Welcome to the Libertarian Party, 2018

To all the new people who have discovered an interest in the Libertarian Party these past few weeks:

Welcome!

There are nearly half a million registered Libertarians in the 27 states where it is not illegal to register as a Libertarian.

What makes us different from the other parties? Well...

We have called for the repeal of all Drug Prohibition since our founding in 1971.

We have called for abolishing the income tax and eliminating the IRS, and have said that "Taxation is Theft", since our founding in 1971.

We have called for replacing inefficient, wasteful, and brutal government "services" -- yes, even those flashing-lights emergency services -- with private-sector alternatives since our founding in 1971.

We have called for abolishing government indoctrination centers (public schools) since our founding in 1971.

We have called for an end to all foreign aid, regardless of how evil or good the recipient nation is, since our founding in 1971.

We have called for an end to all military adventurism, and the removal of all US military assets from foreign lands, since our founding in 1971.

We have called for the repeal of all regulations on guns, including regulations on modified and automatic weapons, since our founding in 1971.

We have called for the abolition of the Federal Reserve and for sound, free-market money since our founding in 1971.

We have called for the elimination of all corporate and individual welfare and subsidies since our founding in 1971.

We have called for the privatization of transportation infrastructure since our founding in 1971.  Where we're going, we don't need "roads".

We have called for the complete separation of government and health care, and for abolishing medical regulation and licensing, since our founding in 1971.

We have called for an end to government meddling in private voluntary agreements, such as minimum wage laws and requirements that businesses recognize unions, since our founding in 1971.

We have called for eliminating all restrictions on the right of people to cross imaginary lines since our founding in 1971.

We have called for private property rights to be fully respected by governments, and for the repeal of land-use regulations and zoning, since our founding in 1971.

We have called for an end to all marriage regulation and licensure, as well as for an end to all *government* discrimination for or against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, trans individuals -- and heterosexuals -- since our founding in 1971.  And we actually mean it.  In 1972, our very first national Platform stated our support for the rights of sexual minorities (http://www.lpedia.org/1972_Libertarian_Party_Platform#Crime .

We have called for an end to all government sex discrimination since our founding in 1971.  We actually walk the talk, too: our very first nominee for Vice President, Tonie Nathan, was the first woman to receive an Electoral College vote.

We believe all individuals should be treated equally by governments. Unlike the Johnny-come-latelys, Libertarians actually take the idea of equal rights seriously -- and we started that conversation long before Democrats opportunistically embraced it.

We have called for the abolition of all laws restricting Freedom of Association, and for the elimination of all subsidies, regulation, special rights, privileges, penalties, preferential treatment, either for or against any subset of individuals or "favored" groups, since our founding in 1971.

We have called for an end to all government interference in the freedom of religion and conscience since our founding in 1971.  We don't want churches taxed -- we want taxes abolished.

So, welcome to the Libertarian Party.

Leave those big-party ideologies at the door -- you won't be needing them any more.

Cast off those chains!

Remember -- those stale old ideas have turned the United States into a police state.

Libertarians believe people should be able to marry who they want, gamble if they want, party with a hooker, smoke weed or partake of other recreational drugs, live as a woman (or a man) if they want ... but they should also be left free to start a business without asking for "permission", keep their money and property, travel without papers, and enjoy any guns they can afford.

Enjoy your freedom, and we're glad you're here.

VOTE LIBERTARIAN * 800-ELECT-US or http://www.LP.org/

Get active! http://www.LP.org/volunteer

-- end --

Personal agency: It's actually a thing.

------------------------------------------------------------

Written by Marc Montoni <AMCAmbassador@gmail.com>, for the Libertarian Party Radical Caucus.  Revised April, 2018.  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

------------------------------------------------------------
For more information about the Radical Caucus, see www.LPRadicalCaucus.org or see the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2497146127/  .
------------------------------------------------------------

The Libertarian Weenie Pipe Dream

The Libertarian Weenie Pipe Dream is a modern fantasy peddled by "pragmatic" Libertarians.  It goes like this, with some regional and/or chemically-induced variations:

a)  Get ourselves elected to local office without saying anything scary.

b)  Build our political resumes, all the while continuing to hide our true nature.  Presumably by "playing the game" and voting for fatter government.

c)  Get elected to slightly higher office (still somehow hiding our true goals).

d)  When there are enough of us, take our hats off for the Big Reveal Day.

e)  Then at long last, we will be able to make more significant changes.

