The last day of the National Convention consisted of the last officer elections and, after the convention was adjourned, a meeting of the new Libertarian National Committee.
The election for the five open at-large seats on the LNC were held early this morning. Nominated candidates were: Dr. Tom Stevens, Wayne Root, Kevin Knedler, John Jay Myers, Lee Wrights, Rebecca Sink-Burris, Judge Jim Gray, Sam Sloan, Bill Redpath, Dr. Mary Ruwart, Pat Dixon, Ed Vallejo, Thomas Hill, and David Nolan.
The new at-large members are Mary Ruwart of Texas, Wayne-Allyn Root of Nevada, Bill Redpath of Virginia, David Nolan of Arizona, and Kevin Knedler of Ohio. Root received the most votes for at-large.
The election for the Judicial Committee was then held, with Bill Hall, Nick Sarwark, Bob Sullentrup, Robert Latham, Lee Wrights, Judge Jim Gray all being elected to that body.
The convention then adjourned and the LNC meeting, with new members, occurred immediately afterward.
David Nolan suggested Las Vegas on July 11th as the date and location for the next meeting of the LNC. This coincides with FreedomFest, a large gathering of libertarians in Las Vegas.
Stewart Flood, Southeast Regional Representative, suggested the LNC authorize the expenditure of $15,000 to run radio ads against Proposition 14 in California. This motion passed.
Love it
“Some of us are willing to get our hands dirty, make some mistakes, engage the center where they are, etc.”
Yep.
But I think you’re mistaken in assessing who those people are.
sh: No, I don’t. Find me a case where a political party – ANY political party – doesn’t claim to want to minimize aggression.
me: Actually, terminology like “minimize aggression” is pretty much limited to Ls. Rs and Ds tend to speak FAR less abstractly.
It is a notion that animates and motivates my political views, and probably most Ls. I think Starchild is getting to the nub of things…it’s a methodological matter.
An ex. of this is the whole Rand Paul/CRA matter. Murray may be turning over in his grave on that one, outraged that Rand wasn’t willing to REALLY hold high the banner. I go further here: http://freeliberal.com/articles/12129/would-you-have-voted-for-the-civil-rights-act-of-1964
Those who want neat, tidy, deontologically precise answers to all political questions are, IMO, setting themselves up for failure.
Some of us are willing to get our hands dirty, make some mistakes, engage the center where they are, etc.
Perhaps we can come here to IPR as a sort of ideological confessional, questioning long-held dogma (from the 70s) and be told which chapter to read in FOR A NEW LIBERTY to get our heads straight. 😉
paulie // Jun 4, 2010:
“Lake, why is your name paulie all of a sudden?”
————– the cosmic link of all sentient beings ?
I’m all for gay marriage, but I’m not gay,
————- exactimundo!
if I was, I hope I would have better taste,
————- under stand, fully under stand!
Trying to keep my comments as brief as my under ware. I am having link age problems (or any way that’s what my doctor called it *humor* ) and I was trying to make a point with an attempt at *grins*
The snide response to a snide comment, with my tea totaling ways and paulie’s legendary connection with ethyl alcohol. Sorry, I thot it was more obvious! I was hoping for (and thus disappointed in) a more logical and focused reply ……….
It was meant to be more of a reference than a bi line!
NS: my totals weren’t that narrow.
From the numbers that Bill forwarded to us, you would have been out of the money if as few as four of your voters — and no more than seven — voted differently.
Lake, why is your name paulie all of a sudden? I’m all for gay marriage, but I’m not gay, and if I was, I hope I would have better taste LOL
JT // Jun 4, 2010 at 6:45 pm
“…….. just shut up and keep drinking.”
Well it will be the first time I’ve been drunk!
First, my totals weren’t that narrow.
Second, I’d attribute what votes I lost to my writing the last Judicial Committee opinion. There are people who have supported me in the past who felt I was wrong in my decision and declined to support me this time. Frankly, if you think I did a bad job, you should vote against me.
The oddest bit in the chair race was Myers quitting, thus throwing away what was actually a respectable chance of winning. He had to pick up a very modest number of votes from my supporters, relative to the number that Hancock picked up , at which point he would have finished ahead of Hancock. When actually faced with the choice, it is plausible that many of Hancock’s voters would have preferred Myers to a current LNC member, pushing Myers ahead of Hinkle. In the two-way race, the vote would have been close enough to the same no matter who was running against Root.
Having said that, when you quit in midstream in a multi-round vote system, you are stabbing your own voters in the back. If your voters had known you were not really running, they might have preferred a candidate who was already eliminated. Exception: If you are going into the last round, and the numbers are totally transparent that you are going to lose, dropping is much much less consequential, e.g., Israel dropping in 2002 against Neale.
ya , and i couldnt dare bore them with the details , when voting for Chair , they went around and talked to all 5 candidates then based their vote on who they liked best —how novel:)
“LibertarianGirl // Jun 4, 2010 at 7:01 pm
thats funny because we had some newbies with us who know nothing of the lp drama”
LOL! Yeah, I ran into some people who were newbies who know nothing about all of the internal drama in the Libertarian Party as well.
Man, those were the days back when I was not aware of the of the drama that goes on in the LP. Sometimes the expression “Ignorance is bliss.” has got a really good point. LOL!
@184 Good observations!
thats funny because we had some newbies with us who know nothing of the lp drama and they decided to vote for Aaron BECA– USE he had so much to say , they said anyone that interested in all the goings on would do their best and got their vote.
I was sitting next to Aaron for most of the Platform and Bylaws stuff, and he kept popping up from his seat, going around me to the microphone, and back again that I felt like I was in a Whack-a-Mole machine. That did not make delegates happy.
Granted, I had my own share of mic time, but I wasn’t running for anything either.
Lake: “Keep on criticizing others when you are in the wrong. Good training for a PAID position with the Democans and the Republicrats!”
My argument wasn’t wrong, lunatic Lake. I wrongly mislabeled the voting process, which I immediately conceded. My entire argument about the process was right. If you can point out where my logic was wrong, do it. If not, just shut up and keep drinking.
Brian Holtz // Jun 4, 2010:
“you need to remember: at any given moment, there is only one “consistent libertarian” in the universe. Anyone who disagrees with her on anything is “inconsistent”, and anyone who doesn’t disagree with her on anything is a sellout ……..”
Hope the light over you head turns on and you see the writing on the wall: ‘Libertarians are weird and not rational!’ Again, folks that yell and scream at each other, coast to coast, border to border, and through out the West Coast, continually gripe ’bout the Libs!
You guys have such a great message! And timely: the growth of non private enterprise employment in North America.
Why haven’t you guys done more to halt the, the, the EXPLOSION of government ???????
Oh, too busy applying loyalty oaths to each other ????? Hmmmmmmmm Did not work for Judism, or Communism, or Islam, or Nazism, or Christianity! *Doctor Phil voice over* how’s that workin for you guys ??????
JT // Jun 4, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Carolyn: “No we don’t use IRV. The voting is, as you said, iterative, meaning that the lowest vote getter is dropped.”
JT: “You’re right; I shouldn’t have called that IRV. My argument stands though as long as my description of the process was right.”
Lake: Keep on criticizing others when you are in the wrong. Good training for a PAID position with the Democans and the Republicrats!
say Starr Cabal enuf and its sticks I guess . so I agree the margin of loss was more a vote against Aaron for perceptions he’s the puppetmaster of certain things than a vote for Oaksun or a vote against Aarons job performance as Treasurer.
“I still am skeptical that more than 20% of delegates pay attention to any pre-convention campaigning.”
If 20% is low, it’s not very low.
To the extent that faction politics played in the treasurer race more than in the secretary race, I’d say that the main factor was probably the constant identification — right or wrong, both before the convention and at it — of Starr as “ringleader/puppeteer” of a faction blamed for some negative things.
Mattson got constant positive face time with the delegates in the course of her duties as platform committee chair.
Starr’s face time was mostly speaking to motions, and I suspect he was seen by many — once again, right or wrong — as “hogging the delegate microphone.”
He wasn’t the only one doing that (we all know who we are!), but he was the only one doing that and running in a two-way race for an officer position. To put the nicest possible face on things, one might even say that he willingly risked (and lost) his office for the next two years in order to try to make what he considered the right things happen that weekend.
The rest of us, with the possible exception of Nick Sarwark, didn’t have as much at stake in terms of “am I annoying the hell out of people by speaking so much?” And to the extent that Nick had to worry about that, well, he was generally concise, on point, and saying things that everyone was hoping someone would say — and he was running from respected incumbency for one of seven positions in a field of what, 14?
Capozzi @ 169:
Avoiding aggression at all times sounds paralyzing to me.
What Knapp said.
Yes, we COULD follow a Hindu monk and live in a cave to assiduously avoid the possibility of aggression, but even there, breathing and walking is aggressive. All those little microbes we inhale and step on would certainly prefer us to not aggress.
Is that what you think I mean by nonaggression, or are you deliberately misrepresenting my position?
Saying what other political parties say is not what I’m suggesting at all. You surely know that,…
No, I don’t. Find me a case where a political party – ANY political party – doesn’t claim to want to minimize aggression.
Stewart @ 174
No luck w/ phones here. As I understand it I need to be on the phone and the computer simulateneously. The internet at the motel is not connecting to any websites, although it claims it has gotten me online. I’m online now…at the library, where I can’t use the phone.
If I can resolve this between now and Tuesday I’ll make some calls.
Oaksun conceded in his nomination-time speech that he had no complaints about how Starr had been executing the job of Treasurer — even though we had just learned that the leader of his own New Path slate had filed a criminal complaint against the financial reporting of the LP’s relationship with the Barr campaign. Instead, Oaksun said that the reason he opposed Starr was because of LNC divisiveness that he said was caused by Starr.
Negative campaigning tends not to sit well with NatCon delegates, so it’s especially impressive when you’re successful at it while 1) running for the same position as your incumbent target and 2) conceding that your target has been doing the job competently. Oaksun did campaign energetically online before the convention, but I don’t think that suffices to explain his margin of victory.
I suppose one could claim that Starr didn’t campaign enough — or at all — for re-election, but I still am skeptical that more than 20% of delegates pay attention to any pre-convention campaigning.
Carolyn: “Again, Rob had been campaigning since October, and he is a very well liked and well respected candidate, so there was no reason for us to believe he would not beat Mattson handily.”
