Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Is Student Lobbying Expoitation?

I did not say they were being "exploited"; however, now that you mention it, that's probably an accurate word.

The school district, with the above Mr Ferguson's full support, steals my money, and gives it primarily to teachers who have a vested interest in perpetuating the system. The students are thus trained not to question whether the theft-based system should exist or not, they are instead trained to assume the theft-based system must be continued, the only question is how much privately-owned wealth must be stolen -- and of course, they are trained to always believe that more is always better.

The school district, which has *never* asked students to thoroughly explore the question of whether it is moral to allow government schools to continue to exist; much less whether it is moral for it to exist with stolen money, then encourages those same students who it has not taught to question the prevailing wisdom, to then become lobbyists for "more, more, more".

So you have a massive bureaucracy that both fails to teach students to actively question what they've been given, but on the other hand successfully teaches them to refuse to question it -- yet at the same time, in so many other areas of their lives, school system employees treat students like babies and violate their agency.

In essence, educrats regard students as incompetent to make decisions about their own lives -- smoking, drugs, profanity, sex, speech, academic performance, the list goes on -- and yet, when the educracy wants more money, they push those same students to lobby adults when the truth is those students have no idea what they are lobbying for actually costs others.

That is an exploitive relationship: Using someone you have purposefully withheld information from, to speak for you.

-- end --

Sunday, May 12, 2019

Speaking for NOTA

Sometimes it's not easy speaking up for NOTA at a Libertarian meeting.

Personally, I like injecting a bit of humor into a meeting, because the theatrics caucus that tries to make everyone angry and hurls insults and invective at undeserving other activists can make those meetings into a decidedly inhospitable place.

At this year's LP of Colorado state convention, I felt somewhat uninspired to speak for NOTA as I traditionally do.

At the same event in 2018, one participant made it a point to mumble under his breath at me that it was a waste of everyone's time for anyone to speak for NOTA.

Added to that taunt, there was a lot of low-IQ nastiness that had been the rule for several weeks prior to this event.  It was really so disheartening to see Libertarians chiding their own so viciously.  The convention this year was a bitter disappointment for many reasons, and the hostility in the air was palpable.

Several members did ask me to speak for NOTA -- which helped me break out of my funk.  So, once we finally got to our elections, I started writing a few NOTA points for each race.

Here they are:

Chair

- Nobody will invoke the purity test.
- We don't need no stinkin' meetings to run anyway.

Vice Chair

- Nobody will bother running meetings in the Chair's absence.
- Nobody is the only real Libertarian.
- Nobody will be there to vote.

Treasurer

- Nobody will cook our books so we don't get thrown in jail.
- Nobody will be able to tell us how much money we have for our projects.


Secretary

- Who needs notes, anyway?
- Why do we need to have records of things that happened last week?

Communications

- Nobody will speak to the press -- and we don't want them to know what we're up to, anyway.

Membership

- We don't need no stinkin' members anyway.
- NOTA takes exception to the previous accusation about nobody, because until now NOTA has taken any position at all.

Outreach

- We want to keep Libertarianism to ourselves.
- Nobody will grow the LP.
- Nobody will bother outgoing Outreach Director Kevin Gulbranson in response to his offer to coach or mentor the new Director.

Affiliate Development Director

- Nobody will visit local affiliates.

Campaigns Director

- We don't need any candidates.  We're just a debating society.
- Nobody will run for office.
- NOTA will leave politics to those other guys who want to run your life.  And isn't that what we all really want?

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Anyway, feel free to use them at your own state convention or other meetings.

If nothing else, providing a few moments' humorous diversion about voting for None of the Above at least reminds Libertarians that they can vote against all candidates in any internal Party election, if they don't like any of the candidates.

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Vote Libertarian * 800-ELECT-US * http://www.LP.org
Creative Commons License------------------------------------------------------------
Written by Marc Montoni <AMCAmbassador@gmail.com>, May, 2019.  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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For more information about the Radical Caucus, see www.LPRadicalCaucus.org or see the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2497146127/  .
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Friday, May 03, 2019

The Noob and The Quest

Back in 2014, I ran the Virginia Libertarian Party's Facebook page. Over the preceding four or five years, I and a few other activists -- but mostly me) had built up the page following by putting up regular articles with consistent Libertarian "abolitionist" messages.

At one point, someone new came along and promptly got herself appointed to the Communications Committee, and began complaining immediately about how the page was turning away potential Libertarians because of that abolitionist message.

Without irony, too -- why it was increasing steadily in likes, then, I guess is a mystery.
From her newly-won position on the Committee, she immediately set about trying to freeze me out of the management of the page; hurling invective pretty much non-stop as soon as she scratched her way into leadership.
 
Upon her ascension to leadership in the Virginia LP, she also sought and won appointment to the national LP's Platform Committee as an LNC appointee in 2015.

So in the space of just a few months, she went from being some entirely new to someone who would influence the message of both the national and state party.  Never mind ideology, as long as the pitiably desperate "Please Like Me!" caucus within the LP thinks you'll be useful as far as making the LP look harmless, you too can jump right in to making decisions over those who genuinely know what Libertarianism is about.

But back to the immediate issue.

Right before she joined us, the state Party was 4th in terms of membership compared to the other 50 states.

Well, as most of my friends know, I left LPVA behind as of November 2016.

Two years later, the state Party I worked to build for many years has fallen by ~75 members and to 7th place nationally.

Even more irony: the person who had invited her to attend her first meeting of our governing board and introduced her to everyone...

Was me.

Which just goes to show that sometimes, the person you personally welcomed into the family will turn into one who merely contributes to the family's stagnation.

------------------------------------------------------------
Vote Libertarian * 800-ELECT-US * http://www.LP.org
Creative Commons License------------------------------------------------------------
Written by Marc Montoni <AMCAmbassador@gmail.com>, May, 2019.  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/  .
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