Why The Libertarian Party Must Return to a Unified Membership Plan (UMP)

The Unified Membership Plan was a construct that the Libertarian Party implemented in the late 1990's.  It was designed to increase the funding available to state affiliates, and to make those state affiliates partners in membership growth for the Libertarian Party as a whole.

I am proposing that the Party re-adopt UMP.  Some lessons learned from its previous iteration can be adopted to make it work better.

The premise of UMP is fairly simple: The LNC concentrated on membership growth and renewals; while the states concentrated on activity-building.

Here is the basic writeup of UMP (as well as UMP-II) terms:

http://web.archive.org/web/20050828131152/http://www.libertarianwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=UMP

UMP-II was a modified form of UMP designed to increase the incentive for state affiliates to work harder on donor development; reducing the tendency of national being the main leg of the LP entity trying to get people to donate every year.

During California's experience with UMP (1996-2004), for example, the state party ran a record number of candidates and elected a record number of the non-partisan ones, opened up a couple of offices, hired an Executive Director and additional staffing to handle all of the added workload when you have up to 6,392 dues paying, card carrying members.

For California and many other states, UMP was a great division of labor which helped both the LNC and the state parties grow substantially.

The Libertarian Party's previous dalliance with UMP was between 1995 and 2004.  Only the LNC members who voted to abandon the Unified Membership Plan can state their personal reasons, but opponents agitating for abolition used several talking points (and continue to use them in arguing against its reintroduction).  Among them:

1) "It was too expensive."  Kinda.  It did cost the LP $12 for every $25 membership, more for the higher-level memberships.  As explained elsewhere, the solution to this problem was to raise dues enough to catch up with inflation.

2) "LPHQ can't send checks to non-FEC filing committees."  True, but there are ways to work within the law regardless, as explained elsewhere.

3) "It's welfare."  Bah.

... and other statements I'm doubtless forgetting.

Probably the biggie, however, was that the Executive Director at the time (2004) didn't understand it, didn't want to understand it, regarded state affiliates as competition rather than partners, didn't want to have to allocate staff time to mess with it, and saw the trendline he was allowing to happen (declining revenue) and preferred to keep the (declining) revenue in the office (rather than figuring out how to improve fundraising).

Interestingly, at the same time the LP was abandoning the shared-dues concept, a very similar program was adopted by the national Democratic Party, under the direction of Howard Dean.  They called it their "50-state strategy", and it was a revenue-sharing program designed to fund organizing projects among their state affiliates.  A lot of the grassroots activity among Democrats in 2007-2008 was due in no small part to field organizing work in every state, funded by the national revenue-sharing plan.

In any case, none of the reasons to abandon it were particularly valid, as there were ways to overcome each deficiency with a relatively simple change in behavior.

In any case, I believe it is time to re-examine UMP, and to re-implement it.

This article shall explore the idea and address some of the fallacies surrounding the program.

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What Would It Take To Implement SOUMP (Son of UMP)
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I'd like to preface here by acknowledging the valid argument that re-implementing UMP does not require LNC action at all.  There is absolutely nothing stopping LPHQ from reintroducing UMP as an add-on to normal dues.  All it would take is an alteration to membership forms to add a few lines to offer renewing/new members the option of adding state dues to their donation.

We already do this in Virginia:

        http://Membership.LPVA.com

However, it would probably be best to do this via the bylaws, so those who think UMP is "welfare" can no longer engage in shenanigans to defeat/hamstring it.

Admittedly, it may be tough to get a proposal through the Bylaws Committee.  Past Bylaws Committees have made into an art form 1) engaging in shenanigans designed to help or hamper various factions; and 2) stuffing the Bylaws Session agenda so full of lard that truly necessary motions would be impossible to get to the floor.

FWIW, I think it would require two separate motions.  First, to bring the $25 dues up to inflation-adjusted reality $40 at least; but better to $45 or $50); and then a separate one regarding UMP.

Once again, getting a dues increase and UMP on the convention floor for a vote is within the LNC's power.  However, with college graduates on the LNC calling UMP welfare, I suspect there will be no action on this.

It is appropriate here to address some of the criticisms of UMP:

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"Welfare"
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Opponents have often claimed the UMP was "welfare" to state affiliates.  It would be best to eschew this sort of trash-talk; for when you claim UMP is welfare, you are inferring that the state party activists who benefit from it, and supporters of the UMP itself, are welfareites.  This is insulting and demeaning -- and unnecessary.

I suspect the opponents of UMP would not care for the inference that they are thieves for hoarding financial resources at the national level that actually belong to the entire party, or that they would care to be labeled "insane" or "ignorant" for denying the many good things that UMP wrought during its brief existence.

Perhaps the individuals claiming UMP was "welfare" are arguing from ignorance.  I don't know.  But Virginia and many other states spent considerable sums of money recruiting UMP members.  I know that membership-raisers in Virginia were costing the Virginia LP a couple of thousand dollars, at their peak.  I know at one point California sent its entire membership recruiting budget (~$5,000??) to the LNC for purposes of soliciting support from new and renewal donors.

Although LPHQ itself has the records to prove this, I can also actually personally vouch for this.  I occasionally helped out at LPHQ in DC during 1997-2003.  I distinctly remember processing *huge* batches of memberships the California LP and others had sent us.  Often the envelopes I processed had a hundred or more at a time.

Unlike those who keep repeating the mantra that UMP was "welfare", a lot of state parties helped with signing up members in rather large numbers.  California, Michigan, Virginia, Washington, Oregon, and a dozen or so other states sent in batches of renewals and new members, monthly or better.  California sent them weekly or better for a time.

I know.  I was THERE, in the office, opening the envelopes, and processing them.

UMP wasn't welfare -- it was *partnering*.

To the extent that some state parties didn't really do anything in return for getting thousands of dollars every year from national, perhaps "welfare" was an appropriate term.  One or two of the states that failed to get ballot access in 2004 come to mind.

However, it certainly wasn't welfare for most of the state parties.  Virginia, which had for all of its existence prior to UMP required national help on its ballot drive, while under UMP, had been able to pay its own petitioners when needed and has completed all statewide drives since 1998, without any extra help from national.  Other states similarly pulled themselves into better performance with UMP funds.

In sum, UMP was not welfare, and those who think it was need to head back to the books.

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UMP Still Exists
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Second, a limited form of UMP still exists in many states, in that the state parties routinely collect dues for the national party, and forward them along to LPHQ.  All the formal "UMP" is was this same model, acting in reverse.

[Interestingly, when the Virginia LP (or the many other states that do it) send packages of memberships to national, no college graduates from Indiana or anywhere else call it "welfare".]

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"We Can't Do It Any More Because of BCRA"
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Opponents claim McCain-Feingold prevents flow between state & national.  It's just that the state LP has to set up a 'federal' bank account and become a federal-filing committee.  **One** of the primary reasons given to eliminate UMP was because the LNC had been sending checks to non-filing state committees, and the practice had to stop due to McCain-Feingold.  In the states that didn't become filing federal committees, it was usually due to an inability to find a volunteer to keep the books required.

In a small affiliate, this can be a deal-killer.

However, there is a way to get to the same ends via different means. 

Instead of ending UMP, a better solution would have been for the LNC to establish a "field coordination" committee, dump the UMP money of the non-filing states into it, and use that committee to do party-building projects in the nonfiling states.

Or perhaps set upa  regional affiliate.  Aggregate the money state parties were due and have one filing regional entity that will handle the reports for each state party that is a member of the regional entity.  The cost of paying the contractor who does the reports could be paid from each state's portion of shared revenue.

Libertarian Party members really need to get out of the thinking-small business.  The D's and R's spend millions of dollars on consultants who have figured out ways to work within existing laws and still get done what they need to get done.  We can do the same or similar things.

