The archive of polls at the Libertarian Party website has been purged of reference to a recent poll on the necessity of government. As of the last time I checked the poll, the results were as follows:
Do you believe there is a necessary and proper role for government in society?
Yes
22% (196 votes)
Maybe
13% (113 votes)
No
65% (569 votes)
Total votes: 878
Subsequent reports claimed that the poll received many more votes, but continued to show a strong majority opposed to the idea that government has a necessary and proper role.
On the same day as the poll which has been removed, LP.org published a blog entry by Director of Communications Andrew Davis which claimed that ‘We (the Libertarian Party) do believe government has a function in the economy’.
A different poll, asking a virtual identical question, but showing the opposite results from the one that has been removed, remains in the LP.org archives.
LP.org polls have been the matter of some controversy lately (for example, see here and here).
As a result of party members expressing their concerns, a discussion reportedly has taken (or is taking) place on the LNC list about providing responders to LP.org polls with information about the Libertarian Party position on issues, and staff members are working with members of the LNC to implement a system for doing so. However, although not much time has passed on this, thus far the only evidence that staff are trying to integrate the daily polls into more substantive content has been the poll which has been removed in conjunction with the blog posting referenced above.
SD – They are no more “mentally ill” than people who are just lazy, evil, vindictive, racist, homophobic (or for that matter, homosexual), etc. There are personality traits that are good and bad; behaviors that are good and bad. What makes one a mental illness and not another? Only what psychiatrists (an invented non-science) say. And I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about scizofrenia. I do not believe (though I’m not sure) there are any physical indications of the “illness.” If there is, then it isn’t a mental illness, but a physical one. I’m talking about supposed “illnesses” wherein there are NO documentable physiological abnormalities.
that is used to describe anyone that has ideas that are different than whatever the mainstream is.
You really believe this? Incredible. Yeah, JCJ, people with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anorexia and bulimia nervosa and Tourette’s are all just either faking or rebels against the “man”.
Good gravy.
I forgot to put “mentally ill” in quotes, as mental illness doesn’t exist.
Mentally ill people should be free to live out their mentally ill symptoms unless they become violent.
Druckenmiller,
You are describing a PHYSICAL illness, not a mental one. You are describing physical damage to the brain that results in symptoms of “mental” problems. This is different than what is usually implied by the catch-all “mental illness” that is used to describe anyone that has ideas that are different than whatever the mainstream is. There is a huge difference and I’m sure you know it. When someone says their is no evidence of mental illness it means just that. If there is physical brain damage, that something else entirely. People with brain tumors show signs of “mental illness” but when a tumor is found we don’t diagnose them as being “mentally ill.” We say they have a fucking tumor.
Contrary to what you say, there is no physiological evidence of “mental†illness.
Let’s just take schizophrenia for a second:
– Physically damaged dopamine receptors in the brain. Physically damaged neurotransmitters.
Those are physiological indicators that go 1-for-1 with people with diagnosed schizophrenia.
Stop making shit up and provide some evidence for your assertions. Given that almost nobody in the world believes you, it is incumbent on you to cough up some proof or shut up.
The poll’s result was clearly skewed by its promotion on the anarchist site LewRockwell.com, which has 4X the traffic of LP.org. A more representative version was Oct 27 poll: http://www.lp.org/poll/does-government-have-a-legitimate-and-necessary-role-in-society
Yes: 69% (638 votes)
Maybe: 13% (120 votes)
No: 18% (163 votes)
The best available data (http://libertarianmajority.net/libertarian-polling#LPmembers) suggest that anarchists have dropped below 8% of LP NatCon attendees, who themselves are presumably more radical than the median LP member.
Anthony Gregory alleges that anarcho-capitalists are “unwelcome” in the LP — a party routinely ridiculed on the LewRockwell.com blog where Gregory writes. Of course, he was presumably paid for his speech to the 2007 LPCA convention advocating government abolitionism, and I’ve never heard an anarchist get accused of violating the LP membership pledge (as we minarchists so often are). I was invited out of the LP as recently as this morning, by a leader of the Outright Libertarians. Gregory also writes at Antiwar.com, whose founder Justin Raimondo gave a speech to the 2003 LPIL convention advising LP to purge all liberventionists. Cry me a river, Anthony.
SD – Mental illness is fake. Contrary to what you say, there is no physiological evidence of “mental” illness. “Mental illness” is just whatever the state SAYS it is. See homosexuality. See the Soviet Union. It’s not surprising that a hardcore statist such as yourself would love the fake non-science of “psychiatry” — something entirely made up and with no basis in real science. It’s just a tool for tyrants, and as a rabid Brown-Shirt Fascist/true believer in state power, that you’re a cheerleader for this false religion is not a surprise.
They could post a poll about George Phillies’s 16th century economic views to go with his statist global warming fantasy, too.
Next up on G.E.’s review of science is when he talks about the falsity of mental illness and how schizos just need to “man up”. Also: trepanation!
As I was checking out the results every now and then, it was clear there was something “off” about the poll results. No surprise they deleted a poll that could possibly be the result of some type of “online polling fraud,” if you want to make something serious out of it.
