…on http://www.justin.tv/lnc7. Reception/sound has not been good, and just went out as I have been typing this, but hopefully it will be back and with better quality.
H/T George Phillies.
292 Comments
Comments are closed.
June 25, 2026
Your Premier Source on Third Parties and Independent Candidates Since 2008
…on http://www.justin.tv/lnc7. Reception/sound has not been good, and just went out as I have been typing this, but hopefully it will be back and with better quality.
H/T George Phillies.
Comments are closed.
tk, as I said, I read her blogs…I’m satisfied inappropriate behavior happened.
I don’t know the facts with the credit card matter, nor do I know what position SCM took in the matter, so I have no opinion. Assuming you are correct, I’d agree that fraud is worse than inappropriate behavior…obviously.
Bob,
You write:
“Again, my point is that her behavior was highly inappropriate, IMO.”
That might be an interesting point, if you or anyone else had presented any evidence that that behavior actually took place.
Bob,
You write:
“I believe a fair-minder reader reading 198, 201, 214, 218, 230 and 252 would conclude that it the seque is on your part, not mine. You’ve been deflecting, while I’ve made every effort to address your points, straight up.”
No, you’ve made every effort to change the subject to whether or not Keaton had, in fact, done one of the things she was accused of doing. While we disagree on that, it’s not really relevant, as “my point” was that non-“SCM” allies are treated differently than “SCM” allies in situations where improprieties are alleged, even when the improprieties in question are clearly not of the same class (credit card fraud versus the disclosure of putatively confidential, but not especially sensitive, discussions).
OK, coming up.
iow, I’m not playing the “guilt or innocence” game, Thomas. This is not a legal proceeding, at least not for me. It’s a discussion about basic human relations, again, for me.
tk, I believe a fair-minder reader reading 198, 201, 214, 218, 230 and 252 would conclude that it the seque is on your part, not mine. You’ve been deflecting, while I’ve made every effort to address your points, straight up.
If your point is that there is disproportionate handling of sensitive situations on the LNC and LPHQ, I’ll defer to you on that. I don’t know, and I don’t have an opinion. (The prostitute-hiring that you allude to happened during the Reign of SCM, I gather.) I do believe I’ve made myself clear that the Keaton situation was poorly handled, should not have been a “witch trial,” etc. Sorry if I’ve not made that clear for you.
Again, my point is that her behavior was highly inappropriate, IMO. If she disapproved of actions of the LNC, she should have IMO addressed her concerns appropriately with her committee members, i.e., sans childish name calling and public disclosure of executive session discussions. Treating others with disrespect is contra-indicated, in my view.
Three wrongs don’t make a right, either. Wrong 1: Keaton disagreed with LNC’s direction. Wrong 2: Keaton responded inappropriately. Wrong 3: Disciplinary motions — including ridiculous ones like the harassment charge — made by other LNC members.
Just because someone has a legal or procedural right to do something doesn’t mean that exercising that right is useful. One-upmanship, charges, and counter charges do not, IMO, solve anything. They create pointless friction and drama.
Bob,
I’m not the one who tried to segue from the main point I was making (that the actual offenses of “SCM” and their allies get handled quietly and cordially, while the alleged offenses of “SCM” opponents get aired in hostile public proceedings, good of the party be damned) to the matter of Keaton’s guilt or innocence.
You are.
If you didn’t want to go there, you shouldn’t have gone there.
Now are we clear?
Robert: “me: ADR, but YOU “judge these men,” we don’t. I believe it takes all kinds. Are we clear?
No, I mean WE.
And if you had read what I’d said in context, you’d have see that that WE likely didn’t include YOU.
I was specifically referred to those LP radicals who love Paul and disdain Root. A specific, limited group.
And even when someone says WE, and specifies a limited group, it’s a given that all generalities have some exceptions.
My use of WE was accurate in the way I I used it.
tk, hmm, this is DEFINITELY not worth doing copious research. I do recall Keaton making insulting remarks and comments and divulging Executive Committee goings on in public. Perhaps you don’t.
As I said then and now, I also don’t think the LNC handled the situation well, either, from what I could tell.
It appears you are making a literal, legalistic, procedural point about the matter. I have no opinion of the intra-L legalisms. They bore me to tears.
I’d like to think I’m making a broader point: That insulting others and disrespecting confidences is bad karma. When one engages in bad karma, those means certainly don’t justify the ends, and, frankly, in this case, it’s not obvious what the intended “end” was.
Of course, it’s possible I was dreaming that I read the insults and attacks and reports of Executive Session proceedings….Inception Level 2, maybe?
Where I come from, two wrongs don’t make a right. Things may well be different in MO.
Carolyn: “JT@266, you misunderstood pretty much everything I said.”
Here’s what you said:
“The thing to ask yourself is, if he were not a member already, would he join? My guess is, probably not. And by that test, I don’t consider him a Libertarian or a libertarian.”
How could that be misunderstood? You posed a hypothetical question as a test. It’s a clear question, with a clear answer, and with a clear conclusion (i.e., if someone weren’t a member already and wouldn’t join, then you don’t consider that person either an (uppercase) Libertarian or a (lowercase) libertarian). I’m not distorting or reading into anything you wrote.
Carolyn: “But for politicians, their political affiliations ARE necessarily determined by which party they choose to run under. He has chosen GOP.”
Well, that’s obvious. I even said Republican and Democrat are terms of party affiliation. RP obviously has a Republican affiliation.
Carolyn: “His positions on some things are libertarian, certainly, but in others, they fall woefully short.”
Okay. Falling “woefully short” on a few issues is a different libertarian test than the one you said initially.
Carolyn: “I do not see how someone who puts the Bible ahead of the Constitution in terms of government can possibly run for office in good conscience, much less call himself a libertarian candidate.”
Puts the Bible ahead of the Constitution? In what cases in which the teachings of the Bible conflict with the Constitution does RP propose ignoring the Constitution? I’d honestly like to know. Even in the case of abortion, RP has previously said it can’t be banned without an amendment to the Constitution.
Carolyn: “I also did not speculate that he is not a member…
That is why I mentioned that if for some reason it were to happen that he did not have a membership (that’s a hypothetical, NOT a speculation), I doubt he would join the party.”
With all due respect, I think you’re the one who’s confused here. I never once said you speculated that he isn’t a member. I said you speculated that if he weren’t a member, then he wouldn’t become a member. Yes, that’s a hypothetical situation–a hypothetical situation in which you speculated what RP would do. Given that you can’t know what he’d do, it qualifies as speculation within a hypothetical scenario. Btw, there’s nothing wrong with speculating what someone would do in a hypothetical (as long as the speculator doesn’t claim he or she knows it for a fact, which you didn’t do and I never said you did).
@281
I believe that Angela substantially demonstrated in her defense that the accusations where devoid of merit.
Bob,
Nice link, but it doesn’t support your narrative very well. The charge you define as central comes in 18th of 20 on the official laundry list and isn’t mentioned at all in the marquee descriptions.
Also, a little principal you may be unfamiliar with: The fact that someone is accused of doing something doesn’t mean that person actually did that thing.
Moulton22 in the comment thread from the 08 discussion nailed it as usu.:
If the LNC is serious about this type of motion, a much better approach would be a resolution of suspension contingent on a future breach of Executive Session or confidentiality as judged by a subcommittee appointed to monitor compliance. Remove all the fluff and get down to what many LNC members have told me is the root of the issue.
tk more, it appears my memory on this matter is good:
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2008/12/lnc-resolution-of-discipline-for-angela-keaton/
tk, one of us has a VERY poor memory, then.
Bob,
You keep repeating a narrative (“LNCers asked repeatedly for her to stop her external comments on executive session; disciplinary measures were being tried, to no avail”) that seems to have precisely zero basis in fact, and trying to wheedle me into validating that narrative for you. Thanks but no thanks.
tms: We judge these men by what they LOUDLY, UNAMBIGUOUSLY, AND REPEATEDLY say — because, pragmatically speaking, the LP is an educational institution…
me: ADR, but YOU “judge these men,” we don’t. I believe it takes all kinds. Are we clear?
Both these actors are playing a role on stage, Paul to much bigger audiences.
You WANT the LP to be an “educational institution,” and I respect your OPINION. I find the question quite ambiguous, and can’t imagine how another can be “unambiguous” about anything (except, perhaps, love and peace)!
cm: I do not see how someone who puts the Bible ahead of the Constitution in terms of government can possibly run for office in good conscience, much less call himself a libertarian candidate.
me: Interesting point. When pols take the oath, it seems to me they first put their hand on the Bible, BEFORE swearing to uphold the Constitution.
When I’ve been called for jury duty, I’ve refused to take the required oath on 1st A grounds. There’s a lot of good stuff in the Bible (and some dysfunctional stuff, too), but the mixing of statecraft and faith is not my cup of tea.
Still, many deeply faithful people would agree with Paul’s (alleged) position. I can see why they would. Of course, for most things most of the time, human laws should govern, would be their view, I think. Sometimes, their conscience would dictate following a higher law.
I don’t find that view to contradict anything, ADR.
Paul is a Christian, but he doesn’t generally wear it on his sleeve…he’s not a zealot, at least on spiritual matters.
tk: I’ve never seen any evidence that Keaton publicly revealed any legitimately privileged information.
me: Sorry, ADR, but that’s a half answer. I’d asked, “It was appropriate [for the LNC] to pressure her, IMO, to stop [blogging about LNC activities that the majorities on the LNC found out of bounds]. Do you disagree? If so, why?”
I respect that you don’t believe her extra-LNC communications were out of bounds. There were others on the LNC who agreed with your view. However, many/most LNCers asked repeatedly for her to stop her external comments on executive session; disciplinary measures were being tried, to no avail.
It appeared to me at the time and in retrospect that Keaton did NOT respect the wishes of the collective. She continued to generate ill will. SCM and their allies were not the only ones who felt her behavior was out of bounds.
Sorry, but it’s not up to you or her to decide to behave in a cordial, confidential matter. The fate of the world or even the party did not rest on Keaton’s ability to reverse the LNC’s actions; the issues she was raising were not major enough for me, the rest of the LNC, or even Keaton’s allies on LNC for a fair-minded assessment to suggest mitigating circumstances.
Had I been on the LNC, I regretfully would have supported votes for censure. I assure you, my position isn’t personal.
I like Keaton. She’s a pistol, and an asset to the LM. But what she was doing wasn’t cool; it violated the Golden Rule, near as I can tell.
IMO.
Paulie @ 266, I would very much like to have a thread about the national convention site.
Thomas Sipos@269–Sorry for the typo in 270.
Mr. Sips @ 269: Very well said.
Bob @264,
I’ve never seen any evidence that Keaton publicly revealed any legitimately privileged information.
Carolyn: “I do not see how someone [Ron Paul] who puts the Bible ahead of the Constitution in terms of government…”
I don’t know that Paul ever did that. He may have, but if so, it’s buried in the fine print. It’s not on my radar.
Root may bury some things in his fine print that I agree with. Paul may bury some things that I disagree with. So what?
This is a good example of why I enthusiastically support Paul and disdain Root.
Paul is loudly, unambiguously, and repeatedly antiwar, despite some baggage buried here and there.
Root is loudly, unambiguously, and repeatedly anti-Obama and anti-Democrat. Where’s the antiwar? Buried in the fine print?
I’m a pragmatarian, incrementalist, minarchist (as defined by me). I focus on a candidate’s LOUDLY REPEATED talking points, not on the fine print.
This is why so many LP radicals love Paul, and willingly overlook his flaws. And why so many LP radicals dislike Root.
We judge these men by what they LOUDLY, UNAMBIGUOUSLY, AND REPEATEDLY say — because, pragmatically speaking, the LP is an educational institution, and the LOUDLY REPEATED message is what will influence the culture, not the fine print.
JT@266, you misunderstood pretty much everything I said.
I don’t necessarily consider whether or not someone joins the party as determining whether they are libertarian or not. But for politicians, their political affiliations ARE necessarily determined by which party they choose to run under. He has chosen GOP. Fair enough.
His positions on some things are libertarian, certainly, but in others, they fall woefully short. I do not see how someone who puts the Bible ahead of the Constitution in terms of government can possibly run for office in good conscience, much less call himself a libertarian candidate. Fortunately for us, he did not.
I also did not speculate that he is not a member. My understanding is that he purchased a life membership around the time he ran for the Presidency under the LP banner back in the 80s, so my assumption is that he is, still, in fact, a life member. He clearly considered himself a Libertarian at that point, but apparently does not now as he is a Republican. Note the capital L.
That is why I mentioned that if for some reason it were to happen that he did not have a membership (that’s a hypothetical, NOT a speculation), I doubt he would join the party.
DWP @260, how old are you? Yes, that is correct but not the point.
Paul has a history with the LP. During the 2008 campaign, Tom K., Prof. George P. & I & actually others concluded he is a dixiecrat conservative/theocratic Constitutionalist. He validated that by endorsing Baldwin, CP nominee.
Sure he bought a lifetime membership. So?
Might as well post this on this thread too. Still trying to decide whether I should make this a new thread…any yes or no votes?
Posted on facebook, sent to me by Erik G. This may or may not become its own post later.
http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=143100765736596¬es_tab=app_2347471856
We Support a DFW, TX LP National Convention in 2012
Friends,
As many of you know our LNC is currently working on a location for the 2012 National Convention. The 2 contenders are DFW, TX and Las Vegas, NV. As you can imagine I am admittedly for DFW. Not just because I am a native, but looking at the reasons it seems the most logical choice. I have included both my comments to LNC and the report from Doug on the search committee. I would encourage you to look at the info in front of you and then contact the LNC sharing your support. Just like any other elected official they are there to listen to the will of the people. (ME AND YOU!) I have also included their emails!
To the Distinguished Chair of the Libertarian Party,It’s Officers, Representatives and Alternates,
I am writing you today to encourage you to vote FOR DFW, Texas hosting the 2012 National Convention. All bias aside, as a native Texan, from the report I read, DFW is the strongest choice. Central Location, Media Coverage, Local Affiliate Strength and Lowest Hotel rates were all listed as great reasons for hosting in DFW. The quad, Dallas County/Tarrant County/Collin County/Denton County, are some of the strongest parties in Texas. There are many Libertarians here, like myself, that are committed to facilitating a strong, successful convention in 2012. Again, I hope you will vote FOR a DFW, Texas 2012 National Convention!
For Liberty,
— Zachary Smith
Founder- Young Libertarians of Texas
http://www.yltexas.org?
IT’S WORKING! The following is a message recieved from one of the Alternates and my response follows:
With all due respect, we are being flooded with repetitive emails from your fine state. I understand that this is an important matter, but speaking for myself, as I can’t speak for other LNC members or alternates, the more emails I receive, the less happy I become. I understand the great things about Dallas; I’ve been to conventions there in the past. I think we all understand. But at this point, I’m feeling spammed and I know one other person feels the same. Less is more at this point, please.
Marakay Rogers
Alternate 5S
Marakay,
I am the one who started the Facebook Page and the Email campaign. While I fully understand that a barrage of emails can be a little overwhelming, I must remind you that you are a representative of the people. That means that you must be open to the voice of the people. This is very similar to campaigns in which we Libertarians contact our State or Federal representatives on bills and legislation that we support or oppose. Clearly it is important to many not only here in the great state of Texas, but all over the US to see a DFW NatCon. We are taking time out of our busy lives to send you and other members of the committee support letters for something that is very important to us. The goal here is not to frustrate, inundate or intimidate, but to make sure that the voice of the people are heard. I appreciate your commitment to the LP and to her members and hope that you will listen to our call!
Thank you for your service and your time!
— Zachary Smith
Founder- Young Libertarians of Texas
http://www.yltexas.org
[email protected]
Carolyn: “It’s hard to see whether Milnes meant small-l (which absolutely does NOT apply to Ron Paul since he deviates from the movement in so many places) or big-L (as in, a party member, which he may well be) when he types in all caps.”
I’m not confused about what Milnes means, given his many, many past comments about RP (including ones on this thread). He doesn’t think RP is libertarian, as you evidently don’t.
Carolyn: “The thing to ask yourself is, if he were not a member already, would he join? My guess is, probably not. And by that test, I don’t consider him a Libertarian or a libertarian.”
This is an illogical test for determining whether someone is a Libertarian or a libertarian. It doesn’t follow that if someone wouldn’t join the LP in the hypothetical case that he or she weren’t already a member (which you’re just speculating about regarding RP) then that person isn’t a Libertarian now. It also doesn’t follow that if someone won’t join the LP then that person isn’t libertarian in political ideology.
Carolyn: “He is a libertarian-leaning Republican, which makes him better than a non-libertarian-leaning Republican, but still a Republican.”
Republican or Democrat aren’t terms of political ideology; they’re terms of party affiliation (conservative and liberal are terms of political ideology). So it doesn’t follow that if you’re a Republican or a Democrat then you can’t be libertarian, only libertarian-leaning.
Affiliation with the Libertarian Party doesn’t determine who’s libertarian and who isn’t.
If someone wants to make an argument that RP isn’t libertarian, fine. But that’s not it.
In any case, whether or not the message RP got out during his last presidential campaign was libertarian is determined by what political issues and positions he chose to talk about during that campaign.
tk252, yes, I too found the harassment charges rather pathetic. My recollection, however, was the initial issue was that she was betraying confidences of the LNC by blogging about executive session details.
I have no idea what SMC did regarding the harassment (non) issue, but it appears you are deflecting my point. Are you?
She was being pressured to cease and desist. She refused, continuing to blog on privileged matters. That wasn’t cool. It was appropriate to pressure her, IMO, to stop. Do you disagree? If so, why?
Both Thomases above both have a very clear vision of what’s been happening over the last few years with the LNC, it seems to me.
I think a lot of us have seen it but have been hesitant to speak of it openly. I have come into conflict with the SCM faction time and again over these very issues — exclusionary practices like imposing floor fees, attempting to drive ethical, hardworking members of the LNC off, and now this business of withholding information from Hawkridge and impeding her ability to participate on the convention committee which led to her dismissal from that committee.
If that turns out to be true, it was awfully convenient, when SCM’s homeboy’s hometown is in the top two choices for the ’12 convention where he dreams of being nominated, and Hawk’s vote would have been the lynchpin that defeated it decisively.
An embarrassingly hamhanded gambit, that. So obvious as to defy Hinkle’s detection. I repeat here my call for the LNC to investigate Hawkridge’s allegation that Mattson did not send her the materials. If Mattson did indeed withhold the materials, the question of whether it was accidental or deliberate should inform the LNC whether she should merely offer an apology or her immediate resignation.
If Hawkridge misspoke about not receiving the materials, then whether she simply overlooked them amongst a thousand other messages or lied about it should inform the LNC whether SHE should offer an apology for the allegation or her immediate resignation.
One or the other.
The cruise convention (which idea keeps getting “floated,” if you’ll excuse the pun every couple of years at national) was a lot of fun, from what those who attended tell me, but that’s not the measure of an effective convention. Participation is. Maximum resolution of business and maximum participation. There’s that litmus test again…
Would he join? Hell, he won’t even toss the LP a bone. Didn’t he endorse a P&F candidate last election? The man is actively working against libertarianism. He’s just Wayne Allyn Root with bigger ears and a better smile
It’s hard to see whether Milnes meant small-l (which absolutely does NOT apply to Ron Paul since he deviates from the movement in so many places) or big-L (as in, a party member, which he may well be) when he types in all caps.
The thing to ask yourself is, if he were not a member already, would he join? My guess is, probably not. And by that test, I don’t consider him a Libertarian or a libertarian. He is a libertarian-leaning Republican, which makes him better than a non-libertarian-leaning Republican, but still a Republican.
Milnes “Ron Paul…IS NOT A LIBERTARIAN”
I know he joined in the 1980’s – I think he became a life member; someone tell me if this is incorrect.
Ms. Marbry, as usual, makes cogent points.
No doubt this is already beaten to death, but I will add my tuppence, as well.
Roberts is meant to MAXIMIZE the amount of business that gets done in a meeting and to maximize participation of those present. Use of Roberts to shut down a meeting where all the registered attendees are present seems to anyone with common sense in direct contradiction to that purpose. I’m pleased to see a parliamentarian like Chuck Moulton who shows the kind of common sense Carling and Mattson lacked in applying that as a litmus test.
As far as Hinkle saying nothing, from what he’s said of this, my (perhaps too charitable) sense is that he was being used. His presence lent gravitas to Carling and Mattson’s assertions even while he said nothing. And like Redpath before him, he is unlikely to challenge something a PRP tells him, even if it flew in the face of what he believed to be true.
The only thing funnier than Libertarians getting tied in gordian knots in the minutiae of Roberts and abdicating any semblance of reasonable thought is free market proponents setting a convention as far from restaurants as possible to force people to buy their monopolistic luncheon and dinner packages. But I digress…
No. Absurd.
Milnes: “JT, Sipos, how can Ron Paul get out the libertarian message easier & better by seeking the GOP rather than LP nomination when HE IS NOT A LIBERTARIAN?”
I know this is beyond pointless, but he got a libertarian message out while campaigning because he didn’t really focus on issues like abortion or gay marriage. He focused almost entirely on the same things he focuses on in his book, The Revolution: defending the entire Constitution and Bill of Rights, ending the Federal Reserve, ending the Patriot Act, ending the federal drug war, ending the federal income tax, ending foreign interventionism, etc.
Milnes: “Far quicker & easier to just be an astute political observer…”
In your case, are you sure you didn’t mean “obtuse”?
Further, on the linear spectrum, libertarianism is next to anarchism which borders-not linear but circular, the leftist spectrum. Progressivism is split at anarchism into right(libertarianism) & left(leftist progressives).
The difficulty is the counterrevolutionaries-rightists, CP-are right next to libertarians on the linear political spectrum. It takes a lot of thought & plotting on the Nolan Chart, etc. to make an objective/accurate conclusion.
Far quicker & easier to just be an astute political observer-e.g. Tom, George & me.
JT, Sipos, how can Ron Paul get out the libertarian message easier & better by seeking the GOP rather than LP nomination when HE IS NOT A LIBERTARIAN?
At least, Tom, George & I have classified him as a dixiecrat conservative. Also Barr is.
Root also except for being Jewish & not from the South he doesn’t quite fit.