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"It Was a Bad Deal For National"
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Opponents of UMP cite the fact that giving state affiliates $12 of every $25 membership meant the national LP was regularly "sucking wind" on the program.

Once again, this is extremely misleading.

If one cites only the $25 membership revenue, sure, the LNC only netting $13 wasn't all that hot an idea.  However, in the peak years of UMP -- 1996 through 2002 -- the average contribution per member was about $76.  Giving the state parties $12 of that doesn't sound so insurmountable.

What did hurt national with regard to UMP was the fact that the LNC ignored for two decades its duty to adjust dues for inflation.  The $25 dues set in 1990 is about $43 in 2012.  Once the LNC did finally get around to doing something about the dues rate, it first increased dues to $50, then lowered them to $0, then after this bit of insanity went public, complete with demands for "executive session, secret votes", the convention decided to steady the ship and take the decision out of the hands of the LNC entirely.

Now, we're stuck.

But not really.  The LNC does still have the ability to present the need for increasing dues to the national convention.  A series of articles, presenting a balance of opinions on the matter, in LPNews in advance of the convention, will probably have the desired effect of making delegates think on the matter.

That can only be a good thing.

Alternatively...

National could simply use the question as a fundraising excuse (which is what every crisis should be used as).  Send a survey to the membership in letter form, asking what they thought the dues should be, make the case in the letter as to why they needed to increase (complete with a scanned graphic of the postal rates we were paying USPS from the Domestic Mail Manual of 1991 vs 2006), and *ask* the members to decide - oh, and to vote their preference with a donation for their chosen dues rate.  Then make a recommendation to the convention in the direction the respondents suggest.

If members are treated as adults, they will jump on board when it's needed.

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"Some People Don't Want Anything To Do With National (state, etc)"
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Someone said to me a couple of years ago:


"I know a lot of state LP members consider the national party to be
superfluous and don't feel the need to pay dues/belong to both.  I
don't have any stats on it, but I imagine there are also national
members (like me) who want little or nothing to do with their state
parties for various reasons.  There needs to be a reason why someone
should belong to both, especially if it involves doubling the dues to
do so, or you will have a lot of folks opting to belong to neither."


I've heard variations on this repeated so much that if I had a nickel for each time, I would probably have enough to buy a new car by now.

In my direct experience with selling memberships, it is more likely to be an annoyance for a member to be approached first by national, then by the state LP, then by a local LP, for membership dues.  **ALL THREE** levels of the LP should be offering one catch-all dues rate.  $50 is fine; $75 would be even better.

It all depends on how you approach the issue; or, perhaps, how you "present the sale".

I've been selling memberships in the LP now in a serious way since about 1995.  In 1998 I started counting, and to this day I have about 800 memberships collected as a result of some action of mine (as membership chairman for LPVA, putting membership forms in front of people at Richmond LP meetings, going around the crowd with membership forms at the 2000 Browne election-night party and asking people, etc).  I've used many variations of membership forms, and none of them have a notably different "sale" rate.  The one I use now is a "unified membership" form:

        http://Membership.LPVA.com

In using that form, *almost all* people who sign up select the $50 national & state rate.  Notice on the form that we have an option to make a local donation also.

As mentioned earlier, one way national could offer a "unified membership" plan without any major heartaches is to simply add a "state and local dues option" to membership forms, and make that the most prominent choice (like I do on the LPVA form).  Most state LP's charge $25 or less.  National could simply do what I've done with the Virginia form, and forward the state dues to the states.  Yes, the recipients would have to be FEC filers, but see above.

If this sort of thing is set up, it would be best if national offered this to all state parties as long as the state parties promised to handle the distribution of the local portion themselves (in Virginia we did this quarterly).


References:

http://web.archive.org/web/20050828131152/http://www.libertarianwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=UMP

http://doa.alaska.gov/apoc/Advisory/a09803.html

How to Report Libertarian Party Membership Numbers

There is a lot of disinformation about the Libertarian Party's membership categories floating around the Net.

One of the weirdest periods in LP history was the time in 2006 when a proposal was introduced to place annual dues at "zero".

The truth is the LP has --always-- had a "free" membership category. Since its inception. In 1972.

The "adoption" of "zero dues" in 2006 didn't implement zero dues because it was already in force. "Zero Dues 2006" was a harebrained idea that only changed the formula for delegate apportionment to LP national conventions. In other words, it was all about re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic's butt.

I have some institutional knowledge of the "free" membership category.

I was an employee at LPHQ (1989-1993) when we were still offering "Instant Member" cards in bundles of 100 via the LP literature sales catalog. It was a simple postcard with a tear-off part that you kept, which was a wallet-card sized thing. It said what any membership card would say, had a place for you to sign it, and the back side had the statement of principles.

The part you didn't keep was a standard business-reply post card. The membership statement was there with a place for you to sign it, and of course it had space to enter name, address, and other contact info. Being business reply, it was even free for the signer to mail.

After several years of pushing the "free" memberships, however, the LNC at the time took a look at the effectiveness of marketing the "instant member" category -- and determined that normal prospect lists (ie names gathered at gun shows and college fairs and the like) had a better "conversion" rate than the "Instant" names. As a result, the LNC decided to stop marketing the category.

You could still join as a free member, but other than filing the signature in a portable file box with the signatures of others and noting on the national LP database that the person had signed, free members were not pursued further. As stated, their response rate was extremely low. And LPHQ no longer marketed it as an option.

[As an aside, in 2006, LPHQ staff revealed that their experience was the same in the first months of 2006 under the so-called "zero dues" regime -- free members generally don't ever wind up donating to the Party. I suspect few free members (if any) volunteer, either.]

Throughout the nineties, there were still a few people who took advantage of the ability to recruit free members. I did so (normally only with people I suspected I *personally* would eventually convert into donors). The last "signature only" (ie free) member I recruited and submitted to LPHQ was 2006; in January. By February, I had collected a donation from him.

I have a copy of one of the last national membership reports that now-departed LPHQ staff distributed in April of 2004. These reports counted all the people who had ever signed the LP membership pledge as of the report date.

On the archived report mentioned above, there were 19,276 people who had signed & paid; 69,831 who had signed and paid at one time but who had "lapsed", and 26,294 FREE members. These 26k free members were "lost" by LPHQ:

When Geoff Neale put LPHQ on the new Raiser's Edge database as of 09/14/2004, he failed to retain the signature status of the Non-Contributing members (the 26,294 number). LPHQ still has the names on the database, just no signature flag. I have suggested to current LPHQ staff several times that they fire up the old database and recapture those signature flags, if only to improve accuracy, but they have not done it so far.

In any case, if you take the number Shane Cory reported in 2007 as having signed (105,000) and add the missing 26,294, at that time (2007) there were actually over 131,000 people who have signed the LP's pledge. Every one of them save for the very few who have renounced their pledge, is a "member" -- just not necessarily a "Sustaining" member. Since that report in 2007, doubtless several thousand more have signed the pledge, so I suspect the number of signed members is close to 150,000 now.

The LP uses dues-paying members internally, as it should. The Democrats and Republiboobs don't EVER reveal how many donors they have!

Externally, as with media releases and the like, HQ should report either everyone who ever signed the pledge (the 150,000), OR registered Libertarians. I've actually been trying to get all Libertarians to do this for a long time. It is entirely accurate to state that "150,000 Americans have signed the Libertarian Party's membership pledge", and it sounds a hell of a lot better than "12,000...".

In fact when I was doing a lot of radio interviews, when asked how many LP members there were, my answer was always "there are over a quarter-million registered Libertarians in the dozen-odd states where it is legal to register Libertarian." This got it into the discussion that there were many more Libertarians than could fit into a phone booth -- and at the same time slip into the conversation that registration is discriminatory in many states. It was bait which most of my interviewers managed to catch and bite, giving me an opportunity to discuss our Soviet ballot access laws.