Yes, I think you had good reason to believe he’d win anyway. I understand why you’d support him as a candidate in your slate and not want to get into the race he was also running in. I’m just saying that you wouldn’t have cost him the election anyway if you ran also and split some of the vote between you both, given that it’s not decided by winner-take-all voting.
Carolyn: “No we don’t use IRV. The voting is, as you said, iterative, meaning that the lowest vote getter is dropped.”
You’re right; I shouldn’t have called that IRV. My argument stands though as long as my description of the process was right.
[a] campaign literature laying around the day after the election
[b] returned letters
[c] empty telephones
[d] Kreeps like me and my lil posse whom make decisions early and laugh and laugh at the irritation of the broad cast advets (until the message [or slanted half truths] get on even our nerves)
Mister Flood, thx for your efforts and service in the conflicting and confusing 21 Century America.
Ok…now that everyone has had fun chatting: BACK TO THE PHONES!!!
I see you…people who’ve signed up to make calls…but you’re chatting on here and you’re NOT ON THE PHONES!!!
🙂
This message was brought to you by the letters P (phone), C (calls) and N (now)
yeah , i thought Rob fucked up addressing the FEC complaint as well , it made me uncomfortable because I thought he was making a huge error both for Phillies and himself. he sounded angry , and nominating speeches should be all about the positives
@168, I believe that most of that was because Starr was running against someone who was simply a better choice as treasurer than he. James Oaksun’s credentials, his energy, his faultless behavior during the campaign, his refusal to get caught up in factionalism, his experience and his promise of transparency in the records… he was simply the better choice.
I also think the delegates associated a lot of the negativity of the previous term with Starr, and it was very hard for him to get clear of all that baggage, especially the FEC complaint and his anger over that, so he could campaign effectively.
So long answer short, I believe the delegates evaluated Starr independently from his association with Root, Rutherford and Mattson.
“Avoiding aggression at all times sounds paralyzing to me.”
That’s what everyone who supports aggression says.
Haven’t seen any evidence for it, though.
I predicted 60-65% for Alicia, and she got 57%.
Mattson had the inside track in the Secretary’s race, as she had spent the morning once again smoothly handling the Platform debate in her capacity as PlatCom Chair. Power was coming off a nominating speech for Phillies in which he had dug into the unpleasant matter of George’s criminal complaint against the LP. Ruth Bennett described Power as someone who can work well with any faction in the Party, but she also praised the competence of outgoing Secretary Sullentrup only moments before he glowingly endorsed Mattson.
I heard that a large fraction of delegates were at their first convention. It could be that they tended to punish candidates who worked the floor mics harder than newbies might be used to. That would help explain the defeats of Starr and Tom Stevens, and the narrowness of Sarwark’s win.
For my part, I enjoyed and appreciated the debate and motions offered by Aaron and Nick, and thought they engaged in very little overreach.
susan, make that “rabid” 😉
This: If things are always ‘murky’, and you have to operate on insufficient information, the default would seem to be to avoid aggression at all times – when you need to carefully construct a thought experiment to even admit the possibility of the desirability of aggression, then it seems as if its justification under political conditions would be impossible.
Me: Avoiding aggression at all times sounds paralyzing to me. Yes, we COULD follow a Hindu monk and live in a cave to assiduously avoid the possibility of aggression, but even there, breathing and walking is aggressive. All those little microbes we inhale and step on would certainly prefer us to not aggress.
Saying what other political parties say is not what I’m suggesting at all. You surely know that, just as surely as I know you don’t advocate abandoning all the nuclear silos tomorrow even though they are paid for with “stolen” tax dollars.
why do you think Alicia won but others from the same “slate” like Starr lost?
No we don’t use IRV. The voting is, as you said, iterative, meaning that the lowest vote getter is dropped. IRV would have it all taken care of in one fell swoop. IRV was more like what we did with the straw poll, with ranked choices.
As I said, my main reason was that Rob was a slate-mate and, with his MBA, was better suited to run against Mattson than I. And he was still planning to run. Had he dropped out of the race, I would have stepped up to the plate against her.
Again, Rob had been campaigning since October, and he is a very well liked and well respected candidate, so there was no reason for us to believe he would not beat Mattson handily.
odd, not sure you’re disagreeing with me. I’d say the Abolitionists were failures, as they triggered a Civil War that killed 500K. The IRA is certainly dysfunctional in my book….yours? Whether the early Church is something I’d hold up as a model for social change is questionable. I doubt few — even the most pious — would disagree that a LOT of western history is marred by people ACTING in the name of Jesus who were NOT doing onto others as they would have others do onto them. No Bible scholar here, but my understanding is the early church leaders edited the Gospels to suit their political agenda.
So, I’ll stick with my general assessment that zealotry is contra-indicated.
Susan @159, you need to remember: at any given moment, there is only one “consistent libertarian” in the universe. Anyone who disagrees with her on anything is “inconsistent”, and anyone who doesn’t disagree with her on anything is a sellout.
I should add, also because Hinkle was more liked amongst all the delegates than his other opponents as well, obviously.
Carolyn: “…but with Rob Power already running, I’m afraid that if I’d dropped my hat into that race at the last moment, it would have split the non-Mattson vote between Rob and myself, and she might have won anyway.”
Aren’t all LNC elections with more than two candidates decided by IRV? If so, IRV isn’t like a winner-take-all process and your running for secretary wouldn’t have cost Rob the election.
Perhaps Alicia would still have won on the first ballot. If so, you’d be no worse off than now. If she didn’t and you split the vote with Rob, the less preferred between you and Rob would have been dropped. If you were actually less liked than Rob, then he’d be in the same position as if it were a two-way race anyway, and he would have lost as he did. If you were actually more liked than him, then it would have at least been a tighter race between you and Alicia and perhaps an outright victory for you.
Now if Rob would have won on the first ballot with a majority vote and you split it with him by a lot, say half, then obviously he wouldn’t win on the first ballot. But neither would Alicia. Then the most liked candidate between you and him would face off against her and the votes between you and him would be transferred to the other, winning a seat for your slate.
Anyway you slice it, you wouldn’t have cost him the election. IRV is different than winner-take-all, and splitting a vote doesn’t cost the stronger candidate the race.
Just look at the LNC chair vote. Hinkle was the most liked candidate, even though the anti-Root votes were largely split between the other three candidates. The only way Root was going to win was if he got a majority vote in the first round. But Hinkle won because, amongst all the delegates, he was more liked than Root.
Aggression averse is a very good sell for those who express fear as opposition to a libertarian ideal based on fear.
I find people on both sides of the political fence are very receptive to questions like:
Yes, it is VERY smart for society to pool its resources so everyone gets a base education, but why do we need the guys with guns doing the daycare?
Drugs are very bad. They ruin lives and family, but I cant justify destroying those families with because there is a drug user in the house. Drugs are a health problem, could we cure hyperactivity, obesity or shyness with threats of jail time?
Freedom out of control is far less scary than government out of control.
Times are hard and the cynicism of government is high again. Fear is the statist’s tool, I find that obviating it is a great way of making the libertarian ideology very easy to palate for most people.
RC@158:
“Zealots are almost always broadly unpersuasive, although they sometimes attract a small band of a rapid followers.
Not a model for rolling back the State, IMHO.”
Tell that to the Abolitionists, the IRA or 2nd century Christians. Zealotry is at the heart of all ideological endeavors. How that zeal is manifested is probably what you really dislike, not the commitment.
@159
Adequate to insure that there was not a full set of minority reports. To guarantee a win, you do not need to control every vote, just enough of them.
@160
The actual issue here actually does go back to Ayn Rand, notably to her ignorance of the most recent two and a half millennia of developments in the nature of logic. The central Objectivist claim is that you can specify a modest list of allegedly self-evident axioms (whether the list actually is self-evident *does not matter*), and from these you can deduce the truth or falsehood of every other statement related to the axioms. (related to? As opposed to ‘from *A is A*, deduce the number of teeth in a healthy male horse’).
The claim is simply wrong. Those of you who took plane geometry in high school have seen an example. You may remember the parallel postulate and the issues around it, namely there are actually three equally valid parallel postulates:
1) All pairs of lines, extended far enough, meet in a point.
2) Through any point not in a given line, there is one and only one line that if indefinitely extended does not meet the given line.
3) Through any point not in a given line, there is a whole bunch of lines that if indefinitely extended do not meet the given line.
Each of those postulates can be used…they give different answers, all consistent with the earlier axioms.
What is usually not mentioned in plane geometry is that, because plane geometry is not trivial — incredibly simple — there are an infinite number of statements, like the parallel postulate, that cannot be shown to be true or false using the axioms you already have.
For more details, read my book Funding Liberty, especially Chapter 17 Land of the Two Libertarian Parties
http://cmlc.org/fundingframes17.htm
notably the Appendix to the Appendix: The Axiom of Choice and Goedel’s Incompleteness Theorem.
“Third, until early in the last century the objective of mathematics was to reduce all results to logical derivations from a few axioms. Along came the German mathematician Kurt Goedel. Goedel proved, using the Axiom of Choice, that except in trivially simple logical systems you cannot produce a simple set of axioms that describe all mathematical results. That is, in any complicated mathematical system there are an infinite number of statements that are true, but that cannot be derived from any simple set of axioms using orthodox logic.* Alternatively, Goedel showed that excepting truly trivial logical systems all complete logical systems have an infinite number of independent axioms.”
(In some discussions I have had in my travels, I have also referred to the Church-Turing theorem, which is effectively an example.)
@158
“The point of the trolley is to illustrate that “principle” that is logically deduced does not and CANnot always lead to a tidy output. It’s a complex world with numerous countervailing and murky facts and opinions.”
Indeed this seems like a good argument -for- consistent principled application of non-aggression in political systems, as Less seemed to indicate. If things are always ‘murky’, and you have to operate on insufficient information, the default would seem to be to avoid aggression at all times – when you need to carefully construct a thought experiment to even admit the possibility of the desirability of aggression, then it seems as if its justification under political conditions would be impossible.
“When one engages POLITICALLY, if one takes an absolutist stance, one invites others to pick the absolutism apart.”
And if one says (as Mr. Obama does often) “I’m not into all the rigid ideology stuff, I just want to do what -works-,” then one invites others to examine what you mean by ‘works’, as well as to charges of being unprincipled. Being ‘pragmatic’ won’t magically remove political opposition – it may just change it’s tone and expression somewhat.
“It’s far more sensible and likely to be consequential if we position ourselves as aggression AVERSE.”
