From a Petersen 2016 email blast:
Now that Ted Cruz has dropped out of the race, Donald Trump has a clear path to the Republican nomination and we have a unique, once in a generation opportunity to make a profound impact on the electoral landscape. We have the opportunity to unite conservatives and libertarians against the authoritarian candidates offered by the major parties.
If we seize this moment, we can fight for liberty together. We need to put aside our differences for the moment and realize whether we are libertarian, Tea Party, fiscally conservative, or Constitutionalist, there are enormous threats to liberty knocking on our door. If we do not unite, we will individually fail in our battle against the darkness of authoritarianism.
Bringing conservative voters into the fold requires energy and dedication from libertarian candidates that has not been present in previous presidential races. At the end of May, we will select a Libertarian Party nominee for president, and we cannot afford to waste this election repeating the mistakes of years past.
It is time that we fight to win.
I will not shy away from doing what needs to be done for the cause of liberty. When the major parties try to shut us out of the national presidential debates, I will kick the door in and raise hell like never before. Our movement will not be ignored.
We are entering a crucial phase in the nomination process, and we are up against well-funded opponents who believe this nomination is their’s by default.
But when I look to this campaign’s supporters, I see the true heart and soul of libertarianism. I see the grassroots clamoring for new energy, new passion, and lasting change that will propel us to the forefront of the national consciousness. As the Republican Party crumbles, we represent the future of limited government and individual liberty.
I cannot do this without your support. With a little over three weeks to go before the convention, your contributions and volunteer efforts are more valuable than ever. Please make a donation and check out our events schedule for a full list of campaign stops.
Keep working hard, everyone. You all are true warriors for liberty.
Your friend in liberty,
” He was too mean for the delicate sensibilities of IPR readers. ”
You have that backwards. Being called a racist was too mean for his delicate sensibilities, so first he ran to the website owner to whine about it and stomp his feet demanding that the meanies be put on time out. And when that didn’t work, he threatened to sue the website for permitting people to call him out, or call him names, whichever the case may be. Who the fuck wants some guy like that around?! That’s just inviting trouble.
Another talking point – “Muslims are not a race” – is also true but misleading. It’s true that Muslims are not a race, but the big objection to Muslims in Europe is racist in nature, because most Muslims moving to Europe are not what most Europeans consider to be white. Ironically enough, a few racist white Europeans are themselves actually converting to Islam, but that’s mostly only because they hate Jews.
Andy should consider doing some research on other sources regarding Swedish crime statistics and what actually lies behind them, rather than relying solely on the way those statistics and a few lurid incidents are spun by racists, white supremacists, neo-nazis, etc.
For example, Sweden records a lot of things as rape that would not be classified that way in most other countries, and records ongoing patterns of abuse in relationships (real or alleged) as multiple instances rather than as a single report, the latter being the way most other countries do it. Because a lot of things that were not considered rape in the past are now being classified as rape, and because the culture has turned heavily in the direction of siding with women in such cases, more Swedish women are reporting rape or alleged rape nowadays, as opposed to in the past or in some other countries. That doesn’t mean that there is actually more rape in Sweden than in the past or in other countries, only that it’s reported more and recorded differently.
But, you wouldn’t know that if you take nazi trash that’s recycled by white supremacist “libertarians” such as Cantwell and Molyneux at face value, and don’t do your own research to see if there are other explanations for the statistics that they misrepresent and spin in the exact same way that their fascist authoritarian racist friends do to try to justify authoritarian immigration policies.
Hopefully that would include government immigration law enforcement thugs or anyone acting as such by proxy.
The United States is not some private country club, and the government has no right to exclude anyone. Private property owners can, of course, exclude whomever they want from their own property.
Knapp and Pyeatt > Jacobs on this one.
“If libertarians were smart, there would be a focus put on building libertarian only communities and segregating from the rest of society.”
So you’re saying that you’re not a smart libertarian, then? A focus on authoritarian bellyaching over immigration into and out of an existing non-libertarian community is not a focus on building libertarian only communities.
“Tom, it is my fucking business where people live when they can live off of my taxes and organize politically and vote to take my freedoms away.”
Your neighbor who was born and raised in America can — and probably does — live off your taxes and organize politically and vote to take your freedoms away. Why would that be any better, or any worse, or any more subject to your rightful control, if he happened to have instead crossed a street gang’s turf line before doing so?