But when talking to my fellow members, I always use the number of "current" donors.

A Teachable Moment for the Republicans

Last Friday afternoon, December 23, 2011, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry were notified that they had not turned in enough valid signatures to qualify their names for Virginia's Republican primary ballot. Predictably, this has caused feathers to fly, complete with threats of lawsuits against Virginia petitioning requirements.

Gentlemen, welcome to the world where adherents of the Libertarian Party, the Greens, or the Constitution Party live: where their exhausting effort and huge expense meets bureaucracy, unending paperwork and needless legal hurdles -- before we are even allowed our place at the starting line.

Virginia’s primary petition requirements were copied from the laws originally written to keep independents and third parties off the ballot. For a century, Democrats and Republicans colluded to establish and tighten ballot-access standards so much that voter choice has become practically nonexistent. This makes it difficult for us in the alternative & independent candidate sector to feel much sympathy for the ‘major’ candidates when their own laws snare them.

One would hope that the Republicans would take this as an educational opportunity. Rick Perry, especially. In 2003, Perry vetoed Texas bill # HB 1274 (which had passed both houses of the legislature unanimously). The measure would have deleted a Texas law that required petition circulators to read a 93-word statement to every voter they approach. The statement, which is still in the Texas law, thanks to Perry’s veto, said:

“I know that the purpose of this petition is to entitle the ___________ Party to have its nominees placed on the ballot in the general election for state and county officers. I have not voted in a primary election or participated in a convention of another party during this voting year, and I understand that I become ineligible to do so by signing this petition. I understand that signing more than one petition to entitle a party to have its nominees placed on the general election ballot in the same election is prohibited.”

Forcing people who wish to petition their government to read such a long statement makes it a lot harder to obtain signatures -- which was the original intent of the requirement. It was designed to make political expression via new parties and alternative candidates harder to engage in.

Perry’s veto indicated he had no interest in fair ballot access in 2003. In the last 60 years, only one other Governor -- besides Perry -- vetoed any bill that would have improved ballot access. Maybe his failure in Virginia will improve his attitude.

Petitioning laws were originally built -- the strictest of them by majority-Democratic legislatures between 1910 and 1970 -- to shut out third parties like the Libertarian Party. The laws did the job, too -- in some states, third parties have not been allowed on the ballot for over half a century, and counting.

Petitioning requirements force new, upstart third parties to exhaust themselves asking several hundred thousand voters to help them qualify for the ballot. Unless those new parties have the money and activist backing of the wealthy and political elite already, just getting on the ballot so they can then present their ideas to voters is an expensive, time-consuming task.

Republicans should be wary of restrictive ballot access. Some states in the past century could have been regarded as one-party Democratic Party oligarchies. Think of Massachusetts, where the Democrats are so dominant that Republicans sometimes are the political ‘afterthought’. Do Republicans really wish to help set up the system that could hamstring them in the future?

Nor should the Democrats, in their glee about the Republicans' difficulties, forget how restrictive ballot laws sometimes snare them as well. For instance, Indiana Democrats were worried enough about getting Obama and Clinton onto the state primary ballot in 2008 that they felt compelled to falsify their petitions.[1]

Democrats and Republicans alike have forgotten that elections are for voters. When voters can't vote for the candidate they wish to vote for, they are being hurt and our political discussion is being disrupted.

Perhaps the Republicans who now control the state legislature should take this as a message that Virginia's restrictive ballot-access laws are overdue for some overhaul.

The Libertarian Party’s position is that primaries are essentially state subsidies for political parties. Therefore, the only real reform needed to the “primary process” is to eliminate government-run primaries altogether, and allow political party members to determine who they wish to represent them during the general election – at their own expense.

Failing that, then reform can be easily accomplished by simply reducing the petition requirement (for all candidates and parties, primary or general) to 1/10th of the current number, rounded up to the next nearest 10. This would reduce statewide petitions to 1,000 signatures for president, governor, US Senate, etc; and congress to 100 signatures; Delegate to 20 signatures.

One of the more disturbing aspects of the reaction to the Republicans’ failure to make the primary ballot is the opinion of some that a candidate doesn't “deserve” to be able to appeal to voters unless they're organized enough to get __________ volunteers to waste several of their weekends collecting signatures. This attitude plays to the power of the media to spoon-feed candidates to the American public, because the candidates the media choose to publicize are the ones who will find all the volunteers they need. So Republicans especially: Do we *really* want the media to decide not only who wins, but even who gets to compete?

I have personally collected thousands of petition signatures for dozens of candidates at different levels. Anyone who thinks requiring thousands of signatures to get on the ballot is compatible with a free society needs to research the history and justifications for these oppressive laws a bit more.

Forcing alternative candidates -- who haven't been given the chance to appear in the modern "public square" that is the media -- to utterly exhaust themselves collecting signatures is a reprehensible practice in a “free” society.

Governments should not have any ability to control ballots at all. Open ballots not printed or controlled by government [2]gave us men like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Compare them -- even with all of their faults -- to the modern crop of corruptocrats.

Making Virginia’s Ballot Laws Better

Reform of Virginia’s ballot access laws should begin with the following:

1. Reduce signature requirements for all offices and all candidates -- Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green, or independent -- by 90 % (rounding to next 10). A statewide candidate petition (Governor, president, etc) would then require 1,000 signatures; a candidate for congress would need to collect 150, a state delegate candidate, 20.
2. Introduce a full-party access petition, 10,000 signatures to place a new party on the general election ballot for two statewide cycles.
3. Eliminate the witnessing requirement for petition signatures.
4. Eliminate the residency requirement for petitioners.
5. Eliminate petition sheets, and move to a postcard petition -- where individual voters would fill out a post card stating they wish a candidate (or party) to be placed on the ballot.
6. Get with the last decade and allow petitions to be ‘signed’ by voters online.

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Marc Montoni serves as the Secretary of the Libertarian Party of Virginia and he is a resident of Rockingham County, VA.

To request more information about Libertarian ideas, call 800-ELECT-US or visit http://www.LP.org

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[1] http://www.southbendtribune.com/news/specialreports/sbt-primary-forgery-20111008,0,3138948.special

[2] http://www.familytreemagazine.com/article/history-of-voting

Private Police The Only Way To Real Reform

A Virginia citizen named Myron Rhodes recently wrote a letter to the editor of the Harrisonburg, VA Daily News-Record, criticizing "administrative forgiveness" extended to an inebriated local police official last year. He correctly equated "professional courtesy" with "corruption". I agree with that assessment.

However, there is absolutely no chance that the solution Mr. Rhodes advocated -- "make a better choice at the ballot box" -- will have any effect whatsoever on the behavior of the law enforcement bureaucracy. Policing in America cannot and will not be reformed in its current configuration.
When Average Joe is accused of a crime, long before trial the police eagerly release his identity and mug shots. This is public shaming and perhaps a stained or ruined life. In contrast, when a member of The Brotherhood perpetrates the exact same act, and the bureaucracy decides it doesn't want to prosecute, it is forever locked away as a "confidential personnel matter". There is a word for this: hypocrisy.

The sort of corruption Mr. Rhodes describes has become almost universal among government police agencies. The "blue wall of silence", treating "their own" as above the law is rapidly turning this country into a third-world laughingstock. While the individuals within the system bear full responsibility for taking advantage of it, it is the system itself that has created the conditions necessary for otherwise upstanding individuals to become corrupt.

Remember, "thou shalt not tempt".