Right. Because “We’ll say just what everyone else says, only much more sincerely and with a much lower chance of winning an election,” has always been such a powerful message.
EVERY political party would sign on to the term “aggression averse”. Hell, that’s the terminology they used to (publicly) justify bombing entire cities!
“Zealots are almost always broadly unpersuasive, although they sometimes attract a small band of a rapid followers.”
Oh, good, because I’ve been wanting to get faster!
“Last term, consistent libertarians were rather completely shut out from the Platform & Bylaws committees, for example.”
Gee, thanks.
susan and less, less says: The problem is that your solution is far more likely to lead to real world disaster: since there is no way to do a global calculation of net total world aggression, the argument that it is okay for me to aggress if I believe it will be a net aggression benefit to the world is so vague as to be carte blanche for people with power.
me: Yes, if it leads to a sense of carte blanche, then that’s contra-indicated positioning. The point of the trolley is to illustrate that “principle” that is logically deduced does not and CANnot always lead to a tidy output. It’s a complex world with numerous countervailing and murky facts and opinions.
When one engages POLITICALLY, if one takes an absolutist stance, one invites others to pick the absolutism apart. This was the root dysfunction of Lism at the outset, IMO.
It’s far more sensible and likely to be consequential if we position ourselves as aggression AVERSE.
Zealots are almost always broadly unpersuasive, although they sometimes attract a small band of a rapid followers.
Not a model for rolling back the State, IMHO.
Marc Montoni, give it up. Quit LP. Join BTP.
LibGrrl // Jun 3, 2010:
“opposing aggression and invading countries based on lies , then murdering hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians are two different things ………”
Huh ??????????
Opposing aggression ?????????
Aggression ????????
Opposing invasion ??????
Invasion ?????????
Opposing murder ????????
Murder ????????????
@123:
This supposed ‘unity’ will face early tests when the various LNC-appointed convention committee members are selected. Last term, consistent libertarians were rather completely shut out from the Platform & Bylaws committees, for example.
We’ll see.
BH@148:
“Four strawmen in five sentences. If you’re going for an IPR record, you’ll have to do a little better than that. But not much.”
They are not strawmen.
You presented a problem and I called it a false question. The questions illustrate why it is false. The choice left to the dupe is kill one or let 5 die.
Forced into the decision, no decision is always the third if the mess is not your making. Iwould still look for another answer. If there are none, the deaths are on the hands of the mad philosopher not the dupe.
Externally, the dupe cannot be judged and that is the point of those questions: Where would anyone outside of the situation find authority to judge him?
Internally the act of actively participating in the evil may be a consequence in itself harder to bear than not preventing the evil of the mad philosopher. I (and I believe you) find that deontological and teleological approaches to ethics are not mutually exclusive. That in general, ethical decisions are not easily broken down to simple thought problems in real application.
I did want to say that I edited poorly having to step away and mispoke my conclusion:
“I am a consequetialist in morality, when I judge myself…”
Internally I am usually deontological as the default decision. Lying is always wrong or harmful. That is where the lack of prescience comes in. I do not always know all the consequences of an action. A lie that seems without consequence may set up a fraud in an others mind that compounds a false world view and leads to a larger problem. Force and fraud are on my basic list of no-nos. All else that is wrong extends from them in one way or another.
When externalized, though, judging another’s action, or more so judging if I even have authority to judge those actions, is a generally consequentialist.
I, like you, do not subscribe to an absolute pacifist view. Self defense is a natural right and responsibility.
My ethics also identify that people in the Congo, Yugoslavia, Israel, Iran, that place they call Palistine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Mexico, the US, and everywhere… all have the same basic rights that I do to defend themselves and seek aid. I think I have the right to help them if I wish. I just don’t think that “my government of free men” should be doing it. I do not consider it contractual defense within their authority.
Brian @137
The issue I am addressing is whether you have a satisfactory alternative to NAP. As you correctly note, I am ultimately a consequentialist (and as you correctly pointed out to someone else, that is NOT synonymous with being a utilitarian: let’s stay with one argument at a time). A belief in the consistency of means with ends does suggest that non-aggression is more likely to lead to minimizing total aggression than aggression is to lead to that result: if you want less rudeness in the world, not being a rude is probably the most effective way of getting there, if you want less racism, not being a racist is probably the most effective means, etc. We haven’t time to experimentally prove every application of NAP vs MTA, but the former is more plausible on its face to a consequentialist, and I would say the weight of evidence in social and economic studies so favors the former as to leave the latter almost entirely with ambiguous experimental results rather than clear victories and with creating contrived thought experiments with little real world applicability.
Of course, in a Hayekian universe, neither of us can possibly compute all of the effects of any action we take, although we can make a good guess when we are dealing with local conditions (that is, of course, Hayek’s precise point in his classic essay, “The Use Of Knowledge In Society).
You would no more blindly follow your “minimize total aggression” rule than I would blindly follow NAP: if a loved one (or even a stranger) were about to step into an open manhole and couldn’t hear us because they were listening to music on their iPod, we’d each violate their self-ownership to save their life.
The problem is that your solution is far more likely to lead to real world disaster: since there is no way to do a global calculation of net total world aggression, the argument that it is okay for me to aggress if I believe it will be a net aggression benefit to the world is so vague as to be carte blanche for people with power. And this has REAL consequences, while the contrived and artificial examples where NAP doesn’t work can be matched by artificial examples were MTA doesn’t work.
If I may offer an analogy: both of us are blessed with great marriages, and we voluntarily pledged fidelity at a time in the distant past (mine a bit more distant than yours). We both travel, and it is quite possible that we might find ourselves in a situation where the possibility of enjoying an extremely pleasurable evening with another woman with virtually no real world chance of being caught might present itself. Having a clear rule of fidelity is far better than having a flexible rule of attempting to minimizing net infidelity (“perhaps if I make love to the lady long enough it will prevent her from sleeping with two other married men in that time period”). But in the lifeboat exception, if the only possible way to save my wife’s life was to sleep with Megan Fox, I would make the sacrifice.
I don’t believe the proper answer to the lifeboat exceptions to NAP as a standard is to choose what I see as the MTA non-standard (and that is my point about your alternative being acceptable to Cheney: it would not lead him to respect liberty more because he ALREADY believes he is following MTA). One reason I believe common law rather than legislation is a sounder foundation for justice is that the man who thinks he needs to torture a suspect to save a million lives should be willing to have a legal process in which the arbitrator panel can decide whether his actions warrant restitution, and I have no doubt that, should any real life Jack Bauer actually prevent a terrorist attack by 2 seconds of pain infliction, that the damages he owes will be dwarfed by the contributions he voluntarily receives from a grateful public.
So violate NAP when you believe it is desirable, and accept the judgment of the arbitrator on the damages, if any, that you owe for your violation. If you have saved the world, you will never have to pay restitution out of your own pocket. Don’t propose the complete abandonment of a meaningful standard because it can’t satisfactorily solve a contrived trolley car problem.
I didn’t consider my quip to be a potshot, other than in an affectionate sense: if my respect for you and the sincerity of your attempts to wrestle with hard questions many other libertarians ignore is not clear, let me publicly state that I think you are always striving to be a good libertarian, and have sincere and legitimate concerns about the ways it has been described and promoted by others. But MTA is too devoid of clarity to be useful as a persuasion tool for non-libertarians, and it IS necessary to make clear that we have a philosophy that is different from the mainstream if we want people, especially young people, to have any reason to find us interesting and worth investigating.
I’m afraid I have to get back to work now: I have a deadline on a book and my normal client work, and the convention took away several days. I didnt want to ignore your response, but will have to give you the last word on this discussion. Please be kind, unless doing so would increase net global aggression.
opposing aggression and invading countries based on lies , then murdering hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians are two different things
I like that:
“Give kookiness a chance.”
Good Facebook status for me!
Oh, so that is why so many are “kooky”.
Give kookiness a chance.
Starchild, BTW, Dondero thinks that “kooky” means “Anti-war.”
How do you derive your authority for judging the dupe who is bound by the mad philosopher? […] Holding the dupe responsible shows an almost psychotic world view. Does everyone have to conform to your consequentialist doctrine? How do you perceive much less demonstrate all possible consequences?
Four strawmen in five sentences. If you’re going for an IPR record, you’ll have to do a little better than that. But not much.
Susan, I agree it would be a leap to say the Trolley Problem justifies some particular political policy, and I said so. However, given that the ZAP is clearly not infallible in the domain of personal ethics, it’s just as much a leap to claim that the ZAP must be inviolate in the realm of political ethics. In other words, neither the Non-Aggression Principle nor the Trolley Problem are a substitute for thinking about how to oppose aggression.
BH@various
And now we approach the question of authority.
How do you derive your authority for judging the dupe who is bound by the mad philosopher?
You cannot, the only evil actions taken in the scenario are those of the nefarious mad philosopher. Holding the dupe responsible shows an almost psychotic world view.
Does everyone have to conform to your consequentialist doctrine?
How do you perceive much less demonstrate all possible consequences?
Then how do you perceive much less demonstrate all the possible consequences perceived by the dupe?
What I find amusing is that your summary in @145 is almost a an almost match of my own but I identify differently when to apply deontological rules:
I am a consequetialist in morality, when I judge myself, I will judge the consequences which can often be a complex map of weights.
But I have not the prescience nor the authority to judge others actions that affect me except in how they affect me and in as far as they affect me. Then I can only judge their action and not their inaction because I have little to no authority to “force” an action in anyone for any reason.
@Brian, there’s a problem when lifeboat morality is expanded into the political realm. It’s really hard to justify a leap from throwing a switch on a trolley in a very controlled situation to believing a bunch of intellectual lightweights, moral morons, and pathological liars (politicians) that bombing a bunch of innocents will ‘save lives’.
My apologies if this is ground already well-trodden by this discussion; I’m just dropping by for a moment.
pretending that there is one right answer, and you have it, and others should adhere
That is precisely the ZAPsolutist position I’m arguing against.
How very utilitarian of you.
I would classify it as consequentialist.
The problem with utilitarians is that they will often overlook […]
Yes, thinking about consequences is hard, and people often get it wrong. That’s no excuse to replace thinking-about-consequences with deontological absolutist slogans like the ZAP.
If your only choices are 2 wrong ones… you are asking the wrong questions.
If all your questions have easy answers, you aren’t asking the questions that matter.
