From Santa Barbara News-Press

By Matt Bloise

At the Reagan Ranch Center in downtown Santa Barbara, 48 students from around the world were asking one of the leading critics of the environmental movement what can be done to counter their extremist message.

Can a balance be struck between the environment and freedom? What do you think of cap and trade, and what will it do? How well did BP and President Obama respond to the oil spill? I have to take a required course for environmental studies, what advice do you have to deal with it?

The speaker politely answered, discussed and occasionally debated the issues with them, delving into the details of policy that don't get talked about on the evening news. It was obvious to anyone watching that these were no ordinary high school students.

The seminar is the first joint venture between the Reagan Ranch Center and the Reagan Legacy Foundation, and one of the most intensive experiments in liberty education ever launched. The two-day seminar in Santa Barbara comes at the end of two separate trips abroad, one through Eastern Europe for 19 American students and one through Southern California for eight European students. The two groups embarked on a mission to contrast two strikingly different cultures by understanding their common theme, in this case, the importance of freedom in human societies.

During the two-week tour throughout Europe, the American students had the chance to see the direct impact of tyranny and witness the moments where the convictions of President Ronald Reagan and others helped bring it to an end. They toured the old Jewish Quarter in Prague, the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, Brandenburg Gate and two concentration camps.

"I'm really interested in European history, and I wanted to see where it happened," explained Kelan Dammers, a 17-year old student at Westlake High School in Thousand Oaks. "The culture of Europeans is intertwined with their history. I knew the people had fought for their freedom, but until you speak to them, you don't really understand the bravery of the people, and how much they risked for their lives and their family's lives. It was incredible how much their freedom meant to them."

The trips to the camps where six million Jews were exterminated had been particularly moving, said the teen.
"I have very deep Jewish roots, and I wanted to see the camps," he said. "It's surreal. I don't think anyone in the present day can imagine the scope of it. We went to the Jewish History Museum, and I thought it was going to be about the Holocaust, and a bit of it was, but most of it was about the beautiful history and the people, and I was so happy to see that."

Meanwhile, a group of European students had embarked on their own liberty tour throughout Southern California in July. Eight students, from Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic toured the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley. Later, they toured the private home of Ronald Reagan in the hills above Santa Barbara, and embarked on their own discussions.

Marina Nowacka, 20, resides in Poland and used this opportunity to become more familiar with the United States and its people. "It was so great, because we can exchange our views on America and Europe, about history and people," she gushed. "Talking about it is a much different thing than reading. American people are so open, always smiling all the time. We've heard so many inspiring speakers. I've learned to appreciate freedom."

She also expressed her fondness for Ronald Reagan, who she said helped end communism. "No one wanted to help us from the West; they claimed to help us but they didn't. Ronald Reagan was one of the few people who understood the importance of freedom," she said. "My country has had a very hard history. My parents try to explain it to me, what it was like; but I was born in 1990, so it's hard to imagine. Not having freedom affects the way we live, especially under communism. My country is very grateful to him for what he did."

At lunch, entertainer and thinker Ben Stein spoke about what exactly freedom is, why its needed, and why Ronald Reagan believed in it. "Ronald Reagan would have said freedom is our most important product in the United States, ahead of our high-tech computer industries or our high-tech weapon industries. The freedom of humans to go about their daily lives answering their conscience to God, without being interfered with by a despot -- people have no idea how rare freedom is. This is a candle flickering in the storm."

Freedom is easy to exterminate, Mr. Stein continued, and it always ends in the same way. "There's always a good reason for denying it," he explained. "We'll just take some away for the sake of social justice, or we'll take some freedom away from those icky rich people, and what do you care about them anyway? We need to get back to basics, and Mr. Obama needs to realize that there cannot be a free society without a free economy. If a government controls the economy, they by necessity control everything else."

The seminar will conclude today with a graduation ceremony and a speech by Michael Reagan, the late president's son, about his father's vision for the world. "We face many of the same challenges (as Reagan did), not in the same form, but the same social and intellectual battles," said Andrew Coffin, director of the Reagan Ranch Center. "It is far too easy for students today to become liberal by osmosis, especially if they go through their formative years being influenced by their teachers, textbooks and the media. Our job is to get in front of them and give them the other side so they learn to formulate arguments and be bold."

Although nothing has been determined yet, Mr. Coffin said he has been in talks with the Reagan Legacy Foundation about a second year. Young America's Foundation, which runs the Reagan Ranch Center, he said, is dedicated to events that educate students about liberty, something that is sorely lacking in university classrooms. "We would love to put ourselves out of business," he added. "They shouldn't have to come here to Santa Barbara to learn about Milton Friedman, William F. Buckley or Ronald Reagan. (But) I think if we do that, then we have an impact on the future of the country."