The only real way to reform the police is to get government out of policing and thus remove the corrupting influence of taxpayer funding. Coercive funding always means fat, out-of-control ballooning budgets; and constant bailouts for law enforcement managers who refuse to properly manage their department within its budget. Coercive funding means police "services" are paid for before you receive any good or service. If you refuse - or fail - to use such service, the government takes your money anyway. Even if you are falsely arrested or assaulted by a government cop, you don't get a refund -- and usually nothing ever happens to the offending officer, either.

With all things, money means power, and American police are rapidly becoming the Sheriffs of Nottingham -- enforcing increasingly unsustainable levels of taxation. Of course, like all government employees, confiscatory taxation supports ever-higher pay and pensions for themselves -- the job itself becomes a perverse incentive. Police unions and bureaucracies are increasingly establishing themselves among the nation's largest Taxpayer-Funded Lobbying Organizations; meddling in politics to get laws implemented that their supposed "bosses" -- the taxpayers -- don't want. Witness the recent outlawing of open carry in California -- passed largely at the behest of the police unions and bureaucrats.

Real reform of the culture of corruption can only be achieved by replacing bloated, inefficient government policing with privatized police protection.

What would private policing look like? Some parts of it are already familiar to most people. Anyone who has a Yellow Pages can find private police operating now, under the heading "Security Guard & Patrol Service" or similar. As government police departments are closed, the listings in that category will only expand as competent former officers start their own companies. Locally, Massanutten has a private police force paid for by the residents.

It is a rule that those of us in the private sector must compete to win customers. Bad behavior on the part of employees in a competitive market tends to be weeded out rather quickly. A store that has an employee who frequently yells at customers will lose them to the next store down the block; similarly, if a person subscribes to "police protection company A" and one of its officers treats the subscriber like dirt, well, that subscriber can cancel his subscription and his dollars will then flow towards "police protection company B". But this moderating effect can only happen in a free market.

Private police protection could be provided at the level of individual neighborhoods, where neighbors would contribute to hire police protection that closely serves their needs. Other people might simply purchase better insurance coverage; or perhaps some would rely on neighborhood watch groups.

As long as governments operate police agencies, their monopoly, "you can't go elsewhere" outlook will prevail simply because the need to win over customers just doesn't exist. Law enforcement by bureaucracy will remain stubbornly inefficient, expensive to maintain, and difficult to reform. And "professional courtesy" -- call it "corruption" -- will continue to be an ever-bigger problem.

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The above article was printed by the Daily News-Record on Wednesday, November 9, 2011, as an "Open Forum" article on the editoarial page.

Additional resources on private policing:

1.  Mises Wiki on private policing.

2.  Reason TV interview: Matt Welch of Reason interviews economics professor Edward Stringham about private police.  Hat tip to Frunkus Baldwin.

3.  Fed Ex has its own police force: "Two years ago, after intense lobbying by FedEx of the Tennessee state legislature, the company was permitted to create a 10-man, state-recognized police force. FedEx police wear plain clothes and can investigate all types of crimes, request search warrants and make arrests on FedEx property."

Note that Libertarians would NOT approve of the level of cooperation FedEx gives to law enforcement further up in the cited article.  But even this can be traced to the government's need to know everything about you.

4.  About 80 private cops protect the 50k residents of the 35-building "Co-Op City" residential complex in New York.

Note that Libertarians would NOT approve of people being allowed to walk off their jobs without the employer being able to replace them at-will.  Unless, of course, the employer freelyt agreed to such a condition.

5.  Jarrett B. Wollstein in his article "Police Forces" describes how they might be funded without resorting to coercion.

6.  Patrick Tinsley, writing in Journal of Libertarian Studies 14:1 (Winter 1998–99): 95–100: Private Police: A Note.  Describes the inability of public police to reform, how a free-market in policing might be different.

-- end --

EnviroLibertarian

In the lamestream media today was a lapdog-type article about an alleged "former skeptic" named Richard Muller.

This seems to be another in a long line of breathless media front-page hyping of the warmist agenda; especially as the articles printed in most outlets didn't report on any contrarian views.

By the way, Muller is not a 'skeptic'. Having a couple of questions about the 'facts' his fellow alarmists have put forth does not make an alarmist a skeptic. He has been an alarmist for a long time, and in fact has received a not insubstantial amount lot of money from the government and alarmist NGO's.

I think the science is wholly unsettled and it will have to be studied for a long time at length with real science and accurate data, rather than politicized claims based on corrupted data with less-than-reliable measurements and falsified reporting. Climate will probably need to be studied for a good century or two -- before humans will have acquired sufficient data to be able to accurately predict climate changes due to anthro activity.

There is also the question of what to do about it if science really does eventually prove beyond a reasonable doubt that human activity causes climate change. In essence, "so now what do we do?"

Doing some simple math might help put it all in perspective.

That said, solar power is in my future and I practice recycling to a greater extent than most "greens" I know.

I think practicing enviro "harm reduction" should be done by individuals at the individual level -- rather than at the collective level:

- Have fewer children (of course, the responsible already do; the irresponsible are still having huge families and don't care what they do to the planet as a result)

- Stop buying new Toyotas and Buicks, and bike, walk, or ride the bus. "recycle" an older car by fixing it up and using it until the seats fall through the floor.

- If government is going to force people to reduce their emissions, it is government that should lead the way.

- Grow your own no-till garden, without pesticides or chemical fertilizers.

- Stop using chemicals and pesticides on your lawn. [Our neighbors -- who include a number of Democrats and at least two families who are Green Party supporters -- use them and many have perfect monculture lawns as a result. We don't. I am slowly expanding our tree, bush, and flower plantings to cover more of our yard, so I can stop mowing it. I regard mowing lawns as a very strange habit that we Americans have gotten into due to cheap oil.]

Some of this I do because I find the idea of [essentially] giving my money to 8th century racist, sexist, violently intolerant religious bigots in the Middle East utterly repugnant.

But some of it I do because I really see no point in stripping the planet to the point where it can no longer support the population we have. I recycle because I consider burying perfectly good raw materials in landfills to be a complete waste.

Label me a skeptic of global warming if you wish. But before you throw stones, you'd better clean up that glass house of yours.

• If you DRIVE to an environmental rally, YOU are the problem.

• If you don't recycle, YOU are the problem. Yes, even if your county or city does not offer pick-up recycling, YOU can still recycle -- even counties that don't offer curbside recycling still have recycling units at their landfill; so get yourself a bunch of large garbage bags to store recycling in until it makes sense to take them to the dropoff yourself. Heck, You don't need curbside pickup -- most Targets and Wal-Marts now have a bunch of recycling bins in the front of the store, so you can just combine recycling with shopping. Some of the recycling centers even pay you for your trash!

• If you have a new or new-ish car, even if it's a Prius, YOU are the problem. Buy one of the millions of small cars from the 80's and 90's still out there, and use it until it drops dead beyond all repair.

In the meantime, I remain a skeptic.

In Praise of "Faithless" Electors And Third Parties

The Libertarian Party's first presidential candidate, John Hospers, died at 93 last Sunday in Los Angeles.

Hospers was chairman of the philosophy department at the University of Southern California when he was nominated on June 18th, 1972, to be the new party's presidential candidate. The convention, held in Denver, Colorado, also nominated Theodora "Tonie" Nathan for vice president. Hospers and Nathan were on the ballot in two states and received 3,671 votes. Despite the result, several facts combined to make the campaign absolutely revolutionary:

- Although Hospers did not carry any states, the Libertarians nevertheless received an Electoral College vote. That vote came from right here in the Old Dominion, and it was cast by a man named Roger MacBride of Charlottesville.

- Hospers was the first-ever openly gay candidate for president.

- With MacBride's vote, Hospers also became the first gay presidential candidate to receive an Electoral College vote.