Doc @137, I’m not Captain Kirk, and I do believe that no-win Kobayashi Maru situations exist in real life. I think morality consists in making the best available choice, even when we wish better choices were available.
In each of these lifeboat scenarios, my choice would be to minimize loss of innocent life, and then turn myself in to let a jury judge my actions. The implications of these scenarios for political ethics and public policy are too complex and far-reaching for me to “bloviate” about here. I just wanted to respond to what I perceived as Less taking a potshot from behind the flimsy cover of deontological ZAPsolutism. As I understand it, Less is himself a David-Friedman-style consequentialist, and doesn’t adhere to such simplistic deontological absolutes. For my part, I would vaguely say I’m consequentialist on the meta-questions of how to design political ethics and institutions, but then deontological on how to apply/operate them.
re: 137 what is your solution BH?
BH@141:
“It’s not a question of what authority you have; it’s a question of what’s the right thing to do.”
How very utilitarian of you. However pretending that there is one right answer, and you have it, and others should adhere is amoral in itself… at least in my book.
The problem with utilitarians is that they will often overlook the “other answers”, they are so wrapped up in the binary obvious choices that unlike LG in @140 they don’t go outside the box.
This has a tendency to devolve into equivocation when faced with living with their decisions. that equivocation lends itself to being blinded further in similar circumstance of not only possibilities but what right a wrong are. If your only choices are 2 wrong ones… you are asking the wrong questions.
The problem’s real moral question is not the subject at the switch. It is the mad philosopher who has taken the amoral action.
What ever choices the dupe at the switch makes, are his own and not the domain of anyone else to judge… unless he flips the switch, then he is has consciously killed a person and regardless of justification he will have to live with it.
nmp: Participation in the Trolley problem means surrendering to the Mad Philosopher’s evil will.
me: Please expand. If one is witnessing avoidable carnage, doing something about it doesn’t strike me as “surrender.” Neo didn’t have to rescue Morpheus, but it did at the time seem indicated as the “right” thing to do.
It’s not a question of what authority you have; it’s a question of what’s the right thing to do.
For people whose moral intuitions aren’t moved by the plight of four innocents, let’s make it four hundred million. An astronaut is on a mission to nuke an asteroid that is on a collision course with Earth. The nuke won’t detach from the ship, and so the astronaut refuses to detonate it. Should you in NASA mission control use the remote override that the astronaut didn’t know about?
Another version is bombing the gas chambers as the Nazis work around the clock in the closing weeks of the war to kill as many innocents as their death factories will allow.
Stop the train, hell!! That train needs to leave the tracks!
I would not flip the switch but would try and stop the train or die trying
BH@137:
“Would you always choose the aggression-abstaining option in scenarios like the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem ?”
Participation in the Trolley problem means surrendering to the Mad Philosopher’s evil will. With no other motivations, I would probably not flip the switch, I have no authority to choose one life over 5 or vice versa. I would be busy making sure the mad philosopher never tied people to the track again.
”
The votes in the final round for Chair, Vice Chair, and Secretary were rather close — we can be more precise when we see the full votes by state — so it seems unlikely that reshuffling candidates, etc. would have changed the results. It may, however, be possible to sort out whether it was the same group of people who were the majorities for Hinkle, Rutherford, and Mattson.”
When and if anyone gets the vote breakdown for chair, I’d love to have a copy. I’d like to do a geographical analysis of the voting for chair and the strength of the various factions.
Less @109, it may very well be that Dick Cheney would claim to agree with me that minimizing the incidence of aggression is more important than totally abstaining from it. (Details at http://libertarianmajority.net/does-abstaining-from-aggression-minimize-it ).
Some libertarians would consider this bad news, and recoil at the idea that libertarianism doesn’t neatly divide the world into White Hats and Black Hats. (cf. Ernie Hancock’s insistence that “it’s not complicated: there are those who want to be left alone, and those who just won’t leave them alone.”)
Other libertarians would see this as an opportunity for a Ransberger Pivot, and realize that to create new libertarians we don’t necessarily have to create anarchists.
I’m curious how committed you are to what I sometimes call the CleanHandsitarian Aggression Abstinence Principle. Would you always choose the aggression-abstaining option in scenarios like the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem ?
The votes in the final round for Chair, Vice Chair, and Secretary were rather close — we can be more precise when we see the full votes by state — so it seems unlikely that reshuffling candidates, etc. would have changed the results. It may, however, be possible to sort out whether it was the same group of people who were the majorities for Hinkle, Rutherford, and Mattson.
I think Bruce didn’t have the money to pay his internet bill.
Jeremy @ 133, yes, but the big problem with that is that Rob and I were on the same slate, and I was doing his nominating speech. I don’t believe it would have played well to the delegates for me to suddenly pop in after having just lost the VC race, run over my running mate in a race he’d been campaigning for since October, bail on his nominating speech and become his opponent.
Also, we had no reason to believe Rob wouldn’t beat Mattson handily. His qualifications match hers easily and he’s well liked in the party. Plus he was actively campaigning. With 20/20 hindsight, it’s easy to say, well, Carolyn would have been a better candidate against Mattson, but at the time, that wasn’t apparent.
Carolyn @123, wasn’t there a runoff procedure for the Secretary race? You could have dropped into that race and seen whether you or Rob polled better against Mattson, and the third-place finisher could have dropped out and endorsed the second.
That rationale doesn’t work for at-large races, though, since there were five seats available rather than one, so no runoffs.
The radicals needed to take over the party to make it useful to me. They failed & fortunately there is BTP to fall back on. & you know I was-whether anybody likes it or not, one of 2 BTP pres. candidates in 2008. Where is Charles Jay now? I don’t know. He doesn’t seem to be politically active. But I am still in the fray & have some ideas worth trying.
Carolyn, I don’t like raining on the parade or being a party pooper . But I am under a lot of pressure here & I am ahead of the curve. To me the post convention honeymoon is a colossal waste of time.
Anybody who doesn’t want to be a rightist root succah, join BTP.
Robert @ 128, I thank you for thinking of me, but coming as I have off one campaign, I’m not really in a position to consider another just yet.
For what it’s worth, I AM constitutionally qualified both in terms of citizenship and (alas) age. I’m fashionably minority and female, two accidents of genetics that seem to matter to people. And I was raised in the south — West Texas and Southern New Mexico.
Thing is, I’m a Libertarian. Have been all my life, even though I had no idea the party even existed until 2004, at which point I joined enthusiastically. So it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to talk me into leaving.
We came off this convention unified, at least for the time being, and there will be a honeymoon period while the new LNC figures itself out and tries to make a good impression. I’m optimistic in that I believe they will rise to whatever expectations we set for them.
Carolyn @127, thank you for your prompt reply & being so accessable here.
I gather from you reply that I have not asked you, so please consider yourself asked. You can make it moot if you say you are/are not constitutionally qualified (age). You have a point that the Independent fusion vp could be a man. But I have made a campaign promise of 50/50 male-female appointments etc. I’d prefer a southerner also to further complement my northerner. It’s just politics, not genetics.
Yes, I’d like George to come to BTP. I think he’s more radical than most realize. I’d like ALL the radicals to come to BTP. All the back patting & luvvy duvvy & what you call work-for the party-is just so much wherewithall that the rightists are going to get & channel directly or indirectly to the GOP. So why not leave now & help BTP get ready to win in 2012? Insteads of sticking with LP & helping it lose in 2012? Yes, BTP could win with a fusion executive ticket, sufficient ballot access full downticket slate of 50/50 libs & greens. Sounds incredible, doesn’t it?
Andy @ 124: I met Knapp for the first time in Denver, and yes, as I recall, his head was shaved at that time.
Robert @125: I don’t need to withdraw from the LP since I can still do a lot of good work there and am in fact already in the midst of doing so. I might have been less optimistic if I wasn’t so pleased with the fact that James Oaksun was elected. That was job #1 for me, even above and beyond my own race.
My opponent, now our vice chair, is certainly well respected in the party. The chair has expressed interest in implementing a good bit of the New Path plan and has asked for my help in whatever capacity I can offer it. The founder of the party has stepped back into a leadership role to help set the party back on track…. So many good people who are at least at this point working together and not trying to rip each other apart. So really, in spite of other people’s misgivings about this LNC, I’m very optimistic. We seem to have reached across the battle lines and unified the party this last weekend.
RE: VP for your ticket, I’m curious as to why you are looking for LP women to be your VP candidate. Why not look for the best candidate instead of looking for opportune accidents of genetics?
If you want George to join you, you’ll have to talk to him. I am not his keeper.
Paulie @ 115: “I think I could have resisted the temptation to pull a Jim Davidson on Eric for having called me a communist recently, LOL.”
That should be a new phrase for Libertarians: “pull a Jim Davidson”. We should use it whenever someone goes completely bonkers and decides to curse at whoever’s around.
Carolyn Marbry, how about considering withdrawing from LP & joining BTP? Bring George with you. I have lost track of which lib women I have asked to be vp on my Independent fusion ticket. Have I asked you?
Tom Knapp said: “Paulie, I don’t think Andy and I actually met in Denver, but I could be wrong — for some reason I thought he was short, fat and bearded. He’s none of the three.”
I have no recollection of meeting Tom Knapp in Denver. I think I saw him walking around (I remember some guy with a bald head who had the “Natural Born Killers” look) who I think was Tom Knapp, but I never spoke to him.
Chuck @ 27, I appreciate your assessment. I told all those who asked me to run for secretary that I would only run if Rob decided not to run, and here’s why. Even apart from supporting Rob in that role, it was a pragmatic decision.
Had I been the only one running against Mattson, it is possible I would have had enough support to beat her, but with Rob Power already running, I’m afraid that if I’d dropped my hat into that race at the last moment, it would have split the non-Mattson vote between Rob and myself, and she might have won anyway.
I chose not to run for at-large for similar reasons. It’s not because I have any intention of taking my toys and going home — hell, no, I already have a few national-level projects going on just since Sunday night — but because there were already so many good candidates running that I was already unable to vote for all the people I would have wanted on the committee.
Adding my name to the mix would have made that even worse.
I’m very optimistic about this LNC. Hinkle likes the New Path plan and has asked me to serve in some capacity with the LNC, whether on committees or in some capacity, to help with implementing parts of it. I was encouraged by the openness of the last meeting and the sense of unity, of working together again, that came out of the convention. We came into this convention divided and distrustful, and most of us left with a sense of relief and hope that the party would survive and hopefully even thrive.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think Dondero was “holding court,” etc. He just didn’t want to throw himself into the middle of a potentially unfriendly crowd — he was tired after an unexpectedly long drive, for one thing — and Dr. Lieberman seemed to enjoy bringing people over for introductions.