It is only your fucking business where people live IF they ACTUALLY live off of your taxes or organize politically and vote to take your freedoms away. And even then it isn’t so much your fucking business where they live as it is what they are doing.
First off, Muslim is not a race, it is a religion. Second of all, if you are a criminal profiler, then you need to be able to describe who it is that is committing the crime. The rape epidemic in Sweden and in other European nations is in fact due to Muslim rapists.
Tom,
My being blocked happened during some rather intense debates centered around purging various state party officials rightly deserving or not by using innuendo and mudslinging and my vigorous objecting to such ways of changing state party leadership.
I was being called a troll by various people at the time.
Sure it could have been a server problem that just happened at that moment.
But, I think not.
Andy said: If libertarians were smart, there would be a focus put on building libertarian only communities and segregating from the rest of society. Then elections and “playing politics” in general would not matter.
The reason libertarians can’t live free is because libertarians are surrounded by people who do not want them to live free.
One of the reasons I chose the town I live in is its diversity. We have some very wealthy people who live here, many apartment dwellers (not that that necessarily means the household doesn’t have much money), and very varied cultures. Of course any town in LA County has a high degree of latinos, but we also have a large Asian population, mostly from China, but some Vietnamese and some other cultures. For the most part, we all coexist very well. None of these people take my liberties from me. I leave them alone, and they leave us alone.
I don’t want to live in a Libertarian only zone. How could I influence non-Libertarians about how our lifestyle is better if they can’t observe the way I live?
If libertarians were smart, there would be a focus put on building libertarian only communities and segregating from the rest of society. Then elections and “playing politics” in general would not matter.
The reason libertarians can’t live free is because libertarians are surrounded by people who do not want them to live free.
The solution should not be hard to figure out: Get away from the people who do not want you to be free (which is anyone who is not a libertarian), and form a new community where the only people who live there are libertarians.
Excellent points, Mr. or Ms. itdoesntmattermuch.
Yeah, the LP should definitely run on “mass deportation of everyone who isn’t a member of the LP.” good luck with that.
There’s already a candidate for people who are super-obsessed with the race/nationality of people “doing the raping.” I’d hope that sort of thing and any other neo-George Wallace/Strom Thurmond pro-segregation racial fear-mongering could stay far away from the LP. It’s bad enough that for a not insignificant chunk of the population libertarians are perceived as racists or at least old super-white super-conservatives as it is.
Tom, it is my fucking business where people live when they can live off of my taxes and organize politically and vote to take my freedoms away.
Andy said: Tell a Swedish woman who just got gang raped by Muslims that she should just ignore the Muslim migrants.
Don’t you think some of this is overstated or overgeneralized by the mainstream media to justify our country’s current agenda?
““lawsuit” – he did not threaten a lawsuit but mentioned it to Warren in an e-mail several months ago.”
“I am hereby accusing your staff of LIBEL. You say you are a “hands off” boss. That works only as long as you don’t get sued. I will give them, and you, an opportunity to address this accusation. Your response, or lack of it, will incriminate both you and your staff. If you fail to respond, I will publicly cite this as evidence that you are knowingly allowing your staff to libel users of your system, IPR.
Jim Bell”
I have seen that Stanhope video. Tell a Swedish woman who just got gang raped by Muslims that she should just ignore the Muslim migrants.
Reality is that in our present society, everyone who crosses a border is a potential welfare recipient and potential future voter.
“If people are of the wrong ideology, I do not want them living anywhere near me”
Do not want in one hand and do not shit in the other and see which one does not get full first. Or, uh, something like that.
Is it appropriate to object to e.g. welfare? Of course.
Is it any of your goddamn business where people live, work or travel until and unless those people — those SPECIFIC people, not whatever group you got a statistics bug up your ass about and associate them with — initiate force against you? Nope.
Libertarians understand that.
If people are of the wrong ideology, I do not want them living anywhere near me (and this includes Democrats and Republicans), and I damn sure do not want them living off of taxes that are extorted from me, or voting.
Some people are just not fit to live in a free society, and yes, this includes the typical American who really supports Democrats or Republicans.
A die hard Hillary Clinton supporter is as dangerous as a Muslim extremist religious wacko.
I am not and troll and call things as I see them (and not while hiding behind fake names and IP anonymizers) Has the large influx of Muslims into Sweden been a good thing or a bad thing for the people who have historically inhabited Sweden?
