Organizations
American Civil Liberties Union The American system of government is founded on two counterbalancing principles: that the majority of the people governs, through democratically elected representatives; and that the power even of a democratic majority must be limited, to ensure individual rights. The mission of the ACLU is to preserve all of these protections and guarantees.
American Conservative Union The American Conservative Union is the nation's oldest and largest grassroots conservative lobbying organization. ACU's purpose is to communicate and advance the goals and principles of conservatism through one multi-issue, umbrella organization. ACU's Statement of Principles expresses our commitment to a market economy, the doctrine of original intent of the framers of the Constitution, traditional moral values, and a strong national defense.
American Enterprise Institute AEI's purposes are to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism--limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and responsibility, vigilant and effective defense and foreign policies, political accountability, and open debate. Its work is addressed to government officials and legislators, teachers and students, business executives, professionals, journalists, and all citizens interested in a serious understanding of government policy, the economy, and important social and political developments.
American Legislative Exchange Council The mission of the American Legislative Exchange Council is to advance the Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism and individual liberty among America's state legislators.
Americans for Tax Reform We believe in a system in which taxes are simpler, fairer, flatter, more visible, and lower than they are today. The government's power to control one's life derives from its power to tax. We believe that power should be minimized.
Anti-State.com Our mission is first and foremost to inform and entertain market anarchists and facilitate contact and the exchange of ideas between them -- spreading our ideas takes an important second.
AntiWar.com This site is devoted to the cause of non-interventionism and is read by libertarians, pacifists, leftists, "greens," and independents alike, as well as many on the Right who agree with our opposition to imperialism. Our initial project was to fight for the case of non-intervention in the Balkans under the Clinton presidency and continued with the case against the campaigns in Haiti, Kosovo and the bombings of Sudan and Afghanistan. Our politics are libertarian: our opposition to war is rooted in Randolph Bourne's concept that "War is the health of the State." With every war, America has made a "great leap" into statism, and as Bourne emphasizes: " . . . it is during war that one best understands the nature of that institution [the State]." At its core, that "nature" includes the ever-increasing threat to individual liberty and the centralization of political power.
Atlantic Institute for Market Studies AIMS is a distinctive Atlantic Canadian voice on public policy regionally, nationally and internationally. We set the benchmark on public policy by drawing together the freshest most forward looking thinking available from some of the world's foremost experts and applying that thinking to the challenges we face.
Atlas Economic Research Foundation To discover, develop and support ‘intellectual entrepreneurs' worldwide who can advance the Atlas vision of a society of free and responsible individuals.
Bureaucrash Bureaucrash is dedicated to fighting the increase of government control over our lives. Our international network of pro-freedom activists works to change the political ideology of our generation through creative activism. While most youth politics supports the growth of the already bloated government bureaucracy, we fight for freedom.
Capital Research Center Capital Research Center (CRC) was established in 1984 to study non-profit organizations, with a special focus on reviving the American traditions of charity, philanthropy, and voluntarism.
Cato Institute The Cato Institute seeks to broaden the parameters of public policy debate to allow consideration of the traditional American principles of limited government, individual liberty, free markets and peace. Toward that goal, the Institute strives to achieve greater involvement of the intelligent, concerned lay public in questions of policy and the proper role of government.
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise An educational foundation for individual liberty, free markets, property rights and limited government.
Citizens for a Sound Economy FreedomWorks fights for lower taxes, less government and more economic freedom for all Americans.
Claremont Institute The mission of the Claremont Institute is to restore the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life. These principles are expressed most eloquently in the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims that "all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." To recover the founding principles in our political life means recovering a limited and accountable government that respects private property, promotes stable family life, and maintains a strong defense.
Competitive Enterprise Institute The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to advancing the principles of free enterprise and limited government. We believe that individuals are best helped not by government intervention, but by making their own choices in a free marketplace.
Drug Policy Alliance DPA is the nation's leading organization working to end the war on drugs. We envision new drug policies based on science, compassion, health and human rights and a just society in which the fears, prejudices and punitive prohibitions of today are no more.