Paulie,
“If you’re going to bring up a juicy bit of gossip like that, you really should deliver the goods.”
It may have been a “juicy bit of gossip” when it happened, but that was quite some time ago. Before IPR existed, if memory serves, but my recollection is also that it’s been mentioned in comments here before, and not by me.
The bare bones of the story are:
X, who will remain anonymous unless someone else chooses to identify him or her, traveled on behalf of the LP, and was allowed to use an LNC/LPHQ credit card for expenses. He/she used that card to pay fees to one or more escort services.
Rather than being fired or removed (the former if LPHQ staff, the latter if an LNC member — I’m not saying which), X was allowed to pay back the money and voluntarily reduce his/her prominence in relation to LP work, and barred from access to the LP’s line of credit for the future.
Over time, I’ve come to believe that that was probably the right way to handle it, although the lack of “transparency” is somewhat grating. Handling it that way reduced the LP’s possible public embarrassment and potential legal exposure, while also solving the problem in terms of ensuring that that particular person couldn’t do that particular thing again.
Compare to Keaton.
The worst allegation against her — sexual harassment — was pursued on LESS evidence (the alleged victim’s statement accrued to the defense, not the prosecution), but represented WORSE public/legal exposure for the LP. One bad egg abusing a credit card, versus someone creating a “hostile work environment.”
But “SCM” didn’t care about the party’s public stature or legal exposure when it came to Keaton — they wanted a public circus, and they had one, good of the party be damned.
@227
Actually, that’s Retrodictive Quantum Deconstructionism, based on the notion that the future causes the past, so that the great quality of Shakespeare was created by his masses of literary analysts. (8^))
The prior paragraph is about as serious as a range of other philosophical rantings.
True.
Paulie: “If Ron Paul wanted the LP nomination in 2012, I seriously doubt he would need to call anyone to grease any skids.”
I agree. If he sought it, RP would win the Libertarian nomination in 2012 on the first ballot without anyone’s help, barring a miracle like an A-list libertarian celebrity seeking it as well. The chance of RP seeking it again are slim to none though. He knows he can get out the libertarian message far easier and to far more people by seeking the Republican nomination.
If Ron Paul wanted the LP nomination in 2012, I seriously doubt he would need to call anyone to grease any skids.
I don’t think that’s accurate, is it?
Way to tease. If you’re going to bring up a juicy bit of gossip like that, you really should deliver the goods. Otherwise, besides spoiling the fun, we can’t know that there is any truth behind it at all (or can we?), and the allegedly guilty party can’t explain or refute the charge, which works by shadowy implication without specificity.
I don’t think that was the main issue.
Inquiring minds want to know.
In the meantime, the rent is too damn high.
Sho nuff!
The disemboweled mercenary crumpled from his saddle and sank to the clouded sward, sprinkling the parched dust with crimson droplets of escaping life fluid.
Crow: You mean blood?
Mike: Let’s not jump to conclusions.
— The Eye of Argon MST
Send a message back to Command Central on Earth and ask for their advice, which we will be able receive immediately even at this great distance, thanks to the ingenious manipulation of coherent radiation through a Bose-Einstein condensate and the bizarre influence of the Aspect effect, which enables us to impart identical properties to remotely separated photons,” Captain Buzz told the feathered Vjorkog at the comms desk, “and tell them our life-pod is going to explode in eight seconds.”
—Christopher Backeberg Kwazulu Natal, 2006 Winner of the Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest, Science Fiction category.
“Irrigation of the land with seawater desalinated by fusion power is ancient. It’s called ‘rain’.”
— Michael McClary
Warren sighed and at last nodded. “I guess I should tell you, but understand that this is a very old and obscure fork. The prophecies are clogged with false forks. This is doubly tainted, because of its age, and its rarity. That makes it suspect even if it weren’t for the rest of it. There are crossovers and backfalls galore in tomes this old, and I can’t verify them without months of work. Some of the links are occluded by triple forks. Back-tracing a triple fork squares false forks on the branches, and if any of them are tripled, well then, the enigma created by the geometric progressions you encounter because of the-”
Verna put a hand to his forearm to silence him. “Warren, I know all that. I understand the degrees of progression and regression as they relate to random variables in bifurcations of a triple fork.”
Etherial Tenet can be summarised as “It just does, okay?”
— Tom Siddell on Gunnerkrigg Court
Aang: When Azula shot me with lightning, my Seventh Chakra was blocked, cutting off my connection to all the cosmic energy in the universe.
Toph: You know what I just heard? Blah-blah, spiritual mumbo jumbo, blah-blah, something about space.
— Avatar The Last Airbender
“And, of course, there’s something I call quantum flux, which is like the binding force behind everything in the universe. Plus, it can cause time travel. And it’s an energy source, too.”
— The Onion, “Sci-Fi Writer Attributes Everything Mysterious To ‘Quantum Flux’
Douglas Klump: The perimeters of our assignment were described to us with specificity, Mr. Shlubb. We are to deposit our cargo into the body of water which we now overlook. It was likeways made clear to us that any embellishments of said perimeters would not be advisory.
Burt Shlubb: I cannot prescribe to such a narrow interpretation of the perimeters which you now invoke, Mr. Klump.
— Sin City: Fat Man and Little Boy
pc, whatever works! Recall, however, that I’m critical of deontological absolutism, so I’m skeptical that neutron flows have any real effect on thought, which governs action, which leads to the current state of affairs (the aggregation of individual thoughts and actions).
Peace in time and space seem inevitable, and are available to each of us right now. In the meantime, the rent is too damn high.
Fluctuations in the positronic buffer?
Bounce a graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish?
Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow?
gp: It’s an aspect of the irrefutable quantum deconstructionist theory of literary criticism, whose victory has been assured centuries before it will be invented.
me: Oh, you flatter me. 😉 TAAALism is hardly irrefutable, it’s only an opinion! Nor does it deign to cover anything literary. As for its inevitable “victory,” one can dream. Thus far, it’s been utterly ineffective in even stopping the growth of the State, much less reversing it. I remain personally unshaken by these setbacks, as — near as I can tell — time and space will evolve as they will…there’s no point fretting about it.
tk: In my opinion, if Paul called a member of SCM, said “I’m going to seek the LP’s nomination in 2012 — I understand you are they guys to grease the skids for that, how about we work together?” they’d dump Root faster than you could scream “on steroids!”
me: They might, and I could understand that. Paul has become a rock star, despite his age.
If the nominating convention were to be held tomorrow and the choices were Paul or Root, I’d choose Paul, too. Neither is my ideal. For me, the tradeoff would be NewsletterGate associations vs. Root’s sometimes-hysterical-sounding I-never-saw-Obama-at-Columbia theme and his poor judgment around Cordoba House (IMO). If Paul would address NewsletterGate and StormFront associations in a credible way, he’d be a slam dunk.
Both are far more rightist in tone than would be my preference. Paul has an unfortunate propensity to phone things in, and can easily be knocked off message to the point of incoherence (not an ageist observation…he was that way in 88, too, IMO).
I’m not sure SCM would prefer Paul, btw. If they are control freaks as you suggest, Paul cannot be handled by party functionaries. We learned that in 88, and now he’s a rock start, even more independent in thought. He’d likely not even take a SCM call’d be my guess.
I recall a brief conversation I had with an SCM member in I think Feb. of 08 during a PlatCom subcommittee meeting. Paul had just said no thanks. Barr had just thrown his hat in the ring. While at the time Barr was not then quite in Paul’s league, he was reasonably close. The SCMer was sticking with Root…big time, despite Barr’s obviously stronger resume.
My sense is that SCM sincerely believe Root is the LT horse for the LP to ride on, and perhaps they enjoy that ride. I’d like to think that a personality cult hasn’t sprung up around Root, that if a BETTER horse were to enter the stables, they might reassess. Keeping options open is what adults do, after all.
Think Penny/Stossel 2012.
tk218: Would using LPHQ’s credit cards to hire prostitutes be failure “to abide by longstanding and appropriate protocol?” When that happened, there wasn’t a public witch trial, just a “quiet understtanding.” Three guesses which side of the “SCM” agenda the “john” was on?
me: I missed the hiring of prostitutes thing with membership money. Please elaborate.
It doesn’t pass the “cool” test that a member of a committee will not maintain confidences. That’s part of a member’s obligation to the collective. Not cool, which is the first test for all decisions.
If one is absolutely convinced that the committee is over-the-top corrupt, I’m open to the possibility that extraordinary action is required. If, for ex., the LNC was in secret talks to merge the LP with the Communist and American Nazi parties and begin an advocacy campaign to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, I’d praise a committee member for airing dirty laundry.
If a LPHQ was caught taking a paper clip home, I would not think that dirty laundry should be aired.
My strong preference for committee people is to abide by the judgment of the body in matters of confidence. Since Keaton had allies on the committee who were honoring the confidences, I felt at the time and feel that her behavior warranted discipline.
If the Center for a Stateless Society’s management was considering a new initiative that you were pushing for, but a colleague didn’t like the idea, how would YOU feel if he or she were blabbing about on the Internet?
If the Randolph Bourne Institute was considering something Keaton suggested, and a colleague was making wild accusations offline and in public, how would she likely feel about it?
mhw216: What in the hell does this mean “TAAAL-ist (theoretical asymptotic anarchist/applied lessarchist) L”
me: Glad to elaborate. Short version: I believe that in theory government’s size (the net incidence of monopolistic coercion) should be gradually and continuously reduced over time, like an asymptote. I’m open to the possibility that a stateless society is possible at some point, but I do not believe that a stateless society is viable or sustainable, as I cannot imagine that the rule of law or domestic tranquility could be maintained without a State. In application, my guiding principle is to advocate for a reduced government in the short to intermediate term.
Thomas K @ 226, good point.
But I’m not sure how committed the LNC was to Ron Paul. Perhaps they knew that Paul wouldn’t accept the LP offer, and so endorsed Paul to get some quick media attention, and maybe attract some Paul supporters?
I can’t see how hardcore Root supporters could simultaneously support Paul.
Milnes (and perhaps Phillies) may see no difference between Root and Paul, but I see a world of difference.
@216
It’s an aspect of the irrefutable quantum deconstructionist theory of literary criticism, whose victory has been assured centuries before it will be invented.
(8^))
Tom S,
If “SCM” cared so much about the LP’s foreign policy position and desperately desired that it not be similar to the Ron Paul decision, then why were there no objections from their corner to the LNC’s endorsement of Paul’s presidential candidacy?
In my opinion, if Paul called a member of SCM, said “I’m going to seek the LP’s nomination in 2012 — I understand you are they guys to grease the skids for that, how about we work together?” they’d dump Root faster than you could scream “on steroids!”
Michael,
You write:
“Tom you need to be a lot clearer”
Actually, no, I don’t. The only relevant details are that the matter was handled quietly, the money paid back, and the party spared public embarrassment.
When it came to Keaton modeling the wrong t-shirt, though, things like sparing the party public embarrassment, getting the party’s work done, etc., took second place to a) trying to drive her off the LNC, and b) doing so in a way that would hopefully cow other opponents and get them to toe the SCM line.
Milnes: “It’s biggest prize…” is it’s sufficient ballot access to POSSIBLY win the presidency & a significant presence in Congress.”
I disagree. I think that LP — and all third parties, and all third party coalitions — will continue to lose, no matter what they try.
PLAS will lose.
As I’ve said many times before, Milnes, I don’t give a damn about “getting votes,” because I’ve long since accepted the fact that the LP will always lose.
I believe the LP’s sole, significant value is as an educational tool — as a way to influence the thinking of Americans and shape the culture.
If you want to win elections Milnes, go ahead. But don’t waste my time with your theories. I don’t give a damn about winning elections.
It doesn’t matter who wins the presidency, the establishment (an oligarchy of key industries — what some call the military-industrial-media complex) controls the empire.
Yet the establishment backed out of Vietnam partially because a critical mass of people demanded it.
Shape the culture, influence the people, and the political establishment will follow, regardless of who’s in office.
Bush, McCain, Obama, Clinton, Palin — any one of these puppets would dismantle the empire if public dissent was wide and large enough.
Ron Paul is anti-war because America first, the greatest, Gott mit uns.
Sipos, “It’s biggest prize…” is it’s sufficient ballot access to POSSIBLY win the presidency & a significant presence in Congress. Control the LP & you can insure that loses.
The only other possibles are the GP & CP. Also an Independent like Nader.
BTW, when are you going to get over fascisto father figure Paul?
Tom you need to be a lot clearer when you write; “Would using LPHQ’s credit cards to hire prostitutes be failure “to abide by longstanding and appropriate protocol?” When that happened, there wasn’t a public witch trial, just a “quiet understtanding.” Three guesses which side of the “SCM” agenda the “john” was on?”
Explain this please!
While the SCM faction may want to control the LP’s pursestrings, I think the real item they want to control is the LP’s public educational message.
The LP isn’t all that rich. Its biggest prize is that it’s perceived by many people as America’s biggest third party. That carries a certain credibility.
If the LP were to condemn all our current wars (not just calling Iraq a “mistake,” but loudly and repeatedly saying all our current wars are “wrong”), demand an immediate end to overseas bases and foreign aid (even to so-called “allies”) that would bring a certain credibility to those positions.
But the SCM and other “pro-defense” types don’t share that view. They claim that antiwar/anti-imperialist positions will “lose votes” — but that’s only a talking point.
In reality, SCM supporters fear that antiwar will actually “get votes” — and that terrifies them, because they support a vast U.S. military, and vast foreign aid to “allies.”
SCM supporters don’t want an LP presidential candidate running on Ron Paul’s antiwar talking points, for fear that it would be popular — and thus strengthen the antiwar movement in the U.S.
More than a fight over the LP’s scrawny purse, these internal battles are about the LP’s message. Who will be the face of the LP — and what message will he sell to the American people?
This is why Starr keeps repeating (he’s been saying it for nearly two years now) that Root is the “de facto” face of the LP. Starr wants members to consider Root’s leadership “settled,” and to make it “official” to whatever extent possible.
I agree with Knapp, in that SMC and Root are using each other. Root is using the LP to advance his new career as a political pundit, and SMC backs Root because Root is “safe” on foreign policy issues.
All other issues — secret meetings, purges, control of pursestrings, moving conventions to expensive locations to lower attendance by povertarians — are simply a means to the end of controlling the LP’s educational message to the public.
That’s my interpretation from what I’ve seen of these last few years. I’m sure Robert will offer a different interpretation.
Was the prostitute at least a member of the LP?
Bob@214,
“while it may well be fair to say she didn’t agree with the SCM agenda, it appeared to me that it was her inability to abide by longstanding and appropriate protocol that led to escalating efforts for her to respect the committee’s ability to do business.”
There was never any question of her “respect [for] the committee’s ability to do business.” The committee decided it would rather have a witch trial instead of doing business.
Would using LPHQ’s credit cards to hire prostitutes be failure “to abide by longstanding and appropriate protocol?” When that happened, there wasn’t a public witch trial, just a “quiet understtanding.” Three guesses which side of the “SCM” agenda the “john” was on?
Where is Lewis Black when ya need a good rant?
That was meant to be the last sentence of that post above but I got so damn frustrated I hit the submit button to soon.
re Cappozi at 208. What in the hell does this mean “TAAAL-ist (theoretical asymptotic anarchist/applied lessarchist) L” ?
One of the problems with people in this party is that they don’t speak English or maybe anything else for that matter!
Paulie: “However, as I said previously, the biggest cluster was left-center-libertarian.”
Right. I’ve already said I believe that.
Paulie: “There was no significant right-center-libertarian cluster, although there were a few.”
You’re saying that in your review there wasn’t even a significant cluster of the younger people who scored high on the economic scale that also scored around the middle on the social questions of no draft, no censorship, no consensual sex laws, no adult drug laws, no national ID card? That’s pretty odd. I know many people under age 30 who hold those views, usually business-oriented, and I don’t even work for a large company.
Paulie: “But I was talking about young conservatives who were mainly pro-war.”
Well, all you said is that they looked military or had ties to the military. Being pro-military doesn’t mean being pro-wars of aggression. I’m sure many were, but I’m not sure how many.
Paulie: “Are you sure you supplied the correct link?”
Actually, I’m not. I’ll have to search again, I think.
Here’s something else though: CPAC, the largest annual gathering of conservatives, had more than 10,000 attendees in 2010. Roughly half of total attendees were younger, ages 18-25.
In the CPAC survey, 80% of respondents said the most important goal is “to promote individual freedom by reducing the size and scope of government and its intrusion into the lives of individual citizens.” Traditional values and national security were also options.
Among issues on a list that were ranked the most important and second-most important, reducing the size of the federal government, cutting government spending, and cutting taxes were all at the top. Abortion was a distant fourth, and issues like gay marriage and immigration hardly got any votes. The so-called war on terrorism was tied for third, I think, though anti-war Ron Paul won the presidential straw poll handily.
I highly doubt those would be the results if not for the large youth contingent. They’re representative of many other younger people around the country who can’t attend CPAC. Personally, I think they’re worth reaching out to and not alienating.
tk, if SCM did these things singlehandedly, I might kinda see your point, but even if they did, these are very tame, very, very inside baseball, mistakes in the grand scheme of things. That they may have done these things in concert with majorities of the LNC make them tamer still in my mind.
(On the Keaton situation, while it may well be fair to say she didn’t agree with the SCM agenda, it appeared to me that it was her inability to abide by longstanding and appropriate protocol that led to escalating efforts for her to respect the committee’s ability to do business. Again, it wasn’t only SCM involved in insisting on civil comportment. Just my take, of course, and I admit I wasn’t paying that much attention to the machinations.)
I s’pose we all have different thresholds of sensitivity to control freakery.
@ 211
Winner for best post.
Bob,
I was a regional alternate on the LNC in 2000-2001, and Judicial Committee 2002-2006.
The distinguishing feature of “SCM” in terms of, as you put it, “control freakery,” is not that they’ve served on or around the LNC, but rather the actions they’ve undertaken while doing so.
Off the top of my head:
– The attempted removal of two LNC members who didn’t play ball with their agenda;
– Cultivation of a culture of secrecy, to include bowdlerizing of meeting minutes, refusal of Starr as treasurer to show documentation to other LNC members, and abuse of executive session to hide their activities from the membership;
– Blocking presidential candidates from advertising in the party’s newsletter until their own horse was ready to do so.
Or, at the state level, what may be the ultimate exhibition of control freakery — scheduling the California’s annual business meeting on a ship off the coast with an admission fee of several hundred dollars.
And now, for something completely different…
tk, well, yes, of course, the SCM troika have been on the LNC, “controlling” the pursestrings and other policy matters to some extent. You and GP have not been on LNC that I can recall. So, SCM have exercised more control than you two brothers. Anyone on the LNC would appear to want to maintain control compared with someone NOT on the LNC.
Whether SCM are MORE predisposed to exercise control in their favor than others, I can’t say. GP seemed to think that Hinkle’s recent treatment of Hawkridge might be viewed as overly controlling, or it might be viewed as being in the LP’s best interest. I have no opinion on the matter, other than I thought Hinkle could have displayed more tact and grace in the matter, especially given the pattern of Hawkridge and others leaking private correspondence to GP for public dissemination.
All is forgiven, s’far as I’m concerned! 😉
Bob,
I think you’re placing too much stock in the word “control.” Maybe more specificity would be helpful.
When we talk about “the LP,” we might be talking about any of various things — an aggregate of individuals who have signed a pledge and/or pay membership dues to be considered part of the group would be one thing, for example.
In this specific case, when I refer to “controlling the LP” I mean “controlling the Libertarian National Committee in terms of how the resources it in turn controls are utilized.”
Those resources would include money, headquarters staff time and direction of effort, communications to the membership, etc.
There may be some extent to which “help guide” is relevant — for example, suggesting to the editor of LP News that maybe there’s an interesting story going on over there, or encouraging the executive director to get out more for lunches with prospective donors, or whatever.
Ultimately, however, it is control, not “helpful guidance.” When the LNC directs the treasurer to write a check to X, it’s not a suggestion; and when X is offered and accepts that check, it is on the agreement to do some particular thing, not “do whatever you like with it, but might we suggest ballot access?”
There’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to exercise that control. People vie for the privilege of doing so every two years … and somebody has to do it unless the LP adopts a different form of organization.
It is my opinion that “SCM,” as you’ve dubbed them, place greater importance on their ability to continually exercise that kind of control than they do on the results that they do or would produce in terms of accomplishing the party’s stated purposes through the exercise of that control.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t agree with the party’s purposes, or that they don’t think the party’s purposes are important.
It may just mean that given a mutually exclusive choice between progress toward one of those purposes or maintaining their grip on control, they’ll choose to pursue the latter.
Or it might mean that they have trouble distinguishing between the party’s purposes and their desire to control the party’s resources.
That’s the mote that I see in their eye.
Has George Phillies ever displayed the same tendencies? In my opinion, he has on at least two occasions — one of which was a long time ago, one of which you bring up every time you mention him — possibly failed to distinguish between his own agenda and the good of the party.
Have I ever displayed any of the same tendencies? I don’t doubt it, but the thing about a beam in your own eye is that it’s very hard for you to see yourself.
I do believe that these tendencies are more pronounced and more habitual with “SMC” than with Phillies, or with myself … but then I would believe that, wouldn’t I?
Gains: The question needs to stop being how do we stop X faction from taking over. It needs to be how do we promote our faction to be in a position of influence and how do we shape positions of trust so that they cannot move downwards in the hierarchy to destroy the more important, more local, political action from above.
me: Agreed. In my case, there are very few self-proclaimed centrist, moderate, TAAAL-ist (theoretical asymptotic anarchist/applied lessarchist) Ls, to my knowledge. I don’t line up with any one faction, although I was Chair of the LRC PAC until we disbanded. At the moment, I don’t have resources or energy to go out recruiting like-minded TAAALists, so near as I can tell my highest and best use is to challenge the toxicity in the factional squabbles, mostly by calling out what I consider the most egregious and histrionic, hyperbolic barbs tossed from one side or the other. (Interestingly, the constitutionalist Ls generally don’t get involved in these volleys…they just do their thing for the most part, which I admire.)
Paulie and I are the only members of the Rodney King, can-we-all-just-get-along caucus. It’s fair to say that we’ve not been knocking it out of the park with our non-sectarian message.