The evidence seems clear to me that this has been a bad thing for the Swedes, unless you consider a 1,000% increase in the number of rapes committed and masses of people being added to the welfare rolls as positive developments.
I had an email communication with Paulie a couple of days ago. This entire episode epitomizes why he has left.
Frankly, William’s objections to blocking people has been very effective, to the betterment of the site. The spring that we had so much trouble with Grundmann I believe was three years ago. We haven’t blocked anyone since then. If this wasn’t such a crucial time for third-parties, I don’t think I would have worried about Jim. However, I believe people who have never considered voting out of their chosen party will be looking elsewhere. Of course it’s appropriate to clean up the house a bit to have a home proper to greet the newbies with.
I don’t think American Third Party Reports censors, and it’s an active site with some of the same commenters as here. Perhaps Jim will be happy there.
William,
I’ve never “caused” anyone to leave. Chuck Moulton decided to leave and used me as an excuse. I didn’t force him in any way, shape, manner or form — and by comparison to Bell, I was 1000% sweetness and light in my communications with/to him. I just declined to stop calling the situation what it was, or to stop laughing at Chuck for his hysterical insistence on making it into something it wasn’t.
That said, if IPR’s other editors had considered removing me over it, they would have been well within their rights to. And, just as with Bell, it would not have been about my opinions, but about my behavior.
FWIW, even when your parananoia is annoying, it’s also appreciated. Thanks for your work on keeping us to the free expression straight and narrow.
So now we have an even different explanation. He was a “cyberbully.” He was too mean for the delicate sensibilities of IPR readers. Very funny to hear this coming from Knapp given he actually caused a writer to leave because of his manner, which the writer described as “trolling.”
Jim Bell was not banned because of his opinions, he was banned for the caustic way in which he expressed them.
Steve,
I hit enter too soon. As far as personal “muting,” etc., that’s only possible with a modern commenting system. With the Model T, you can have any color you want as long as it’s black.
Steve,
I suspect if you were “blocked from posting,” it was due to a server issue or something.
Bell was not banned for expressing an opinion. He was banned for being unable or unwilling to suppress the urge to be a self-entitled douchenozzle crybully each and every time he expressed an opinion. There’s a difference. Everybody loves a good argument here, and sometimes we get cross with each other, but not every message in every thread.
I don’t know if I was banned in the past but I have certainly been blocked from posting in the past.
As such I am rather apposed to banning or blocking for almost all reasons. Commercial spamming, I might make an exception to. I wouldn’t mind individual readers being able to filter out other posters.
The attack is not the issue.
I’m truly not aware that bringing up the past looked like an “attack”. I’ll be more careful in the future.
Jill,
“lawsuit” – he did not threaten a lawsuit but mentioned it to Warren in an e-mail several months ago. This was rehashed only because you brought it up in the thread to attack Jim.
“troll” – I see no evidence of trolling. Rather, it seems labeling him a troll was just a smoke screen to block him because of his views.
Banning Jim was actually the first time anyone has been banned on this site simply for expressing an opinion. But it has been tried in the past. Grundmann was almost blocked in 2013, but luckily, I was able to prevent it. I was unable to stop it this time. This sets a bad precedent and I could easily foresee the same thing happening to Andy and others.
It’s not nice to lie, William.
I don’t remember seeing anything about blocking Andy Jacobs, either. I know William is upset about Jim being blocked yesterday, but now that third parties will be in the focus more than ever, I still think blocking a lawsuit minded troll was appropriate.
What would new people to the site think after reading Jim’s tirades, which were becoming increasingly accusatory and nasty? Obviously, I wasn’t the only one who thought Jim was harmful to the site.’
Who are these social justice warriors and can you point to one comment that says Andy Jacobs should be blocked? I haven’t seen anyone say that so please point to what I missed. For that matter no one said Jim Bell should have been blocked for his views. My understanding is that he was blocked for his behavior, not his views. If I am correct that no one is calling for Andy Jacobs to be banned, that is evidence that the banning of Jim Bell was not because of his views but because of the way he conducted himself.
According to the Social Justice Warriors at IPR, Andy’s comments are grounds for Andy to be blocked.
I wonder what’s happened to Andy as well. It doesn’t become him.
Barry,
I don’t think Andy is the “nazi troll.” Different style, etc.
