<div dir="ltr">If I may share as a moment of personal privilege, please take a moment to reach out to our 2014 Thomas Paine Award-winning to congratulate her on her retirement:<div><br></div><div><strong style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:15px;line-height:22.5px"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:large">Advocates for Self-Government President Sharon Harris </span><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:large">to Retire </span></strong><strong style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:large">After Twenty Years </strong><br style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:15px;line-height:22.5px"><br style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:15px;line-height:22.5px"><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">After 20 years, Sharon Harris is retiring as president of the Advocates for Self-Government. </span><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">However, she still plans to remain very active with the Advocates and the liberty movement. </span><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">"I'm not retiring as an active libertarian," Sharon emphasizes. "I'm just stepping down from the varied and time-consuming job of Advocates president. This will let me focus my efforts on the activities I love most: writing and speaking about libertarianism and -- my favorite topic -- the most effective ways to communicate the ideas of liberty. I also plan to continue doing communication workshops on this topic, some of them in conjunction with the Advocates.</span><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">"Being president of the Advocates for Self-Government has been the most wonderful and fulfilling job I could have ever imagined for myself! It has been an incredible honor for me to follow in the footsteps of the previous two Advocates presidents: Advocates Founder Marshall Fritz and Carole Ann Rand. </span><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">"They created a fantastic organization that has deeply affected the lives of millions of individuals. The Advocates has enormously increased the size and effectiveness of the libertarian movement, and has introduced tens of millions of people to libertarianism."</span><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">The Advocates is most famous for the creation and distribution of the World's Smallest Political Quiz. The Advocates is also well-known for its acclaimed libertarian communication training. </span><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">The Quiz has long been the most popular outreach tool in the libertarian movement. The Quiz presents a far more complete political map than the old left-versus-right line (which excludes libertarians). The Quiz lets takers place themselves on that map by answering ten short questions on current issues. </span><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">"The Quiz is arguably the most effective tool for libertarian understanding and outreach ever created,” says Sharon. "Millions of people have been exposed to libertarian ideas by the Quiz. It has changed the way Americans view the political landscape." </span><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">The Quiz went online in 1995, shortly before Sharon became President. Since then the online version of the Quiz has been taken an incredible 22 million-plus times -- and that number grows by tens of thousands each month. </span><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">* The Quiz has been featured in some of America’s bestselling college and high school textbooks or their supplementary material. Further, the Advocates has supplied educators, at their request, with over 30,000 Quiz cards for their classrooms. "Today, thousands of college and high school students study the Quiz -- and thus libertarianism," Sharon says. "This is a huge breakthrough for the liberty movement."</span><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">* The Quiz has been printed and discussed in dozens of newspapers and magazines and many popular and scholarly books. </span><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">* The Advocates has also distributed over 10 million Quiz cards, the original form of the Quiz. </span><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">* The Quiz forms the basis for another acclaimed outreach tool, Operation Politically Homeless (OPH) -- a highly effective way to discover and recruit libertarian-leaning people at public events. In recent years the Advocates has given more than 1,000 OPH kits to campus libertarian organizations, helping libertarian students identify and recruit thousands of campus activists and foster the growth of libertarianism among </span><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span class="" tabindex="0"><span class="">tomorrow's</span></span></span><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"> leaders and voters. </span><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">* The Advocates is also famous for teaching libertarians the best ways to persuade others to accept the ideas of liberty. Sharon has taught innumerable libertarian communication classes and seminars in almost every state in America. Last year alone Sharon spoke on successful communication to over 1,000 libertarians. She consistently receives rave reviews for her seminars. Her recent book </span><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium;text-decoration:underline">How To Be A Super Communicator for Liberty</span><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"> presents a selection of some of her best thinking on this, from her 20 years of studying and teaching. </span><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">Ron Paul has praised Sharon's communication work: "Few in the libertarian movement have spent as much effort working on how to best 'market' the libertarian message as Sharon Harris," said Paul.</span><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">"I'm extremely proud of our communication work," says Sharon. "I truly believe it has revolutionized the way libertarians present our ideas to the public. We've helped tens of thousands of libertarians become far more persuasive and effective in their outreach. And that has helped build our movement and win others to our side. I look forward to continuing and expanding this work. </span><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">Sharon has been libertarian since 1967. She was a co-founder of the Libertarian Party of Georgia in 1972. She ran as a Libertarian for Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture in 1994, winning over 300,000 votes. </span><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">In 2012, the National Libertarian Party honored Sharon with their Thomas Jefferson Award, "presented to the Libertarian Party member whose achievements merit our recognition of outstanding leadership, high character, and dedication to the principles and goals of the Party." In 2014 she received the LP's Thomas Paine Award for "outstanding communication of libertarian ideas, principles, and values." </span><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">Brett Bittner, former executive director of the Libertarian Party of Georgia and former Chairman of the Libertarian State Leadership Alliance, has been working with the Advocates since April 2014 and has been chosen as new Advocates executive director. He will take the helm on </span><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span class="" tabindex="0"><span class="">May 1</span></span></span><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">. </span><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><br style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">In addition to celebrating Sharon's 20 years of achievement, the organization is also celebrating its 30th anniversary. The Advocates will celebrate both anniversaries at an informal party in Atlanta, </span><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"><span class="" tabindex="0"><span class="">June 27</span></span></span><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">. All are invited. To learn more about this event and Sharon's future plans, "like" <a href="http://facebook.com/SharonHarris" target="_blank">Sharon’s page on Facebook</a></span><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium"> or <a href="mailto:Sharon@TheAdvocates.org" target="_blank">email her</a></span><span style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">. </span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:15px;line-height:22.5px"></span><div align="center" style="line-height:22.5px;font-size:medium">###</div><div><div class="gmail_signature">Brett C. Bittner<div><br></div><div><a href="mailto:brett@brettbittner.com" target="_blank">brett@brettbittner.com</a></div><div>404.492.6524</div><div><div><br></div><div>"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it." -- Thomas Jefferson</div></div></div></div>
</div></div>