Paulie, I don’t think Andy and I actually met in Denver, but I could be wrong — for some reason I thought he was short, fat and bearded. He’s none of the three.
Apart from you and LG a couple of times, the only person ever awake in the room at the same time I was was Mark, I think.
TK_I was the guy with the beard, not the hot lady from Nevada).
me_ aww thanks furry daddy!
I had to get up and look , only Paulie was like ‘who fucking cares’, ROFL
“LibertarianGirl // Jun 2, 2010 at 9:22 pm
ROFL , Scott was soo excited to be telling people the Dondero himself was in the next room , at first he wouldnt say who it was but was too excited not to .”
Yes, that was quite weird how it happened. Scott Lieberman came up to myself, Paulie, LibertarianGirl, and some other guy and said that there was somebody who wanted to meet me. He didn’t say who it was but asked me to follow him. I started to follow him and while doing this I asked if it was Eric Dondero (I had heard that Dondero was at the convention but I had not identified him at that point). He said yes and so I thought, “What the heck.” and I continued. Dondero was sitting in the back corner of this room that was in a part of the lobby that was away from where most of the action was. Dondero was sitting there by himself on a computer. It was kind of like I was going to meet a rock star or a movie star or even a Mafia figure. LOL!
“Thomas L. Knapp // Jun 2, 2010 at 9:09 pm
Andy,
You also met me for the first time at the convention, but I don’t think you recognized me. That was me who popped in to talk to Eric for a moment while you were yakking with him (I was the guy with the beard, not the hot lady from Nevada).”
I didn’t recognize you with hair and a beard. In the pictures I’ve seen of you online you’ve always been bald. I thought you looked kind of like Woody Harrelson’s character in “Natural Born Killers.”
ROFL , Scott was soo excited to be telling people the Dondero himself was in the next room , at first he wouldnt say who it was but was too excited not to .
You also met me for the first time at the convention,
Not for the first time. You two met in Denver. I’m surprised you don’t remember.
Also, Andy was in our room. I’m not sure if you were ever awake at the same time…LOL
I was offered to meet Dondero (Scott Lieberman was acting as his runner). However I saw no point in getting out of my chair. If he wanted to meet me, he could have walked up to where we all were sitting instead of having someone else “run” people one at a time to be granted an audience.
I think I could have resisted the temptation to pull a Jim Davidson on Eric for having called me a communist recently, LOL.
I just didn’t see the point of getting out of my seat.
Andy,
You also met me for the first time at the convention, but I don’t think you recognized me. That was me who popped in to talk to Eric for a moment while you were yakking with him (I was the guy with the beard, not the hot lady from Nevada).
“LibertarianGirl // Jun 1, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Nice to meet you too Dondero , and I would like to officially state i didnt turn to stone or salt when it happened . all those stories Ive heard must be false! LOL”
I met Eric Dondero at the convention in person for the first time as well. It was kind of weird meeting him in person after seeing him online all of these years (although I did talk to him on the phone a couple of times a few years ago).
The conversation was friendly. We just talked about petition related stuff. Eric and I are both veteran petition circulators who have worked all over the country. I don’t agree with Eric on several issues when it comes to libertarian philosophy and political strategy, but I can relate to him as a fellow petition circulator. Most of the people in the petition business are mercenaries who are only out to make money. I don’t scrutinize the political views of every person that I meet in the petition business. So while I do not endorse all of Dondero’s views I can still relate to him as a fellow petitioner and I could even work with him on the areas where we do agree. For instance, if there were a petition drive to legalize casino gaming or to stop eminent domain abuse or to put spending limits on state government, I would not have a problem with Eric Dondero working on the petition drive.
Eric Dondero said: “Even David Nolan was Chair of the Colorado Young Republicans at the time of the founding of the Libertarian Party.”
Yes, but David Nolan had the good sense to sever ties with and disavow the views of those Republicans many years ago.
“Stewart Flood // Jun 1, 2010 at 4:11 pm
I was actually shocked that Pat didn’t get re-elected. I’m pretty sure that the entire SC delegation voted for him.”
I voted for Pat Dixon and was suprised to see him lose as well.
“LibertarianGirl // Jun 2, 2010 at 12:32 pm
Wayne Root and Dondero’s takes on war and such are entirely different . Wayne has called for withdrawl from Afghanistan and Iraq and incidentally from bases all around the world . he wants a strong defense AT HOME . man , people you hate him so bad , I wonder ifyoureally listen to what he says…ROFL , BTW , nice meetin ya Steve:)”
I’m not so sure if this is Wayne Root’s view. He said something recently to the effect of supporting a role for the US military in the Middle East to protect Israel. He also said something about how the US President should always stand by Israel.
@99
I should have known you’d take any imprecision of language as a reason to misdirect the argument. 😉
I’m talking about your alternative to the non-aggression principle.
ya , he did get quiet , however I cant do any nifty little internet address lookups to see if any of the anonymous posters are him. So I try to guess based on content and styles. Im usually wrong:)
I notice we haven’t heard from Bruce for a while.
oh
I thought Milness was the dildo.
Are you referring to #100? it is not Bruce.
Dumdildo— hahahahahaa , sorry E
Wayne Root is evolving. Dumdildo is DEVOLVING. World of difference.
is that you Bruce? u never post under your own name anymore…
Wayne Root has a different way of doing things in comparison to Barr. For those of you who think Root has an ego. Maybe you just don’t know him well enough or you have an insecure ego that you don’t want to know him your own self, so he will to some idiots come across like he has an ego. I know for a fact when I tried selling myself in the work I use to do, I know some people thought I wasn’t telling the truth or etc. Which these same people went somewhere else and got a poor job/service etc. Then came back to me to ask for my help, I said go back to that person. No Wayne is not selling on an Ego, he is selling with whats in his heart and the truth of what things really are and it comes across to those who cannot see the forest through the trees like a ego salesman. He has done a great job of being a good example:
1. Dakota has excelled by being home schooled, doesn’t mean it for everyone, but the regular school system is very poor, a given. Wayne took time out to be a good parent.
2. He makes time to write to people even when he busy. I called some people at the LP who done less than he did and they can’t be bothered with questions.
3. He doesn’t have the history of what some of the crooked politicians have. Money extortion, infidelity, drug problems.
He is someone that should be in charge with a sharp mind and straight on the ball for being in charge of things. This is who I would want. This is a person of who I see that will get things done.
Who would you really have, a person with a coloful history, if he crooked, that is why this country is in sad shape, or someone who can really set an example.
Less, I think I know who you’re talking about @87, and I was indeed surprised when she told me she voted for me.
If Dick Cheney sincerely agrees with my definition of libertarianism, then we should welcome his deathbed (or would that be postmortem?) conversion with open arms.
Root will lose just like Barr did.
LP Pragmatist, BTP is already well started online based access & tech savvy highly motivated radicals. Plus it should nominate an Independent fusion ticket so their ballot access can be added/complemented. We can learn this from Nader. Enjoy…yes. We can enjoy thwarting Root. That will be fun.
Wayne Root and Dondero’s takes on war and such are entirely different . Wayne has called for withdrawl from Afghanistan and Iraq and incidentally from bases all around the world . he wants a strong defense AT HOME . man , people you hate him so bad , I wonder ifyoureally listen to what he says…ROFL , BTW , nice meetin ya Steve:)
I liked all my votes , I did not base 1 single vote on friendship or factional loyalty or philosophy or shit ive heard or rumors or legend etc etc.
I voted for who i thought could do a good job AT their job. I voted for some rads , Nolan , Wrights , Ruwart and I voted for some others Root , Starr , Sully . in fact , oddly enuf , and im SURE ill get some crap for this but bring it , I can take it —LOL–:)— Aaron Starr was the only person or item of business that Nevada voted entirely unanimous on, and NO i didnt lobby them to do so , altho i did tell some who I was voting for/.
I am quite comfortable with my votes for any and all LNC and JC candidates. All my votes were for “REAL” libertarians. I voted for Ernie Hancock for chair, for as many ballots he was on (2). Then, I voted for Hinkle.
This is not to say that Hinkle isn’t a”real” libertarian; I believe that he is. I simply preferred Hancock’s vision for the LP.
In order for me to EVER support W.A.R., he would have to show that he can check his ego at the door, abandon the Dondero “Pro-War” stance, and embrace the concept that liberty is about free will and freedom of action, not maintaining the established order. Of course, liberty ends at someone’s nose, so freedom of action does not include infringing upon others rights.
Glad to see Milnes joining the BTP. Thank you.
Enjoy trying to start up a third party, with 51 different sets of rules on ballot access.
What is:
BTP = Boston Tea Party
BTP?
George, why don’t you consider withdrawing from the LP & joining BTP? You are in an untenable, losing situation in the LP. Withdraw & let Root et al have it. Start a new situation at BTP that would have a chance to win.
@83
There is a certain logical disjunction between ‘in driving distance for a large fraction of the delegates’ and ‘downtown hotel’–where you will pay trhough the nose for parking, not to mention the joys of navigating through crowded center-urban streets to reach the destination.
Of course, if you are flying and have a suitcase or two, the cab/van fare from the airport will also not be positive.
I suggest adding Tom Knapp to the convention committee.
Mr. Milnes bye bye, your really another socialist.
I have decided to call on all radicals to abandon the LP and join BTP. My reasoning: The LP has somewhere around 1/2 radicals. A little less. They cannot get a reliable vote on the LNC. They do not have the stomach to implement my recommendation: rightists membership only. Peer Review Board determination. So the LP will run mostly rightist candidates & a rightist executive ticket in 2012; probably Root. That leaves the radicals alienated & their wherewithall minimized e.g. not contributing as much $ & volunteering as they otherwise would. & stolen from them mostly destined to find its way to the GOP. However if they divest from the LP and to the BTP, their wherewithall can be increased & put to good use an alternative line of ballot access to possibly mathematically win. To be made available to a fusion ticket. The LP will almost certainly NOT nominate a fusion ticket. So 2010 increase ballot access, run radical ccandidates, Build party BTP in preparation for 2012, implement PLAS then & win with fusion ticket. Progressive man president, libertarian woman vp, 50/50 Green & Libertarian Congress. & governors. Start phasing in Green & Libertarian judiciary.
