states to pursue reforms initiated by Libertas. 

Some of its current policy focus areas are affordable housing, legal services, employing ex-offenders, consumer privacy and portable benefits for gig workers.

Reaching outside Utah, Libertas, like PragerU, produces what it considers “educational materials” aimed at children. This includes a variety of print and audio books and YouTube videos, as well as a free-market curriculum that teaches economics to children. To some extent, Libertas is a provocateur in this space.

It also runs a Children’s Entrepreneur Market program “to provide a direct experience for youth to apply their knowledge and experience the benefits of operating a small business”. The program is described as facilitating “A farmers’ market…run entirely by KIDS!”

In December 2023, Libertas appealed for donations so it could expand The Tuttle Twins’ Children’s Entrepreneur Markets into 11 more states, including Oregon. 

The Institute supplements all this material with free market-focused books such as “Mediocrity: 40 Ways Government Schools are Failing Today’s Students”.

Libertas also supports homeschooling with its Tuttle Twins Free Market Rules! Curriculum, a comprehensive resource for teaching students about money and economics.

And then there’s the Libertas Institute Hoodie for $27.99. “You’ll become an evangelist for freedom as friends ask you what Libertas is all about — be ready to spread the good word!”, says the Libertas website.

Arguing that there’s a rot inside American culture that needs to be confronted and that liberals have made a squalid mess of things, Libertas asks, “Are your children being brainwashed? …most curriculum is dumbed down and leaves out the essential civic truths that children and adults need to know. That’s why we’ve made it our mission to create books and curriculum materials that teach students the values of a free society — ideas that support your family values.”

The Tuttle Twins books are a core element of Libertas’ proselytizing efforts. Libertas says it has sold 4 million copies of the Tuttle Twins books, endorsed by right-wing radio host Glen Beck, that “help you teach your kids how the world really works…” 

                                  The Tuttle Twins Books

Some of the books are available at Oregon libraries. “We had several patron requests for The Tuttle Twins books at our library,” Beka Murcray at the Molalla Public Library told me. “So, we purchased them and they have circulated fairly okay.”

A cartoon on the Tuttle Twins website has a mother wielding a Tuttle Twins shield while protecting her frightened children, absorbing the arrows of socialism, Marxism, collectivism, and media lies.”

In The Tuttle Twins and the Road to Surfdom, the twins “find in their latest adventure, central planning can ruin people’s lives.” In The Tuttle Twins and the Little Pink House, “When a greedy corporation schemes to take over Grandma’s land and push her house into the river, can the twins stop it and come to her rescue?”

According to reports submitted to the IRS, Libertas’ revenue totaled $13,904,104 in 2022 and $14,360,260 in 2021. Of that, $10,841,883 came from “Education Material Sales” in 2022 and $10,638,576 in 2021. “We sell a lot of books and things, but the bulk of the revenue is from our Tuttle Twins books, curricula, and other materials,” Connor Boyak, Libertas’ president, told me in an email. Libertas reported selling1.55 million books in 2021 and 975,000 in 2022.

Some are fulsome in their praise of the books. “The Tuttle Twins is a set of beautiful books that use storytelling to teach about economics, civics, socialism, and entrepreneurship. So basically everything that is NOT taught in public school.” writes Homeschool Curriculum Reviews. “I am learning right along with my kids as we explore how money works, what the free market really is, and what our freedom actually means.”

Others are almost apoplectic in their condemnation of the series. Rob Larson, a professor of economics at Washington’s Tacoma Community College, describes the books in Current Affairs as “…jammed…with pro-market economic vocabulary and stale right-wing life lessons”. 

Larson goes on to acidly condemn them as “…among the most wretchedly contrived, grotesquely unethically indoctrinating, cliché-ridden heaps of steaming garbage I’ve ever had the misfortune to read. Written to bring young people into one of the most disgraceful political tendencies in the world before they have the critical thinking skills to recognize it, it is a hideous fraud and an ugly twisted farce.”

Though not yet a broadly recognized brand, Libertas clearly aspires to be one. Having grown its revenue almost ten-fold since its founding and vastly expanded its products and programs, it has simultaneously extended its presence across the country.  

Whether you see it as a force for good or malignant propaganda, expect to hear more about this crusading Libertarian outfit in Oregon.

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Narcissism Run Amok: Jaiden’s Journey

We’re creating monsters.

Jaiden Rodriguez

Jaiden Rodriguez, a 12-year-old student at The Vanguard School, a K-12 charter school in Colorado Springs, CO, is enjoying a moment of media fame as he works to make a spectacle of himself .  He was recently reportedly removed from school because an administrator considered a Gadsten flag on his backpack to be associated with slavery and slave trade.

The Gadsden Flag

 The Gadsden flag was designed by independence-minded colonists in the run-up to the Revolutionary War. In the 1970’s, it was seen by some Tea Party adherents and Libertarians as a symbol of ideological enthusiasm for minimal government and the rights of individuals. Some have since associated it with the Confederate battle flag and the Ku Klux Klan. Suffice it to say, it has had multiple divergent personalities.

What has happened next in Jaiden’s case is a sign of the times. 

First, video of Jaiden being removed from class for displaying the flag went viral, thanks to Connor Boyack, president of Libertas Institute, a Utah-based libertarian think tank.

Then the usual public outrage erupted, stirred by impassioned claims Jaiden’s First Amendment rights were violated. 

And, of course, attention-seeking politicians then chimed in.

“This is a direct attack on his freedom of speech,” said Rep. Lauren Boebert, (R-CO),  a conservative firebrand .”Our education system has a deep-rooted problem with liberal bias.”

The Vanguard School’s Board of Directors subsequently allowed Jaiden to return to school with the Gadsden flag still visible on his backpack, calling the incident “an occasion for us to reaffirm our deep commitment to a classical education.”

That should have been the end of it, but Jaiden, spurred on by his attention-seeking mother, is apparently determined to maximize his moment of fame.

With the support of Libertas Institute, Jaiden has begun an online fundraising campaign to buy and ship books produced by Libertas Institute to schools across the country. The tax-deductible contributions will go to the Institute. 

“Connor and his team have some new American history books that teach the ideas of freedom and the founding fathers.,” Jaiden says in his appeal. “They’re so much better than the textbooks we have to use in school that don’t really teach history with any kind of depth.” 

The books, with titles such as “Should the collective control us?” and “Why are free markets important?”, “… empower parents like you to make sure your children have a foundation of freedom—to understand the ideas of a free society that socialists are trying too hard to undermine,” the Institute says. 

Noting that he’s grown more popular at school because of the controversy, Jaiden even has taken to some name-dropping, saying he’s talked with Ben Shapiro, a controversial conservative political pundit. 

In a podcast interview with Shapiro, Jaiden said the Gadsden flag “…was meant as a warning sign not to tread on our rights in the revolution. Which is funny because they tried to tread on my rights and then they found out they [could] not.”

Jaiden went on to tell Shapiro he expected to win a race for student council in a “landslide” due to the controversy and that he was now “Mr. Popular” at his school.

And to top it all off, now this 12-year-old 7th grader says his experience has made him want to be governor of Colorado in 18 years when he’s 30, the state’s minimum age to serve as governor.

We’re creating monsters.