This was prepared for today’s convention in Oregon by Wes Wagner, because he was unable to attend.
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April 30, 2026
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This was prepared for today’s convention in Oregon by Wes Wagner, because he was unable to attend.
Jill Pyeatt is a small-business owner and jewelry designer from Southern California. She currently serves on the Judicial Committee of the Libertarian Party of CA. She can be found on Facebook and Twitter.
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That’s surprising. I was going by what you said as well as puzzle-piecing from your email address. I was on the trip with Sparkman and met someone who made many of the same points as you. Well, no need to call me, but I second the suggestion to work with Fred Jabin.
Disenchanted-
I think you hit on a very important concept that is actually kind of the point of a steward ship model.
You stated, “Liberty will have to be birthed in Oregon outside of support and help from the current LPO”
This isn’t actually far from my personal ways of dealing with the situation and fits perfectly with the idea of a group that doesn’t dictate the course of action that I take.
There are many ways to reach out to people, to support and mentor them, to spread the word of liberty. The personal goals I have set include restarting The Oregon Freedom Festival, Making my seminar “utilizing epidemic structures and stickiness to further your cause” (which was developed for a state agency) available to Libertarian activists, recruiting candidates, and hosting booths at anti-war rallies.
Other peoples plans have included running for office, training people to run for office, starting campus groups, doing outreach to youth, and working on political campaigns.
A good steward of the resources recognizes that people accomplish goals they are enthusiastic about. They lead in areas that they are passionate about, but let other people take the initiative and lead also.
You want to help grow liberty!
Great!
If you are interested in one of the things mentioned I will help you get connected to the person who is leading the charge in those areas.
If you have different plans on how to accomplish something–Great!
You should pursue the activity that you think has the most value in helping us gain liberty. If I think the idea has great value, I will either help you accomplish it, or help you find people who will.
As for some of your other questions, I’m not sure there are answers to all of them. I don’t see the independent party as a real problem for the Libertarian party. Sure it means that we aren’t the third biggest party in Oregon–but it doesn’t change our ability to affect change. It does show the amount of dis-satisfaction for the Democrats and Republicans–and that is a good thing.
What happens if the other faction wins?
–I don’t know, but I suspect there will be an appeal.
I am opposed to this lawsuit and the lawsuits that proceeded it. I don’t find them a good way to accomplish liberty. We need to spend our energies, money, time, and resources running political campaigns–not fighting with each other.
The issues of national affiliation aren’t terribly important to me. I prefer to be affiliated with the national party–but only if they recognize that it is the registered libertarians of Oregon that decide how our state party is run.
Will the LPO support the presidential candidate?
–that sounds like a question that can only be answered by the 15,000 Plus registered libertarians in Oregon–but I suspect they will answer-“yes”
Finally, Wes is correct (and thank you Wes). I would be happy to work with you even if you have offended me in the past (with very limited exceptions) because– to quote Ben Afleck in his Oscar acceptance speech, “”you can’t hold grudges in this business if you want to accomplish anything”
D@23
I would restate that What you may perceive as the convention not being important enough for me to show up to, may actually be that I don’t believe that I am important enough to reschedule an entire convention around.
You may also want to consider that if no one is being particularly helpful to you, then the variable that seems to appear in every interaction and equation is you, and what that might mean for the probability of what the problem might be.
On the upside … Fred is a really nice guy and if you actually were to reach out to him in earnest to try to get somethign done, he would help you even if you previously offended him (which may not even be the case, but even if it were, fred is a bridge builder by nature so I suspect that bridge is not burned)
Paulie we’ve never spoken, thank you for the offer of a call, but not sure what that will accomplish. As you said, they won’t help, nor will they hinder, sometimes lack of help is a hindrance….
I am not a troll, but I am a doll. I’m glad to hear the convention was nice.
So what goals were set to advance the cause of Liberty in Oregon? What strategies are there?
How will new Liberty lovers be nurtured and mentored?
How will the LP work to spread our message in Oregon?
How do we address the weird ballot thing, that conveniently creates more Independents then Libertarians?
Is the Libertarian Party of Oregon still thinking of defecting from the national party?
Will the LPO actually work to support the next Libertarian presidential candidate or just slam his loss on election day like last time?
And Lord knows what happens if the other faction wins.
For now, Liberty will have to be birthed in Oregon outside of support and help from the current LPO anarchists, who don’t want to lead, just steward, and not get anything done group. Heck the convention wasn’t even important enough to the Chair to show up to….
@15
If I’m not mistaken I may have spoken to you in person in January when I was there. I’ve also met the state leadership there. I could be mistaken about having met you, so feel free to call me at 415-690-6352, but bear in mind I’m back east now if you do, so best to call early in the day. The state leadership may not help you much with activating local chapters, but they won’t hinder you either.
Richard S @ 19: That’s REALLY good to hear!
DOLL (TROLL?) @ 15: Maybe Wes intends to lead by example, rather than through intrigue.