@32
Don’t be modest, Brian: I could never said all those nasty things about you if they weren’t true. 😉
Seriously, you earned your victory because of the character and integrity you showed early this year during the Cal JC kerfuffle. You received the votes of several radicals, and I think you’d be especially shocked at one of the people who voted for you (not a radical), who completely opposed your view of our case. And I think you would have gotten more votes if I had had the time to elaborate a bit more on the case in my nominating speech.
I may think your strategic vision utopian and unrealistic and your style of argumentation ultimately a way to win by exhaustion rather than persuasion, but you’re a good and honest man and will be a great asset to the LP as soon as you come up with a definition of libertarianism that Dick Cheney wouldn’t agree with. 😉
Liar, sure you care! It is obvious that you care!
I will give you as much cynicism, sarcasm, and throw back as I think you deserve. The Democans and the Republicrats are laughing at us, and it is not because of me!
LG @74, yes, losing Tony was a blow, but your region now has Norm Olsen, who will do fine. I know both of those guys quite well and served with them on the LPCO XC and will vouch for both of them any day.
This is probably a waste of time, but here goes:
Lake: “JT, you’re an idiot. I wish you’d stop posting illogical crap and or out right lies.”
What on Earth are you talking about? Where did I lie or say anything illogical? I complimented Myers for his devotion to the LP and liberty and his ongoing activism. Your warped, scattered mind then jumped to Hitler and Mao, etc., as if I were advocating dogmatic allegiance to a totalitarian ideological group. How bizarre.
Lake: “You want me to ’speak up, stand up, and shut up!’ just point out where I am wrong.”
Just the last one would be good.
Lake: “Take some kind of logics or ethics course (Journalism, philosophy, theology, Political Science ………)”
I’ve taken courses in all of those subjects. I was a journalism major at one of the top 3 schools in America. Have you taken any and passed them? Your writing is very garbled and disjointed.
Lake: ““take your medication instead ……” Is that your best hit ????????? The real kkkreeps condemn me to hell, threaten physical assault and or blast my friends and family. Man up, JT, create some mud, throw come slime (politics as usual!)”
Sorry, I don’t do any of those things because a) I’m not a lunatic, and b) I don’t really care about you. One sarcastic comment when I feel like it is enough for you, I think. I’ll stick to that, okay?
Well I am glad i am not included in the evil 9 🙂 but as I am not sure, but I was happy with the group we got. Most of them are not as hardcore as I but they bring alot to the table that I could not. The folks I voted for for LNC did not win except Mary Ruwart but the meeting went great or I should say better than I thought it would after all the horror stories I heard about last year.
What do most people think about going to Philly in 2012 ?
I will say I am an anarchist but my goal is for us to run better campaigns and if you are running as a Libertarian( I dont care what type) I want you to have better tools to work with in the future because of th job that I do and other over the next two years
If anyone has questions please call I want it to be as easy as possible to reach me
My number is 770-861-5855
email [email protected]
To # 75 Trent.
LP Region 3 IS a region and it is paying off big time: OH, IN, MI, KY. We frequently communicate and will continue to have meetings and even weekend conferences. Sharing best practices is important but really helps when the states are contiguous.
@73, @78
MA was not a member of Region 5N last term. Our State Committee has passed a directive that the state affiliate may not join any region that would make it possible for the current 5N representative to be our representative. We had hoped to join Rachel Hawkridge’s region last time, but the timing did not permit the states already in the region to agree to have us join them.
MA was one of the original states to join Rachel’s region.
This time, we formed a region in best Libertarian manner, namely we identified the person we want to represent us, and we formed the region around her. Those of you who have read The Probability Broach understand this description.
We were delighted to welcome other states that preferred to join our region, including Alaska, WA, ID, MA, NH, VT, and Tennessee. We were sorry that OR left us, which is a matter between the OR delegation chair and his state affiliate.
LG,
No idea.
Thanks but thats not what I asked:) did they form another region or join another region or neither?
My guess is that the LP activists in Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire don’t think that Dan Karlan represents their priorities well, but didn’t think they had the horsepower to force a difference choice of regional representative, either.
I consider Dan a friend and an all-around good guy, btw, but that’s not what representation is about.
As for the LNC election, several extraordinarily well-qualified candidates lost … and if they had won, several other extraordinarily well-qualified candidates would have lost. There were five positions and, if memory serves, 14 candidates. That’s the way it goes.
JT // Jun 1, 2010:
JT, you’re an idiot. I wish you’d stop posting illogical crap and or out right lies.
You want me to ‘speak up, stand up, and shut up!’ just point out where I am wrong.
Take some kind of logics or ethics course (Journalism, philosophy, theology, Political Science ………)
“take your medication instead ……” Is that your best hit ????????? The real kkkreeps condemn me to hell, threaten physical assault and or blast my friends and family. Man up, JT, create some mud, throw come slime (politics as usual!)
did VT , MA ,NH form or join another Region?
That’s an odd development.
I also think it’s strange how regions are put together in the LP. They aren’t regions at all.
Im sorry to see Tony Ryan leave as my region leader
There was a bizarre development in Region 5, previously consisting of: CT, ME, NJ, NY, RI, MA, VT, NH.
VT led by Bonnie Scott and MA led by George Phillies plus NH defected from this group.
That left the group short of the 10% required to constitute a region.
Fortunately, OR, an orphan, saved the day by argeeing to join our “region” giving us barely 10%.
So, now the “Northeast Region” includes Oregon but lacks Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont.
I asked Bonnie Scott why she did this, and she replied, “Felt like it!”
Dan Karlan was re-elected regional rep and Carl Vassar was elected alternate but Carl Vassar told me that there was already a possibility he might resign.
For what reasons, I have no idea.
Sam Sloan
For the record I am a Green and I do think that PLAS does have some merit. This works a lot better when the Green Party isn’t called fascist, though.
Fixed comment…
I gave one of the nomination speeches advocating Brian Holtz for the Judicial Committee. It was the only nomination speech I gave this convention. One other campaign asked me to give a speech, but I graciously declined because I was able to suggest several other speakers who would do a better job moving votes.
Unfortunately the convention reduced the length of nomination speeches from 5 minutes to 2 minutes. Because Brian’s other nominator Less Antman is a much more accomplished and funny speaker, I cut my speech down from 30 to 12 seconds and completely changed the content.
Paulie asked me to send him my original speech so he could post it to IPR. In my opinion it doesn’t come anywhere near meriting an IPR post, but instead I will post it as a comment here for posterity.
Abbreviated speech due to time constraints:
Original speech:
Oops. Can one of the moderators here edit my comment to close those blockquotes? My bad.
I gave one of the nomination speeches advocating Brian Holtz for the Judicial Committee. It was the only nomination speech I gave this convention. One other campaign asked me to give a speech, but I graciously declined because I was able to suggest several other speakers who would do a better job moving votes.
Unfortunately the convention reduced the length of nomination speeches from 5 minutes to 2 minutes. Because Brian’s other nominator Less Antman is a much more accomplished and funny speaker, I cut my speech down from 30 to 12 seconds and completely changed the content.
Paulie asked me to send him my original speech so he could post it to IPR. In my opinion it doesn’t come anywhere near meriting an IPR post, but instead I will post it as a comment here for posterity.
Abbreviated speech due to time constraints:
@61 I just learned about Godwin’s Law from another thread today, and here is a perfect example.
http://wiki.killfile.org/projects/usenet/faqs/godwin/
Hard to take this stuff seriously when 50% of the people are nut cases!
I was actually shocked that Pat didn’t get re-elected. I’m pretty sure that the entire SC delegation voted for him.
JJ — we’ll put you to work. We’re putting the IT committee together and if you don’t think that you’re going to be drafted to work on it…
John Jay Myers is a class act. He didn’t get my vote for chair or at-large, but that was because there were so many other very impressive candidates rather than a negative reflection on him.
I hope Myers will serve as LP Texas chair when Pat Dixon steps down and will seek election as a regional rep or alternate next convention. His support seemed to be most concentrated around Texas, so regional rep is the best way to get elected to national, gain experience, and setup long term for a successful higher run.
I was very disappointed that Pat Dixon was not re-elected to the LNC. Dixon has many other great libertarian pursuits to dedicate himself to though (like running the second largest state party), so I’m confident we will continue to benefit from his many skills.
@63….Let’s give everyone a chance and try to work together towards one end instead of fighting and knit picking all the time…..
I agree and I think that the delegation made it very clear that it is time to get to work. Again, I hope that Wayne’s enthusiasm and activism continues, he grows more comfortable with some of the core LP issues, and becomes the type of asset that the delegates can trust to uphold the LIBERTARIAN Banner somewhere down the road. I know that you met quite a few people this weekend and I was one of many that you spoke with. Good Luck with your endeavors and we’ll catch up at the next one.
Disregard that bottom “if he can do that,”
@59 and 60, Thanks.
@60 you may be right. That may have been why I didn’t make it. But I could see that no matter what, Wayne was going to make it. That was obvious, I wanted to take one for the team and start out this new round as a united front.
Let’s give everyone a chance and try to work together towards one end instead of fighting and knit picking all the time.
I didn’t want Wayne to be chair, I think Mark Hinkle most closely represents what I think we should be doing.
I would like to see Wayne work as part of the team to accomplish those things and to help give our truly Libertarian candidates a leg up in the media, if he can do that then he would deserve a lot of well earned respect from all of us.
He would prove that not only is he starting to really understand our message that he really wants to be a part of the Libertarian Party.
So lets give him a chance.
I now have a lot of good friends on the LNC including the chair, I am sure that I will have no problem getting help for my ideas through those members.
I do regret that Pat Dixon was not in the top 5, I can not help but feel that we may have split each others votes. That is my biggest regret.
There were a lot of excellent candidates for LNC we must be doing something right!
Let’s try to get along.
If he can not do that,
Lake, you’re an idiot. I wish you’d stop replying to me and just take your medication instead.
JT // Jun 1, 2010 at 2:35 pm
“Myers ……. You’re truly devoted to the party and ” …….. are you also devoted to the nation and to humanity ???????
Hitler was devoted to the party, also Mussolini and Tojo and Pol Pot and General Peron and George H. W. and George W and Billarey and Mao and [ad hoc President] Dick -less Cheney and Smiling Unkle Josef Stalin ……..