Drug Reform Coordination Network Stop the Drug War (DRCNet) calls for an end to drug prohibition (e.g. some form of legalization), and its replacement with some sensible framework in which drugs can be regulated and controlled instead. Founded in 1993 by executive director David Borden, DRCNet has from the beginning called unambiguously for an end to prohibition; we are the largest "full-purpose" national membership organization with a wide range of programs to hold that position.
Federalist Society The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies is a group of conservatives and libertarians interested in the current state of the legal order. It is founded on the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be. The Society seeks both to promote an awareness of these principles and to further their application through its activities.
Foundation for Economic Education The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), one of the oldest free-market organizations in the United States, was founded in 1946 by Leonard E. Read to study and advance the freedom philosophy. FEE's mission is to offer the most consistent case for the "first principles" of freedom: the sanctity of private property,Foundation for Economic Education individual liberty, the rule of law, the free market, and the moral superiority of individual choice and responsibility over coercion.
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) The mission of FIRE is to defend and sustain individual rights at America's colleges and universities. These rights include freedom of speech, legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience-the essential qualities of individual liberty and dignity. FIRE's core mission is to protect the unprotected and to educate the public and communities of concerned Americans about the threats to these rights on our campuses and about the means to preserve them.
Free State Project The Free State Project is an agreement among 20,000 libertarian activists to move to New Hampshire, where they will exert the fullest practical effort toward the creation of a society in which the maximum role of government is the protection of life, liberty, and property. The success of the Project would likely entail reductions in taxation and regulation, reforms at all levels of government to expand individual rights and free markets, and a restoration of constitutional federalism, demonstrating the benefits of liberty to the rest of the nation and the world.
Future of Freedom Foundation The mission of The Future of Freedom Foundation is to advance freedom by providing an uncompromising moral and economic case for individual liberty, free markets, private property, and limited government.
Goldwater Institute The Goldwater Institute is dedicated to protecting and expanding economic freedom, constitutional liberty and educational opportunity. The Goldwater Institute meets public policy challenges with innovative solutions that maximize our freedoms and keep government within its constitutional boundaries.
Gun Owners of America Gun Owners of America (GOA) is a non-profit lobbying organization formed in 1975 to preserve and defend the Second Amendment rights of gun owners. GOA sees firearms ownership as a freedom issue.
Heartland Institute Heartland's mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. Such solutions include parental choice in education, choice and personal responsibility in health care, market-based approaches to environmental protection, privatization of public services, and deregulation in areas where property rights and markets do a better job than government bureaucracies.
Heritage Foundation Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institute - a think tank - whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.
Hoover Institution This Institution supports the Constitution of the United States, its Bill of Rights and its method of representative government. Both our social and economic systems are based on private enterprise from which springs initiative and ingenuity.... Ours is a system where the Federal Government should undertake no governmental, social or economic action, except where local government, or the people, cannot undertake it for themselves.
Hudson Institute Hudson Institute is a non-partisan policy research organization dedicated to innovative research and analysis that promotes global security, prosperity, and freedom.
Independent Institute The mission of The Independent Institute is to transcend the all-too-common politicization and superficiality of public policy research and debate, redefine the debate over public issues, and foster new and effective directions for government reform.
Institute for Humane Studies The Institute for Humane Studies is a unique organization that assists undergraduate and graduate students worldwide with an interest in individual liberty.
Institute for Justice Through strategic litigation, training, communication and outreach, the Institute for Justice advances a rule of law under which individuals can control their destinies as free and responsible members of society. IJ litigates to secure economic liberty, school choice, private property rights, freedom of speech and other vital individual liberties and to restore constitutional limits on the power of government. In addition, IJ trains law students, lawyers and policy activists in the tactics of public interest litigation. Through these activities, IJ challenges the ideology of the welfare state and illustrates and extends the benefits of freedom to those whose full enjoyment of liberty is denied by government.
Institute for Policy Innovation IPI's focus is on approaches to governing that harness the strengths of individual liberty, limited government, and free markets. IPI emphasizes getting its studies into the hands of the press and policy makers so that the ideas they contain can be applied to the challenges facing us today.
Intercollegiate Studies Institute The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) is a non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt educational organization whose purpose is to convey to successive generations of college youth a better understanding of the values and institutions that sustain a free and virtuous society.