We’re all doing what we can, though…..
gp204, consider the wild-ass notion that the desire to “control” the LP is counter-productive. Maybe the desire to “help guide” the LP might be both healthier and more effective!
It appears that you admit to wanting control of the LP, is that right?
I’d like to distinguish between the two, not to say that you don’t.
There was in fact a significant left/center/authoritarian cluster – what are often called “Progressive” or “Labor” parties in many parts of the world. This group included both people from a poor background who were likely welfare state beneficiaries themselves as well as those from a well-off background who viewed it as fulfilling their obligation to help those less well off. These were mostly Democrats.
There was also a fairly significant right/center/authoritarian cluster – church-and-state, cop/military/jock types and wannabes – Junior red state fascists, mostly Republicans.
There was no significant right-center-libertarian cluster, although there were a few. I suspect that there are more now, as the Ron Paul/Young Americans for Liberty ideas have spread, and as the Republicans lost the white house. Conservatives tend to be more libertarian when they don’t hold executive office at the national level.
However, as I said previously, the biggest cluster was left-center-libertarian. By and large most of them identified as independents or were disengaged from political involvement. In many other countries, for example the UK, these are known as Liberals, distinct from the Labor/Progressives as well as from the Conservatives. However, currently in the US they have no organized political outlet for their beliefs. It is this group that I think the LP needs to learn to market to so as to become more successful.
I think that actually Ron Paul did reach this group quite a bit, but some potential supporters were turned off by his more conservative stands on some social issues or were later turned off by the racist newsletter controversy. These are however not problems for the LP.
Absolutely. But I was talking about young conservatives who were mainly pro-war. However, it is true that many more of them came to oppose the current wars (or at least the war in Iraq) as time went on.
Are you sure you supplied the correct link?
I did not see the conclusions you drew, or any discussion of economic issues whatsoever, nor any breakdown of conservatives into social and fiscal conservative groups.
What I did see was that there was a sizable socially conservative minority among young people, which was the same thing that I found as well.
“Using that figure as a reasonable estimate, when Wayne said in 2007 “the war on Iraq is the wrong war. War on Iran is the right war!” he was proposing an additional $1 trillion redistribution. I guess we can disagree on whether or not $1 trillion is “massive.””
I’d be more concerned about it being incredibly optimistic. Several times the land area. Several times the population. Large cities. Lots of combat veterans. American rather than Soviet organization at the good officers are good, but good NCOs are better level. Lots of note taking on what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan.
TK quotes and writes: ““My feedback is that I see no evidence that SCM seek control of the LP any more than, say, Hinkle or Phillies.”
If you don’t think that Phillies wants to control the LP, you’re high.”
Also, since our guiding genius (not Tom) appears to have missed that too, Mr. Hinkle not only ran for National Chair he won and at some level controls the LP.
tk: First of all, what’s to forgive?
me: When I use the word forgive, I mean overlook and respectfully accept and disagree. It’s entirely possible, even likely, that on some level SCM and Phillies want to “control” the LP. On other levels, they want the LP to be successful in some way. They may at times do things that you “judge” to be dysfunctional or counterproductive to success. I do, too. Where we may differ is that I am willing to overlook those (IMO) counterproductive moves, in part because I know that I myself have done counterproductive things myself. We all do, near as I can tell. I assume you’d agree.
I doubt when Root advocates a hawkish line, he views it as redistribution as you do. He likely believes it’s necessary to maintain the rule of law and domestic tranquility. Understanding comes from walking in another’s shoes; one might decide after doing so that our own perspective works better for us than another’s, but to impute motives that aren’t there undermines your own credibility. You’re not being fair-minded.
That said, and as you know, I come down on the dovish side of things.
Finally, yes, we all have our constructs to bear, including me. Perhaps where we differ is that I’m willing to acknowledge the validity of other people’s constructs. When we take our constructs too seriously and literally, we isolate and alienate ourselves from those who don’t share our construct.
“To the gas chambers, go,” was quite an observation.
I didn’t read all the posts, but I think that certain people see limiting the number of candidates for president to 5 to 7 names, is the way to go.
From my experience with The USA Parliament, Inc., however, having 135 to 165 names is far better, and the results are far superior.
As long as roadblocks are continual placed in front of the 128 to 158 names excluded for the LP’s plan, the LP will fail.
Join the Frees,
opposite gender #1!
“Why do you THINK they called it Google?”
Go(t)Ogle?
http://www.usparliament.org/ss11-6.htm
Bob,
You write:
“You believe that Starr, Carling and Mattson (SCM) are using Root to ‘control’ the LP.”
I believe that Starr, Carling and Mattson are attempting to use Root to attempt to control the LP.
“You believe Root does or has advocated massive redistribution and regulation of commerce.”
That’s not a matter of belief, it’s a matter of public record.
“Despite these views, Root remains a useful pawn to SCM, since Root’s base of support remains strong inside the LP.”
I don’t regard Root as a “pawn.” I’d call him him a “temporary ally,” based on his own interests. He wants to be the LP’s 2012 presidential nominee. I believe that he wants that:
a) Because he honestly believes the political ideas he espouses and honestly believes he’s the best person to lead on implementation and/or promotion of those ideas; or
b) Because he believes he has something personal to gain by leading on implementation and/or promotion of those ideas as a presidential candidate; or
c) Some combination of the two.
He’s allied with “SCM,” in my opinion, because he believes that they can help him be successful in achieving HIS goals, not because he shares THEIR goals. And vice versa.
“My feedback is that I see no evidence that SCM seek control of the LP any more than, say, Hinkle or Phillies.”
If you don’t think that Phillies wants to control the LP, you’re high.
“If I recall correctly, SCM were involved with others in the Wrights affair, which was handled poorly, IMO. My opinion of the Keaton affair is cloudier”
In both cases, my opinion is that SCM were the primary orchestrators of the attempted removal. I believe that that opinion is supported by the known facts; it need not rely on any judgment as to whether the attempted removals were a good or bad thing.
What’s less certain is whether the “point men” on those attempted removals (Stewart Flood in the case of Keaton, Bob Sullentrup in the case of Wrights) were members of “SCM,” auditioning for membership in same, or just temporary allies of “SCM” or, to use a word you grabbed out of the air, “pawns” of “SCM.”
“since I happen to believe that a committee can and sometimes should have free-flowing conversation. If I recall, you and I disagree on that score.”
I have no idea what you’re talking about.
“Regardless, people make mistakes…that’s what we do, at least from time to time. Perhaps you cannot forgive SCM for what you believe were unforgivable transgressions to make them, in your mind, irredeemable control freaks.”
Wow. There’s a lot wrong with that last sentence, and it will take more than one sentence to parse.
First of all, what’s to forgive?
When I was in the LP, I frequently found myself opposed to their agenda — or, to put it a different way, I was similarly vying for “control” of the party. I’m not asking their “forgiveness” for that because I don’t think I need it. I doubt they think they need mine, either.
Now that I’m no longer in the LP, even more so. I still think, as I thought then, that their agenda runs counter to the party’s interest in achieving its stated goals, but frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. These days it’s just idle fascination on my part.
I have no problem admitting that within what you’d call their “construct,” they believe they’re doing all that’s right and good, just as I was within my own “construct” (and am now doing within a different “construct”). In fact I assume that you believe the same inside your own “construct” (a “construct” that seems to be built around the virtue of bitching about “constructs”).
The thing about “constructs” is that it’s easier to work up an accurate critique of one from outside. Beams in our own eyes versus motes in the eyes of others and all that.
Ditto for “irredeemable.” I doubt that they believe they require “redemption,” nor are my opinions intended as a come to Jesus talk.
“Heat of the political moment” stuff aside, I’ve always been personally cordial with both Aaron and M, and they with me (in St. Louis, Aaron and I were actually working on a motion for the convention, but he ultimately decided against going through with it — not, so far as I know, out of any enmity toward me).
I’ve never interacted to any great degree with Alicia. Whenever I’ve been within 10 feet of her, she’s tended to move in the opposite direction. Whether she’s just busy or actively avoidant, I don’t know and don’t presume to have knowledge of.
“Forgiving” them or “redeeming” them was above my pay grade when I was in the LP and not even on my radar these days.
“If so, I can only suggest that such judgmentalism”
“Judge not” is possibly the most damaging piece of rhetorical bullshit in the human vocabulary. Life is judgment. You can judge well or you can judge badly, but if you don’t judge you’re just misallocated DNA.
“to suggest that Root is a regulating redistributionist strains credibility UNLESS one adopts an absolutist paradigm.”
Or unless one actually listens to what he says.
“All things considered, I’m convinced Root wants a smaller government, but it’s also clear to me he’s not an anarchist.”
True on both counts.
“If your paradigm dictates that all non-anarchists are regulating redistributionists, then I can understand your conclusion.”
And if you believe that purple is 392 I can staple your manifold.
The last two US wars have so far redistributed (or will, once the interest is paid) about $2 trillion from the productive class to the “defense” branch of the political class. Using that figure as a reasonable estimate, when Wayne said in 2007 “the war on Iraq is the wrong war. War on Iran is the right war!” he was proposing an additional $1 trillion redistribution. I guess we can disagree on whether or not $1 trillion is “massive.”
In terms of regulating commerce, he is currently on record as tying citizenship to home purchases and forbidding certain workers from joining voluntary associations for the purpose of bargaining for wages and benefits.
While I happen to disagree with him on those two positions, it’s not the virtue of the positions that I’m arguing. All I’m arguing is that despite holding the former position in 2007, he retained support in the LP that eventually led to a third-place finish in Denver; and that despite holding the latter position now, he has obvious support in the LP as reflected in his second-place finish for chair in St. Louis, his election to the LNC, and the perception that he has a good shot at the LP’s 2012 presidential nomination.
Paulie: “It’s not just the question answers alone but the comments. Many people indicated that they did not know or care much about the economic issues. In contrast to that, they tended to have much stronger and more informed opinions on the social issues.”
I believe that. Of course, that doesn’t prove that most of the liberal-leaning younger people aren’t wedded to the welfare-regulatory state, which has become institutionalized in America. They may just take that for granted. But your experience, which I can’t judge the validity of, does seem like they care more about contentious social issues.
Paulie: “While it would be somewhat accurate to call them liberal-leaning, they are also centrist- and libertarian- leaning, straddling the boundary between all three quintiles. That is a separate group from those who consciously self-identified as liberal/left.
The group straddling the left-center-libertarian border was the biggest cluster of all quiz takers.”
Right. That’s why I said liberal-leaning and not liberal.
Paulie: “Quite a few had either served in the military, were still in the reserves, or had been raised by military families – there were lots of yellow “support the troops” hand bracelets, super-short haircuts, desert fatigues, cross necklaces and lots of them called me “sir” even when I was barely older than they were.”
Anti-war Ron Paul gets a massive amount of support from military people. Massive.
As for the social issues, your observations of younger conservatives don’t track too well with some reports I’ve seen. For example:
http://people-press.org/report/283/pragmatic-americans-liberal-and-conservative-on-social-issues
At the bottom of the page, there’s a box that shows a percentage breakdown on social and cultural issues by age group. It says 50% of the 18-29 conservative group aren’t really social conservatives, and 27% are only moderately so. Except in one case, these numbers go up until the 65+ conservative group, in which case 37% are really social conservatives, and 38% moderately so (somewhat lower numbers than I’d expect even for that age group). 50% of younger, so-called “conservatives” seems to me like a lot of potential Libertarian voters to alienate.
RC and TK:
Influence in the LP should come from one place only: Turning out people.
Playing devils advocate for a moment to illustrate the problem, not to denigrate the people that are caught up in the games:
Root is constantly inundated with people on the radical side that slam his character and maneuver with fraud and violence. On his (+SCM) side, the same thing is being done proactively and in response.
It seems to me that radicals do not make a whole lot of attempts at recruiting a political base, while Root and others do, and the game has been to whack on that base rather than recruit a base supporting the radical side.
In this party I have seen people go so far as to infiltrate others homes and manipulate their families to distract their positive activities because the aggressor did not yet have the capacity for achieving success through their own positive work. All that effort… and for nothing gained but a large swath of allies hurt and disabled.
Posts I have seen make me think that perhaps people in the “SCM” crowd have also experienced the similar problems where their rivals have made extremely inappropriate personal attacks. I have seen evidence that that crowd is also engaging in really inappropriate behavior. That cycle will not do anything but escalate and worsen unless there is a change in the rules of the game at a social level.
The only ethical and just way to move your faction/group/cabal’s mission forward is to get out there and get more people on board with your team. When you attack your allies in a coalition setting, you destroy the coalition. When you use positions of trust in a coalition to maneuver your allies, you destroy the coalition.
In our current sitz in leben, this coalition destroying faction whacking is the rule and the norm. People building teams and doing positive action is so rare, that nearly any success becomes the automatic target for destruction.
The question needs to stop being how do we stop X faction from taking over. It needs to be how do we promote our faction to be in a position of influence and how do we shape positions of trust so that they cannot move downwards in the hierarchy to destroy the more important, more local, political action from above.
tk195, thanks for your clarifying candor. I’m beginning to understand your accusation, I think.
You believe that Starr, Carling and Mattson (SCM) are using Root to “control” the LP. You believe Root does or has advocated massive redistribution and regulation of commerce. Despite these views, Root remains a useful pawn to SCM, since Root’s base of support remains strong inside the LP.
Fair summary?
My feedback is that I see no evidence that SCM seek control of the LP any more than, say, Hinkle or Phillies. Like Phillies, my few dealings with SCM have been positive and productive. (Never met Hinkle.) If I recall correctly, SCM were involved with others in the Wrights affair, which was handled poorly, IMO. My opinion of the Keaton affair is cloudier, since I happen to believe that a committee can and sometimes should have free-flowing conversation. If I recall, you and I disagree on that score.
Regardless, people make mistakes…that’s what we do, at least from time to time. Perhaps you cannot forgive SCM for what you believe were unforgivable transgressions to make them, in your mind, irredeemable control freaks. If so, I can only suggest that such judgmentalism is not IMO the road to peace and liberty.
ADR, but to suggest that Root is a regulating redistributionist strains credibility UNLESS one adopts an absolutist paradigm. All things considered, I’m convinced Root wants a smaller government, but it’s also clear to me he’s not an anarchist. If your paradigm dictates that all non-anarchists are regulating redistributionists, then I can understand your conclusion. I find that view to be small minded, missing the forest for the trees. Consider the possibility that most observers of the body of his works suggest someone who wants to shrink government, a view that I suspect would be held even among those who are NOT Root supporters.
In turn, I’m open to the possibility that you are the LM’s answer to Copernicus, seeing truth that others do not (as yet)!
These were not the results I observed. Among young people in general, rather than the small numbers that do things like attend political conferences, there was in general much more of an emphasis on social issues and military/foreign policy/security issues than economic issues – on “both” sides. Granted, it’s possible that this may have changed since then, with the bad economy pushing economic issues more to the front of everyone’s concerns, and focus on the foreign wars dying down, at least for now.
Among young conservatives, I noticed that many were reacting against what they considered the permissive culture of sex and drugs among their peers and society in general. This was true regardless of to what extent they participated, or didn’t, themselves. Many were church goers, and saw a role for religion in government. Quite a few had either served in the military, were still in the reserves, or had been raised by military families – there were lots of yellow “support the troops” hand bracelets, super-short haircuts, desert fatigues, cross necklaces and lots of them called me “sir” even when I was barely older than they were. Many volunteered questions or comments about the war and foreign policy, even though those were glossed over by the quiz.
It’s not just the question answers alone but the comments. Many people indicated that they did not know or care much about the economic issues. In contrast to that, they tended to have much stronger and more informed opinions on the social issues.
I don’t remember noticing any overwhelming pattern about which questions exactly people answered no or maybe to. But, I do remember detecting that there was a lot of confusion, apathy and uncertainty on the economic questions.
While it would be somewhat accurate to call them liberal-leaning, they are also centrist- and libertarian- leaning, straddling the boundary between all three quintiles. That is a separate group from those who consciously self-identified as liberal/left.
The group straddling the left-center-libertarian border was the biggest cluster of all quiz takers. And, again, they knew and cared more about the issues on which they tended to already agree with us. So it seems to me that we should be able to figure out a way to appeal to them. (BTW, There was nothing approaching a similar sized cluster anywhere near libertarian on the right.)
The background of the people taking the quiz was not just metropolitan. They were raised in all kinds of environments, including small town and rural. Many had not previously lived on their own before going to college, while others had.
Exactly.
Bob @ 193,
You write:
“You are saying, in effect, that some Root supporters ‘don’t care’…which to me translates to ‘are without conscience.'”
A better translation would be “are without ideology” — or at least don’t give ideology the driver’s seat vis a vis their agenda. And as I’ve been very clear on, your desire to ignore it notwithstanding, the particular Root supporters I’m alluding to on that are a small group, not representative of his larger body of supporters.
“Are you saying that some Root supporters would still support Root if …”
The small group in question supports Root because he’s of use in getting or keeping them where they want to be in terms of their influence within the LP. The instant he ceases to be of such use, they’ll sell him to the knacker’s yard and find a new horse. Presumably there are limits to what he can advocate while still remaining useful to them.
Of the three things you name, however, I’d argue that he advocates or has in the past advocated the first two, without his support visibly going to zero while he was doing so, even among the larger body of “Root supporters.”
“IF you believe that Root followers are completely blind, consider having the decency to say who they are and why you think they are blind.”
Obviously the small junta I’m referring to isn’t “blind.” It has an agenda (control of the LP), and it supports Root because supporting Root seems to advance that agenda.
Names? Aaron Starr and M Carling seem to be the enduring core of the group, although it’s starting to look like Mattson has become a permanent member and may even have eclipsed Carling somewhat. Beyond that, it’s hard to tell the difference between aspiring members, temporary allies and useful idiots.
None of which applies to the larger body of “Root supporters,” who presumably have various reasons for supporting Root.
Paulie: “Someone under 30 who tests around 80 social and 50 economic and knows and cares a lot more about the personal/social/civil liberties issues than about the economic issues — the overall plurality cluster of responses — does not seem to me like someone who is wedded to the welfare state.”
I don’t see the logical connection here. How does taking the Advocates Quiz and scoring 80 percent on social issues and 50 percent on economic issues (one of which is to allow free trade and another of which is end corporate welfare, which many, many defenders of the social welfare state can endorse) imply that such a person isn’t wedded to the welfare state?
I’d really like to know which questions most of those liberal-leaning younger people disagree with us on. If you know what the typical results are, perhaps you know that too? Please let me know.
Paulie: “They may oppose it but not care very much, not care at all either way, or support it lukewarmly as a “passenger virus” because the people that are best known for agreeing with them on the issues that they care about support it.”
Same thing for conservative-leaning younger people. I believe many of them call themselves “conservatives” mainly because of economic issues and not because they’re staunch social conservatives or war hawks. The latter are usually middle-aged and older people.
For example, many of the younger attendees to CPAC, who represent just a small fraction of younger “conservatives” yet are motivated enough to attend an explicitly conservative conference, are actually rather libertarian in their outlook. Yet they’d bristle at being called “low tax liberals.”
I’m not saying I know whether the vast majority of the bigger, liberal-leaning younger group is married to the welfare state or the vast majority of the smaller, conservative-leaning younger group is socially tolerant and restrained in war. But I can certainly conceive of that being the case, and we shouldn’t just assume that liberal-leaning younger people are more apt to support the LP simply because they’re much more numerous (at least in metropolitan areas). Nevermind adopt a moniker that alienates other people unnecessarily.
Paulie: “We are not starting from a level playing field – many of them already identify us as ultra-conservatives.”
The media reinforce that notion when they imply Libertarian candidates “steal” votes from Republican candidates exclusively. Some Libertarians do too when they proudly say a Libertarian “spoiled” an election for a Republican.
If that’s the popular perception then, Libertarians need to also stress social freedom and peace, as well as refrain from acting like we draw the vast majority of our votes from would-be Republican voters, as opposed to would-be Democratic voters and other would-be alternative-party voters as well.
tk: The group of people I’m referring to is fairly small and to all appearances non-ideological. They don’t care what direction their horse goes in as long as he carries them with him and pulls the LP’s wagon behind him.
me: Again, quite a charge. Frankly, without justifying your statement, it sounds arrogant to me. You are saying, in effect, that some Root supporters “don’t care”…which to me translates to “are without conscience.”
Let’s test your hypothesis: Are you saying that some Root supporters would still support Root if he started advocating massive redistribution, regulation of commerce, and a doubling of resources going to the drug war?
I’d like to read your words differently, Tom, but IF you believe that Root followers are completely blind, consider having the decency to say who they are and why you think they are blind. Casting vague aspersions are beneath you, my brother. IMO.
tk186: …I’m not sure how you took from my statements, which I clearly labeled guesswork, as evidentiary in nature.
me: In my experience, when someone makes a guess, it’s based on something…a pattern, disparate facts, a vibe one gets in another’s presence, something!
On some level, everything’s a guess. But there’s a reason why we don’t guess about weather patterns in Mongolia but we might speculate about motives of associates, former and current. We’ve never been to Mongolia, but we have a sense about an associate.
Putting a “Safe” Face on the LP @189,
I’m not sure we’re talking about the same group of people.
“The Root faction” in the LP is fairly large and its membership doesn’t seem to be monolithic in terms of why they support him.
The largest single variable there seems to be gullibility: For some reason, large numbers of big-L Libertarians seem to believe that if someone insists over and over that he’s famous, he must be famous, even though they never heard of him until he got in their faces and started screaming about how famous he is.
The group of people I’m referring to is fairly small and to all appearances non-ideological. They don’t care what direction their horse goes in as long as he carries them with him and pulls the LP’s wagon behind him.
TK @188
From what I can tell, everybody is acting outside the NAP.
Knapp: “The people behind Root aren’t stupid. They know that if all the stops were pulled out behind a Root campaign he might hit 500,000 votes (probably closer to 200k than 500k, but maybe 500k). Their evaluation of whether or not the LP is “doing better” isn’t about how it does in elections, it’s about whether or not it keeps them in charge.”
But WHY does the Root faction want to keep themselves in charge? Is it solely for personal power?
I think not.
The Root faction supports the “war on terror,” wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, foreign aid to Israel, and Islamophobia in general.
