In June, the Future of Freedom Foundation will host Restoring the Republic: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties, a four-day conference examining the intersection of these two burning issues, with an eye to restoring the limited-government principles on which the U.S. was founded.

There’s just one small problem.

The conference looks exciting, with a libertarian star-studded 24 speakers, such as Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, James Bovard, Bob Barr, Sheldon Richman, Ted Galen Carpenter, and libertarian, liberal and conservative policy experts such as Daniel Ellsberg, Robert Higgs, Karen Kwiatkowski, Joseph Margulies, Andrew Napolitano, and many more.

The Future of Freedom Foundation’s conference, “Restoring the Republic: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties”, features 24 speakers, consisting of libertarians, liberals, and conservatives. This will be one of the most important conferences in the history of the libertarian movement. For 3½ days we will be discussing the two most burning issues of the day — foreign policy and civil liberties, with the aim of raising people’s vision to restoring our nation’s founding principles of a limited-government, constitutional republic.

The conference will cover such specific topics as the war on terror, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, U.S support of dictatorial regimes, torture and rendition of detainees, Guantanamo Bay, the USA Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, due process of law, habeas corpus, search and seizure, presidential powers, military tribunals, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

Each day, the conference schedule will enable the participants to listen to all the speeches of all the speakers. Each speech will range from 45 minutes to one hour. — Future of Freedom Foundation

It promises to be a most interesting conference. And I’d love to go and liveblog it. As I said, there’s just one small problem: The $495 admission price.

Next month I’ll be covering the New Hampshire Liberty Forum, another important libertarian conference. Nearly all of my costs of attending were paid for by the Free State Project approaching me to advertise that same conference here. But with the $576 hotel room added in, this conference is far outside my price range. (And FFF hasn’t asked me to advertise their conference here. If they do, my plans will likely change.)

So I’m going to ask you, my faithful liberty-loving readers, who also likely can’t attend the conference but would like to know what happens, if you would like me to go and cover it.

If you would like to see me cover this event, please contribute $20 or more toward the conference registration and/or hotel charges. (I can cover transportation myself).

I estimate right now that if you all can contribute 75% of the charges, I can come up with the rest. That’s just 40 people contributing $20 each. But if for any reason there aren’t enough contributions, or if I’m unable to attend for any other reason, everyone’s contribution will be refunded in full (unless you specify not to refund it).

In return you’ll get the best coverage I can provide of one of the most important libertarian events of 2007.

If you’re not sure if it will be worth contributing, I invite you to wait until next month and evaluate my coverage of the New Hampshire Liberty Forum. You can also evaluate my coverage of the HOPE Number Six conference last July: Free software, the hacker community, and libertarianism?; Saving the world with eBooks; Keep HOPE alive; Privacy Is Dead: Get Over It.

But if you’re sure now that you want to see firsthand coverage of some of the leading lights in the liberty movement, please contribute $20 or more now. And thank you in advance for your continued support of Homeland Stupidity.

P.S. If you’re from the Future of Freedom Foundation and would like to purchase advertising space, the space at the top left will be available starting February 25.