I really don’t see how anybody could be so upset over something as inconsequential as a daily poll. Though I guess with Keaton gone, I guess the LP needs a new war to fight amongst each other.
Last time I looked at the poll before it was taken down, there were nearly 1400 “votes” and the percentages were running about the same (63%, 25%, 13% IIRC).
I kept checking it pretty regularly because I expected that the numbers would be “corrected”. The numbers posted obviously were the result of some sort of Diebold-like “vote flipping” – or maybe those 10 Ron Paul supporters that “hacked” Fox News debate polls had gotten to it.
socialist*****
“Do you believe there is a necessary and proper role for government in society?”
Only a non-statist government. I’d prefer even a voluntary sociaist society over the current state I’m subjected to.
And as I said on the reason post, the cops are lucky the father didn’t blow their fucking heads off.
Of course the 12 year old kidnapped by police and then charged with defending herself from her abductors/child abusers was in a story on tReason almost 2 days ago. But the credit for that goes more to Balko ( say what you will about reason and Cato but Balko has worked for both and done great work) than reason.
GE makes the world a brighter place.
“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” –
— George Washington
One example, out of countless many
http://delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com/2008/12/truly-disgusting-story-about-police.html
Apparently the Galveston police got a phone call that some white prostitutes were seen on a certain street corner. The cops love to shakedown prostitutes, prostitutes tend not to shoot back and sometimes the cops get free blow jobs to conveniently forget to finish the arrest.
Of course, the bozos in uniform went to the wrong street.
Meanwhile a peaceful family was preparing things for the kids to head to school the next morning. The circuit breaker went out and Emily Milburn asked her 12-year-old daughter to go outside and switch it back on. Dymond Milburn did as her mother requested.
But as she got outside a dark van pulled up and three men jumped out and grabbed the girl. They started pulling toward the van saying: “You’re a prostitute. You’re coming with me.â€
The terrified child began screaming for her father and trying to fight back. So the men, far bigger than her, covered her mouth and started beating her in the face and in the throat to shut her up.
The police were a couple of blocks away from the address reported to them. But they have justified their attack on this child saying that she looked like a prostitute because they thought her shorts were too tight. Hey, if the cops can’t tell cap guns from real guns then I can see why the same idiots can’t tell the difference between a 12-year-old black girl and a full grown white prostitute. And, of course, the same developmentally challenged officers can’t tell the differences between the various streets in town either.
The girl was hospitalized due to the injuries she suffered at the hands of these violent cops protecting decent Americans from orgasms for cash. But the boys in blue weren’t finished. Apparently, because the family is upset about the violent, thuggish behavior of these cops, it was decided they need to be taught a lesson.
So when Dymond was released from hospital and back in school the police showed up once again — this time at the school and arrested her. She was charged with assaulting a “public servantâ€. Personally, I am sorry Dymond wasn’t able to shoot the bastards. It is astounding that the morons in blue didn’t realize that a terrified child will fight back when strange men grab the child in the dark.
In fact, these idiots go around teaching children to fight back if some strange man tries to grab them off the street. This is standard procedure.
An attorney for the police officers says that the police arrest the girl for fighting back and that they also arrested the father of the girl for trying protect his daughter from the kidnappers — of course, when the police illegally kidnap someone they don’t see it as a crime. They are superior to the law — just watch how they drive if you don’t believe me.
The attorney says: “The city investigated the matter and found that the conduct of the police officers was appropriate under the circumstances.â€
Good catch on the no treason/ not reason, thing. That’s a cool play.
Haha, I was just kind of pushing your buttons there.
And is that website “No Treason” or “Not Reason”? And, I’m asking this of GE only, is there a difference!
http://notreason.com/2008/12/19/the-libertarian-partys-big-tent/
Oh, it’s like that, huh?
A friend of my father’s spent time in a Soviet psych ward. The diagnosis was something that translates more or less as “excessive obsession with freedom.”
I think that, had GE grown up in the USSR, he may have been given this diagnosis. I think if I had not left at a very young age, it may have well been in the cards for me as well.
Do you believe GE deliberately makes himself look stupid or is just mentally ill?
They could post a poll about George Phillies’s 16th century economic views to go with his statist global warming fantasy, too. Also: Do you agree with George Phillies that it is okay for governments to mass murder women and children?
What a silly group of people running that party from the top.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/024498.html
I see they left in the Global Warming Poll. Perhaps a few others of equal intellectual merit could be added to the future polls list
Did men and dinosaurs live at the same time? Yes No both
The earth: Round? Flat? Stellated? Klein Bottle?
Is malaria caused by
Morbid humors in the air? Insufficient use of medical leeches? Unfavorable planetary configuration? Excessive bile in the diet?
The soundest representation of the integers is:
Ancient Grecian Numbers
Correct Roman Numerals 9 = VIIII
Medieval Roman Numbers 9 = IX
Mayan Numbers 9 =
0000
_____
Base Pi enumeration (area of circle = 10 R^2)