Mr Myers had a great weekend. He is the kind of guy that this party needs. Although, IMHO, I believe that the strategy of stumping for Root in the LNC nomination speeches hurt rather than helped your chances of getting on the LNC. Nothing against Wayne, but you probably lost quite a few radical votes by doing that.
Myers, I think you’re a great guy not to be bitter that you didn’t win the chair race or the at-large race. I think you should be on the LNC, but I know the competition for those few seats was VERY tough this year. You’re truly devoted to the party and I’d love to see you as a candidate for governor or U.S. senator in the future, if you were so inclined.
Nice to meet you too Dondero , and I would like to officially state i didnt turn to stone or salt when it happened . all those stories Ive heard must be false! LOL
Everybody just about done patting each other on the back?
Trent @50, very astute and interesting observation. Phillies geographical support. So let’s say he cherry picks from all over the USA & likewise some find themselves gravitating towards his slate. The NE USA is the heart geographically speaking of progressive/revolutionary impulses. Also upper midwest & upper west coast. From at least TR’s time to present. I do not think this is coincidence.
Purge the rightists & this revolutionary impulse will spread geographically to the whole LP. Then the LP could be relied upon to make revolutionary decisions.
I haven’t decided-yet-whether to call on the radicals to abandon the LP in favor of BTP. In order to be effective by 2012, that should be decided soon.
I am somewhat glad Root got at-large, because he needs to prove he can work as a team. This “lone wolf of liberty” that he projects with the media is a problem here in my district and county.
His liber tea won’t help me here as I run for office.
I don’t agree with the results. I supported Phillies, but I am respectful of the vote. I hope together, the new people can become cohesive. The new path was a great plan.
Libertarian Girl, it was good to meet you at the convention. I’m sorry we didn’t have more time to talk. I had a lot of people asking me questions when you came up to introduce yourself. Hope to have the opportunity in the future to spend more time chatting with you.
Again, apologies for being so brief with you at the convention. The pleasure was mine.
@52, I believe you mean with Wes as Director, but I feel that same as you do.
We have a great team at the top now, I think they get the message that we want them to work together.
I believe they get the message that we want to be a political force, but want to stick to our principles.
We shall see. So great to meet everybody in St. Louis.
I am excited about the future of the Libertarian Party and our current slate of Reps.
the evil 9? ur such a dick Davidson , Im glad i didnt meet you…
congratulations to everyone elected , Im ecspecially happy about Nolan and Brian Holtz.
I think Hinkle/Rutherford with Wes Benedict as Chair is pretty much the most results-oriented team you could have. Each of them has a record of getting things accomplished.
Oh no, the LP might lose Milnes! There went our chances at the White House in 2012. : )
It’s good to see a diverse group on the LNC. I think Hinkle/Rutherford may have been the best ticket we could get. The other chair candidates seem like great Libertarians who all have their place in the party and movement, but would be divisive as chairman.
“Probably the greatest strategic error of the New Path campaign was not having support from unexpected corners.”
From virtually anyone outside of the Northeast. Phillies’ group’s support came almost entirely from Maine, Massachusetts, and a smattering of other delegates.
If you can pull that off, you may be able to annoy even more people than is already the case.
Quoted for truth. Not having nominating support from an unexpected corner can really hurt your chances of getting elected in a party with such strong factional feelings as ours.
Probably the greatest strategic error of the New Path campaign was not having support from unexpected corners.
“Dianna is a very active and friendly woman. Unfortunately, she does not like IPR.”
Well why the heck not? =)
It likely has something to do with the old management. Jason built up IPR into an admirable site–but in the meantime he also used it as a political tool for the Radical Caucus.
Thank you James and Chuck. I may have been the surprise candidate to get on the LNC, yet realize I ran a campaign much like what we did in Ohio: focus and more focus and always trying to move forward, even if a few inches. I am so honored to have been invited to the LNC table with such honorable and distinguished people. In my heart I have a strong sense of fair-play and realization that ALL of us can contribute at many levels.
Let’s move this organization and brand forward.
Thank you.
Kevin Knedler
Chair of the Ohio Libertarian Party
5 year member of the LPO
Lifetime member of the LP
and now an at-large member to the LNC
FYI, I’ve offered my services as consultant to The Nolan in his campaign for Senate against McCain in AZ. We’ll see there too. Without PLAS he will lose. But maybe he can influence McCain with a 2% vote.
James Oaksun @42, “Let’s see how it goes.” Fine. Suit yourself. I’ve little confidence in the LNC without George. I’ve explained as best I can the problem as I see it. I’ve offered a solution-membership only as determined by Peer Review Board for determination of libertarianism. Tom K. rejected that. He rejected PLAS also. So don’t be surprised if I suit myself by pursuing an Independent course. We’ll see indeed. I don’t mind being proven wrong & I hope so. But I think I’ll be saying “I told you so.”
Dan @33
I completely agree with you on the numbers. We had exactly 4096 of the 4095 required for a super region. That was a really nice number, but you know that SOMEONE would have demanded that we audit the national membership rolls to make sure that the numbers were correct. 🙂
But Arkansas was homeless, they asked, and the nine other chairs (including California) voted to allow them in. It required a unanimous vote, so I believe the chairs are all happy with the addition.
I am encouraged by the results and by the first committee meeting (and not just for personal reasons).
Give Wayne credit for being willing to serve on the committee. I sure do! He contributed to the meeting and he certainly represents a lot of people in the party. Let’s see how it goes.
As Chuck said earlier, Kevin worked for the vote and has had a lot of success in Ohio. I think he’ll be great and I look forward to working with him.
The disappointment (if you could call it that) was that we had an embarrassment of riches as far as AL candidates were concerned. Many friends of mine didn’t make it.
We’re working already, we’ve got our next 3 meetings scheduled… lots of very results-oriented people involved… I’m traveling today and will have more to say here and on my blog later in the week.
Dondero comes out of the woodwork at me! Ha, Ha. I rest my case.
Just saw Ed Schultz on Tody. He is correct. This terrible oil spill is a defining moment for USA & Obama administration. It could be parlayed into a move towards phasing out oil & phasing in hydrogen & solar etc. Even Bush mentioned hydrogen. If Obama does that I could be less critical of him. But he probably will not. We’ll just keep sucking on oil. We need revolution.
Robert Milnes, who are you to call us Rightists “non-libertarian.” Aren’t you a member of the Fascist Green Party? The ones who want to outlaw Capitalism, and who block Libertarian Party petitioners from gathering signatures for Libertarian candidates nationwide?
FYI, the Party’s very first Presidential candidate Dr. John Hospers from 1972 is a Rightist. A very hardcore Rightist at that.
Even David Nolan was Chair of the Colorado Young Republicans at the time of the founding of the Libertarian Party.
Every single Libertarian Party presidential candidate since 1972 was/is a Republican, save one.
Every single elected Libertarian to a state legislature – Vermont, Michigan, Alaska and New Hampshire – has caucused with the Republicans once elected.
Leftism and Liberalism has NOTHING to do with Libertarians. They are our enemy.
You are no friend of Liberty Sir, and you have no right to speak for us Libertarians.
For anyone who is supportive of PLAS, I have asked Carol Moore to be vp on my Independent fusion ticket. Awaiting decision.
Sensible David, no, Jim is spot on. He is inarticulately describing a fundamental problem within the LP. Rightists-nonlibertarians-predominating. By being so numerous, ubiquitous & formidible they alter the decisions qualitatively. The most obvious example being Root. Another would be Ron Paul. Paul has been identified as being a -the nicest wording-a constitutional theocrat. A dixiecrat conservative. The LP needs candidates & party officers to be libertarians. Nonlibs membership only. Until this has been resolved this problem is very destructive-to the level of being counterrevolutionary-inhibiting, vexing, stultifying-evil in a real sense. Not 100% evil but very bad; identifiably evil. & this is precisely why I tried BTP & will proceed Independent. The LP because of this will almost certainly make a poor decision for the 2012 ticket. That must not thwart in as of itself a good-fusion- ticket. It would thwart the LP’s ballot access though. Fortunately Nader’s Independent candidacy in 2008 proved it is possible to get sufficient ballot access to win for an Independent.
dfn, yes, perspective would be indicated. I’d note, however, that the labeling of those the commenter disagrees with as “evil” is contra-indicated, I’d acknowledge that it represents an improvement. Some months ago, he’d often suggest “Got Rebar?” to those he disagrees with. I’ll take improvement wherever I can get it!
David Nolan #34 – good clarification. I am glad that people with different styles were elected to the National Committee. We need a tapestry of freedom. I was encouraged by the reports from the convention and made a contribution at the National website.
@22 – While I have my disagreements with many of the people Jim Davidson calls the “evil nine,” I certainly would not go so far as to call any of them “evil.” Mistaken, misguided, even annoying — but evil? I don’t think so. As far as I know, none of them would steal my property, throw someone in prison for smoking a joint, or handing out FIJA info in front of a courthouse. Let’s try to have a little perspective here.
@21: Regions can be any combination of states that agree to form a region, no matter where those states are geographically. You get one regional delegate for every 10% of the total LP membership residing in the the constituent states. In the case of the new triple-size Region 1, the agglomerated states contain 30.74% of the LP membership.
I was somewhat disappointed with the final result, since at one point we had assembled a group of states which contained 30.01% of the LP membership: exactly one more member than needed. That would have been a far more esthetically elegant result. Oh well…
When Ruth and I tied for the last spot on JudCom, I announced that since I had voted for her, the tie should be broken in her favor if she hadn’t voted for me. She said she hadn’t, but then the Chair said a recount might break the tie, so I agreed to abide by the will of the delegates if the recount went my way.
I would have had only myself to blame if I’d lost, and not just because I’d voted for Ruth. Since my parents had already left early in the morning, my delegate wife was watching our kids and I didn’t bother summoning her to the floor for the JudCom vote. I didn’t think non-incumbents had much of a chance after the speaking time was cut from 5 minutes to 90 seconds. I’m now indebted to every single delegate who voted for me, and doubly so to Chuck and Less for their nominating speeches. Less had promised he’d zing me back after I’d called him “the most dangerous man in the LP” when I nominated him for LPCA JudCom in February. He didn’t disappoint, and since we both won it suggests that being nominated by a frenemy is good politics.
Thanks, Chuck. The 2006-08 term was actually fun. This one should get off to a good start.
Now that we are past the convention, I’m just going to dive in and get it done. Every opening meeting is somewhat disorganized, simply due to the timing of everyone rushing to get home and the newness to those elected for the first time.