- His running mate, Tonie Nathan, became the first woman ever to have won an Electoral College vote - years before Geraldine Ferraro.

- Lastly, the ideology of the Libertarian Party itself simply had no parallel in any other American political party. The Libertarian platform of 1972 called for (among other things) the repeal of all laws on voluntary sexual relations, drug use, gambling, and attempted suicide; the repeal of all pornography laws; the abolition of the draft; the repeal of the National Labor Relations Act; the elimination of all legal tender laws and a return to a gold standard; the abolition of the Federal Reserve System; the abolition of all government subsidies to business, labor, education, agriculture, science, or the arts; the abolition of all tariffs and quota regulations in foreign trade; the repeal of all compulsory education laws, an end to government operation, regulation, and subsidy of schools, as well as an end to compulsory busing; the abolition of the minimum wage; an end to all corporate and individual welfare; elimination of all foreign aid, and withdrawal and de-funding of the United Nations.

Predictably, MacBride was widely vilified for his Electoral vote. He was labeled a "faithless elector", and worse. However, the Electoral College was intended to be a last check against a manipulative tyrant winning the Presidency. Delaying the one and only meeting of the College for months after the popular vote was a chance for civic-minded citizens appointed by the voters at large to watch, learn, and listen to the winner of the popular vote. If they collectively decided he would be a dangerous, infirm, or poor choice, it was understood they had every right to choose someone else.

In other words, the Electoral College was created to slow down mob rule before handing an intensely powerful position over to a tyrant. MacBride, therefore, was a hero: he was one of the rare electors who took his job seriously. Very late in Nixon's 1972 campaign, it became clear even to many of his ardent supporters that he had seriously abused his power. MacBride acted on that knowledge.

The value of new alternative parties lies in their ability to bring ideas the establishment ignores into the political marketplace. This happened with the birth of the Republican Party in the mid-1800's, with its abolitionist position on slavery. Unfortunately, once abolition was realized, Republicans contrived with Democrats to turn everyone into slaves of the state.

The Libertarian Party formed in an era when the two legacy parties refused to end the draft and the pointless war in Viet Nam, while colluding to debase the currency and strip away cherished rights. Today, Libertarians continue to push for peace and justice; and a Libertarian presidential choice is normally on most state ballots. The political party and the wider movement that Hospers helped bring into being is still a going concern today, 39 years later.

Hospers served as an inspiration for many young people in the seventies, including this author. Although he turned away from the LP and libertarianism altogether and towards interventionism and conservative ideology in his later years, he remained larger than life to many among the libertarian community.

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Using the Language for Fun and Profit

Sometimes, we Libertarians forget that it is often how one presents ideas that is perhaps more important than the ideas themselves. I present the below essay to illustrate a couple of mistakes we make when presenting our points of view on self-defense and private consensual behavior.

Notice I have not used neither the phrase "gun control" nor "illegal drugs". That is because, in my estimation, these phrases give legitimacy to the activities of the Control Crowd.

What do most people think of when they hear the word "control"? What are they thinking when they try to envision the opposite of control? Maybe: Out of control? Aimless? Anarchy? Violence?

Yes! Those, and a bunch of other terms that should make anyone uneasy.

What mental image comes to mind when we hear "illegal drugs" or the other phrases drug warriors use, like "crack babies", "drug addict", "pushers", "narco-terrorist", and "dope"? Do you think such images would be positive?

What I am here to suggest -- emphatically -- is for all libertarians to consider more carefully what we are really doing when we use establishment terms in support of our positions.

When discussing drugs, what term might be used to cast a negative image on drug law instead of drug users and dealers?

“Prohibition”.

The average American knows Alcohol Prohibition was a dismal failure. I don't think you'll find many Americans supportive of the idea of making alcohol illegal again.

So use that word, instead. Any time you speak of the government's war on private consensual behavior, be it recreational substances, contractual sex, private or non-state-lottery wagering, or the employment of weapons for self-defense, speak of these things in terms of Prohibition.

Tie it to Alcohol Prohibition immediately, without even mentioning the word "alcohol"!

Your audience's first reaction upon hearing the word should be visions of the mayhem caused by that law. This forces them to quickly quell their own internal argument about prohibition; then, they must then come up with arguments to defend continuing Prohibition -- instead of attacking legalization.

Never ask, "should we legalize drugs?"

Instead, ask "should Prohibition be repealed?" Or "Why should Prohibition be continued?"

Doing so immediately shifts the burden of the debate from our court to "theirs".

I am sure other terms could be used effectively, also. But in no case should we lend our opponents the advantage by using the terms they have chosen!

Purely as an example of this tactic in action, think of the abiortion debate. Do people who favor keeping abortion legal call themselves "pro-abortion", which carries the stigma of the actual abortion; or do they call themselves "pro-choice"? Isn't it harder to explain why an individual's "choices" should be taken away? Likewise, people who favor outlawing abortion call themselves Pro-Life, for similar reasons, instead of “anti-abortion”, or “anti-choice”. No one likes to be an "anti" anything, the word itself is negative. On the other hand, who can justify being against life?

Gun control is not gun control. It is "victim disarmament", or even "gun Prohibition."

Don't legitimize the language of tyrants. Use proper English and use it to your advantage.

Listen to the following sentence carefully:

"And now, since I favor allowing others to speak, I will return to my seat." Some of you might notice that sentence contains no negative sounding phrases like "in closing".

Remember: use that language FOR what you believe in, not against what they believe in!

The "Step In, Justify, and Kill" Procedure

Anyone who has ever watched "Cops" will have witnessed car-chase scenes where a suspect almost hurts a police officer, with a predictable police response of immediate deadly force. The first few times a casual viewer sees one of these sequences, he would probably think the force was justified. However, after dozens upon dozens of these events, it becomes clear that the escalation to deadly force is part of a predetermined pattern:

1. A "perp" is trying to get away from police in a car.
2. He aims to escape via escape route "A".
3. A cop walks calmly into the line of Route "A", placing himself in "harms way" just as the car begins or already is moving.
4. The car, as it is already moving in his direction, and regardless of whether the perp attempts to steer around or away from the cop, is now "evidence" that the cop's life is in danger.
5. The cop, "justified" by his own stepping in front of an object with intertia, SHOOTS -- often emptying his clip into the "perp".
6. Perp dies, back-slapping all around, everyone goes home a hero.

This is what I call the "Step In, Justify, and Kill Procedure". (SIJK).

Watch a "Cops" episode -- you'll be able to pick it out sooner or later. The SIJK procedure is invoked any time a person is *perceived* as attempting to elude police. Very simply, one or more of the police officers will carefully maneuver into a position that will put him (or them) directly in the path of a suspect's already-moving vehicle. This then gives them 'cover' -- the presumption that they now are in a situation where they must act in self defense; they were "in fear of life or limb".

Once an officer is in position, the suspect is immediately shot in a hail of gunfire. It's always a hail, too -- never just a shot or two. Can't have the case go to court, after all.

After seeing this in action multiple times in multiple jurisdictions, it becomes obvious that government police bureaucracies are actively training officers how to do it and get away with it. Think about it: A generation of officers has been trained to manipulate suspects into a position where they can be given an immediate death sentence.

According to a whole bunch of non-government employed witnesses, it has apparently happened again -- with yet another young life ended prematurely and for no apparent reason. The money line:

"An officer then 'ran in front of the car, weapon drawn, and started firing within seconds...'"

Read more about this tragedy here.

UPDATE 2012-01-02: Private security guards don't kill their suspects in a hail of gunfire. They simply step away and catch the guy later. Privatizing government police forced is the only way to abolish the SIJK practice -- at least then they will be subject to the same liability as company actors in any other company.

Assassin Kills 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, Five Others

Here we go again.

