Does the Government Leave People Out in the Cold? Aida Vazquez-Soto Explains Her Take on Liberty
Students For Liberty Local Coordinator Aida Vazquez-Soto explains what liberty means to her.
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TRANSCRIPT:
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So you can walk into a casino in a lot of places
but you can't play any of the table games.
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My name is Aida Vazquez-Soto. I am a student
at the University of South Florida.
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In Tampa, Florida and I am majoring in
economics and political science.
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Liberty to me is the ability to make my own
decisions as long as I am not hurting anybody
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else and as long as nobody is hurting me.
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I think the biggest reason I joined SFL was
definitely the community.
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I got involved with Students For Liberty at the
end of my first year in college and it was
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because I got referred to the program by a friend.
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And so much has happened in the two years since
I joined SFL, but they have stuck by me.
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And I've stuck with them, and the community
that you just have with people who share
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those principles, who share the values that
you share, who give you the freedom to be
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a big tent and still let you be in that tent
even if you don't agree on everything.
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When I joined Students For Liberty I think I
definitely was more conservative.
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I think I definitely still had some more feeling for the nanny state, right? Maybe there was
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something that government can do to help, right?
And I already had my suspicions about
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what government could do but I wasn't 100%
on board with, you know, "leaving people out in
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cold," and then I realized that government
does that anyways.
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And I think Students For Liberty gave me
that first experience with alternatives.
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There are places where we can go that we
don't need the state to go there with us.
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We can build our own roads, so to speak.
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In my first year involved with Students For Liberty, I
attended a Regional Conference
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and it was over in Tallahassee, and I got to see a debate
between Adam Kokash and Lauren Southern.
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And it was the first time that I ever got
to experience a true debate on immigration
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and really see the values of people who
would say there is western culture
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versus people who would say: "You know, I
shouldn't have to ask. the government
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if I want to invite my friends from France
over to have dinner.”
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I'd say if you care about the free market, and
if you care about the future being a
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place where your grandkids would
want to live,
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then you should donate to Students For
Liberty. By far, my favorite thing about
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SFL and what I've been able to do here
is that I've been able to connect with people
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in this big tent.
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Maybe I'm not the most libertarian person
in this organization, but I can communicate
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with people who are. And maybe I'm not
the most conservative person
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in this organization, but I know who those
people are and we get along and we
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are fighting for exactly the same things.
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