Simply the fact that we managed to populate the standing committees, create a media and an IT committee, listen to nearly 3/4 of an hour of public comments (instead of the normal 20 minutes) AND discuss more funding for prop 14 gives me cause to believe we’re off to a good start.
I agree with Starchild that “cautious optimism” is really the limit of predictions at the moment.
Although the personnel on the LNC changed, the factional balance probably didn’t, or at least not very much.
The voting record indicates that the new chair may suffer from the same weakness as the previous chair. They’re both great guys, but there’s a point at which “consensus-building” gives way to “rolling over for the strongest faction.” I’d have felt 100% better about the outcomes if the combined radical and “good governance” factions had elected three (Ruwart, Nolan, and Wrights or Hill) instead of two (Ruwart and Nolan) of the at-large reps.
I haven’t really looked at the regional reps yet. Maybe there’s some good news there.
Or maybe I’m being unduly pessimistic. The message in Oaksun’s resounding defeat of Starr (in short, “knock that shit off”) may have been heard, and may be heeded, at least for awhile.
When I last talked with Aaron this (Monday) morning, he was tired and just possibly … contemplative. We were going to stand together to move a suspension of the rules for the purpose of conducting the at-large election via approval voting, but he ultimately decided not to go through with it.
I’m particularly concerned by the Judicial Committee outcome, but that’s something to discuss another time. All I have to say about that is that it has nothing to do with Brian Holtz being elected to the committee (although I wish it hadn’t come down to Holtz or Bennett — I voted for them both).
The short name on JC is Holtz. Holtz and Bennett were tied for 7th, but the vote audit found an uncounted NJ vote for Holtz.
Looks like we have a strong team and from what I have seen in the past they will be able to work together
I am very pleased with the LNC we elected!
I was (and am) a strong Hinkle and Oaksun supporter. Although I didn’t support Root for chair, I did (and do) support him at-large. Knedler got my vote based on his record of achievement in Ohio and his integrity in supporting Oaksun as the best treasurer candidate even though Starr was on the implicit Root slate. I believe they will all be valuable additions to the LNC.
Stewart Flood has been one of the most dedicated and effective LNC members for many years. He is a great asset to the LNC. Even though I don’t always agree with his votes and I was disappointed in the Keaton situation handling, I’ve been on the whole very impressed with Flood.
Redpath’s contributions to ballot access are undeniable. Ruwart’s fundraising at the banquet was amazing to watch. Rutherford brings a breadth and depth of experience to the LNC.
I don’t know much about some of the new regional reps, but I am looking forward to see how they do.
The big disappointments were losing Pat Dixon and Lee Wrights from the LNC. Also it’s too bad Rob Power didn’t win secretary — though frankly I believe Carolyn Marbry would have been a stronger candidate who could have beat Mattson.
Apart from my vice-chair win in 2006, this was my most fun LP national convention yet! I am very optimistic about the future of the LP.
@25 She’s always been active both in the party and in working in improving liberty at the local level. Very pleasant to work with. I’ll have to ask her why she doesn’t like IPR.
Dianna is a very active and friendly woman. Unfortunately, she does not like IPR.
@21 Wouldn’t that have made Tom Stevens ineligible under the “Keaton rule”? Not that I care about such rules, nor about Stevens.
Thank you very much for the coverage of the last day of the convention, as myself and many others were unable to stay another night. I keep coming back to this blog for news of the latest LP comings and goings.
Based on the analysis performed by Jim Oaksun found here: http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=3868
and my expectation that Rutherford and Root would be with Redpath in the future, I would suggest that there is a “group of evil nine” who are: Rutherford, Redpath, Root, Mattson, Flood, Sink-Burris, Karlan, Weiner, Knedler (Ohio chair, dedicated Root supporter).
I can’t make a strong argument for a group of five all being radicals, but they all seem, to me, to be sensible. Ruwart, Oaksun, Nolan, Hawkridge, and Craig. I might be wrong about Craig. I call them the sensible five.
My best guess based on what I’ve seen about them and by them suggest that Olsen and Visek are like Lark and Hingle in being in the middle. Call them the lukewarm four. Both Lark and Hingle have an existing record of voting with the majority most of the time.
This would suggest, to me, that the evil nine get their way and work evil most of the time. When the sensible five join forces with the lukewarm four – for example when they have really good arguments – they have a tie. The evil nine perhaps won’t always get their way because sometimes the voting would be tied.
If you were looking for the LP to stop being GOP-lite it seems to me that you lose.
ACCORDING TO James’s list, some of these regions are, well, not very regional! What’s with that?
TPR, yes, Tom S. was the presidential candidate of the Objectivist Party, which was on the ballot of one state in 2008. Guess he never left the LP though.
@18 It is indeed Dianna Visek.
@19 Very generous of you, but you really do not need to type for us while bouncing along the interstates.
By the way, the list of Judicial Committee members appears to be short a name.
Thanks, James. That matches my recollection of the regions — and you saved me from having to type all that on my iPhone while we’re driving back to Charleston.
It appears to be Dianna Visek, from Illinois. She seems to have been very active in Champaign Urbana.
Isn’t Tom Stevens the chairman of the Objectivist Party?
Tom, I sat next to this buffoon Prindle in the exhibit hall. He was boorish and unpleasant about the placement of our materials in our booth. But to his credit he didn’t ever steal from us.
Oh yeah, compare the picture on his website with his picture on the Texas LP website. The picture on his campaign site was taken 5-10 years ago. Does that make this a vanity campaign?
Somehow it figures Dondero would be hooked up with this guy while being too drunk to even get his name right.
From my notes:
Region 1 (triple region of AL, AR, CA, GA, LA, MS, NC, OK, SC, TX) Doug Craig/Stewart Flood/Dan Weiner; alternates Brad Ploeger/Guy McLendon/Scott Lieberman
Region 2 (AK, FL, ID, MA, NH, TN, VT, WA) Rachel Hawkridge; alternate Vicki Kirkland
Region 3 (IN, KY, MI, OH) Rebecca Sink-Burris; alternate Andy Wolf
Region 4 (AZ, CO, HI, KS, MT, NV, NM, UT, WY) Norm Olsen; alternate Don Wills
Region 5 (double region of CT, DE, DC, ME, MD, NJ, NY, OR, PA, RI, VA, WV) Dan Karlan/Jim Lark; alternates Carl Vassar/Marakay Rogers
Region 6 (IL, IA, MN, MO, NE, ND, SD, WI) Diana Visek (sp?); alternate Eschelman (who I am not sure was at the meeting and not sure I met (but I met many people))
Any errors or omissions solely my own and due to fatigue.
Actually, the Tim Prindle Dondero refers to is named Jim Prindle.
I know this because I was astounded at what a horrible campaign website he has. According to his bio (the pdf version), he is an independent minded conservative.
You don’t see the word “libertarian”, although he does link to “national party” and “state party”. You also won’t find much in the way of libertarianism on his issues page – pretty much just conservative bullet points each consisting of about two words.
So, here is a “libertarian” running a race he will most likely lose and he doesn’t bother to sell the LP or libertarianism, all while calling himself an independent minded conservative. What’s the point?
You can call me a radical anarchist and claim the LP platform is radical libertarianism if you want, but all that doesn’t change the public perception of the LP when people like Prindle are LP candidates and Root is bloviating about Obama on the Michael Savage show.
The last time I looked, Prindle had photos of Newt Gingrich and Ann Coulter on the front page of his website:
http://www.prindleforcongress.com/
Thanks for the reminder to get off IPR and on to the phones, Stewart! We REALLY appreciate the LNC’s help in defeating Prop. 14.
Sorry about the gramar errors in previous post. I’m a bit tired and the ride is a bit bumpy right now.
Region numbers have been moved around quite a bit. There are four single member regions, one double member region, and region 1, which is represented by Dan Weiner (CA), Doug Craig (GA), and myself.
The motion to approve an additional $15k to fight prop 14 did not pass. It was deferred and authority. Was given to the EC to decide tomorrow evening, based on the analysis that I will be putting together between now and 8pm tomorrow. This was a good decision by the board. I and others who have been working on this campaign (Kevin Takanaga, Michael Seebeck, Beau Cain, et al) know that the money will be effective, but we’ve been focusing on this while a number of the members of the LNC have not.
We have already received approval for $10k. They want due diligence before bumping it to $25k.
Near the end of the convention, during the LNC meeting at 1:30 pm, the Libertarian Defense Caucus officially met to elect officers for the next two years.
Kevin Bjornson of Washington State was elected Chairman. Bjornson was an original member of the LDC back in the 1970s.
David Haase of Alaska (and current LP candidate for US Senate) was elected Vice-Chairman
I was elected “Acting Secretary and Website Manager.” Though, since I am a Republican I’d be glad to relinquish the position to a full-time Libertarian Party person. I am an original member of the LDC from 1985.
Also in attendance Shawn Levasseur, State Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Maine, and towards the end of the meeting Brandon Kelley, State Chairman of the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire and Seabrook Town Selectman.
Tim Prindle was unable to attend the meeting, though he joined an hour after we adjourned. Prindle is the Libertarian candidate for Congress in Texas CD-1 (Ralph Hall’s seat.)
Almost all of the LDC members participating are Veterans:
Kevin Bjornson – US Coast Guard
David Haase – US Army (Korea War Vet)
Eric Dondero – US Navy
Brandon Kelly – US Army
Tim Prindle – US Army (Persian Gulf-era Vet)
BTW, great job on your convention coverage!
Trent, I don’t know how other regions handle it, but in California we elected Dan Wiener to be our Regional Rep to the LNC at our State Convention in February.
The LP website lists Regional Reps at http://www.lp.org/leadership. The page hasn’t been updated yet to show the newly-elected LNC members, but the Regional Reps should be accurate.
The in-depth reporting IPR was able to do is only a consequence of hard work by our reporters (and others) on the ground.
Thanks for the info, Trent. I’m looking forward to the next administration!
Danny S,
I dont think Myers really ever had a shot at LNC at-large. Too many candidates and he did not command enough delegate votes. Texas already had Dixon and Ruwart to vote for, at least.
I was surprised to see Knedler on the LNC instead of Wrights, Gray, or Dixon.
Rhys,
No, they were elected in regional meetings, I believe. I have not seen anything on it anywhere. I suspect all of them were re-elected.
Any official word yet on who the Regional Reps will be?
Disappointed that Myers did not win, but other than that it seems like a good LNC.