So a lone nutcase shoots several individuals in Arizona, and the media -- within minutes of the shooting -- begin parroting the "it's all the fault of the Tea Party, gun nuts, Libertarians, conservatives..." line. Yadda, yadda, yadda... Haven't we heard this story before?

It's no wonder the lamestream media is losing eyeballs in droves. Increasing numbers of Americans are aware of the fraud and manipulation the government and its media lapdog engages in, which is why most people now get their news from the Internet. Of course, that can't be allowed to continue: predictably, it is the left (and the government) that wants the Internet regulated.

Think about it. The left's mantra for years has been that thousands of terrorists killing thousands of innocents in the name of Islam has nothing to do with Islam. Yet one loon -- who we know nothing about -- attempts to kill a Democrat Congresswoman, and somehow we're supposed to immediately agree the blame lies with adherents of the Tea Party?

Politically-motivated shooting rampages like this needn't happen at all. Were government small and irrelevant enough that no one really cared about politicians and other government bureaucrats, those politicians and bureaucrats would be very safe. In essence, power-hungry fat-government wannabes creat a self-fulfilling AND self sustaining prophecy: create a crisis that provokes unrest, knowing full well that some statistically insignificant remnant will regard that crisis as the "last straw" and go nuts. Then, use the results of whatever mayhem the statistically insignificant extremist has managed to do, to further your government-fattening, victim disarming, Constitution-busting, power-grabbing childish agenda.

Six people were killed. But it was interesting to note that as of 6:00 p.m. Saturday evening, January 8, 2011, out of 1,800 Google News search results for news of the shootings, almost none of the news stories mentioned the name of the little girl who was killed, much less said anything about her ended-too-soon, innocent life. Nor have the names of four of the other five citizens killed. The only dead victim named in the stories was another government employee -- a federal judge.

The victims the media forgot are:

-Gabriel Zimmerman, 30, Giffords' director of community outreach

-Dorwin Stoddard, 76, a pastor at Mountain Ave. Church of Christ.

-Christina Greene, 9, a student at Mesa Verde Elementary

-Dorthy Murray, 76

-Phyllis Scheck, 79

To the left, life is only important if that life is that of the nobles of government.

To hell with us Mundanes.

Can War Ever Be Justifiable?

A recent article by EJ Dionne noted the upcoming 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, and it urged the widespread adoption of the leftist view of that war: that it was all about slavery. Unfortunately, the article ignores the fact that, as in all things politic, "it ain't so simple".

There is no such thing as a "good war".

Ever.

The desire to go to war is all about one thing, and one thing only: Money. The slavery issue was just a way for Lincoln to make war into a “moral imperative”. In our time, “terrorism” is similarly used to justify government aggression.

Conquest is little more than a means for the elites -- who profit from the endless financial rape of mass numbers of people -- to either gain or retain "tax territory".

Tax territory simply translates into "wealth" -- money. Control more territory, and you control more people and the wealth they create. The more tax territory a government seizes, the more powerful an army and spoils system it can support. A powerful army makes possible further conquests of additional tax territory. Of course, if anything comes along that threatens a government's tax territory, expect a brutal response.

Which brings us back to the Civil War.

To believe the North's fight was motivated by an altruistic purpose, such as abolishing slavery, is to believe in fairy tales and Santa Claus. It, like every other fight in history, was about tax territory. The United States government didn't want to lose a large chunk of its tax territory, and so a fight was inevitable when the southern states decided they didn't want to continue being the cash cow for the Northern-dominated congress and its decades-long transfer of billions in southern wealth to the North.

Had Lincoln allowed the South to secede, slavery as an institution would have collapsed on its own. Besides the fact that it had become a huge political liability, there were pricey related expenses (enforcement, social, uprisings, mistreatment) which were rapidly overtaking any profitability. One can look at modern examples of subsidized industries that collapsed even after decades of government protection and subsidization -- steel, autos, textiles, etc.

The Fugitive Slave Act was in effect a direct subsidy to slaveowners at the expense of federal taxpayers. It worked to an extent, socializing the costs of capturing runaway slaves. But even with it, slaves still escaped. Had individual owners been required to pay their own enforcement costs for chasing down runaways, the entire institution would have collapsed before the War. Fugitive slave laws were subsidies that skewed the actual costs of the chattel slavery system, thereby helping it compete in the market against free labor.

Economic reality would have caught up with slavery in very short order under an independent south. Private slavery was subsidized by the public treasury and in that respect it functioned only as well as any other implementation of socialism: it externalized the costs of its activities on others. But eventually, all socialized industries collapse on their own.

"Two wrongs don't make a right". The principle applies to governments as much as it applies to children on a playground. While the slaves were freed from private owners as a result of the Civil War, the entire population of the country became enslaved to overbearing government bureaucracy that intruded into daily life with surveillance, subsidies, taxes, the draft, speech prohibitions, and regulation. That government has only continued to grow to the point where it now steals half of all wealth individuals create every year. Americans to this day are enslaved to the colossus that emerged from the Civil War.

Can one justify freeing slaves by enslaving free men? Can altruistic motives be ascribed to northern politicians who dragged 168,649 young men off the streets to fight for the freedom of others? Lincoln’s draft caused the death of about a fifth of them. One must not deny the fundamental injustice done to those young men. An instructive read on this subject is Jeffrey Rogers Hummel’s 'Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men'.

Can one justify freeing slaves at the price of subjecting non-slave-owning women and children to rape and murder? Unleash an army and rape and plunder will always travel with it. The Civil War was no exception. In her treatise “Rape in the American Civil War: Race, Class, and Gender in the Case of Harriet McKinley and Perry Pierson”, Maureen Stutzman found few rapes (335) prosecuted by the Union army. Most of the recorded instances were limited to 1863 and 1864 . One wonders why there were no rape prosecutions recorded earlier in the war, or in 1865. Lack of records does not equate to a lack of rapes. Southern legal records were often destroyed – so civilian reports of rapes and other crimes by invading troops are hard to come by. In addition, in an environment of subjugation of the southern citizenry, there was considerable reluctance to report rapes committed by conquering troops.

Can one justify freeing slaves at the price of slaughtering non-slaveowners? Various estimates suggest over 50,000 southern civilians were killed as ‘collateral damage’ due to the indiscriminate shelling of towns and cities – many of which were occupied mostly by women and children.

Slavery could have been ended the same way it was done within the limits of Washington, D.C., as well as in many other places in the world, and without bloodshed: simply by compensating slaveowners for the change in national rules. But apparently, that was too much to ask of the northern states, which had been transferring southern riches in a northerly direction since 1783.

Another bloodless alternative could have been simply an official declaration of an end to all enforcement of fugitive slave laws. The resulting uncontrollable exodus of slaves would also have brought collapse.

The slavery issue was a great propaganda tool for Lincoln – a white supremacist and separatist who cared little for the black race. John Wilkes Booth’ bullet elevated the man into a myth; otherwise Lincoln’s blathering about shipping blacks back to Africa would have ruined his legacy.

Lincoln, in his first year of office, rapidly implemented an unreconstructed Whig agenda of a centralized sultanate of government meddling and subsidization of the railroads, tripled protectionist tariffs, and federalization (and debasement) of the money supply.

A few years ago, liberals were criticizing George Bush for imprisoning people without charges, access to counsel, the right to confront accusers, or even a trial. Of course, now that Obama is doing the same thing, they are silent – but the point is that it was Abraham Lincoln who showed Bush & Obama that a president can get away with it.

Far from encouraging peace and compromise, Lincoln’s actions fanned embers into flames.

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

Addditional reading:

Are you aware of the extent to which free blacks held slaves?  Then check out "Did Black People Own Slaves?" by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.