They want Root to be the “de facto face” of the LP because they know that Root is “safe” on these issues. He’ll say the “rightist” things on TV.
Ruwart actually spoke of Palestinian rights — gasp! — at the 2008 LP convention debate. And who knows what “extremist” foreign policy positions Ernie Hancock might say on TV?!
Gains,
Your definition of power versus influence is not unreasonable, but it’s not the definition I’ve been using.
In my usage it’s ethically neutral — as Wordnet has it, “possession of controlling influence.” An additional modifier would specify whether that influence was gained or is being used ethically or unethically (e.g. within, or in violation of, the non-aggression principle).
While I do have opinions on what modifiers are applicable in the instant case, I’m holding them reserve against the point at which they may become relevant.
Regards,
Tom
TK @186
I have taken the habit of defining power along the NAP especially in defining political and governmental ethics and positions. Semantically I generally use the word power to define the authority to do violence and I contrast it with the word ‘influence’ in the ability to make things happen without force.
If you can pick up the phone and have 20 activists show up for a canvass, that is influence. If you can pick up the phone and have 20 people arrested, that is power.
In smaller scale, if you can convince people to vote with you, that is influence. If you make a body vote your way by locking others out of a convention, that is power.
The heart of it for me, is the use of force in shaping peoples will, bearing or perceptions at any scale.
Bob,
It’s not obvious to me that “an obsessive lust for minor power” and “sincer[ity] in their desire for more liberty” are mutually exclusive, at least without additional assumptions about the nature of the power in question.
Additionally, I’m not sure how you took from my statements, which I clearly labeled guesswork, as evidentiary in nature.
This is particularly true given that it’s not even proven that liberal-leaning younger people in general are more likely to vote Libertarian than conservative-leaning younger people in general. It could be, for example, that the vast majority of people in that bigger, liberal-leaning younger group won’t reject the welfare-regulatory state, while the vast majority of people in that smaller, conservative-leaning younger group don’t hold firm socially conservative or pro-war views at all. I don’t know.
Someone under 30 who tests around 80 social and 50 economic and knows and cares a lot more about the personal/social/civil liberties issues than about the economic issues — the overall plurality cluster of responses — does not seem to me like someone who is wedded to the welfare state. They may oppose it but not care very much, not care at all either way, or support it lukewarmly as a “passenger virus” because the people that are best known for agreeing with them on the issues that they care about support it.
I would distinguish this group from those who are firmly on the modern left.
It’s this group that we have to learn how to market to, without the advantage of being in big league presidential debates for now. We are not starting from a level playing field – many of them already identify us as ultra-conservatives.
That has to be overcome. I think it can be. But ultimately, I agree with you that we should steer a steady course.
Thanks, Paulie. Most of what I said stood, so I’ll just address your last post.
Paulie: “Again, no. I asked what else as in: what else besides economic issues….that in no way was meant to imply that economic issues are not important. It’s just that they were already addressed within the slogan under consideration.”
Okay, but I don’t think “low tax” addresses them.
Paulie: “However, it appears we do agree to two important conclusions:
“1. Younger people are more likely to be open to considering voting libertarian than older people
2. Younger people are more likely to be left-leaning than older people. ”
Yes.
Paulie: “I don’t know how well [RP} would do if he did [use the term “liberal”]. He does have one major advantage that we don’t: being able to get on stage with the leading Republican contenders who have a realistic chance to get the presidency.”
Well that second part is true. Of course you can also say Ed Clark had one major advantage that other Libertarian presidential nominees haven’t: a very, very rich running mate who poured a lot of his own money into campaign marketing and advertising.
As for the first part, I don’t know exactly how well he would do if he used it either. But you pointed out that RP already does well with younger people despite his social views. I agreed while pointing out that he also never uses the term liberal, demonstrating my point that you can don’t need to use it to gain many, many younger followers.
In sum, I agree that we should focus a lot on younger people, but there’s no need to automatically alienate anyone by saying we’re qualified-Left or qualified-Right, regardless of the proportion of liberal-leaning to conservative-leaning younger people.
This is particularly true given that it’s not even proven that liberal-leaning younger people in general are more likely to vote Libertarian than conservative-leaning younger people in general. It could be, for example, that the vast majority of people in that bigger, liberal-leaning younger group won’t reject the welfare-regulatory state, while the vast majority of people in that smaller, conservative-leaning younger group don’t hold firm socially conservative or pro-war views at all. I don’t know.
And personally, I don’t ever want to be thought of as a qualified one-or-the-other…I don’t think either side is worth being considered a modification of.
tk, you don’t need to do anything, but if my summarizing question is off the mark, I apologize. Still, what is your evidence that “It mostly seems about obsessive lust for minor power”?
Bob C,
You write:
“Seems quite a charge. Do you have evidence that these power-lusting operatives are not sincere in their desire for more liberty?”
Why would I need evidence for a claim I didn’t make?
Again, no. I asked what else as in: what else besides economic issues….that in no way was meant to imply that economic issues are not important. It’s just that they were already addressed within the slogan under consideration.
You finally did answer: gun issues. That is a valid answer.
Open to it – yes. If we persuade them to do so. But do we actually get more support from young people in real life? I don’t know. I do know that the active participants in the LP are a lot older on average than they used to be. This was not the case with the Ron Paul activists, though.
Sample size was in the tens of thousands, with hundreds of participants on average at each OPH booth at over 100 OPH booths on college campuses. Randomization is a valid question since people who said no to taking the quiz were not included. However, the results were close enough to what I have seen as far as random telephone surveys that I think my randomization was fairly decent. After all, people can say no to taking a telephone poll as well.
However, it appears we do agree to two important conclusions:
1. Younger people are more likely to be open to considering voting libertarian than older people
2. Younger people are more likely to be left-leaning than older people.
I don’t know how well he would do if he did. He does have one major advantage that we don’t: being able to get on stage with the leading Republican contenders who have a realistic chance to get the presidency.
Anyway, this thread seems to be pretty played out, but if anyone is still following along, I hope the LP at all levels devotes much more of its time and energy figuring out how to appeal to the under-30 generation.
Yes, most unfortunate that MNR felt the need to work on his oppositional personality disorder in public! 😉
Yep, yep, and yep.
From Wiki:
1980 Presidential campaign
In 1979 he won the Libertarian Party presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Los Angeles, California. He published a book on his programs, entitled “A New Beginning”. The book’s introduction was by Eugene McCarthy. During the campaign, Clark positioned himself as a peace candidate and emphasized both large budget and tax cuts, as well as outreach to liberals and progressives unhappy with the resumption of Selective Service registration and the arms race with the Soviet Union.[6]
When asked in a television interview to summarize libertarianism, Clark used the phrase “low-tax liberalism,” causing some consternation among traditional libertarian theorists, most notably Murray Rothbard.
***
“low-tax liberalism”
… on 60 Minutes, not bad. I missed it. I like his book and his is still the best ever LP Presidential campaign. I also like Rothbard’s ideas and books. Both should be in the big tent LP … Along with Wayne Root and Bob Barr.
***
I guess too many Libertarians failed kindergarten and never learned to show respect to others, to listen quietly and politely until it’s their turn for show and tell, and to take turns being first in follow-the-leader.
br, this is pretty accurate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Clark
I think he said low-tax liberal on 60 Minutes, if I recall correctly. It was certainly some high-profile media hit. MNR certainly went ballistic. Read his Libertarian Forums from that timeframe.
btw, I was associated with Crane in 83, and I don’t think he “walked out” technically. He did sever from the LP, although others, like myself, stayed in.
I did witness Bergland telling a TV reporter in 83 at the National Convention that, yes, some Ls are anarchists and some are minarchists. I was profoundly embarrassed by this statement, since most viewers likely didn’t know what he meant by those terms. Accurate: yes. Clear for the audience: no.
When did Ed Clark actually say that he was a “low tax liberal”? … I don’t recall having heard him use those words. I do recall that he was accused of running a campaign that presented itself in this way, due to its soft message.
tk: It mostly seems about obsessive lust for minor power. There may be a correlation with rightism, but if so I think it’s coincidental, not ideological. To put it bluntly, “right” libertarians inside the LP seem to be more easily dazzled by spurious claims of “celebrity” and more easily parted from the middling amounts of money involved.
me: Seems quite a charge. Do you have evidence that these power-lusting operatives are not sincere in their desire for more liberty?
It’s certainly possible. The nature of organizations requires one to be in a position of influence to make change, and getting into a position of influence often requires a certain amount of positioning and maneuvering. I’ve yet to see an organization of any consequence that didn’t require that sort of behavior.
Paulie: “Of course not. If I thought they were minor issues, I would still be a Democrat.”
Well, one could become a Libertarian despite thinking those are minor issues simply because he or she feels that Democratic politicians aren’t truly committed to anti-war, personal privacy, and the Bill of Rights. That does happen.
Regardless, the fact that you even asked what else is wrong with liberals besides taxes, spending, and regulations in the context of defending the term “low tax liberal” makes it seem to me like you do in fact consider them minor issues–at least relatively.
Paulie: “Corporate welfare, subsidies, grants, and other forms of aid to dependent corporations comes to mind.”
Despite stretching it out, that’s all subsumed under the term “corporate aid.” Okay, add that to the list of typical conservative exceptions. I’ll add strict gun controls (if not abolition) to the list of typical liberal exceptions.
Paulie: “Actually, my point was that they are more likely to not already be locked in to one of the other parties. Dramatically so – what I have read (unfortunately haven’t been able to find where when I tried to find it again recently) is that 90% don’t change parties after age 30.
That’s a huge difference.”
I didn’t say that specifically, but that’s what I meant: older people are much more likely to be locked into one of the two old parties. So younger people are much more likely as whole to vote Libertarian–or at least be open to doing so–than people who are older.
Paulie: “I am not advocating going after either young conservatives or young liberals per se. My research found that people in that age group – that is, all people, not any ideological group – had an average score of 80 on personal issues and 50 on economic issues – borderline liberal/moderate/libertarian. Furthermore, they were more knowledgeable and passionate about the personal issues than the economic ones.”
I don’t know anything about your sample size, randomization, etc., but I did say that more younger people in that age group–the group more likely to be open to the Libertarian Party–are more liberal than conservative.
Paulie: “Ron Paul’s ability to do well with this group – despite, not because he is more conservative on some major social issues – is further proof that it can be done.”
RP does do pretty well with this group, yet he never uses the term liberal. That’s what the issue is here.
Paulie: “Because working really hard to not alienate them alienates a much larger group of people that we haven’t even seriously tried to recruit. ”
I want to make it clear that we’re talking about labels here. I reject the premise that we should either call ourselves qualified-liberals or qualified-conservatives and that not doing that “alienates” one side at the expense of the other. There’s no need to do either one and alienate many libertarian-leaning people–whether from the left or the right–in one fell swoop. You can get the basic message across of what libertarian means in a soundbite without using one ideological label and not the other.
Paulie: “Ed Clark’s use of the “low tax liberal” slogan and hundreds of speeches at colleges. I can’t say for sure that is why he did better than subsequent Libertarian presidential candidates, but it may well have something to do with why.
So, reason #3 is: It seems to have worked, although the data is sparse.”
I can’t say with certainty why either, but I’d certainly then refrain from saying “it seems to have worked.” I suspect his vote total had far more to do with the fact he had far more money for advertising and marketing than any other Libertarian presidential candidate has had, thanks to David Koch.
Paulie: “OK, OK, “socially tolerant anti-war anti-corporate-welfare conservative” may be OK too, but it may be a bit wordy for what we are going after here.”
Well, you’re trying to include all the exceptions in the qualifier of the conservative label while not doing so for the liberal label. You shouldn’t compare apples to oranges. “Low-tax, less-spending, less-regulating, gun-freedom liberal” is somewhat wordy too.
Paulie: “Low tax liberal may be just the right antidote for what ails us most and keeps us away from our natural support base.”
I wouldn’t say liberals or conservatives are our “natural support base” to the exclusion of the other. I don’t know why any Libertarian wouldn’t want to recruit as many people as possible from both sides–even if supporters come into the fold more from one side than the other. I don’t see how it’s necessary to alienate anybody by implying that libertarians fall somewhere on the traditional left-right spectrum instead of presenting ourselves as something newer (at least to them) and better.
@171 correct.
Of course not. If I thought they were minor issues, I would still be a Democrat. If Clark thought they were minor issues, he would not make “low tax” two out of the three words in his most fundamental description of what he stood for. I can accept the criticism that this did not address spending or red tape, but remember, it was a mini-soundbite aimed at people who had no idea what “libertarian” means.
Agreed and assumed. That is why I asked what else is wrong with liberals. If nothing, then low tax liberals is roughly apt. When you have five seconds to get someone’s attention before they walk away, it’s not a terrible conversation starter.
Corporate welfare, subsidies, grants, and other forms of aid to dependent corporations comes to mind. But I don’t think “socially tolerant” encompasses opposition to all those things nearly as much as “low tax” encompasses opposition to bad things on the liberal side of the ledger, do you?
It is one of the measuring sticks, and socially tolerant conservative does not address it all, except to leave the vague impression of exactly the opposite stance. Low tax liberal does not leave a vague sense of being for bigger government in any of the three major areas of policy (foreign, economic, personal/social issues). Granted, it does not address spending and regulations; remember, we are talking three easily and widely understood words or less here.
Actually, my point was that they are more likely to not already be locked in to one of the other parties. Dramatically so – what I have read (unfortunately haven’t been able to find where when I tried to find it again recently) is that 90% don’t change parties after age 30.
That’s a huge difference.
I am not advocating going after either young conservatives or young liberals per se. My research found that people in that age group – that is, all people, not any ideological group – had an average score of 80 on personal issues and 50 on economic issues – borderline liberal/moderate/libertarian. Furthermore, they were more knowledgeable and passionate about the personal issues than the economic ones.
So, out of the most available age cohort by far, the plurality feel most strongly about issues where they already agree with libertarians. If Libertarians are not able to translate that into a lot more support than we have, there’s something seriously wrong with our marketing. Ron Paul’s ability to do well with this group – despite, not because he is more conservative on some major social issues – is further proof that it can be done. So, the only conclusion I can draw is that there is that there is indeed something seriously wrong with our marketing. It’s not aimed where it would be most effective.
Because working really hard to not alienate them alienates a much larger group of people that we haven’t even seriously tried to recruit. The closest thing I know of to an attempt to recruit them? Ed Clark’s use of the “low tax liberal” slogan and hundreds of speeches at colleges. I can’t say for sure that is why he did better than subsequent Libertarian presidential candidates, but it may well have something to do with why. Maybe even a lot.
So, reason #3 is: It seems to have worked, although the data is sparse.
OK, OK, “socially tolerant anti-war anti-corporate-welfare conservative” may be OK too, but it may be a bit wordy for what we are going after here. And bear in mind that “socially tolerant conservative” is not even nearly the most damaging meme going around for what a libertarian is.
“Conservative who smokes pot” isn’t either, although it’s close. “Conservative who really means it” is. That is what we have to overcome among our largest, most available target demographic. Low tax liberal may be just the right antidote for what ails us most and keeps us away from our natural support base.
@158 Thomas M. Sipos // Nov 9, 2010 at 1:14 am
“The LP has done “outreach, fundraising and organizing” for decades.”
***
No, not really. If you add up all the advertising and actual attempts at reaching new people that the party has done since it’s inception and call it outreach, it amounts to calling a toothpick a sequoia.
This year, the Ds and Rs spent over $4 billion on advertising – that’s only part of their outreach.
Did the LP manage 1% of that … ?
1/10 of 1% … ?
1/100 of 1% … ?
The answer is No, NO and NO!
There have been a few brief moments of outreach in the party’s history and in the history of a handful of state and county LPs, but nothing serious, well financed, targeted, professional, sustained and effective.
The only serious outreach of any presidential campaign were the Clark for President TV ads, and they were far too few to be effective. If David Koch had kicked in ten times as much money for the TV spots, nationwide, he might have hit the minimum threshold for an effective ad campaign.
And that is why the party has been stuck for all of these years.
We could do it, if we stop all the infighting, stop worrying about trivial disagreements over trivia, and actually manage our resources wisely, target effectively, work professionally and promote and build the party.
This may be impossible, however, as there are too many libertarians who want to be the leader, but lack the most important leadership skill of all – the wisdom, strength, and ability to be a good follower of those with a better plan.
re 166; Tom, Richard Burke has or had a consulting business called Prime One registered in Oregon. If you check the records I believe that you will find Prime One received money from the Barr campaign.
So here’s the deal. If Burke delivers for the Root campaign he stands to he hired in some capacity for them.
In a way that is reasonable. I just question some of the ethics involved. Then we need to ask how many others will be on the gravy train?
Do these potential wranglers stand up and say “I have a chance to make some money if you support Mr. XYZ. So Vote for him”? Is that inappropriate or not?
I have to run now and don’t have time to dig further. Have fun y’all.
As a general rule, yes.
TS
Not very effectively at all. Although, at times more effectively than at other times. There is much to be learned from comparing what has worked and what hasn’t worked, and by studying what has worked well for those who are really good at it – not just libertarians.
Anyone who believes that should devote their time to some other organization – there are many in the movement. Political parties function under a lot of restrictions and disadvantages that educational foundations do not – their contributions are limited and subject to reporting requirements, and they turn off people with sentimental or legacy attachments to other parties as well as those who are only interested in a party that can win big elections. Why burden yourself with being part of a small political party unless you take the political party part of it seriously?
However, I do believe that education should be a part of the LP’s mission – our sole purpose is not to win elections, otherwise the libertarian ideology would not be advantageous to keep. While I can and do participate in libertarian organizations that have nothing to do with being a political party, I no longer have any interest in being part of a political party that is not ideologically libertarian.
I believe the correct mission of the LP should include education by participating in elections, as well as winning elections, or, failing that, concessions from winning candidates wherever possible.
I don’t have a crystal ball. There is no way to know how things may change in the future, or whether that change will be slow or rapid.
Paulie: “What’s bad about liberals other than taxes, spending and regulations?”
What’s bad about liberals other than taxes, spending, and regulations?? I guess you think these are minor issues, though I find that difficult to believe. Actually, each one is a major incursion on freedom, impedes upward economic mobility, and reduces the overall standard of living for most Americans. The typical liberal wants to increase all of them.
To put it another way, what’s bad about conservatives except wanting to increase foreign aggression, social controls, and violations of the Bill of Rights? They don’t seem so bad otherwise.
Paulie: “Reason #1: Low tax liberal is more likely to convey the message that we are pro-peace, anti-interventionist.”
That’s good because opposition to foreign interventionism is key to libertarianism. It’s not the measuring stick of libertarianism though.
Paulie: “Reason #2: The most available audience – that is those far more likely to not yet have a party or to be open to changing their party – young people.”
I agree that younger Americans are more likely to vote Libertarian than middle-aged or older Americans are, as a whole. There are many younger conservatives, though not as many as younger liberals. Of course, the fact that they’re greater in number doesn’t prove those younger liberals are more likely to vote Libertarian than younger conservatives (or vice versa).
Ever go to CPAC? Most of those younger conservatives are already rather libertarian. So why alienate them either?
Paulie: ““Low tax liberal” works better as an appeal to this group than “socially tolerant conservative.
It puts the emphasis on the correct foot.”
Let people know what a libertarian is generally, and “low tax liberal” is as unnecessary as “socially tolerant conservative.”
We don’t need to identify with one side or the other on the flawed left-right spectrum for most people to grasp what we represent. We do need to avoid alienating a lot of people by using labels that evoke visceral negative reactions in describing who we are, whether those people come from the left OR right.
Red,
You write:
“Why does anyone think WAR will do any better than Barr did?”
Michael writes:
“It might be a bit more than that. If I am in X state party and I bring to the national convention a slate of delegates from that state all supporting your campaign then it might be that you will hire me as your state coordinator.”
Paulie writes:
“I think Tom’s point was that he thinks that the people who opposed allowing the Oregon convention to continue want a party that leans to the right in its selection of presidential nominee and other ways.”
Working backwards:
Paulie, I don’t see it as a “left/right” thing. It mostly seems about obsessive lust for minor power. There may be a correlation with rightism, but if so I think it’s coincidental, not ideological. To put it bluntly, “right” libertarians inside the LP seem to be more easily dazzled by spurious claims of “celebrity” and more easily parted from the middling amounts of money involved.
Michael, I think you’re right about it being “more than that,” but not necessarily in the specifics. The Starr/Mattson clique doesn’t really seem to be about personal financial gain so far as I can tell. They don’t want the money, they want to be the people in charge of spreading the money around. It’s all about being the big fish, and if that means keeping the pond small, so be it.
IMO, the “more than that” involved may be trying to bully Oregon back into the California “super-region, with California picking all the representatives” scheme.
Red, see above. The people behind Root aren’t stupid. They know that if all the stops were pulled out behind a Root campaign he might hit 500,000 votes (probably closer to 200k than 500k, but maybe 500k). Their evaluation of whether or not the LP is “doing better” isn’t about how it does in elections, it’s about whether or not it keeps them in charge.
ts: Only until the read the fine print.
me: That’s your fine print. I’m sure my fine print will offend others, but my fine print only deals with intermediate-term issues. It may offend, but my views will generally be respected as “not wacko” in the broader population. Why? Because I do my best to take their views into consideration when I adopt a position.
In the political realm, anything past that goes into the “interesting theory” box, to be opened only after the intermediate-term agenda is completed.
What you don’t seem to get is that the Rothbardian construct is no longer the operative approach for many Ls. That blue pill just doesn’t work any more.
We don’t need to hold high an abstract construct that reads like science fiction in order to engage in political discourse. We don’t need to figure out whether fetuses are parasites or not. My common sense says that’s a ridiculously inappropriate idea that seems designed to alienate rather than attract. Yours?
If you go down the list of the abolitionist L agenda, there are numerous instances of construct-inspired positions that my common sense tells me alienate rather than attract most people. Why do that? Why waste one’s time? If compelled to educate, go get a PhD and profess somewhere!
Thomas @161
Most people couldn’t give a rats pellet hole for muslims, prostitutes, drug users, rich people, gun owners etc…
They do when they perceive them as a threat. It is the constant relationship destroying barrage of social fear that you are identifying and that I did identify in the post. Being able to be secure in ones self seems to me to be the real the cure for social phantasms.