What caught my attention was his sudden shift to something he had never seemed concerned about before — and the fact that it’s pure political poison for the LP. The hardcore anti-immigrationists are going to vote for Trump. The softcore anti-immigrationists (especially in organized labor) might go for Clinton. Under no circumstances with they go for us. The only thing we can accomplish by trying to appease them is to drive away voters who lean libertarian on immigration.
Good point Tom Knapp. I wonder if Andy is actually the nazi troll. He sure sounds racist in the commentary above. His comment @13:49 sounds like it belongs on Stormfront, complete with antiquated sounding bitching about “forced integration.”
I think this time is different, frankly. We have at least two senators (Sasse and Heller) who say they won’t vote for Trump, and several others have been very critical. Gov. Baker of Massachusetts says he won’t either. Several congressman won’t. You have conservative commentators burning their GOP registration. And of course Romney has said he won’t support him. This just seems bigger to me than the usual true conservative angst you get in the GOP. Now how many of those people come to the LP depends on if there’s another third party candidacy from these figures. But either way I think the LP benefits. I fully expect some third party to get into at least low double digits in Utah, with the potential to do much higher.
As a neutral observer, I must admit I’ve been impressed with Petersen’s push for Cruz supporters. I read a lot of tweets from the NeverTrump folks yesterday, and several of them were being told to come over to Petersen’s campaign. At least one major figure in the movement asked his followers what they knew about Petersen and if he was any good, and I doubt this person knew much if anything about him before yesterday. so a shrewd move on the campaign’s part, or at least his supporters.
“Tom, it is everyone’s business who crosses borders when border crossers can receive government welfare, and when they and their offspring can become American citizens, and therefore register to vote, which means they can wield political power.”
I take it that you stop and check in at the police station every time you cross city limits or county lines, then?
Nah, didn’t think so.
The old saying is that once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.
Your “inside job” stuff is once.
Your immigration authoritarianism is twice, and it’s especially suspicious that you pivoted from the inside jobbism to the immigration authoritarianism right at a time when one of the dumbest imaginable things for the Libertarian Party to do would be to become just another closed borders party instead of alternative to the two major closed borders parties.
I guess I’ll wait for a third party-damaging activity before I conclude that you’re one of those COINTELPRO agents you’re always talking about. But like one of my friends who was an activist in the ’60s used to told me, you always knew who the cop spies were — they were the ones who were always talking about how there might be cop spies around.
Should read, “mass migration 9f Muslims…:
Tom, it is everyone’s business who crosses borders when border crossers can receive government welfare, and when they and their offspring can become American citizens, and therefore register to vote, which means they can wield political power.
Forced integration and welfare statism for foreigners is not libertarian at all.
Marxists and theorats from other geographic territories are NOT peaceful people.
Look at what is happening right now in European countries like Sweden that have allowed mass migration on Muslims. Does anyone in their right mind think that this has been a good thing for the Swedish people? Sweden is now the rape capital of Europe, and it is turning into a 3rd world shithole, thanks to masses of Muslim border crossers.
Received that email from Austin, and responded on Facebook as follows:
I like Austin Wade Petersen. I like him as a person and over time I’ve come to like him much more than I expected to as a presidential candidate.
BUT: A call to “unite conservatives and libertarians against authoritarian candidates” is just not very rational.
First, conservatives ARE authoritarians. If you don’t believe me, go ask one whose business it is who uses which bathroom, or whose business it is who marries whom, or whose business it is who crosses a politician’s imaginary line on the ground, or whether he or she would support financing the US armed forces with bake sales and eBay auctions of old surplus rifles instead of with robbery at gunpoint.
Second, we’ve seen what happens when the GOP nominates a non-conservative. In fact, they’ve done so twice in a row, and each time large segments of conservatives have announced “if that person gets nominated, I’m OUTTA HERE.” And it doesn’t happen. Most of them decide that the Democrat is so bad they HAVE to vote Republican. Some get so disgusted they just stay home. And a tiny trickle vote third party one time before deciding that that was a mistake because the non-conservative GOP candidate lost (they don’t notice that third party votes didn’t change the outcome).
The Libertarian Party needs to focus on gaining the support of LIBERTARIANS — including by MAKING libertarians — instead of convincing ourselves every four years that we can break out if only we can trick non-libertarians into voting for us by pretending we have more in common with them than we do.