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The $1,000 Challenge

So, you're a Libertarian Candidate, and you want a big donation from me. Sure! I have $1,000 burning a hole in my pocket. You can claim it -- all of it.

But it isn't "free". You'll need to have some ducks in a row. Here are my requirements:

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1) You must have a written campaign platform with no substantial deviations from the LP platform or with Libertarian principles. If you're in favor of any new tax, or some form of gun control, or interfering with people trying to move from one place to another, or interfering with the right of association, or more government enforcement related to this or that victimless 'crime', well, I can donate to a bunch of Democrats and Republicans if those things interested me. Libertarianism is about *abolitionism*.

2) You should have a reasonably detailed campaign plan. I will want a copy. While each campaign should have some flexibility in the specifics discussed in its submission, I would expect to see the following information:

(a) A statement specifying the personal financial commitment you will make to your campaign.

(b) A description of the manpower resources committed to the campaign. In particular, the description should included a list of key campaign personnel, along with brief descriptions of their previous campaign experience.

- (i) I am not disposed to provide resources to any campaign that does not have both a campaign manager and a treasurer who knows something about campaign finance reporting requirements.

- (ii) The candidate should serve neither as his own campaign manager nor as his own treasurer, except in unusual circumstances.

(c) A biography of the candidate.

(d) Assessment of whether there is a reasonable chance the candidate will not be able to complete the campaign. (For example, if the candidate has been informed of a possible change in job status, such as being transferred to a different state, this should be disclosed.)

(e) A description of anticipated fundraising sources and activities, along with information about pledges from prospective donors. (As in Item 3 above, information about prospective donors will be treated with discretion. To the extent that such information is included in LPVa or local party files, it may be appropriate to redact names from such reports.)

(f) A description of campaign strategy (e.g., what issues will the campaign emphasize) and a proposed timeline for campaign activities. This description should include information such as anticipated number of votes needed to win, as well as a basic analysis of the voting patterns of the district. (For example, assuming previous data exist, what percentage of voters in the district vote Democrat, vote Republican, vote Libertarian, etc.)

(e) A description of campaign goals and performance metrics. (For example, if the candidate considers winning the election to be unlikely, what are the alternative goals of the campaign? Obtaining at least X number of votes? Causing the incumbent to be defeated? Winning the candidate's home precinct?) Personally, my preference is that all candidates use their races as an opportunity to finding and recruiting the libertarians who are already out there into becoming members, supporters, and -- candidates for next year.

Be realistic. Candidates who overblow their case and generally have absolutely unrealistic expectations aren't going to get *my* money. So many times, I've listened to LP candidates who swear that theirs is a winnable campaign. The fact that they are out-funded and out-volunteered by a factor of 5, 50, or 500 to 1 doesn't seem to faze them. If you think you're going to win, you better have some solid polling results that agree with you.

3) You must have at least the basics assembled of a campaign: a) a website that gives some sort of candidate/campaign overview as well as several high-resolution, media-quality photographs ready for download by media outlets; 2) a basic campaign flyer and yard sign, both with complementary designs to project a consistent image; and items associated with the campaign plan (for instance, if you have a treasurer, you should already have a bank account in the name of the campaign.

4) You must have reasonable credit history. Repeated personal bankruptcies, well... if you can't stay within budget, you should be a Republican or Democrat.

5) You must have a clean criminal history. I may make an exception for victimless crime convictions, but expect full disclosure.

6) You must have a reasonably clean driving record. If you've had three DUI's and been at-fault in more than one or two accidents, well, cowboy, it's time to get yourself a bicycle.

7) You must have a clean civil history. If you have made your fortune like John Edwards did, by filing lawsuits against innocents, well, you're not my candidate. Conversely, if you've been sued six or seven times, sounds to me like you need to find a safer line of work.

8) There must be a disclosure statement, concerning any potentially embarrassing or controversial aspects of the your background. This statement should include all information in items 4, 5, 6, and 7 above; and you must make it available for review by the members who attend your district nominating meeting, as well as the city or county committee and the State Central Committee, PRIOR TO any approval by any of these committees. The state and local party committees will treat these disclosures with discretion; such statements should not be available for public scrutiny.

9) You must have already been certified as "on the ballot".

10) You must have been formally endorsed/nominated as the official LP candidate during a meeting of the members WHO RESIDE WITHIN YOUR ELECTION DISTRICT; *and* you must also be formally approved by the county or city Libertarian committee in which you live. No exceptions. This is how the major-party candidates are nominated, and we can do the same thing.

10) All of the required financial reports must be up-to-date. I'll want copies.

11) "Open Secrets" -- Campaign finance reports should be accessible online on your campaign website; or if it can be linked to VaPAP or the SBOE website, that's fine as long as there is a prominent, non-hidden menu link to that page on your site.

12) You must openly identify yourself as a Libertarian candidate in all campaign appearances, on your literature, on your website, in your media releases, and the like. I will not donate to anyone who has a history of being involved in the Republican Liberty Caucus, the Democratic Freedom Caucus, or who accepts the endorsement of any other political party. Call it being a partisan hack all you want, but I do not intend to give anyone money for sending a mixed message about the abolitionist basis of the libertarian philosophy and the political party that represents it.

13) You must *demonstrate* a thorough understanding of the necessity of recruiting new members into the LP; which means:

- submit all campaign contacts to the LP for followup on a timely basis -- preferably daily

- providing PROMINENT and EASY access to visitors to the campaign website to ask for more information about the LP

14) You must provide some evidence that you have done some serious fundraising already, on your own. I've been in the LP since 1980, and for all of that 30 years, I've observed LP candidates enter races that typically cost a winning winning candidates, oh, say $50,000 -- and then watched them give all sorts of reasons why the LP or LP members should give them thousands of dollars, even though he hasn't even raised a few hundred from friends and family.

It's fairly easy to raise at least a few thousand dollars just from friends and business associates. See:

http://lpva.com/Archives/Tips/s99/fr-quick.html

Additional campaign and party-building tips are available:

http://lpva.com/Archives/Tips/s99/

"Serious funds" means seriousness about winning the election. The LP candidate seeking election should work towards funding superiority. He should raise and spend as much or more than the COLLECTIVE opposition. Yes, that means if you're in a 3-way race, your fundraising must exceed the funds available to BOTH of your opponents. We're the only guys advocating freedom -- the other guys are BOTH advertising socialism. Unless you have enough dosh that you can drown *them* out, you're not going to win. Fundraising should be at the heart of any serious campaign. If you don't raise money, you can't advertise. If you don't advertise, you aren't going to get elected.

If you can't raise enough to give the majors a serious run for their money, then you're running for the wrong office. Try running for County Board of Supervisors, or Town Council, instead.

However, if you want to stay in the race you're in, and you are not going to win, then it had better be a campaign that directs all efforts to signing up more LP members to build the cadre for next year.

15) You must have demonstrated some ability to find volunteers for your campaign. This is almost as important as fundraising. The majors send their volunteers out to knock on doors for them, to manage their campaigns' "back office", and so on.

16) You must provide in a timely manner a reasonably detailed post-election report to all of your donors, to the LPVA State Central Committee, and to your local endorsing committee.

17) Not a formal requirement for my $1,000, but I'd appreciate provide copies of campaign material (e.g., signs, posters, flyers, bumperstickers, fundraising letters, etc.) and news coverage (e.g., newspaper clippings, video and audiotapes of media interviews) for LPVa archival purposes.

18) If you accept money from me, but you decide to withdraw from your race for any reason other than a medical condition or involuntary transfer by your employer, you shall refund my donation(s) first, before any loans are paid and before any other donors are reimbursed. In the event you have no campaign funds left, you must shall reimburse me and other donors using your own personal funds.