Sipos, Teddy Roosevelt is an American hero. He is an ideal persona to base a contemporary inclusive progressive movement-including libertarians-on. Esp. with the centenial of the 1912 electionscoming up.
You do not have to venerate him to be part of it which could actually win elections.
Everybody, we should perform an exorcism on Sipos asap to purge him of Ron Paul.
Gains: “The libertarian principles are very attractive to everyone in my experience.”
Only until the read the fine print.
As I’ve often said, most people want to be free to do whatever they like. The problem is that …
1. Most people don’t want freedom for others (Muslims, prostitutes, drug users, rich people, gays, gun owners, landlords, “sweatshop” owners, polluters, smokers, Christian home schoolers) to do those things that they may not like.
People say, “I like to do XYZ. Everyone should be free to do XYZ. But I draw the line at ABC. No one should be free to do ABC.”
Such anti-freedom types are probably a large majority of Americans, though they each have their own XYZ and ABC.
2. Most people want their freedom subsidized. They want public education, student loans, medicare, social security, government subsidized mortgages or small business loans, border control and military bases to keep those “dark foreigners: in check.”
It’s easy to convince people they should be free.
Hard to convince them that others should be free, or that they should pay for their freedom.
Aaron Starr: “Because other members of the party also have fundamental rights.”
Since you repeat this principle, I’ll repeat mine…
Members of the party have a fundamental right to cheap and easily accessible convention venues. This means no cruise conventions, and no Hawaii conventions, and no expensive downtown hotels when cheaper airport hotels are available.
Re: @ 62
Wow, so this is not just theory.
The Tennessee LP dumped RR — and found that bylaws + common sense work!
Common sense dictates that one should heed experience.
So far, experience shows that 1. RR hinders many LP meetings, and 2. replacing RR with bylaws + common sense works!
Be Rational: “some people enjoy debating bylaws and endless discussions of hypotheticals and trivia. These things do not build parties and win elections. They waste time.
“If we spend our time doing outreach, fundraising and organizing, and yes internal education and discussion events within the appropriate settings and time frames, with the goal of increasing membership, donations and registrations at the scheduled end, then we can build and win.”
The LP has done “outreach, fundraising and organizing” for decades.
There isn’t anything the LP hasn’t done — for decades.
Every piece of advice — from Radicals, Reformers, Anarchists, Minarchists, Purists, Root, Nolan, everyone — the LP has not only tried, but tried for decades.
And yet some factions continue to insist that some other faction is holding the party back from winning elections and growing.
NOT!
As I’ve long said, the LP will never — never, never, never, no matter what it tries — be a major party. Its only and best use is as an educational tool.
I don’t care that the FEC says that the LP “is a political party” — the State is wrong — the LP is not a political party. It’s an educational organization.
The LP can either accept reality — that its only use is to educate — or it can fantasize that it’s a real political party, and sacrifice its chance to educate by diluting its message so as not to “scare voters.”
No, Milnes, PLAS won’t help. PLAS is guaranteed to lose, even if you ran the ghost of Teddy Roosevelt with a libertarian Native American woman for VP.
Robert: ““And that’s the rub. What constitutes “common sense,” and how is that determined? “
There is no “rub.”
I already anticipated and answered your objection in my initial posts.
I said: “Any issue not covered by the bylaws shall be governed by the common sense of the members, officers, or delegates, to the extent that they have any.”
I intentionally set a very low bar. The members may have the common sense of Socrates — or of a soiled napkin — it doesn’t matter. We’ll use whatever “common sense” they can muster.
Why? Because as I said, “Common sense will fill in the blanks. It may not work, but it can’t get worse than using RR.”
You see? No”rub.” Whatever level of “common sense” the party can muster, it can’t be any worse that the current, deliberate misuse of RR to stifle dissent.
See also
http://www.flowidealism.org/index-project.html
Along those lines, worth reading:
http://storeyinstitute.blogspot.com/2010/11/taking-left-out-of-liberalism.html#more
What’s bad about liberals other than taxes, spending and regulations? If our slogan makes clear that we oppose tax-and-spend and red tape, we can go ahead and resuscitate the liberal label, especially now that progressives have by and large eschewed it.
But, as I said, even socially tolerant conservatives are better than either the D or R ruling factions — socially intolerant big spenders and high tax conservatives.
Why is “low tax liberal” better than “socially tolerant conservative”?
Reason #1: Low tax liberal is more likely to convey the message that we are pro-peace, anti-interventionist. So when you factor in foreign policy/military spending as the third leg of government policy, “socially tolerant conservative” conveys the image that we are for less government in both social and economic spheres domestically, but for bigger government when it comes to foreign policy, which is what “conservative” conveys – and “socially tolerant” does not correct that.
Reason #2: The most available audience – that is those far more likely to not yet have a party or to be open to changing their party – young people. Average score on Nolan quiz, about 80 personal and 50 economic, and they know and care more about personal issues.
“Low tax liberal” works better as an appeal to this group than “socially tolerant conservative.”
It puts the emphasis on the correct foot.
Robert: “MNR, for ex., went ballistic when Ed Clark offhandedly positioned the LP as “low tax liberals.””
Paulie: “Sounds better than “socially tolerant conservatives” to me.”
It doesn’t to me; they’re just two sides of the same coin. Previously I posted that Libertarian candidates shouldn’t give people the impression that we’re some kind of conservatives. Both of you guys agreed. Well, we’re not some kind of liberals either (modern usage). I don’t want to alienate people coming in from the right anymore than I want to alienate people coming in from the left. And there’s no need to do that.
@151
How true. George
In inflation-adjusted dollars? I did not know that. They sure didn’t use the money effectively.
@147 Barr raised more money for the general election campaign than either Badnarik, Browne, or several earlier.
Long comment by Gains at 125 and exchange with Capozzi at 128-9: good points.
I think you meant 2008. But I’m sure that will still be the case in 2012.
Another valid point. Let’s get cracking on 2012 now.
Valid question.
MNR, for ex., went ballistic when Ed Clark offhandedly positioned the LP as “low tax liberals.”
Sounds better than “socially tolerant conservatives” to me.
Although both are better than either the D or R ruling cations — socially intolerant big spenders and high tax conservatives.
There are any number of reasons to think that one candidate may do better than another, some having to do with that candidate and some with outside factors.
But I think Tom’s point was that he thinks that the people who opposed allowing the Oregon convention to continue want a party that leans to the right in its selection of presidential nominee and other ways.
If so, once again the questions that have yet to be answered:
Does anyone dispute Burke’s contention that his side had the votes to defeat the other side’s proposals?
And, if they did have the votes, why not let the votes take place rather than call quorum?
While we are on that subject
Maryland Libertarians have until Jan 2 to get on the ballot before they lose their 9,000 or so voter registrations to be reverted to independent.
If they get to ~35k registrations they get permanent ballot status, but they have to start from scratch every time they lose their voter registrations.
If we can raise $35k or so we have Libertarian petitioners ready to go.
If Maryland gets on the ballot they have access for all races for 2012 and 2014, President as well as state/local. They can still do that later but if we don’t start soon they will lose their voter registrations.
If anyone wants to discuss additional details, you can write me off-list if you have my email, post a comment here with your correct email address included (it doesn’t have to be publicly viewable – I can see the email addresses that are not apparent on the publicly viewed page), or call me at 415-690-6352 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 415-690-6352 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 415-690-6352 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 415-690-6352 end_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting.
We also have done Maryland more than once before.
Maryland Greens have already started petitioning for 2012 in anticipation of the election and are a good chunk of the way to being done.
Good point.
The number of responses is not necessarily a factor of whether we consider something to be more important. Controversies are more likely to get more comments than where people agree, even if where they agree is more important.
Good news is news too, but there’s a reason why “if it bleeds, it leads.”
Enough with the purges. Time to splurge!
How does any of this help get candidates elected?
As best I understand it, one side is more conservative, works with Republicans a good bit, and emphasizes issues where Republicans and Libertarians tend to agree more often than not. The other is more liberal/leftist/anarchistic, tends to emphasize issues that united leftists and libertarians, and its members are less likely to be seen wearing a suit or neatly trimmed hair and facial hair.
I have not seen anyone explain this away, unless I missed something.
On the other hand, I also have not seen anyone from the side that was against calling the convention off early deny the contention further above that a supermajority of those in attendance were opposed to the bylaws changes being proposed.
One other question I don’t remember being either asked or answered: If the side that wanted the bylaws changes did not have enough people in attendance to pass them, what was the purpose of using parliamentary wrangling to call off the convention? Why not just vote them down?
Sounds like paranoid ravings, unless I see some specific substantiation.
Yes, “David” tells quite the unique tale. It almost feels like a spoof of an accusation, without any substantiation.
@130
The notion of Hawkridge and Mattson as party of the same direction, in the sense you mean, is totally bizarre.
Red, that wouldn’t be out of bounds if you want to post it as one.
Every once in a while we have taken comments and made them into threads for greater discussion.
Of course, if it becomes an article there should be a disclaimer saying it is one person’s opinion.
I just got internet again after it was out for about 20 hours or so, have a lot of reading to catch up on, so it may be a while before I post threads…have at it.
# 125 deserves its own thread.
…this is the exact same crap they’re trying to pull in the LP Florida. As far as I can tell the entire leadership aren’t even technically members but arebust y purging the real ones just the same (no wonder they endoirsed a GOP AG who will likely stop the investigation).
Some have listened in to the chatter after one of their secret phone meetings (long story). That’s the plan. Supposedly Plan B is to form a new LP Florida on a GOP written platform and sue the national LP!
I was in Canada, both Washington and Oregon, than TN when a lot of this stuff occurred. These were all strong affiliates getting people in office, running coalitions, etc. It’s like they have a playbook:They screw up the by-laws, ignore what’s in place, and run destructive candidates that drive folks away and suck up money, then point to the mess and say the Libertarians do nothing but mess up. It’s that simple. Look at Hawkridge & co. darling, John Wayne Smith. And what’s with that crazy region?
They’re pretending to work apart, but IMHO Hawkridge, Carling, Mattson etc. have been working with GOP moles to mess up the LP. Here is the latest result.
The problem with the LP is not factionalism, but takeovers by the right camouflaged by cries of factionalism, lessertarianism-anarchism, we need to get people elected, hand over everything to practical conservatives, etc.
I’m leaving the US soon and hope that Libertarians there will be more wary. I was thinking about being a Libertarian in public office but after the smears and attacks by LP “officers” on those who were and these monkeyshines, and getting zip from the national office, no.
Doubtless I also have been purged by “losing’ my membership as phony members are packed in, which is probably the next step in Oregon LP. Then a new right-wing LP will be formed. Watch out!
RC @128
Very nicely worded, sir. Thank you!
gains: Be kind to people; especially the ones you despise. Their poor disposition will bear them out, in the end, for the losers that they are.
me: You pretty much had me til the end. The ones you “despise” aren’t “losers,” as I see it. I’d suggest rephrasing your sentence to read: be kind to people, including the ones you disagree with or don’t care for their company. Be confident that truth will win out in the end, and that we as individuals have no monopoly on truth.
A multi-party coalition will do the best. Under current direction, all parties and indpendents working alone are doomed to fail.
Check out my US Presidential/Vice Presidential committee;
http://www.usparliament.org/
Join the Frees,
opposite gender #1!
“Why do you THINK they called it Google?”
re Tom @ 118. It might be a bit more than that. If I am in X state party and I bring to the national convention a slate of delegates from that state all supporting your campaign then it might be that you will hire me as your state coordinator.
Just a thought.
We can win elections as Libertarians.
We can make significant and cumulative strides in social change.
We can grow our party.
But,
We have some significant social barriers to success in the Party that I think that we would benefit from addressing. I have no right to demand agreement from anyone, so take all of this as a helpful suggestion based on experience and success.
The first issue is that we are extremely exclusive. The other is that we spend far too much time with destructive in-fighting with no purpose nor benefit derived.
These two issues also converge into a larger theme: Meanness; that is to say a significant deficiency of empathy and an irresponsible lacking of forethought in consequence. An interesting paper was brought to my attention. It is cited in a reason.com article “The Science of Libertarian Morality”:
http://reason.com/archives/2010/11/02/the-science-of-libertarian
The non-peer reviewed draft “Understanding Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Roots of an Individualist Ideology” can be found here:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1665934
The non-scientific study took a bunch of people, asked them to self identify their political philosophy and then ran them through a battery of several personality trait spectrum tests. The results are not too surprising if you are involved with the Party. Those who self identified as libertarian had some strong biases. On a scale that measured systemic analysis over empathy for moral decisions, libertarians scored very high toward systemic analysis. Much in the same way that high spectrum autistic people score. This is a problem. It is not that people with high systemic analysis are a problem, but a society that is mired in an incapacity for empathy definitely is.
The libertarian principles are very attractive to everyone in my experience. When the beautiful logic that is our ethical and moral foundation is expressed to them in terms that are understandable, just about everyone I know moves toward self identifying as libertarian. So what is the problem? Why are we stuck?
When I travel afield into different county and state organizations, I find that we have a lot of organizations that are either tiny, or now non-existent except as an empty shell meet-up group; whole counties that almost never meet; regions in metropolitan areas that have 2 or 3 people showing up for monthly meetings. Those that do show up seem to be locked in a bitter struggle to ensure that no one ever comes back. How? They insult the living crap out of people because they do not tolerate anyone who does not have this extreme personality. Not that they are not libertarian. In my experience most people are libertarian and the thing stopping them from identifying thus is always some irrational fear. Hyper rationality does NOT address their fears, it heightens them.
The majority of people do not live in a psychological state that is a hairs breath from sociopathy. We will not go above our 30 year history of 0.5% of the registered voters as long as we fail to accept that our fellow humans often feel out solutions and not rationalize them down to first order consequence problems. Our failing, it seems to me, is that we have turned consequence and cause upside down. We seem to think that libertarianism is caused by this lack of empathy, and that empathy in itself is the weakness that must be crushed to form a libertarian society. Instead of welcoming people and addressing them with persuasive argument, appropriate peer influence, and setting social examples, we beat on them.
We act as if we can change the foundational personality traits in people, and we seem to think that somehow we have a “duty” to do so. Instead of finding and practicing the art of persuasion, we chop at people with axes of unflinching rationality and kill anyone who is unlucky enough to wander in and fits a personality profile not in the 2% immune to the emotional appeals. Over and over again I have seen a good motivated newbie come in contact with Libertarians and get mashed for being “normal” in their approach. Here is a generalized typical example:
Mr. Newman comes to his first libertarian meeting. He likes what he sees in our literature. He is tired of the hypocrisy and machinations of the “X Party” he no longer identifies with and he wants to find out what Libertarians are all about. Mr. Newman along with everyone in our American society has been bombarded with fear from the state. it may be that he has a decent understanding of libertarian approaches to ethics and morality, it is attractive to him, but in his gut, he is stuck on one issue: Lets say drugs in this illustration.
The conversation drifts to the drug war and he says something like: “I can see pot being ok but no way should we ever let cocaine or heroin be legal!” In many cases, our social gestalt would result in a intellectual ass-kicking of Mr. Newman or at least an ostracization. Mr. Newman, having formed no connections with the group leaves bewildered, and never returns. Why should he, he has free will, and what sort of moron would will himself to dip into a vat of social acid
every month?
We would benefit greatly if we wove into our social mores, a recognition that even people who are “wrong” have a right to be that way. That we have no authority to demand perfection from each other. What we do have authority to do is to persuade people to reconsider positions. That takes time, it takes forethought and it takes empathy.
There are a few Libertarian organizations out there that do appeal to the masses. The county I associate with is full of “non-rationals” that are good 100/100 libertarians. I >>KNOW<< that the personality traits identified in the study above are not the cause of libertarian thought, the study instead illustrates a stratification we have fallen into because we will not allow people to self identify as libertarians unless they are somehow emotionally bankrupt. It is not that the masses cannot be libertarian, it is that libertarians will not accept the masses.
In my local county party and several others that have formed with similar social structure, Mr. Newman would be welcomed with open arms. We would not engage him on the drug war or any other deviation from our core philosophy. He would first be socialized into the group. He would feel that he IS one of us. It would not be until after he has invested his social identity into the group by his own free will that anyone would dare to start addressing his deviations from our ideal path. Because until he has invested in us, we have no authority to ask for, much less demand that he reexamine his views; and Mr. Newman
has no motivation to listen until we have established a positive and an appealing connection with him.
In a healthy libertarian social structure, Mr. Newman, safe and comfortable with his new friends, finds that no one calls anyone a dirty birdie while talking about freedom. He finds very quickly that to say shocking things like "all drugs should be decriminalized," is not met with guns and shackles and a trip to the looney bin. It takes him a little while to acclimate perhaps but constant exposure to friendly debate and forensic examination of the ethical issues makes
him feel at ease. He is not crazy when he yearns to be free, and that self actualized realization will stay with him a very long time. The violent programming that he received in public school about never questioning authority, quickly melts away when he emotionally realizes that he is secure in expressing his own thoughts on liberty that are natural to all men.
I doubt if any well steeped libertarian would question whether that violent authoritarian programming exists in public schools or in pop culture. What I think many of us do not realize is that when we berate new people or when we engage in divisive and destructive internal politicking, we are emulating and reinforcing that violence. To understand what I mean by that I have to ask you to stretch your rational dissection of my points a little bit to understand secondary
effects and emotional memories.
The violent programming of authority is rarely direct and this makes it sometimes hard for people to perceive. We know this and see it all the time when we ask people to see the violence in taxes for instance. An argument I often hear from the uninitiated is that there is no gun being held to your head. As libertarians, the gun is obvious, it is thinly veiled threat hidden behind bureaucrats and paperwork. No doubt though, if you don't pay, the shackles come out and the gun shortly after them. The game played by the statists is to create the emotional feeling of threat any time authority is questioned. They
cajole at first, ridicule, freeze assets, speak sternly, and then hit you with a mountain of atrocious lies that if you dare resist will be taken to court and turned to documented "truth" and used to destroy you through imprisonment and worse.
Libertarians are guilty in a large scale of the exact violent display.
"What!?!" you may ask.
I assert that libertarians when they simply demand that their rationale is to be accepted because of it's internal consistency and obvious truth, take on the same presumptuous tone and manner that the bureaucrats do. Forget the topic or the truth, listen to the approach and the tone. Listen to libertarians around you with that filter and I think you will see what I mean. Then take the plunge and listen to yourself when you debate with someone who "just doesn't get it." By rationalizing their fears, or ridiculing them, and demanding we are in effect playing the same scripts that the authoritarians use to illicit a fear response. When we ostracize; when we needle; when we poke… we hurt people. We seemingly do the very proxy violence that the state does; we engage in the very thing we muster against.
We have a socially institutionalized culture of violence that lives within the Libertarian Party. It is incipient. We are plagued by purges, Machiavellian mischief, and factional skullduggery. We lack in our society an understanding of where healthy ends, and destructive begins. We fail to see when our competition internally dives headlong into violence, most often through inference but way too often in actuality. These games have spilled over into the obscene and stopped far too late into the process to have been anything less than negligent. Some instances have been simply callous and cruel. Some have been nearly if not actually criminal.
Because most people live most of the time in a mindset reacting emotionally to the world, their reaction to our culturally ingrained behavior is pain and fear. For us to grow, this venom must stop being the accepted norm. Coalition organizations exist on trust. And doing violence to each other, makes trust a difficult thing to build. It is just simple.
So, for the typical libertarian identified in the personality study as having a longing for understanding of the rules of the game, here is what I would suggest you consider:
Be kind to people. It is not your job to tell them where they are wrong. You will, touch on an authoritarian trigger, and you will be doing violence to the person without even knowing it.
Be kind to people. You do have the authority to set an example of what a healthy society looks like and make them feel at home in that. You
will assuage their irrational fears and arm them with the arguments and empower them with the courage to engage issues with rationality.
Resolve conflicts. Actively seek peace in your community. If the context of the conflict is simply personal, keep it there. First go person to person with your rival and deescalate when things go too far. If you cannot get peace and the conflict is in the context of others, go to people who have a stake in both of your sakes and ask for them to help negotiating a peace. Lastly resolve the conflict within the body if the scope of the issue is in that context. Be straight forward and do not seek capitulation from de facto allies within any of those spheres. Seek peace.
Resolve conflicts. Actively encourage peace in your community. If there is a personal conflict and someone seeks peace, grant it and berate yourself for not having sought it first. Let it go, whatever it is it is probably not worth it. If you are approached by someone who is a friend and seeks to help negotiate peace with another, either with you as the go between or the respondent; know that people are trying to stop things as they go too far. You have a responsibility
within your friends to seek peace. If there is a society or party aspect to a conflict, ensure that you have elected leadership that will approach the conflict with fairness and the necessary good disposition and skill to deescalate it. You have a responsibility not to escalate other peoples' conflicts and you have a responsibility not to bring them into higher spheres of community than they really exist.
By-laws are evil. They are where the Party meets the force of government. Any time you create a by-law, you create another grip for evil people to bring the force of government down upon it.
Social mores are beautiful. Creating a socially constructed framework of in-bounds and out-of-bounds rules that are enforced by peers is the very fabric of libertarian actualization. Human beings are too naturally mean to not have rules. The trick is creating rules that do not require guns (or their second order extension: by laws) to be followed. If you really want to be free you have to be ready to actively encourage justice and peace without violence, fraud or threat
whenever, and wherever possible.
Destructive games are wrong. If you destroy, with fraud or the application of violence (even proxy threats) the work of another, you have broken the non-aggression principle. Don't be mean, and be smart: Don't crap where you eat.
Competition is brilliant. If you have what it takes to outshine your rival, you earn every kudo in the books and more. If you cant keep it in bounds or pull back when you stray, you are a loser.
Cooperation is smart. There is no zero sum to political capital, share freely because it spreads thicker the more it goes around. The more wins you can find for the people around you, the more wins there are for everyone. If you win a campaign, is there any less glory if there are fifteen people working on it than if there are two? There is more.
Be kind to people; especially the ones you despise. Their poor disposition will bear them out, in the end, for the losers that they are.
rp: Why does anyone think WAR will do any better than Barr did?
me: A L nominee in 2012 could certainly do better than Barr numbers-wise. Barr was a late entrant. The LP did poorly obtaining ballot access, and that drained funds away from the Barr campaign. There was a lot of defensive voting in 2012, since both R and D candidates were poor. Alternative media will have been adopted for 4 more years. The Tea Party gave voice to a lot of non-party, non-professional political discourse, and that energy could be channeled toward an attractive 3rd party candidate.