International Society for Individual Liberty The International Society for Individual Liberty is an association of individuals and organizations dedicated to building a free and peaceful world, respect for individual rights and liberties, and an open and competitive economic system based on voluntary exchange and free trade. Members and affiliated organizations pursue these goals through independent action, using their freely chosen strategies. The association exists to promote the exchange of information and ideas, to study diverse strategies and to foster fellowship.
Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership To destroy "gun control" and to encourage Americans to understand and defend all of the Bill of Rights for everyone. Those are the twin goals of Wisconsin-based Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO). Founded by Jews and initially aimed at educating the Jewish community about the historical evils that Jews have suffered when they have been disarmed, JPFO has always welcomed persons of all religious beliefs who share a common goal of opposing and reversing victim disarmament policies while advancing liberty for all.
Ludwig von Mises Institute It is the mission of the Mises Institute to restore a high place for theory in economics and the social sciences, encourage a revival of critical historical research, and draw attention to neglected traditions in Western philosophy. In this cause, the Mises Institute works to advance the Austrian School of economics and the Misesian tradition, and, in application, defends the market economy, private property, sound money, and peaceful international relations, while opposing government intervention as economically and socially destructive.
Lysander Spooner This web site explores the life, history, scholarship, and influence of Lysander Spooner: one of the most provocative, eclectic and prolific American legal writers of the Nineteenth Century.
Marijuana Policy Project MPP believes that the greatest harm associated with marijuana is prison. To this end, MPP focuses on removing criminal penalties for marijuana use, with a particular emphasis on making marijuana medically available to seriously ill people who have the approval of their doctors.
Mercatus Center Mercatus applies scholarly research to the problems facing policy makers. Bringing together a network of scholars and experts from around the globe, the Mercatus Center provides policy makers with the economic tools to make sense of today's most pressing issues. Mercatus turns ideas into action.
National Association of Scholars NAS is an independent membership association of academics working to foster intellectual freedom and to sustain the tradition of reasoned scholarship and civil debate in America's colleges and universities.
National Taxpayers Union Foundation Since it was founded over 35 years ago, the National Taxpayers Union's Number One job has been helping to protect every single American's right to keep what they've earned. Our guiding principle has always been: "This is your money and the government should return it to you." We are a nonprofit, non-partisan citizen group whose members work every day for lower taxes and smaller government at all levels.
New Hampshire Coalition for Common Sense Marijuana Policy The New Hampshire Coalition for Common Sense Marijuana Policy, or "NH Common Sense" is an organized hub of information and activism, a vehicle by which New Hampshire citizens can communicate their desire for an end to Marijuana Prohibition. Our goal is to convince the government and people that decriminalization is a common sense antidote to the failed policies of Marijuana Prohibition.
Pacific Legal Foundation Today's government abuses are of a kind and magnitude not confronted by the Founders of this nation. The abuses of the English monarchy, which gave rise to the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, were often sudden and violent. Today in America they are subtle and incremental, yet just as devastating in their effect.
Philadelphia Society To sponsor the interchange of ideas through discussion and writing, in the interest of deepening the intellectual foundation of a free and ordered society, and of broadening the understanding of its basic principles and traditions. In pursuit of this end we shall examine a wide range of issues: economic, political, cultural, religious, and philosophic. We shall seek understanding, not conformity.
Progress & Freedom Foundation The Progress & Freedom Foundation is a market-oriented think tank that studies the impact of the digital revolution and its implications for public policy. Our senior fellows and other scholars are leading experts in their fields, with distinguished careers in government, business, academia and public policy.
Smith Center for Private Enterprise Studies The Smith Center for Private Enterprise Studies sponsorslectures, research, seminars, conferences, and courses for future leadersin business and society to learn how the principles of free enterprise builda strong economy. Programs and activities explore in-depth the conceptsof private property, voluntary exchange, economic and civil liberties, constitutionallaw, financial markets, entrepreneurship, risk-taking, and new venture management.
Students for Sensible Drug Policy Students for Sensible Drug Policy is an international grassroots network of students who are concerned about the impact drug abuse has on our communities, but who also know that the War on Drugs is failing our generation and our society.
