For those who do not know me, I have been a philosophical Libertarian for more than two decades. In the early days, I gathered signatures for candidates, and I wrote up petitions to gather signatures with the goal of stopping the government from enacting unconstitutional laws. Some of those campaigns were fruitful, but the best achievement from that early work was sharing ideas with people from all walks of life. Another thing that this experience taught me is that if one wants something done, he/she should not ask government to do it!
I have chosen to surround myself with people who believe in “Instant Gratification.” That is to say that whenever there is a problem caused by government, or not able to be prevented by government, we will go out and fix the problem at no cost to taxpayers. In the past, this has enabled us to receive a great deal of positive press while having the added bonus of making the government look like the incompetent bloated disorganized bureaucracy that it is.
Recently, I have made the decision to run for the Chairmanship of the LPPA, and to those who are scratching their heads wondering why run for this particular position, I have this answer. For many years, Libertarians in Pennsylvania have been taken for granted. If not outright ignored, our ideas have been shouted down, and in some cases, the LPPA has worked as a dictatorship where the chairman assumes the role of king.
Libertarians do not need a “Party Leader;” we need a facilitator. Libertarians know what is wrong in their respective counties, and we do not need someone in a far off location telling us how to fix a problem. The best chairs of the past have led by example and inspired others through their personal actions. They did not rule over a kingdom.
So here are some bullet points of what I hope to accomplish.
• The purpose of my chairmanship will be to facilitate discussion, encourage and empower county committees who request help, offer answers to questions whenever asked, and stay out of the various county committees’ way.
• It should be understood that there will be free communication for all. Inter-party communication channels need to be restored, as should the party newsletter. The list of board members and county committees needs to be open for all, especially new membership. Communications and database policies will not be ignored.
• To help maximize the exposure of the LPPA Board Meetings, they will be streamed live over the internet, there will be a way to text questions and comments, from anyone, to be considered during the meeting, and there will be a video archive of all meetings posted on the internet.
• To facilitate an atmosphere of inclusion, ANY party member who makes the journey to a board meeting will have the right to be recognized.
• Pennsylvania has amazing libertarians. We have (real) doctors, engineers, artists, musicians, writers, scholars, teachers, business owners, farmers, home school mothers, and while this is only a partial list, we even libertarian lawyers! The skills, creativity and talent of our membership will no longer be largely ignored.
Simply put, the purpose of the chair is to be a facilitator who helps to maximize the autonomy of all committee chairs across the state, Success breeds more success. County committees, candidates and members will be empowered to work with each other, and if I am asked to help on any particular project, it will be as Steve Scheetz, Libertarian peer, not as Chairman of the LPPA.
Finally, I feel the need to declare publicly:
I hereby certify that I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force or fraud as a means of achieving any goals, political or otherwise.
This pledge needs to regain its stature within the structure of the LPPA, and as chair it is my duty to ensure that the LPPA practices what it preaches.
This was sent to IPR by Mr. Scheetz for the purpose of being published here.
From Manuel Gomez of York County
Mr. Minet is aware that the LPPA forums are incapable of accepting new members. The forums were essentially rendered defunct under the leadership of the current board.
During the recent LPPA board meeting I brought up the fact that the LPPA forums continue to use outdated, insecure software.
That’s why you see so many individuals complain about the fact they either no longer have access to or can’t sign up for the forums.
The LPPA forums were overtaken by spammers and the server was compromised at least once. That’s the reason the hosting provider shut down the LPPA webspace account’s email ports; in response to gross negligence regarding administration of the site. No active email ports = no activation email.
Mr. Minet knows this. He acknowledged the same when brought it up at the meeting. Why then, is he suggesting that users sign into an as yet still compromised server (NOT a good idea) that he knows is unstable and will not accept new users, anyway?
I think Mr. Minet is a very nice guy and his work with the media and coordination of volunteer efforts during the recent Republican challenge of ’12 was outstanding and admirable.
I will not vote for Mr. Minet as chair, though. He has in the past supported the meddling antics of previous chairs, specifically Mr. Jasikoff; who attempted to supplant our local leadership with an LPPA proxy, going as far as listing said proxy as the official LPPA contact for our county despite numerous requests to correct the inaccuracy. That and many other LPPA levied interferences were met with support from Mr. Minet. I could go further with that, but I relent.
Mr. Minet also loses my vote on account of his philosophical inclinations regarding land value taxation. He graciously accepted an invitation to a York-based debate on the issue of LVT. He and Joshua Vincent were the pro side, Ken Krawchuk and I spoke against.
One final point of contention is Mr. Minet’s stated goal of compiling “a list of the easiest-to-win local elections and make serious efforts to recruit good libertarian candidates for them.”
This sounds like an overly-burdensome and potentially meddlesome bit of activity for the LPPA to engage in. Candidate selection and recruitment is a task best left to the individual local affiliates to undertake and procure. We cannot expect local affiliates to be able to learn the ins and outs of campaigning, media relations, recruitment and execution if we have a burgeoning LPPA bureaucracy doing it all for them.
That’s it for now. I’m a hyper-local specialist that at the end of the day could care less what an LPPA chair and his/her functionaries do as long as we’re left alone and unencumbered with state BS and dictates.
That hasn’t been the case for the last two years since I’ve joined my local affiliate. It’s my county’s only reason for engaging the upcoming convention.
Jill – You may post Roy’s “Getting To Know Me” statement. He is not on all the social media and gave me permission to distribute it.
Thanks.
In fact, the article linked above would be okay to post as an article if it’s okay with Mr. Minet.
I emailed Mr. Minet with an offer to post a statement like this on his candidacy here on IPR. You might mention it to him, Tom, since it’s possible I didn’t have a current email address.
Getting To Know Roy Minet, Candidate For LPPA State Chair:
http://drtomstevens.blogspot.com/2013/03/getting-to-know-roy-minet-candidate-for.html
I believe he has already declared his intention to seek the post.
The word on the street is Roy Minet is willing to run. He was Tom’s volunteer coordinator for the ballot access defense effort. He does not seem to have any problem with Tom’s way of doing things.
Does Mr Scheetz drive a gas burning car? If he does then there are people who own coastal properties that believe that Mr Scheetz is engaged in an attack upon them and their property.
Duly NOTAed
The PA Convention is not for seven weeks yet.
Even if Dr, Stevens is not running others might, or Steve might have to fend off that nasty NOTA guy who keeps popping up all ovet the place! 🙂
Tom Stevens has not relinquished control of the official party communications list to anyone, he has not un-banned any of us who he dislikes, so I do not believe that I will win by default.
However, even more than that, the vote of Libertarians should never be taken for granted, therefore I am continuing my campaign.
In fact, I am still working on an entire slate of people who believe as I do.
So far, I have the following individuals running with me.
Ed Reagan for Eastern Vice Chair
Ivan Glinski for Secretary
Richard Schwarz for Treasurer
I also have some individuals who are interested in chairing some of the standing committees.
Marketing, Legislative, and Legal so far.
If anyone has any questions, I will answer them.
Sincerely,
Steve Scheetz
Now that it appears the current chairman is NOT seeking re-election, is there still a race or has Mr. Scheetz won by default?