But, yes, odds are high that any L candidate will get +/- 1%. However, a Perot 92 result is not beyond the realm of possibilities.
br: Wasting time fighting over nonsense inside the LP is what the party has done for most of its history – this is what you advocate by trying to “get it right at the start” and is no different from some of the time wasting radicals who are also trying to “get it right from the start” they are wasting time infighting – these are the dogs chasing their tails – the two (or more) infighting factions.
me: Agreed. The difference is that what I advocate is the Rodney King approach…getting along, respecting other L approaches. Unfortunately, since at least 1980, fellow Ls get pilloried most internally, not externally. MNR, for ex., went ballistic when Ed Clark offhandedly positioned the LP as “low tax liberals.” Why would someone voluntarily join the circular firing squad, knowing that colleagues can and will serve as a sanctimonious judge and jury against his/her own people? More recently, a person who tried to get the LP nomination for president turned around a few months later and narced to the FEC on Barr and the LNC. IMO, these sorts of internal battles are poisonous organizational self-sabotage.
What I propose is a very different sort of “getting it right.”
br: The obstructionsists contribute no useful time, no significant funds, no important candidates and in the end, little intellectual product of any use or value.
me: Yes, agreed, in part. Some LP procedurialists do contribute time, money and run for office. The narc cited earlier certainly does.
LP conventions can be as you say. I certainly am no fan of control-freak-ism, nor of parliamentarianism. It bores me.
“Ensuring that Wayne Allyn Root is the LP’s 2012 presidential nominee.”
Why does anyone think WAR will do any better than Barr did? Unless WAR is prepared to spend a lot of his own money.
Wasting time fighting over nonsense inside the LP is what the party has done for most of its history – this is what you advocate by trying to “get it right at the start” and is no different from some of the time wasting radicals who are also trying to “get it right from the start” they are wasting time infighting – these are the dogs chasing their tails – the two (or more) infighting factions.
The sleeping dogs are at least resting, but they are still doing nothing, and they have a variety of excuses that stem from a variety of causes. They may always do nothing, so if they don’t wake up to help, then its best to let these useless sleeping dogs lie.
It’s time for action.
The infighting, debating, and endless converstations are all time wasters and these are the primary factors that cause others to give up, drop out and do nothing.
It’s time for action.
The obstructionsists contribute no useful time, no significant funds, no important candidates and in the end, little intellectual product of any use or value. They dominate the LNC and are the Robert’s Rule thumpers at our meetings and conventions. They blather and bloviate, puff and pontificate, discuss and delay, but they have stagnated and stymied the Libertarian Party for long enough.
And now we’ve seen it again in Oregon, and we’re looking hard at their inactivity on the LNC and their supporters here at IPR.
Those who want to win just need to get busy working, and go around the obstructionists. We do not need to waste time on them.
It’s time for action.
The whole quorum issue is a slippery slope. I prefer the ruling coalition system.
The ruling coalition system made our bylaws short and sweet from day one, August 1st, 1995;
http://www.usparliament.org/rules.htm
br, IMO napping is far more productive than tail-chasing. A dog needs to rest. If the dog realized the futility of its tail-chasing, it’d stop.
The “cult of the omnipotent state” is merely emblematic of a built-in set-up for failure. IMO it’s not the only adjustment needed to make the LP effective.
Action is not in and of itself futile, but getting intention’s and comportment right at the start makes the path far less steep.
Abolishing the State is like mountain climbing a sheer rock face the height of Everest. I suggesting a far less steep approach because I believe it’s more likely to enable us to reach the top, or at least make progress toward it. If someone wants to lug a soapbox down to The Mall to stand astride whilst reading FOR A NEW LIBERTY, I say go for it, but don’t kid yourself.
Red @95,
You write:
“To what end?”
Ensuring that Wayne Allyn Root is the LP’s 2012 presidential nominee.
So, RC, the infighting is the dog madly scratching its fleas.
The opposite of action is the dog taking a nap.
You’re still wasting time.
It’s time for action, RC.
Run for office. Help a campaign. Donate. Stop debating the “cult of the omnipotent state” cause nobody beyond the fleas on the dog care.
It’s time for action.
br: It’s time for action.
me: Yes. Challenge is that abolitionist Ls want to hold high the banner of extreme action. Other lessarchists believe that that banner is counter-productive…extremism positions the LP on the fringes where few will hear the message of liberty. Many abolitionists believe that non-abolitionists are not bona fide Ls.
And sometimes Ls of various schools disagree about both means and ends.
Frenetic, aimless “action” is tantamount to a dog chasing its tail.
“1) Control of the LPO’s delegation to the 2012 national convention; or, failing that,
2) Disabling LPO so as to prevent it from fielding a delegation to that convention.”
To what end? Who might National want that Oregon would oppose?
And what is Phillies’ stake in this? Is one of the factions unwashed rubes who deny AGW?
@ Darryl W. Perry,
I understand that some people enjoy debating bylaws and endless discussions of hypotheticals and trivia.
These things do not build parties and win elections. They waste time.
If we spend our time doing outreach, fundraising and organizing, and yes internal education and discussion events within the appropriate settings and time frames, with the goal of increasing membership, donations and registrations at the scheduled end, then we can build and win.
Too many LP members and groups waste their time in endless, mindless debate and discussion and do no political activity. I’ve seen state and county LPs go on for years debating and talking, voting and following Robert’s Rules and doing next to nothing.
You have no time machine. Time travel by human beings is generally considered by scientists to be impossible. The same amount of time spent productively could have recruited a dozen new members.
How many of the participants here on IPR, on this thread, did not help any campaign, did not donate any signifiant amount of time or money to any LP group or candidate, but merely wasted time and energy by debating here at IPR?
It’s time for action.
Put something about quorum in the bylaws – maybe quorum is defined as 10% of all members (if a “convention of members”)… OR 60% of all eligible delegates (if a “convention of delegates”)
Hope for common sense =/= common sense. Of course my low ball of 3 is extreme…to make a point. There are rules for quorums for a reason.
Having our own rules vs. Roberts may well be indicated. Internal LP dysfunction needs to be addressed, certainly. Being civil would be a great start. Unfortunately, civility is near-impossible to enforce, which is the intent of Roberts.
@Be Rational — I was asked by members of a certain county LP to defend the NAP based on a hypothetical where if I was given a time machine would I have killed Adolph Hitler before he became Chancellor of Germany… so, some people do not see useless hypotheticals as such
In your hypothetical, RC, only common sense is available to bring about the correct outcome. Since a majority of the registered delegates constitutes a quorum, those who have arrived and registered would be the delegates and they would decide. Perhaps common sense would convince them to postpone and reschedule.
However, I’ve been to more than 10o LP conventions – National, State and County and never once did weather get so bad as to reduce attendance in any significant or even measurable way.
Such hypotheticals are a waste of time.
The Oregon LP needs to get past this attack.
We need to find out what’s wrong with the LNC.
In your hypothetical where weather prevents all but 3 people from showing, I would hope the 3 have enough common sense to know if more members were expected to arrive (I’ve been to county LP meetings with 5 people and that was the norm) and either wait out the storm OR reschedule
dwp: …common sense of the members,…
me: And that’s the rub. What constitutes “common sense,” and how is that determined? For ex., a convention might be held, but inclement weather causes only 3 to show. Could the “common sense” of 2 suffice?
@95 – if I’m a the 2012 National convention & you propose this:
Maybe it’s time for the various state and national LP’s to amend their bylaws to read:
1. The bylaws shall govern the LP.
2. Any issue not covered by the bylaws shall be governed by the common sense of the members, officers, or delegates, to the extent that they have any.
3. Anyone is free to consult Robert’s Rules, or a dictionary, or the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy, or their astrologer, or whatever else for additional guidance, but under no circumstances shall the LP be bound by anything other than the bylaws as interpreted by the common sense of the members, officers, or delegates.
You’ve got my support 100%
This time we can’t blame Wayne Root. He wasn’t involved in this one.
Interesting. Over 100 comments about a convention, with bylaws and voting stuff. But when something is posted about a state party or candidate activity, there is lucky to be 5 responses. That pretty much sums up the focus of the libertarians and why they haven’t won the big one in 40 years.
The issue with the LPO convention has been resolved.
There never was a problem with the quorum. The convention was properly called and a quorum was present because the majority of the registered delegates did constitute a quorum, and they were all there.
The problem was that some unidentified faction brought in an outside “expert” who wrongly advised the LPO that they didn’t have a quorum (we will assume incompetence and not a more evil intent on the part of this outside interference). Based on faulty and erroneous advice, the members voted to adjourn.
It turns out, that the LPO bylaws provided for this and the delegates were delegates and constituted a quorum based on a majority of delegates present. Further, even if the LPO bylaws had been silent on this topic, the so-called “parlementarian” was wrong about conventions under Robert’s Rules of Order.
The chair should have ruled against the outside agitators.
Robert’s rules have to be kept in their place. They should aid us and help us maintain civility and order, but not be allowed to be used as a tool of the obstructionists. We use Robert’s rules by they do not rule us.
However, this incident clearly calls into question the intentions of the LNC. Why didn’t they assist the Oregon LP to overcome the situation? Why did they have to interfere and make matters seriously worse?
The LNC is losing credibility rapidly. What did they do during the 2010 elections? Did they assist any state LPs with funds to win ballot status? Did they help any strong winnable campaigns? Did they help with advertising in high profile races? Did they help build media awareness of the LP campaigns? Did they even discuss doing anything?
Sure, the LNC lacks resources, but failing to generate successes will cause this problem to increase. The LNC needs to create some victories to point to. It needs to show its value to the membership to earn our donations. This situation in Oregon shines a light onto what they are really up to, and exposes what they are not doing.
The LPO needs to call a new convention and move forward.
This is much easier than the problems facing the LNC. The LNC needs to stop wasting time and money on internal political machinations and get busy building the party and winning elections.
The LNC is like a football team in a huddle, quarreling among each other, that never comes out to play the game.
Thomas: “We need rules? Fine, we’ll use the bylaws and naught else. Common sense will fill in the blanks. It may not work, but it can’t get worse than using RR.”
I think this is a bad idea; the bylaws don’t provide guidelines for orderly meetings. Without procedural guidelines, conventions can easily get out of hand. There have to be rules in place that say when and how motions can be made and debate take place, among other things. If most Libertarians favor a different source of meeting guidelines, then okay. But the bylaws don’t stipulate procedure.
And don’t anyone tell me that liberty requires that everyone at a convention be able to sidetrack LP business with anything that pops into their heads at any given time. The LP is a voluntary organization and can set its own rules for convention participants to abide by.
tms98, I’ll trade you one RR deletion for one “cult of the omnipotent state” deletion.
As for “The LP should be a cadre of peaceful but revolutionary idealists,” how do you propose to discern who’s in the cadre and who not? What do you mean for peaceful revolution, and what do you mean by idealists?
I could view my TAAAL-ist approach to be in a sense revolutionary and idealistic. I certainly consider it peaceful. I would not consider button-pushing abolitionism to be peaceful, since prescribing dislocation on a massive scale strikes me as very risky.
@96
This sort of maneuver, once caught, will not lead to a harmonious 2012 NatCon, to put it mildly.
Sorry, Milnes, but I like Ron Paul. And so do lots of libertarian radicals.
Paul is hardcore antiwar, and that carries a lot of cred.
TMS, the problem is the rightists, counterrevolutionaries & reactionaries (GOP).
If you are serious, start purging. & start with The Pauls.
I’m serious. It may well be time for the LP to dump Robert’s Rules.
Too often RR is used to suppress open debate, participation, and various party factions.
We need rules? Fine, we’ll use the bylaws and naught else. Common sense will fill in the blanks. It may not work, but it can’t get worse than using RR.
The LP should be a cadre of peaceful but revolutionary idealists. Instead, the LP has devolved into a bureaucracy that’s primarily interested in perpetuating itself for no reason other than to perpetuate itself.
So the schemeing about 2012 is in play already?
You people need a purge really bad.
“what was the objective?”
Wild guess:
1) Control of the LPO’s delegation to the 2012 national convention; or, failing that,
2) Disabling LPO so as to prevent it from fielding a delegation to that convention.
Maybe it’s time for the various state and national LP’s to amend their bylaws to read:
1. The bylaws shall govern the LP.
2. Any issue not covered by the bylaws shall be governed by the common sense of the members, officers, or delegates, to the extent that they have any.
3. Anyone is free to consult Robert’s Rules, or a dictionary, or the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy, or their astrologer, or whatever else for additional guidance, but under no circumstances shall the LP be bound by anything other than the bylaws as interpreted by the common sense of the members, officers, or delegates.
@89
I knew there was a logical explanation here.
re @ 92 we argued for years that only Oregon residence should be eligible, but Mr. Carling who apparently lives out of the country has been an LPO member for years. Probably longer than any other non resident. Why is that? One might ask how many state parties he belongs to. So it has become an issue of what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
And why was there another LNC member from out of state who joined the LPO so she and her husband could vote in the convention? Even worse than sending parliamentarians, they’re sending people to vote!
Well everyone it has been fun. This nonsense has been going on in the LPO since the early to mid ’90s. Some of it is even on video. The great convention of ’96 where some idiot was going to call the cops because of the infighting.
Be nice if folks just came out and started talking in German accents. Maybe wearing a monocle and carrying a swagger stick.
Red the factions are the Republican sympathizers and the Libertarians.
Ah, but what was the objective? Why did people spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars each to travel to remote Portland? Who asked them all to go? And what was the objective of this Opera Bouffe, assuming it was not a secret plot to cast aspersions on the sanity of parliamentarians?
There are layers of secret to be uncovered, starting with the meaning of Mark Hinkle’s threat to the Oregon LP “P.S.We’ll be watching.”
The competing fctions are possibly the Rebel Alliance & the Dark Side
Would someone mind explaining to me who these competing factions are?
LPOregon,
Hold a new convention ASAP. Explain this to everyone in advance. Your last convention was interrupted by outsiders and ignorant parlementarians who were, it turns out, just plain wrong. They should never be used as parlementarians again.
You have no “quorum” problem.
You do have a faction problem.
I don’t know how many factions you have and what their issues are, but when the anal faction shows up again, you need to overrule them from the chair, tell them to sit down and shut up, if they object, and procede. If they disrupt the convention further, be prepared to have them physically removed.
Chuck Moulton,
This is quite clear and obvious. Thank you for providing the LP of Oregon bylaws. I’m assuming that these are the current bylaws from this point on.
It is clear and obvious that the so-called “parlementarians” interfering at the properly called convention were 100% wrong.
The LP of Oregon had a proper quorum at its convention. Delegates are defined as those current party members who choose to attend and actually show up.
This is actually a “convention” then and the “delegates” are sent to represent the body as a whole. However, the method of chosing delegates is not by county party convention, or appointment by some committee but rather, any member who choses to be a delegate may unilaterally choose him or her self. The fact that the delegates are self selecting does not change the fact that they are, indeed, “delegates” to a “convention.”
To satisfy those who are overly attached to their wrongheaded, illogical view of the “rules”:
… the LPO is made up of constituent units of one member. Every member is a constituent unit composed of him or her self. Each constituent unit is entitled to select one voting representative as a delegate to State Party conventions.
LP of Oregon bylaws, Art. XVII, Sec. 1:
The rules contained in the current edition of Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised shall govern the LPO in all cases to which they are applicable and in which they are not inconsistent with the LPO Constitution and these bylaws and any special rules of order the LPO may adopt.
Note the phrase “in all cases to which they are … not inconsistent with the LPO Constitution and these bylaws.” The LP of Oregon bylaws explicitly refer to delegates and to a convention in Article XI (“Conventions”). When they define their conventions and delegates to be selected from the membership who choose to attend rather than elected from constituent units, that trumps the definition of conventions from Robert’s.
LP of Oregon bylaws, Art. XVII, Sec. 3:
Delegates.
A. Annual and Special Convention Delegates. All delegates must be an LPO member in current standing 30 days before any business or special convention. Each delegate present and properly credentialed is entitled to one vote at that convention.
This convention should have continued. The outside interference was unwarrrented and clearly wrong.
The LPO has “conventions” with “delegates” who select themselves to represent the membership.
The LP of Oregon has no quorum problem.
This whole thing reminds me of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sShMA85pv8M
And the LNC should look very carefully if any of its members have incredibly poor judgement, including such documentation as is available or may emerge, and if they do they should be suspended.
Bolded is in my opinion:
Once upon a time, there was a wonderful short story about a government bureaucrat, published in Analog. The author iirc was A.R. Lewis. It was about a government bureaucrat who wanted an urban renewal project in the Bronx. There was no libertarian theme.
The bureaucrat had his solution to advance the project very quickly. Whenever someone tried to object to the bureaucrat’s scheme, the bureaucrat was able to quote Federal Regulations that his scheme was mandated, and had to be advanced to the next stage. He could not be stopped.
The author’s point, of course, was that someone should have stood up and said “This is insane. You are not going any further. Only a lunatic would allow Federal Regulations to be interpreted this way.” But no one stood up.
The bureaucrat had the core obstacle that demolition had to be completed by date certain. The people could be moved, as could their belongings; demolition was the issue.
The bureaucrat’s solution for rapid demolition was to use low-yield, clean thermonuclear devices in the middle of a major city. His solution was batshit crazy.
In the judicial system the phrasing is that the claimed outcome ‘is inconsistent with public policy’. That is the polite judicial way of saying ‘I don’t care what your retarded precedents say. Your outcome is absurd, your rationale is therefore batshit crazy, we are not going to be bound by it, and if you keep arguing it you are in contempt.’ That is why we have human judges, to keep the insane nonsense under control. FIJA supporters would make the same point.
And that’s what we have here. The alleged Roberts interpretation is destroying the Oregon Libertarian Party, the rationales for it are therefore batshit crazy out of touch with reality, however internally logical they are, and the people arguing them should have been told to take their copies of Roberts and relocate them where the sun does not shine.
On the other hand, the debate is finding otherwise normal people who are willing to support something, because it says so in Roberts, even though normal people recognize as batshit crazy conclusions.
Only a complete lunatic could believe that the LPO state convention last year voted to make it impossible to have future conventions.
Steve & Chuck… stop tryingto use logic & common sense; Robert’s Rules don’t allow for such!
My problem with the Rrules is the idea of it not being able to engage the external. Procedure makes us more efficient, but rules do it for the sake of the rules, not the people who don’t show up.
If you were told a vote on laws were to take place and decided for whatever reason not to show up, then the rules should not replace or recover anything for you.
Things can get done in chaos. They might have no structure, but they will have some form of objective because of the people who did show up.
Roberts is not always clean because it refers to equality of voice. If you trust chaos then Oregon LP would be alive and a little more interesting.
You can’t live on paper.
Chuck @77,
It seems to me that your argument rests solely on a naming convention (pardon the pun).
A naming convention is just that. You’ll find plenty of organizations that use the term Convention (and various other terms) to describe assemblies of members.
In the parliamentary sense, they continue to be assemblies of members and you cannot use a naming convention to deprive the rights of absentee members from having a subset smaller than a quorum of the membership make decisions on its behalf.
Chuck @77,
Thank you for your reference to the satirical opinion. I see the resemblance.
To extrapolate from you line of though, I suppose you would then conclude that in the National bylaws the National Committee is not a board in the parliamentary sense, but is now a committee just because it happens to have the word committee in its name.
The fifth person at dinner was Mark Vetanen, not Mark Hinkle. Perhaps the commonality of the name Mark may have been a source of confusion.
While it will be a challenge to achieve quorum in March, it is far from impossible and the hurdle may motivate both factions to get inactive members active again, recruit new members, and grow the party.
This may turn out to be the best thing that’s happened in the LPO for many years.
Aaron Starr wrote (@73):
Robert’s trumps tradition, but the bylaws trump Robert’s. The bylaws also trump the dictionary — similarly, government statutes often define terminology for the purpose of the statute rather than relying on dictionary definitions.
The bylaws can redefine “adjourn” as “recess” and vice-versa overruling Robert’s — if they include a supremacy clause like the LP of Oregon does (“Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised shall govern … in all cases … in which they are not inconsistent with … these bylaws”). The supremacy of the bylaws is made abundantly clear by Robert’s.
Bylaws can explicitly or implicitly define “delegates” however they want. In this case it is very clear from the bylaws that they intended a body of delegates rather than an assembly of members, given employment of the words “delegate” and “convention.”
And they also could have called a duck a horse in the bylaws if they wanted. On that specific point (or rather, the reverse), I refer you to the satirical opinion Regina v. Ojibway.
http://euro.ecom.cmu.edu/program/law/08-732/Interpretation/regina.pdf
One of the dysfunctionalities encountered in our party is Neoplatonism, the false belief that you can derive everything from some set of principles. like Roberts. The further pathology is to try to get your way by logic-chopping and sophistry rather than good sense.
Readers should understand that there may well be an underlying set of objectives in this idiocy.
Those of you who wonder where this might be heading would be well advised to re-read my book “Funding Liberty”, especially the Chapter “Arizona, Land of the Two Parties” available at CMLC.org. That book is recirculating to LibertyForAll.net, but Chapter 17 is way in the future.
@71
I said “legal”. As a point of law, objections to proceedings must be raised in a reasonably timely way, or they are invalid. Now the level of timeliness depends on the question; for someone about to be executed, objections are timely. On the other hand, every so often some nut claims that the 3rd (or whatever) Amendment to the Constitution was never legally ratified, based on some bizarre analysis, to which the legal analysis is a wonderful latinate turn of phrase that in essence says ‘too late now’.
Thank you for pointing out why I have my opinion that — whatever the intent of the original authors and their descendants — in practice Roberts functions as a tool for destructive parliamentary grandstanding, for example the destruction that was wreaked on the Oregon Party by the LNC.
@70
Chuck,
Roberts cares about concepts, not the terminology you use to describe something.
In other words, you can try and call a duck a horse, but it would still be a duck.
Roberts actually discusses examples where colloquialism is not what determines the meaning of a term or phrase. For example, recess and adjourn are two different concepts.