Of course, assuming we still remember what they were supposed to be.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Very sorry - rest assured that there are many, but we can't tell you who they are. It's a secret -- that's the whole idea. If we told you, or if they ever said anything libertarian in public, they would no longer be stealth, and people would stop voting for them. This would ruin the grand plan to have them all rise up out of their wheelchairs in 2079 and unanimously vote to abolish government.  'Nuff said.]

But in all seriousness, generations of new activists have been brought into the party being fed this same ludicrous model of how we are going to build a free society.

Here's a clue: If someone says either "The only thing that matters is getting elected," or "First we actually have to get elected", then they're delusional simpletons who have no commitment to the reasons why we try to get elected.

[Partly paraphrasing Joe Dehn]


------------------------------------------------------------
For more information about the Radical Caucus, see www.LPRadicalCaucus.org or see the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2497146127/  .
------------------------------------------------------------

Originally written April 2018, by Marc Montoni, for the Libertarian Party Radical Caucus.  This version released 2018.

 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
------------------------------------------------------------

Anarchophobia

Anarchophobia: The ignorant fear of anarchists.

Anarchophobia is normally used as an excuse to paper over the fact that almost all Libertarian candidates fail to seek adequate volunteer and donor support for their campaigns, to explain away the reason more Libertarians are not being elected to office.

Most anarchophobes are clueless about:

- ballot access censorship and judicial bias favoring the D/R monopoly of the ballots in all states.

- the many extensive contributions anarchists have made to the modern Libertarian Party.

- the fact that anarchists were among the founding members of the Libertarian Party, and,

- the fact that anarchists comprise a large fraction of the current donating membership of the Libertarian Party.

[paraphrasing D. Frank Robinson]

FACT: Until ballot bias is eradicated, the votes cannot come.

FACT: When the votes come, the money will follow.

FACT: When the money arrives, oaths of office will administered.


------------------------------------------------------------
For more information about the Radical Caucus, see www.LPRadicalCaucus.org or see the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2497146127/  .
------------------------------------------------------------

Originally written April 2018, by Marc Montoni, for the Libertarian Party Radical Caucus.  This version released 2018.

 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
------------------------------------------------------------

Vohra Suspension Motion Fails

A motion to suspend Arvin Vohra (Twitter, Maryland US Senate Campaign Website, Facebook, MeWe) from his position on the Libertarian National Committee has failed.

Current LP chairman Nick Sarwark (Twitter, Phoenix Mayor Campaign website, Facebook) wrote up his opinion on the subject. I thought this part was the most cogent:

When I gave my speech for None of the Above for Chair in Las Vegas in 2012, it was due to the factionalism and infighting I saw on the LNC leading up to that convention. LNC members focused more on trying to oust each other or gain advantage internally than they did on trying to advance the goals of the Libertarian Party. That internal focus resulted in stagnant fundraising, candidate recruitment, and membership numbers.

Since 2014, our committee has been able to move away from the internal factional fighting and focus on moving the Libertarian Party forward. We are improving fundraising, candidate recruitment, and membership. These recent controversies have regressed us back to internal fighting instead of fighting the two old parties. We need to stop the internal fighting and focus on our real opponents.

Sarwark's 2012 speech was in some ways a landmark event in the party's history.  For a good portion of the previous ten years, the majority faction on the LNC had spent far more time setting up intrigues for removing the few radicals and anarchists who happened to be on the LNC -- along with intrigues to make the LP a far more hostile place for anarchists and radicals in general -- than they did trying new fundraising approaches and getting the LP's day-to-day operations in proper order (after basically the same leadership had allowed everything to tank during that same ten years).  It was a landmark because while he was talking, one could almost feel the change in mood among the delegates.  The result was that a different culture emerged in the LP after that convention.

I don't know if Sarwark is a radical libertarian, much less an anarchist. Based on his speech at the Colorado state convention last month, my suspicion is that he is not.

But I don't really care.

Sarwark has been patient and understanding of all sides and an excellent moderator for getting the crowd to pay attention to actual business.

I voted for him for chairman twice because I was one of many who were tired of the internal Machiavellians who simply couldn't keep their focus. I wanted to X out the hyper-factionalists. I didn't get my wish to dump the worst of them altogether, but at least Nick has done pretty well at keeping their desire to dominate contained, and redirect that towards business.

