Young Americans for Liberty - Tax Day 2010 Protest at UCLA

Here's a miniature documentary I created over the past couple days based on a small-scale event sponsored by the UCLA chapter of Young Americans for Liberty.

A few guys came out to pass out some miniature Constitutions, flyers with facts about the national debt, and engage some of the student body on economic issues affecting their future. Full disclosure: Though I really went in the capacity of documentarian, I even talked to one student for a little bit on deficits.  I don't know if I got through to him... I tried to reference the burden a high national debt places on the national standard of living to the way high levels of college loan debt (like I have, and like I presumed a UCLA student might have) individuals are often burdened with puts a hamper on their standard of living.

Turned out, the guy's dad was paying for his college, so.... Oh well.

In truth, you really don't want me being the guy to talk to people verbally anyway.  My view - as if this blog hasn't made things perfectly clear on this front - is that everything in the world of economic activity is highly interrelated.  So it's not enough for me to say "high national debt is bad" or "government spending is a drag on the economy", I have to explain with examples and tangents, in-depth discussions of complex concepts and ultimately take my listener on a ride through economic history.

That's decidedly too complicated and useless for convincing a 20 year old Sociology major.

Anyway, as the disclaimer on YouTube says - I didn't have optimal gear with me at the time.  I had no decent camera and so I had to put up with all the dropped frames and glitches of my Motorloa Backflip's built-in video function.  Fortunately, the day was truly saved by the fact that virtually any time I leave the house with my bag I've got my fantastic Tascam DR-100 field recorder in tow.  The audio quality through the phone would have made this video completely impossible, and even though I didn't have a windscreen and there is a bit of wind noise here and there on the recording, the audio is generally crystal clear and really saved the day.

I think in spite of minor technical difficulties and this being such a spur-of-the-moment, short-notice kind of a thing, it turned out quite well due to the intelligent and well-spoken subjects on camera... Visit my YouTube page for the YAL guys' names, and by all means subscribe to my channel, to this blog, and be sure to "like" the video and help it gain exposure.  Oh and, of course email me at seanwmalone@gmail.com any time with requests to hire me and proposals for new media productions.

Thanks!