Even if an organization improperly (due to tradition or whatever reason) calls an adjournment a recess, it does not make it so.
It’s clear that the word convention as used in LPO’s bylaws is a colloquialism that has no relationship to the parliamentary meaning of the term.
An assembly of members means that all the members get to participate.
An assembly of delegates (a convention being one form) means that the right to participate in the meeting is being delegated to others.
Roberts does mention the more common method of delegation being one where the members of each local branch select the delegates. Obviously, there can be different varieties of delegation. In the case of the LP, for example, some state affiliates allow their boards to select the delegates rather than the membership at large.
To put forth the argument that Oregon actually has an assembly of delegates, one would need to describe who are the delegators and who are the delegatees in this equation.
In the case of LPO, no member (or group of members) delegates his or her right to attend and participate in the assembly.
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, no matter what one may attempt to call it, it’s a duck.
Chuck,
Well done — but it’s been pretty obvious for several years now that it’s not what RONR says that’s important. Rather it’s how RONR is used. Some people use it as a tool for administering organizational activities, others use it as a weapon for gaining control of and/or destroying the organization.
@67
The orthodox legal argument is that objections must be raised in a timely way, or they are invalid.
That’s simply inaccurate in this case. You will want to read pages 243-244 on Timeliness Requirement for a Point of Order for more details.
Richard Burke wrote (@16):
Aaron Starr wrote (@52):
In my opinion Robert’s has been misinterpreted here.
There are clear requirements setting a quorum in the absence of a bylaws provision: for an assembly of members a quorum is a majority the membership; for a convention of delegates, a quorum is a majority of the credentialed delegates.
RONR (10th ed.), p. 20, l. 15-20:
RONR (10th ed.), p. 20, l. 20-26:
RONR (10th ed.), p. 20, l. 26-30:
This is reinforced in chapter XI (“Quorum; Order of Business and Related Concepts”).
RONR (10th ed.), p. 335, l. 7-11:
RONR (10th ed.), p. 335, l. 12-14:
The question boils down to whether the LP of Oregon convention is a body of delegates or an assembly of members. Discussion so far seems to center on what Robert’s says. Chapter XIX (“Conventions”) addresses this.
RONR (10th ed.), p. 581, l. 12-14:
Some interested parties have suggested that an assembly of delegates must be elected representatives of constituent units; therefore, because the LP of Oregon “delegates” are not elected representatives of consituent units, they are not delegates in the Robert’s sense. (Note: I have not seen a formal parliamentary opinion on this manner. I am characterizing purely from colloquial discussion on the topic.) I believe this contradicts RONR (10th ed.), p. 581, l. 12-14. The passage explicitly qualifies with the words “are usually,” indicating that this is intended to be a description of how many societies operate (rather than “must be,” which would indicate this is a parliamentary rule).
Other descriptions of conventions and delegate representation similarly do not make “constituent units” a mandatory condition.
RONR (10th ed.), p. 583, l. 33-35; p. 584, l. 1-7:
Note the “generally,” which again is a descriptive qualifier of how many conventions work rather than being a mandatory condition setting forth a parliamentary rule.
I can only find one passage in Robert’s which seems to make constituent units an unmistakable part of the definition.
RONR (10th ed.), p. 6, l. 29-34:
However, this merely establishes a convention as a particular sort of assembly of delegates (there are other types of bodies of delegates explicitly referred to in Robert’s: e.g., a house of delegates). Just because all conventions are bodies of delegates does not mean all bodies of delegates are conventions.
RONR (10th ed.), p. 581, l. 22-23; p. 582, l. 1-3:
So if we have “delegates” that are not selected by constituent units, even if it is not a “convention” under a hypertechnical definition, that does not mean it is not a body of delegates. Looking back at the quorum definition reinforces that point.
RONR (10th ed.), p. 335, l. 7-11:
Note the words “a body of delegates, such as a convention,” which indicate a convention is one example of a body of delegates, but not the only possible body of delegates. This means even under a hypertechical interpretation that the LP of Oregon’s “convention” is not a convention due to lack of representation of constituent units, there is no reason to assume it couldn’t be a body of delegates and take the quorum requirement of a body of delegates.
That said, all of the previous discussion of parliamentary interpretation is moot because the bylaws trump Robert’s.
LP of Oregon bylaws, Art. XVII, Sec. 1:
Note the phrase “in all cases to which they are … not inconsistent with the LPO Constitution and these bylaws.” The LP of Oregon bylaws explicitly refer to delegates and to a convention in Article XI (“Conventions”). When they define their conventions and delegates to be selected from the membership who choose to attend rather than elected from constituent units, that trumps the definition of conventions from Robert’s.
LP of Oregon bylaws, Art. XVII, Sec. 3:
It is irrelevant that Robert’s defines conventions as having delegates elected from constituent units. The LP of Oregon defines conventions as having delegates be the membership who chooses to show up and be credentialed. When the LP of Oregon’s bylaws explicitly refers to these attendees as “delegates” and the event as a “convention,” it is absurd to interpret the event as an assembly of members rather than a convention of delegates. Therefore, the quorum requirement for a body of delegates (“a majority of the number who have been registered as attending” RONR (10th ed.), p. 20, l. 28-29) clearly applies here.
So in conclusion:
1) Under Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised, even though a convention entails representatives elected from constituent units, a “convention” not meeting that requirement can still be a body of delegates and thus still be subject to the majority of the credentialed delegates quorum requirement rather than the majority of the membership quorum requirement.
2) The LP of Oregon bylaws trump the Robert’s definition of a convention when they define their gathering as a “convention” and define the attendees as “delegates” and thus is still subject to the majority of the credentialed delegates quorum requirement rather than the majority of the membership quorum requirement.
By the way, I looked at a bunch of state LP bylaws on the Internet and many other state affiliates seem to suffer from this supposed problem. It would be a good idea for them to explicitly add a quorum definition to their bylaws. But it is very important that they not allow their whole organization to be hijacked by hypertechnical parliamentary arguments that prevent them from getting any work done, as it was alleged happened in Oregon.
Kevin Knedler wrote (@36):
Thank you, Kevin. I googled it and found some bylaws. I still can’t find the LP Oregon constitution.
To those in Oregon, are these the current bylaws?
http://www.lporegon.org/downloads/pdf/2009LPOBylaws.pdf
If so, I am confused about what the quorum problem is in the first place.
Aaron Starr wrote:
No.
However, it is my opinion that it is better to break rules and face the consequences later than to shut down the organization permanently (or for many years) — if those are really the only two options. Given Richard Burke’s later comments (@53), I don’t believe that is an accurate description of this situation though: he maintains obtaining a quorum at the next convention is very possible with some organization and (even if there had been a quorum) bylaws changes fixing this oversight wouldn’t’ve passed anyway.
Even Robert’s supports the notion that parliamentary rules should not be a death sentence.
RONR (10th ed.), p. 337, l. 19-23:
RONR (10th ed.), p. 433, l. 20-23.
It isn’t a good idea to let rigid adherence to strict interpretations render the organization completely impotent. That strikes me as about as basic common sense as you can get.
Be Rational wrote (@55):
If I had been the chair, I would have followed this course of action — if the quorum issue were the only problem and there was clearly popular support for quickly fixing it.
However, if there were more issues in addition to a quorum issue (as Richard Burke alleged), the chair’s action was probably best.
This all assumes there was in fact a real quorum issue, which I fundamentally disagree with. See my forthcoming comment.
The orthodox legal argument is that objections must be raised in a timely way, or they are invalid.
On a different note, I am advised by Wes Wagner that Mark Hinkle had been expected to attend the dinner and at the last moment sent his regrets.
@64
I imagine the correct answer is probably both. Initially the latter then, after his arrival, the former.
@61
Rules manifest from the brain, fist manifest from the brawn.
If it is true that the Oregon leadership finally had a clue as to where it wanted to go and do in regards to politics, why would rules keep them from that?
…
If they are ready to move and help the party make some noise, even in the moment, why is anarchy not a viable mode of operation?
Because other members of the party also have fundamental rights.
“the reason why the national party felt a reason to observe the proceedings”
So which is it — “the national chair got invited to make opening remarks, etc..” or “”the national party felt a reason to observe, etc.”
@55
The problem with that approach is that any member can raise a point of order later and the entire proceedings of the meeting in question would have been considered null and void.
Most points of order have to be raised at the time of the breach in the rules. However, in the case of a breach of a continuing nature, such a point of order can be raised at any time. Roberts on page 244 mentions when this can occur and they specifically cite as an instance when: “(e) any action has been taken in violation of either a rule protecting absentees or a rule protecting a basic right of an individual member (p. 255).”
From page 255: “Rules protecting absentees or a basic right of the individual member cannot be suspended, even by unanimous consent or an actual unanimous vote. For example, the rules requiring the presence of a quorum and previous notice of a proposed amendment to the bylaws protect absentees, and suspension of these rules would violate their rights.” (italics in actual quote)
Requiring a quorum to conduct business is one of those basic fundamental principles of parliamentary law. Meeting this requirement is what assures people that decisions are made by a representative number of members.
Compounding the quorum issue were the mistakes cited of notice not being sent to many life members – perhaps part of the reason why they didn’t have a quorum, and the reason why the national party felt a reason to observe the proceedings – and the LPO leadership actually sending letters to new members incorrectly informing them that they are NOT eligible to vote.
Given the poor circumstances surrounding the meeting, the best outcome was the assembly adjourning without taking action.
Thankfully, reason ruled the day and LPO Chair Jeff Weston did what was right.
Roberts Rulz is 4 foolz?
Wanna protect your membership from parliamentarian nitwits……get rid of it from your bylaws…in Tn. that crap has no control of our meetings, conventions, assembly of members or whatever cute BS Aaron wants to come up with. The funny thing is that after we voted down all that RONR drama….that was the last contentious convention we have ever had…..food for thought Oregon.
Rules manifest from the brain, fist manifest from the brawn.
If it is true that the oregon leadership finally had a clue as to where it wanted to go and do in regards to politics, why would rules keep them from that?
A track record for being dysfunctional is not something you put on a t shirt.
If they are ready to move and help the party make some noise, even in the moment, why is anarchy not a viable mode of operation?
Mary Ruwart has requested LNC Agenda Discussion at the forthcoming meeting of the LNC , of the Oregon matter, and of one of the secret LNC Discussion lists, I believe the one that most of my informants seem to believe was organized by Alicia Mattson.
And Mr. Hinkle has made a statement to the LNC-Dsicuss list indicating that he did not join Mr. Weston and others for dinner that Friday evening.
[email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: [BigL_libs] LPOregon’s aborted convention
Dear LNC,
Rachel Hawkridge Quote: “Hinkle, Carling and Mattson went out with LPOR Chair Jeff Weston and Vice Chair Wes Wagner. The two noteworthy parliamentarians told LPOR that their rules (RONR) had a quorum
requirement of 50% of membership.
The three LNC members told Weston and Wagner that they *had to follow their
own rules*.”
I can’t speak for M Carling & Alicia Mattson, but I was visiting a long time Libertarian friend Friday evening. I did NOT go out with LPO Chair Jeff Weston nor V.C. Wes Wagner Friday evening nor since then. That just never occurred.
I did make some opening remarks at the LPO convention Saturday morning, thanking them for attending, working on behalf of the LP and the freedom we all seek and gave a brief update on what the LP HQ is doing, but gave no instructions to anyone regarding any LPO issues.
I was asked to attend the LPO convention by Dan Karlan, their Regional LNC Rep.. And, as I recall, the other Rep. Dr. James Lark also suggested it would be a good idea for me to attend.
At their suggestion, I made my plans to attend and observe.
And, because the issues at hand are and were largely Bylaws and RONR issues, it was suggested to me that Alicia Mattson attend as well. I called Alicia Mattson to support that idea. Furthermore, LPO member M Carling flew in from Vienna to attend of his own initiative. As I understand, both are Professional Registered Parliamentarians.
It’s my understand that they met w/ Jeff & Wes Friday evening.
Since I wasn’t there, I can’t report first hand what went on.
What I observed on Saturday morning was that the convention opened, Jeff made an announcement that some members, whose membership status were held up, were in fact recognized and allowed to be delegates.
Shortly after, a quorum call was made, and Chairman Jeff Weston announced that a quorum was lacking, a motion was made, and passed, to adjourn.
I stayed around for about an hour afterwords to listen to the concerns of the people in attendance, and left around 11 AM.
And for those interested, I had a nice introduction and conversation with Orrin Grover, the attorney who’s handling the Top Two lawsuit in the state of Washington. It looks like we’ll get some kind of ruling in January.
The LNC has helped defer some of the legal expenses associated with this lawsuit.
There are significant issues that divide the LPO membership. While those issues weren’t resolved today, I think the attendance of Alicia Mattson, M Carling, and myself indicated to all parties involved that we’re watching and observing.
As I see it, the LPO rules were followed regarding this convention, so there was and is no reason for the LNC to intervene. We hope that is also the case for their regular scheduled convention next March.
They do have a tall hurdle to overcome regarding a quorum (of all members).
However, that should give all sides a big incentive to bring in new members and get them to attended the next convention.
And if they jump that hurdle in March, they just may find that with a 2/3 vote requirement to pass Bylaws changes, they may be “forced” to work towards a solution that all or most of the factions can abide by.
I wish them all the luck in the world.
Yours in liberty……..Mark Hinkle, LNC Chair
P.S. we’ll be watching.
@ 53 Richard Burke writes; “At the 2001 LPO convention, the two major factions organized and delivered 84 voting delegates to a convention, one that was held in eastern Oregon, about 250 miles from Portland. The number of voting delegates at the 2007 Sunriver convention was almost as high, and this convention was held about 200 miles from Portland. Since I have been a member in 1990, these remain the best attended LPO annual business conventions ever.”
Pretty contentious conventions weren’t they.
Sun River had a walk out. Someone took a swing at you in the restroom. From what I hear they connected and there was $3000 or so in expenses left unpaid for some time wasn’t there?
These convention weren’t period when the membership was getting along as I recall. Fact is the conventions were held in those places in the hopes of keeping the numbers down.
Btw the 1995 convention in Portland at the Monarch hotel had over 90 people in attendance.
@BeRational
“Sometimes when the rules are wrong you have to use common sense.”
Agreed, but some people lack this ability and think things are “right” just because “that’s what the rules say”
I’ve attended quite a few state conventions where I was not a member and I have never been on the LNC. However, my understanding is that Aaron Starr did not attend this Oregon convention.
Mr. Starr, what interest did you have in attending the Oregon convention since, after all, you are not a member of the LNC?
Sometimes when the rules are wrong you have to use common sense and ignore them.
The chair should have called for an immediate vote on an amendment to the bylaws to set a quorum at 50% of the registered delegates in attendance.
This should have been the first item of business with a quorum call as item number 2.
If the amendment had passed, he could have continued the convention. If the amendment failed, the convention would have been adjourned for lack of a quorum.
This is what LP Oregon should do the next time as well. Announce it and do it. Let the whiners sue, they will lose. A mistake in the rules or a mistake in a contract will not be allowed, by a judge, to hamper an organization from moving forward or to injure one or both parties to a contract. Common sense is legally allowed to supercede the rules in cases such as this.
@47
Putting rules above liberty is what governments do.
Okay, instead, imagine a government (or other body) with no rules at all. Such an institution would make decisions based on whim. There would be no such concept as due process. All you could do is pray for some undefined benevolent good will from the persons in charge.
What follows is my favorite quote from Henry M. Robert:
Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty.
Henry Robert was certainly right.
For those who do not like rules, imagine what the LP would be like if it had no rules at all, where even a majority could not overturn the decisions of a few in charge. Or where a leader (or a majority) could capriciously deprive the rights of an individual.
In the absence of rules, all that would remain is the tyranny you most fear. Sometimes it may be the tyranny of the many and sometimes it may be the tyranny of the few, but it would be tyranny nonetheless.
Dear All,
At the 2001 LPO convention, the two major factions organized and delivered 84 voting delegates to a convention, one that was held in eastern Oregon, about 250 miles from Portland. The number of voting delegates at the 2007 Sunriver convention was almost as high, and this convention was held about 200 miles from Portland. Since I have been a member in 1990, these remain the best attended LPO annual business conventions ever.
Quorum yesterday was 70-75. As shown above, with some organization, quorum is perfectly attainable by the LPO. It will simply involve some work and organization (perhaps therein lies the problem to the extent one exists).
But quorum was not the only problem with this convention. Other issues would have rendered the convention invalid.
Documents were produced, originally made available to LPO leadership in June, showing that 35 lifetime members were wrongfully excluded from the membership roles and did not receive the required 45 day notice. We have multiple letters from lifetime members complaining about it.
This is after current LPO leadership fought to terminate all lifetime memberships in our Judicial Committee in June. An attempt to raise and resolve this issue was attempted in the spring by yours truly, but current LPO leadership voted me down – which is what prompted the Judicial Committee hearing.
Still not enough?
The LPO Chair issued an Emergency Ruling delaying the activation of 13 qualified LPO members who joined and paid dues in time to vote as delegates. Emails show that they believed the new memberships constituted a “Republican takeover,” though a review of their voter registrations would have revealed that most of them were not Republicans. These people were told that their memberships would be reviewed and voted on by the State Committee.
Weston himself rescinded this order at the podium, acknowledging that his action went against our rules, but his action created such hard feelings among the 13 new members that they probably were disinclined to support anything Weston wanted to pass.
So all of you out there arguing for inclusion, what do you say about that? Specifically, excluding 13 new members by Emergency Action, attempting to terminate lifetime memberships, and failing to provide required notice to 35 of them?
ANY of these three issues were enough to invalidate the convention. Raising a quorum call was the best best way to get our of there to save face for Weston and avoid a bloody floor fight.
But let’s shelve the above issues for a moment and look at who was actually there.
As I recall, there was something like 40-45 people eligible to vote by the time we got through credentialling issues. I can account for at least 28 people who opposed the proposed bylaw reform who were there. Had we been there for two days, the proposal STILL would have failed, as a 2/3 majority would have been required to pass it. Even if some people from our side had been convinced to support the proposals, the 2/3 required would still likely not have been obtained.
I think this was recognized. It looked to me that about 2/3 of everyone there voted for adjournment. While I am sure that some of them saw the writing on the wall who supported the proposals, the majority was in the hands of those who opposed the proposed governing documents.
# # #
@44
Once you change from a convention of delegates to an assembly of members, the organization has an obligation to meet quorum requirements. LPO would have been wise to have established a lower quorum requirement at the time they made this change. They did not.
Once the LPO Chair Jeff Weston was made aware of the quorum issue, he had little choice but to make the ruling he made.
It is now up to the leadership of the LPO to get an extra 20 or so members to attend their next meeting in March and convince two-thirds of those in attendance that amendments to their bylaws are warranted.
To overcome those two hurdles, any changes are going to require widespread support from all factions in that state party.
Parliamentary law is very well established and easily obtainable to anyone who wishes to study it. The rules aren’t hidden from anyone; they’re published either in the bylaws or in a book for all to see. Using a recognized parliamentary authority, such RONR, allows an organization to establish rules for decision making without having to craft hundreds of pages of special rules of order to replace it.
Parliamentary law creates a standard upon which decisions can be made, not subject to the whim of whomever is in power at any given point in time.
Everyone here should commend Jeff Weston, a fellow member of the National Association of Parliamentarians, for recognizing and following the rules.
When I was state chair, there were times where I did not like what the rules said, but I was honor bound to follow them.
I suspect that those who do not view the world as I do, would have been quite unhappy if I had simply done what I felt was right, and ignored the rules, rather than follow those that the organization had established.
#43 “If the Oregon party had rules for convention registration, wouldn’t they be covered with quorum?”
Oregon should consider having a 100-member BoD at the super-state* level. Once the 100 are names are elected, if any one stands down or dies, then the next name (#101) is elected automatically, with votes cast as proof.
During the four year period, multiple stacks of the ballots can be copied, so everyone is on the same page, and so there is no question as to whether all the ballots cast are legitimate.
You get 100 elected equal units.
In our system, the 100 elected names vote on the rules by ranking the rules, whether they are present or not. The biggest majorities approve each rule, while rules in similar nature that but without a majority are ommitted. That’s called the ruling coalition. Anytime during the four years, the 100 elected members of the super-state can change their vote on the rules, and if/when they vote, if it effects the order of the rules, then the change is made.
We rank each rule and we have 32 rules;
http://www.usparliament.org/rules.htm
That’s sort of how The USA Parliament, Inc. does it. Seems to work pretty well. Because the rules get steadily improved over the last 15 years.
*We use 12 population balanced super-states, instead of 50 states of differing population. Some with counties, in California we have 12 population balanced mini-states,
instead of 58 counties.
* * *
GoNott a female #1 and Nott #2.
Join the Frees,
opposite gender #1!
“Why do you THINK they called it Google?”
See The USA Parliament’s ruling coalition’s ad for 2014 here;
http://usparliament.org/drafts/electionAD_10-11-02.html
@40
You and I apparently disagree.
That convention of delegates back in 2006 was well-attended — over 90 people, as is typical for California conventions.
Those who agreed with you that it is somehow against the rules to hold a convention in a non-traditional venue appealed it to the Judicial Committee — a body that included people who disagreed with me on policy matters, by the way — and the decision was upheld unanimously.
No one is entitled to a free convention (i.e. paid for by other people). Even the current occupants of the California state party’s leadership came to understand that. Since I retired as state chair after having served three consecutive two-year terms, the successor (and current) leadership wisely decided to institute a registration fee for attendees.
@43 However, apparently their rules were not well-formed with respect to this issue.
@43
I am happy to believe that if you had been chair you would have said “we are doing what we have always done, so your quorum interpretation is wrong *and if you disagree with me, you may appeal the ruling of the chair*.
That might well have worked.
Of course, now the people who did this, including the LNC member who knowingly recruited “And yes, I was the one who…asked the Chair and Secretary…, as well as the LP Parliamentarian …to attend as observers.” the LNC people to show up.
The LNC member in question may not have known that M Carling was a member of the LP-Oregon, but on the other hand he or she appears to think that M Carling is still the LNC Parliamentarian.
@45
Putting rules above liberty is what governments do. By the way, that bag is made of hemp paper.
We are NORML.