When VC Vohra began writing his controversial articles on his personal Facebook page almost a year ago, what I saw was mostly the same old hyper-factional individuals seizing upon their controversial nature as an excuse to return the party to the slash-and-burn internal culture that was the case prior to Vegas.

Please note that there are also anarchist and radical Libertarians who are in favor of Mr Vohra leaving the LNC.  The above paragraph does not refer to them.  They have their own reasons that are not mostly motivated by partisan hackery, and I understand that -- although I disagree with their position on removal.

I've made my position clear: I say things differently from Vohra. Of course, whatever opinions he puts up on his personal page are his and his alone.

I believe that his comments are infinitesimally less-damaging to the LP brand than the majority of LP candidates have been for most of our existence.   Several candidates in Virginia and almost all other states in years have in the past pushed the national retail sales tax [not to mention our most recent presidential candidate]. Johnson, for his part, suggested that Prohibition should continue, that Finking Feddie should maintain an "enemies list", and that American soldiers should chase hobgoblins like warlord Kony in Africa, among many other off-the-reservation pseudo-alcoholic stumblings.

Bill Redpath -- another sitting LNC member -- in several of his campaigns for federal office,  supported various forms of gun control, continuing to send money to institutions of higher indoctrination, and tax schemes like a "revenue neutral" flat tax.

It was LP candidates who seemed unable to use the "A" word ("abolish") that propelled me into the resurgent Radical Caucus movement in 2005-2006. When we formalized the Radical Caucus, the plan was to help fund candidates who didn't damage the name "Libertarian" and instead advocated a bold, clear, consistent brand.

In any case, the question has been settled for the moment. Hopefully, until the opening day of the 2018 national convention.

At this point, I believe Vohra's most recent comment about school boards was indeed over the line, and if I had said something like that I'd probably resign just so continued controversy didn't distract the organization from more important things.This has indeed become a distraction and a diversion, and it's time for all to move on.

That said, at some point, members of the LP are going to have a reckoning with the increasing hostility shown to anarchist and radical Libertarians.  Almost everything Vohra has said (with the possible exception of his ill-considered comment about school boards) in his writings over the past year have delineated correct, consistent libertarian ideas that are supposed to be part of the alleged "big tent".  Most of the controversy swirling about Vohra over the last year has been a loud call for those ideas to be squelched and thrown out of the tent.


For instance, Vohra's articles early last year criticized soldiers for making themselves pawns in the murderous games of the elites.  Many Libertarians became loudly offended.  Some understood exactly what he was trying to get across, however.

As John Kendrick Meadows said recently (note you will need to be a member of Facebook as well as a member of the particular discussion group to see the comment):

You can't hate war, but worship the people committing those acts of violence, and justify it with "just following orders"....  You can't be anti war and support the pawns of the military industrial complex. Those missiles don't launch themselves. Those planes aren't all autonomous.

[Note: Meadows is Former SSgt USAF Airborne Persian Linguist. 7 Combat deployments, 502 days.]

So, yes, I believe people are using his particular style as their excuse  for what they really object to.  It's not a question of how the message is being presented; it is that the message is being presented at all.

If you don't like what someone says, what's the best response?

How about we all ignore those who say things we don't like, and concentrate on doing what we're supposed to be doing?

One thing we should all remember that Facebook is a social medium, not a political organizing medium.  If growing the Party is your goal, turn off Facebook, grab a few hundred LP flyers and a list of registered Libertarians and Party members in your area (your state LP can probably help with both) and start calling people, and (better yet) visiting them, and otherwise act like you're serious about organizing Libertarians and aren't just playing activist on Facebook.  It starts with *you* and organizing your own home precinct or neighborhood.

If you disagree with one of the 25,000-odd LP members (or one of the the ~50% of them who are on Facebook), the worst possible thing to do is to share their articles, comment on them, or refer to them.  Be the adult, and ignore those who say things to which you object.

Facebook has a "block" feature. Use it.

------------------------------------------------------------
For more information about the Radical Caucus, see www.LPRadicalCaucus.org or see the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2497146127/  .
------------------------------------------------------------

Originally written April 2018, by Marc Montoni, for the Libertarian Party Radical Caucus.  This version released 2018.

 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
------------------------------------------------------------