I was at the convention in Oregon this last weekend. It was the best I have been too. There was no contentious infighting. There were women, multiple races, and young people which had been rare in the past. There was optimism. A very nice experience all around.
That’s one smart D.O.L.L. @15!
Disenchanted @15
I have direction and so did several other people at the convention. There are a lot of strategies that move us forward and with good stewardship–MANY of them can be utilized.
As to why the Libertarian party is not the third largest:
That is mostly due to the strength of the Independent Party of Oregon.
Oregon Legislators (all Ds and Rs) changed the name of independent voters to “unaffilated” a savvy group created “the independent party of Oregon” many people who wanted to register “”unaffiliated” and were used to that being called “independent” ended up unintentionally registering themselves in the independent party of oregon.
the size of the Libertarian party is about the same as it was.
Geez, the anti-Wagner short bus crowd is out today…
..and so is the clueless racist even-shorter-bus crowd!
Mr. Wagner waxes poetic in this about not wanting to force or subjugate people. That the Libertarian Party should not have leaders, but stewards. Sadly, this means, there is no real direction for the future of the Libertarian Party in Oregon, no real goals about how to advance the pursuit of Liberty.
His bitterness about past encounters with political players has left him, and/or his cronies, unable to perform real leadership. They instead prefers anarchist Anonymous, Occupy Wall Street type, all for one, one for all, but no one leads mentality. This is dangerous, as we have no vision, where there is no vision, the people perish.
We are subjugated now, by this lack of vision. This may be a party that is growing, but what do we have to show for it? Any Libertarian victories in November? And unlike many states, the Libertarian party is NOT the third largest party in Oregon, why might that be?
His, and his cronies’ definition of Libertarian, defines the Libertarian party of Oregon now, and it’s unproductive. The LPO is like a bunch of fish, swimming in a big pool, churning up the water, creating froth, but not getting anywhere.
It’s disappointing, to try to fight for Liberty in Oregon, there is little Liberty leadership here, and should the Wagner faction win the lawsuit, the liberty leadership will be missing for the foreseeable future.
Instead, there will be more Libertarian, anarchist bitterness, about the subjugation we’re under, the way it could be better, but no real plan, vision, or goals for making it better.
Now sadly, if the Burke faction wins, there will still be no Liberty leadership either. As, we’ll be back to being a closeted GOP organization for rebels. Being subjugated to the GOP, the will of the few, and the control of the smarmy, and self-righteous.
It’s painfully obvious, neither faction cares about Liberty, but about control, power, and the right to make the LPO what they want it to be. It’s also obvious the National party doesn’t really care about ever achieving true victories, or they’d figure out how to enact rules and guidelines to keep states from becoming big red, pussy boils on the reputation of the party.
Everybody says there is this RACE problem. Everybody says this RACE problem will be solved when the third world pours into EVERY white country and ONLY into white countries.
The Netherlands and Belgium are just as crowded as Japan or Taiwan, but nobody says Japan or Taiwan will solve this RACE problem by bringing in millions of third worlders and quote assimilating unquote with them.
Everybody says the final solution to this RACE problem is for EVERY white country and ONLY white countries to “assimilate,” i.e., intermarry, with all those non-whites.
What if I said there was this RACE problem and this RACE problem would be solved only if hundreds of millions of non-blacks were brought into EVERY black country and ONLY into black countries?
How long would it take anyone to realize I’m not talking about a RACE problem. I am talking about the final solution to the BLACK problem?
And how long would it take any sane black man to notice this and what kind of psycho black man wouldn’t object to this?
But if I tell that obvious truth about the ongoing program of genocide against my race, the white race, Liberals and respectable conservatives agree that I am a naziwhowantstokillsixmillionjews.
They say they are anti-racist. What they are is anti-white.
Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white.
Yeah,
not trying to say that there are no racists here–certainly we have some ugly pockets here and there–but in the most part, Oregon rejects racism pretty strongly.
It is actually a racist who is not even from there who has been pushing the idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Covington
Glad to hear it went well. I would expect an appeal of the court case, though. If you have a more detailed review of the convention that could make for a new article.
And as for the weird and creepy white separatist comments: as a native north westerner–I don’t think you will find much support for your useless racist fantasies among the people of Oregon.
In my opinion, it was one of the most productive and hopeful conventions.
There were a lot of new faces and there was none of the infighting that has plagued the LPO in recent history.
It appears that if the lawsuit is resolved this month, we will be on the road to a good re-build.
I’d love to have a report from the convention. If anyone wants to send me one, please send it to: [email protected], and I’ll post it for you.
I’d be happy to post anything about the first Oregon convention, also.
Quite a few twisted and inaccurate statements at the beginning. He continues to push lies about what the LNC did.
Some later sections are ok, but it is a clearly biased statement, as expected from a politician.
So what happened at the convention?
Yeah more white nationalist trolls on IPR FTW 🙂
The Demushkin’s and Martinkevich’s seem to share the same genetic defect.
Well said Tesak not Wuss.
Ok well said Wess not Tesak.
well said
Well, the Pacific Northwest is a great place for a White Separatist homeland to secede from the United States.