@Tom Sipsos… but Roberts Rules allow the LNC to hold a convention ANYWHERE and charge ANYTHING to attend… I know,the 2012 LP convention should be held on the International Space Station – it’s not prohibited by RROR
This is exactly why the Liberfoolians can’t fight their way out of a paper bag!
Aaron Mr. Burke and I have a history going back some 20 years. I have seen just about every effort in the book to make it difficult for people to attend conventions he has had a hand in organizing. Too damn many conventions in out of the way places such as 200 miles from Portland, over the mountains in February.
I am no longer in Portland so frankly I don’t give a damn but trying to tell me this was done to protect those weren’t there is just so much bull shit.
Twisting RRO to use so that the rules benefit a particular side is something that needs to be stopped.
If the Oregon party had rules for conventoin registration, wouldn’t they be covered with quorum?
So what is the option? Shut down the state party and start over with a new one, WITH rules for quorum?
Indeed, a person who stages a state convention at a location that cannot be reached if you do not have an American passport has no business talking about protecting the rights of the membership, because he has already destroyed those rights.
Aaron Starr: “Roberts protects the rights of those who are not present at the meeting.”
Aaron, I’m glad you want to protect the rights of those who are not present at the meeting.
A great way to protect the rights of those who are not present at the meeting is to enable as many people to come as possible.
This means no cruise conventions. And no Hawaii conventions. And no conventions in expensive hotels when there are cheaper venues available.
If the LNC and state parties were to keep conventions as cheap as possible, the rights of many people not present at the convention would be protected — because they would be at the convention.
If you’re sincere about wanting to protect the rights of those who are not present at the meeting — keep it cheap!
Chuck,
At some point you need to tell the parliamentoonians that they have their heads where the sun does not shine, and that as a matter of fact they are wrecking our party.
There is a good reason why the loudest cheering by far at the last National Convention was when it was announced that Mr. Oaksun had been elected Treasurer, and that Mr. Starr had been defeated.
@35
Chuck Moulton, are you stating to all your opinion as a Professional Registered Parliamentarian that quorum requirements should be ignored?
And, if so, how do you support such an opinion?
@32
Roberts doesn’t care what names you give to concepts, it cares about the reality of the situation.
Roberts protects the rights of those who are not present at the meeting.
In the case of an assembly, the quorum requirement that a majority be in attendance exists to make sure that the decisions of the assembly are representative of its members.
Even if 100% of those assembled had voted to suspend the quorum requirement, it would have been invalid because rules protecting absentees or a basic right of the individual member cannot be suspended.
Because such a breach of the rules is in the nature of a continuing nature, any member could later raise a point of order and the entire proceedings of the meeting would have been null and void.
Had the chair not followed the rules protecting the individual rights of the members, he could have subjected himself to disciplinary procedures including having his membership revoked.
#35 Chuck. I did a google search and found the LPOregon bylaws on seperate site
Are the bylaws available anywhere? I don’t see them on the website. I’d appreciate it if someone would send me a copy of LP Oregon’s governing documents.
Based only on this thread (i.e., I could be wrong because I’m not fully informed about the details) I would have ignored the quorum and rolled the dice in court. I say that as a libertarian activist, not as a lawyer giving legal advice.
If following the letter of the parliamentary law rather than the spirit, it seems Oregon will have to:
1) let a lot of memberships deliberately lapse by not sending out renewal notices,
2) assume the people likely to renew on their own initiative are also the ones most likely to attend a convention,
3) call a convention once attrition makes the quorum possible,
4) make a persuasive plea to the then existing membership to fix the bylaws in order to gather popular support for a particular bylaws amendment,
5) do a very thorough get out the vote to draw membership to the convention, and
6) amend the bylaws if they can meet that quorum.
Robert’s Rules of Order should get the body where it wants to go, rather than being a straightjacket destroying the organization.
Wow… it’s as if this really matters in Oregon politics. Just think how much worse it would be if it did.
Oh yes Sine Die.
People need to keep in mind the purpose of RRO is to allow people to participate in the group’s meetings. It is not a control mechanism to hogtie the event.
Secondly Aaron what you and I call the event is of little or no value. What is important is what the notice going out called the event and what was intended under the bylaws. I am will to bet that it was called a convention and this phrase was never used “assembly of an organized society”.
Unfortunately over the last 15 or 20 years there has been a history within the LPO of control using one tool or another. Little or no effort has been grow the organization.
To put it bluntly all the work that was done to grow the party in the early years by Ms. Nathan and others has been pissed away.
There was a dinner event involving Weston and the LNC visitors the prior evening. ‘said nothing during the meeting’, is, I am told, as a reference to some people disingenuous. True, but disingenuous.
At the Oregon convention, the LP national majority ruling coalition of was in control.
In the continuing comedy of errors on Normandy Beach, they easily thwarted the enlarging of their membership to include more people attending the convention.
The nationals level was able to keep their membership microscopic.
This problem can be easily solved, and The USA Parliament, Inc. has the answer.
However the answer does involve switching to the “All Party System (plus independents)”.
I’d love to explain how to enlarge the national ruling coalition someday when the time is ripe.
Meanwhile, now that I’ve got you hanging, as you probably want me to explain how this can be easily done (and I do know the answer, and I’ve known it for a long time), check out some of our slates The USA Parliament, Inc. will be voting on in 2011;
The dominating female Republican agent Burns/Nott [Republican/Libertarian] for President in 2012.
Or would you rather have Palin/Nott for President [Republican/Libertarian] in 2012?
How about 2016;
The dominating female Republican agent Burns/Perry in a Republican/Boston Tea coalition for President in 2016.
GoNott a female #1, and Nott #2.
Join the Frees,
opposite gender #1!
“Why do you THINK they called it Google?”
See The USA Parliament’s ruling coalition’s ad for 2014 here;
http://usparliament.org/drafts/electionAD_10-11-02.html
Another ads coming soon, hold your breath!
@28
If you are driving at high speed along a deserted highway, and on rounding a turn you encounter signs “No Passing” and a large boulder blocking your lane and the adjoining shoulder, and the view down the highway is in fact adequate to show that there is no oncoming traffic for many miles, then it is unfortunate if you do not see the escape. However, especially on the spur of the moment, sometimes people do not see the obvious.
But if your traveling companions who have seen the same circumstance give you the advice to obey the sign and stay in lane, because obeying the law is the primary virtue, as opposed to helping you find a way to dodge the boulder, their actions might be interpreted as clear proof that they have something wrong upstairs.
On the other hand, sometimes it is better to obey the law, which is why we have judges and juries and trials.
I have not yet seen a detailed report on the prior day’s events.
But if you are the driver, and don’t recognize a way out,
At this LPO convention it would have been wise for the Chair to overrule the call for a quorum until after amending the bylaws to redifine a quorum as a majority of the registered members at the convention. If the amendment had passed the issue would have ended. If the amendment failed, then the quorum call to kill the convention could be allowed to stand. The chair should have explained the situation to the attending members and let the voting proceed to make this single amendment.
The chair could use the fact that sometimes logic has to take the place of adherence to rules that result from errors made in ignorance. This was one of those times.
If anyone had objected to the chair’s ruling, the whining obstructionist could have filed a legal challenge. Such a challenge would lose in court as logic dictates that a legally formed revised amendment to the bylaws made to eliminate the impossible quorum problem was necessary to eliminate the prior amendment made in error and ignorance. As long as the amendment to the impossible quorum requirement was the only action taken prior to the quorum call, it would stand.
If I were one of RONR’s competitors, I’d center an entire advertising campaign around the damage that the LP’s enemies have inflicted on it using RONR.
@25 Based on information available to me, Mr. Starr was not at the event. “long-time LNC Parliamentarian” might have been clearer to readers.
@n A reason that responses appeared so quickly is that Mary Ruwart forwarded Rachel’s article and my transcript to the LNC-Discuss list. Volume 68. Episode 31.
Readers familiar with the literary character Good Soldier Schweik will find the invocation of “We have followed Herr Offizier Roberts’ Orders! To the Letter!” and the outcome familiar. Readers may consider for themselves whether this was a positive step.
Why did Aaron Starr go up there? He isn’t a member of the LNC.
Actually, the more correct term is “assembly of an organized society”.
An assembly’s membership is limited to persons who are recorded on the rolls of the society as voting members in good standing.
I also wholeheartedly agree with the opinion @5 that Jeff Weston is honorable and ethical.
Aaron where on those two pages can I find the phrase “assembly of members”?
@11
Not in this case.
The folks currently in charge of LPO spearheaded changes to their bylaws several years ago so that they no longer have conventions of delegates (i.e. a smaller group of representatives of constituent county organizations who have been selected to represent the county organization at this event).
Instead, they now have what is known as an assembly of members, where all members are entitled to attend and participate.
See RONR p.6-7 for the distinctions between the two.
In the absence of a bylaws defined level for quorum, the default for quorum in RONR for an assembly of members is a majority of the entire membership.
RONR on p. 20 recommends that larger organizations put a provision in their bylaws to deal with this. When the current leadership pushed forward the change of their system from a convention to an assembly of members, they failed to do this.
#13 What about a dominating female agent Republican Burns, and Nott the Libertarian?
Burns/Nott for President?
Join the Frees,
opposite gender #1!
“Why do you THINK they called it Google?”
@ 7 we have this comment; “There appeared at the State Convention M Carling, Alicia Mattson, and Mark Hinkle, claiming that the convention lacked a quorum, thus preventing the convention from meeting.”
M that is where I got my information. If that is in error I retract my comment and offer an apology.
Amazing how some people suddenly found this thread. Word travels fast sometime doesn’t it!
This thread is so full of disinformation. I am not a member of the LNC and haven’t been since 2008. My term as parliamentarian of the national LP ended when the national convention adjourned in May this year. The only capacity in which I attended the LPO convention was as a member of the LPO, which I have been for many years. The LPO Chair, Jeff Weston, specifically asked me to attend.
I didn’t make or second any motions. I never spoke in debate. My only participation was to hand out colored voting cards to people who should have but didn’t receive them during registration and to answer one question put to me by the Chair while the motion to adjourn sine die was pending (which passed overwhelmingly).
The proposed revision to the bylaws would have fixed some problems, but would have worsened the factional infighting, bankrupted the party, and made it virtually impossible for the members to ever amend the bylaws again in the future.
One of the very few comments above that’s correct is Michael Wilson’s observation that I sometimes have been wrong in the past. His other comment doesn’t make any sense because I didn’t make any calls on any questions today. The only motion on which I so much as voted was the motion to adjourn.
Hinkle and Mattson sat quietly through the convention as observers and never said a word. How disruptive that must have been!
Michael Wilson quotes RRO:
“In a body of delegates, such as a convention, the quorum is a majority of the number who have registered as attending, irrespective of whether some may have departed. This greatly differs from the number elected or appointed.”
The problem here, as I understand it, is that our conventions no longer consist of a “body of delegates.” They now consist of “assemblies of members” since each member now has a direct vote instead of representation through county delegates as we had prior to the end of 2007.
In an assembly of members, quorum consists of a majority of members unless the bylaws say otherwise.
I do not believe this would apply to our candidate nominating conventions as registered LP voters are not necessarily LPO members. Nominating conventions would not, therefore, constitute an “Assembly of Members”. In any case, state law may also provide some assistance here as we are barred from excluding registered LP voters from candidate nominating conventions.
Had it been caught before, and a quorum call was called for, it would have forced the adjournment of some past conventions.
This actually offers both major factions an incentive to work together – by working exclusively on bylaw proposals acceptable to most people, rather than those acceptable to only one faction, both factions can work together to achieve quorum.
Thomas Knapp: “Were the three LNC members members of the Oregon LP? If not, how were they in any position to tell LPO’s officers that they “had” to do anything?”
I suppose the LNC could claim that they own the trademark to “Libertarian Party,” and that if an affiliate party disobeys the LNC, then the LNC can revoke the state party’s LP affiliation as well as their “right” to use “Libertarian” in their party name.
It’s all BS, I know.
The national party does tend to attract a lot of control freaks.
Milnes that has been going on for years~!!!
I guess I’m not the only one babbling about domination by republican agents etc.
I have seen M Carling make errors in the past and I have my doubts that he was correct in this call today.
Does this page from RRO apply?
From Robert’s Rules of Order newly Revised 10th edition.
Page 334 & 335
Para 3)” In a body of delegates, such as a convention, the quorum is a majority of the number who have registered as attending, irrespective of whether some may have departed. This greatly differs from the number elected or appointed.”
crazy…
Another Moment of Decimation!
Entire platoons are being wiped out by the pluralists who are overlooking Normandy Beach from the concrete bunkers above the blood-red waters, stained by blood of troops being led by those selfishly opposed to cross pollination of the all party system (and independents). We’ve known about the Sainte-Lague parliament as a perfect tool for the all party system, but we can’t use it because our bylaws prohibit that.
I could be wrong, but if MP Mark Hinkle [Libertarian] is working with M Carling, the national Libertarian Party is in severe trouble.
If it’s the same M Carling who I think it is, he is such a meanie man, who would rather lead those troops to their deaths than work as a larger coordinated all party system (and indpendents) army of voters and non voters.
We have 2500 “soldiers” dying in one day, and those who are not the team players are leading the Oregon Libertarians. They are not an all party system with independents.
Requiring dues-paying members being the only ones that have votes, that’s very detrimental. To base everything on money and not votes, is highly corrupting and exclusionary.
It’s too bad the national Libertarian Party can’t be helped. It’s so sad so many “soldiers” will never make it off Normandy Beach, past the concrete bunker known as the two-party system for many centuries in the future in real life.
Only a well coordinated team can confront the bunker successfully. And The USA Parliament, Inc. is too small. At current pace, we will not have our glorious Battle of the Bulge for 150,000 years in the future, and the length of time into the future seems to grow longer every day.
We try every minute, but the sounds of the bombs are too loud. Everyone is in disarray and confusion. Fifteen years has been 15 minutes, and we’ve been met with only decimation, as our numbers are rapidly diminishing.
It’s looks like 2012 is going to be a disaster for the LP! Prospects for 2014 in California is dimming. Perhaps by 2016 when a female Burns/Perry [Republican/Boston Tea] for president?
Two years in real life is but two minutes on Normandy Beach in cyberspace.
The LP simply does not have the tools to work with all parties and indpendents. Their system creates more road blocks for those trying to come ashore. And when they are on shore, they are not a coordinated coalition of all parties and independents. Instead, they welcome egotistical single winner district power grabbers as their “leaders”.
* * *
Join the Frees,
opposite gender #1!
“Why do you THINK they called it Google?”
Read more about Normandy Beach in cyberspace at this link;
http://www.usparliament.org/potparty.htm
“The three LNC members told Weston and Wagner that they had”
Were the three LNC members members of the Oregon LP?
If not, how were they in any position to tell LPO’s officers that they “had” to do anything?
NAmely
LP Oregon Officers Blast LNC
for disrupting the Oregon State Convention
Videos of their interview are now up on the Internet.
Background for new readers: Today the Libertarian Party of Oregon tried to hold a state convention. It would have been the best attended state convention they have had in a long time. There appeared at the State Convention M Carling, Alicia Mattson, and Mark Hinkle, claiming that the convention lacked a quorum, thus preventing the convention from meeting. Their claims were allowed to carry, so after a half-hour of a two-day event, the convention was adjourned for lack of a quorum.
Videos of the convention, such as it was, and a post-convention interview with State Chair Jeff Westin and State Vice Chair Wes Wagner appear on Justin.tv, at two of the URLs listed below. The text after that is a transcript of the interview with Westin and Wagner with the LNC7 justin.tv commentator.
http://www.justin.tv/lnc7/b/273320282
http://justin.tv/lnc7/b/273320390
http://justin.tv/lnc7/b/273323146
Transcript:
Interviewer: In Portland, Oregon with Jeff Westin, the State Chair of the Oregon Party, and Wes Wagner, Vice Chair of the Oregon Party. Gentlemen, why don’t you tell us what happened here today.
Oregon State Chair Jeff Westin: Today we tried to hold a convention to revise our Constitution and Bylaws of the Libertarian Party of Oregon. Basically, our party structure is completely broken and what happened today only reinforces that.
We had two visitors from the National Libertarian Party show up, Mark Hinkle and Alicia Mattson, appeared to be here to cause trouble and make it impossible to get work done. Basically, they pointed out, Mark didn’t point it out but Alicia and another LP member [GP: LNC Parliamentarian]M Carling pointed out that we had a quorum problem at this convention and as a result we were unable to make this quorum and unable to get any work done.
This actually is a serious problem for the Libertarian Party of Oregon. We current have about 145 dues-paying members so to make our quorum requirement we would need 73 members to show up. We had 45 members show up today; that is the largest number of members which has in a very long time been at our conventions.
I don’t see how we’re going to get over this quorum requirement. We’re studying; other issues can make the quorum requirement worse. It would be impossible to change our bylaws to fix this problem.It would be impossible for us to nominate candidates for public office.
Since we have about 13,000 registered Libertarian voters in Oregon, the quorum for a nominating convention would be 7600. I can’t imagine getting 7600 individual people for a convention to nominate candidates, so the Libertarian Party of Oregon will not be nominating any people for political office until this problem is fixed.
We do have a Judicial committee that has tended to have its own issues. Our Judicial Committee currently has four people on it. It is composed of two people on two different factional sides. As a result it is deadlocked. We cannot meet our quorum requirement for conventions we cannot elect new members to resolve this issue.
The Libertarian Party of Oregon is deadlocked and we’re struggling to figure out how we’re going to solve the situation.
State Vice Chair Wes Wagner
As far as the bylaws proposals that we were trying to put forward, the purpose of the bylaws proposals was to solve a lot of structural issues, a lot of things that caused party infighting. From all appearances, it would seem that there was a miscalculation on the part of National and that they came in to support the more aggressive faction that has basically been responsible for breaking rules, arbitrarily deleting members, bankrupting the party, protecting people who took money from the party coffers without authorization, signing leases for heavy equipment without authorization, a lot of various issues that have built up over the course of the years.
From all appearances to me it would seem that they came to support that particular faction, which probably only really represents one of about seven factions in the LPO, but they happen to be the Republican faction. They’re made up of people who are from Republican organizations. Some of them are paid and came down here with that agenda and that’s indisputable.
Oregon State Chair Jeff Westin: I don’t know how we’re going to recover from this situation. It’s a very dire situation for us. If it can’t be resolved, the Libertarian Party of Oregon will be completely ineffective. I’m trying to figure out the resolution–we’ll have to figure that out.
Oregon Vice Chair Wes Wagner: I haven’t been a member of the National Party for a long time and I certainly would not advise anybody to come back if they’re going to spend their funds sending Republican agents down to the state parties in order to try to disrupt their conventions for the benefit of the GOP.
The statements by Jeff Weston and Wes Wagner are up at GoldAmericaGroup.Com
But first, a report from Rachel Hawkridge, who attended the event:
LP-Oregon Convention
On-Scene Correspondent Rachel Hawkridge Writes
In 2009, a semi-poorly attended convention way out by nowhere (Newport, OR is 3 hours of dark, wet, windy and winding two lane highway from Portland), LP Oregon adopted Robert’s Rules of Witchcraft as its default rules.
Until then, OR didn’t have a quorum requirement. They had held conventions or business meetings with required notice, and things pretty well worked. That 2009 convention had about 18 attendees, and they changed a lot of the bylaws. We had 52 credentialed today.
http://justin.tv/lnc7/b/273304427
Things haven’t been so good in Oregon for the LP for several years. There have been several warring factions, a couple of bad actors, and the party has ended up with something like $16,000 in debt, little income, an office they couldn’t afford, an overdrawn bank account, and way behind in their state election disclosure filings.
Last spring, a group of people who had been officeholders in the past got together, made a plan, and were elected to the offices of LP Oregon. That convention wasn’t well attended either – 20-24? – including 4 of us from Washington.
Since then, they’ve gotten some of the debt paid off, more negotiated away, and have been running candidates, doing politics.
Since Gene and I are members of LP Oregon, Wes Wagner called me several weeks ago to ask me to attend this convention.
They had some changes to make to their bylaws, and felt that with the new bylaws there should be new officers, and as many members as possible buying in.
Yesterday afternoon, I got an eMail from Wes saying that the Chair, Secretary and Parliamentarian of the national party were planning to attend the convention today.
Hinkle, Carling and Mattson went out with LPOR Chair Jeff Weston and Vice Chair Wes Wagner. The two noteworthy parliamentarians told LPOR that their rules (RONR) had a quorum requirement of 50% of membership.
The three LNC members told Weston and Wagner that they had to follow their own rules.
They will be. Jeff Weston and Wes Wagner are honorable and ethical men.
Unfortunately, in this case following the rules means they are officers for life. They’d have to gather 76 Oregon Libertarians to vote new bylaws, new officers, or a new JudComm. JudComm is currently deadlocked – two and two.
Can’t replace their missing member, because they’re deadlocked. Can’t reverse any actions of the ExComm.
And until they can change the bylaws, they won’t be doing politics. No one has ever gathered 6750 Libertarians in one place . . . and that’s the quorum requirement for a nominating convention.
Even the 2008 Presidential nominating convention in Denver was only 10% of that.
I’m saddened – Wes and Jeff, along with Treasurer Mark Vetanen and Secretary Richard Skyba have been working hard. Now the party is dead in the water. For the foreseeable future.
http://justin.tv/lnc7/b/273320282
http://justin.tv/lnc7/b/273320390
This is the situation as I understand it. Any errors are, well, errors.
In Peace and Liberty,
Rachel Hawkridge
Chair, Libertarian Party of Washington
Libertarian National Committee
Region 2 Representative
RevoLNC.wordpress.com
“When the truth is replaced by silence”, the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko said, “the silence is a lie”.
Video interviews with Oregon State Chair Jeff Westin and Oregon State Vice Chair Wes Wagner, after the event, are already on the internet, have been transcribed, and will be posted soon on GoldAmericaGroup and other places.
An approximate headline might be “LP Oregon Blasts LNC Officers for Disrupting LPO State Convention”
George, it is called dirty tricks. In this case it looks like the trick is on you.
The strange event: Roberts Rules of Orders was followed.
It didn’t last long.
Despite having the largest attendance in years strange events involving the LNC Chair, Secretary and Parliamentarian led to the convention being adjourned almost instantaneously.