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That's my checklist. It's not short, and there are hoops to jump through. But there is $1,000 waiting at the end of the hoops. And, not a single one of my requirements is any less than a major-party candidate would be required to do for them. This is common-sense, party-building stuff.

To make your case, write me at Freedom (/at/) LPVA.com (Remove the obvious spamtrap elements).






Here are a few resources you might find useful:

Campaign Planning Manual from the Libertarian Party of Indiana

Political Resource Library, from PoliticalResources.com

Litigious Americans Eyeball Toyota Loot

You know, there is only one endemic flaw to modern automotive brakes: you have to push the brake pedal down for them to work. But I digress.

Have you noticed that the reports of out-of-control Toyotas have mostly stopped? Perhaps the main reason is that the highest profile cases are all well-known now as simply pure unmitigated lies. The public has now become inured to the fact that most of these "Sudden Unintended Acceleration" stories are blown fabrications bloviated into existence by the lamestream media, rich lawyers, greedy would-be plaintiffs, "victims" who want to be absolved of their responsibility for pushing on the wrong pedal, and government bureaucrats aiming to increase their regulatory penetration of the automotive industry and to make the waters more hospitable for Government Motors (GM).

Cases in point:

- Lawsuit-lotto hopeful James Sikes of California, who went on the televised 25-mile joy ride

- Gloria Rosel, the house keeper who drove the Prius into a wall in New York

- Myrna Marseille swore she was standing on the brake pedal of her 2009 Toyota Camry when it crashed into the Sheboygan Falls YMCA on March 29

All of the above were found to be 'driver error' (although Sikes' was in reality just a hoax).

Since then, reports have tailed off and almost stopped. Was it magic that stopped the daily out-of-control Toyotas, or was it the fact that government police have -- mostly -- finally admitted the real cause (driver error) of these crashes? Did it have anything to do with the corrollary that, as a result, potential 'victims' hoping to get off scot free with a chance at a lawsuit lotto win began to understand the party was over? My guess is it wasn't magic.

Hmmmm... it is annoying to see it took government cops almost a year longer than it took skeptics to figure out the truth.

A stuck pedal does not drive you into the wall while the "victim" was 'pushing the brake pedal to the floor'. Neither does a stuck floor mat. A foot stuck on the long skinny pedal does though.

I have owned many powerful and fast cars in my lifetime, but not a single one of them can accelerate when the brakes are firmly applied. Owners of older muscle cars can attest to this: pressing on the brakes to lock up the front wheels while flooring the accelerator is a 'powerbrake'. It's how we hot rodders raise clouds of rubber-and-asphalt smoke when showing off (doing "burnouts").

The brakes on a Prius are *better* than those on those old muscle cars, and their little motors are lucky to put out about a third of the power.

Brakes against the motor? Don't make me laugh. The brakes will win every time.

And yes, it works when the cars is already at speed, also. If your accelerator really is stuck, you are in danger only until you realize it is -- a realization that should set in within three or so seconds with a *good* driver. It is a truly rare event that a stuck pedal -- like a really stuck pedal, not someone mashing the wrong pedal -- causes a crash that otherwise would not have happened. These crashes usually happen within 3 seconds of the pedal getting stuck, before a driver recognizes the problem.

The brakes will haul down that same muscle car from 80 with the gas pedal floored with little trouble.

Sudden Unintended Acceleration is a hoax now as much as it was with the Audi twenty years ago. The government agencies that are "investigating" these accidents aren't helping anyone and in fact are impeding the market's ability to "cure" itself. Abolish the NHTSA, abolish all the other federal regulatory bodies that meddle in the automotive business, move liability torts into private arbitration and mediation services, and let the market work as it should.

Sudden, Unintended Acceleration: Remember, if you heard it from the lamestream media, it's probably false.

2011-02-18 UPDATE: Another good article I discovered recently on this topic is the one by John Cook over at Gawker.com.

2013-12-06 UPDATE:  As of December 6, 2013, Toyota has settled a lawsuit with one of the hundreds of plaintiffs that filed suits in response to the scam that began in 2009; and it is looking to settle several hundred more very soon.  So people are getting rich from this media-driven scam.

Here are a few articles that support the idea that "sudden unintended acceleration" is a scam and a hoax.

The Problem is the Driver, not the Pedal:

Outside the world of trial lawyers, Democratic congressmen, and their ilk, anyone who's looked at the problem knows that the vast majority of cases of sudden unintended acceleration are the fault of the driver applying the gas pedal when s/he thinks s/he's pressing the brakes. Efforts to prove otherwise have proven to be frauds or failures. Remember the rigged 60 Minutes hatchet job on Audi back in 1989? There was no sudden unintended acceleration problem. But there was pure unadulterated journalistic fraud for which 60 Minutes brought in a trial lawyer's expert witness to provide technical assistance. "The NHTSA's official view, detailed in a 454-page 1989 report, is that the vast majority of sudden acceleration incidents in which no vehicle malfunction is present are caused by drivers mistaking the gas pedal for the brake." (WSJ)

The news media, the trial lawyers, and the [sic] Congressional allies peddle the electronic gremlin story by focusing on Toyota. But there are reports of sudden unintended acceleration about virtually every model of virtually every manufacturer. What do all those cars have in common? Drivers.

Indeed.  In addition, one of Professor Stephen Bainbridge's commenters, "Bosco", on the above article touched on one of my pet peeves: the disappearance of manual transmissions and clutches:

With a manual transmission and a clutch pedal, there is an instant solution to "runaway acceleration", just depress the clutch pedal and instantly disengage the drivetrain.

And Bob Dobalena boiled the solution down to its essence:   

If you are pressing down as hard as you can on the brake and your car continues to accelerate out of control, then take you foot off the brake and put it on the pedal immediately to the left of the brake. 

In another article, "Unintended Acceleration and Other Embedded Software Bugs", Michael Barr reviewed an NHTSA study of Toyota "black boxes":

After reviewing driver and other witness statements and examining said black box data, NHTSA concluded that 39 of these 52 events were explainable as “pedal misapplications.” That’s a very nice way of saying that whenever the driver reported “stepping on the brake” he or she had pressed the accelerator pedal by mistake. Figure 5 of a supplemental report describing these facts portrays an increasing likelihood of such incidents with driver age vs. the bell curve of Camry ownership by age.

And if you are a car person, you will appreciate the hilarious comments following this Jalopnik article, "The Mechanics of ABC News' Unintended Toyota Acceleration Hoax".

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The real problem here is that without even going to court, Toyota has already lost the case.  Even if every case goes to trial and Toyota wins every one, it has already lost.  Winning the cases will still cost Toyota billions of dollars -- billions of dollars that will go to the trial lawyer industry -- both those representing Toyota and those representing the plaintiffs.

These racketeering lawyers -- and yes, some of Toyota's lawyers will be among them -- will then take their fresh billions and wine and dine their lawyer cohorts in state and federal legislatures to get them to write more laws with which they can loot more and more companies.

Eliminate the "lawyer tax" on manufacturing and product/service delivery, and prices on all goods and services would fall by a third or more.

Repeal Drug Prohibition

You know, the Libertarian positions on Drug Prohibition and immigration were the two issues that stymied me for a while; so I fully understand the hesitation some have with the libertarian position on these issues.

Over time, I realized that Drug Prohibition has been the single largest cause of the loss of liberty in general and the most serious factor undermining the protections enshrined in the Bill of Rights specifically. Alcohol Prohibition had the same effect while it was in force, too.

Drug Prohibition is unconstitutional; despite the inability of the Supreme Court to say so. We can't help it if law graduates don't know how to read. In any case, there was never any Amendment authorizing the federal government to regulate, much less prohibit, the recreational use of any substance.

Libertarians understand that there are costs to the individual, and to society, of drug use. No rational Libertarian advocates the abuse of any drug. That said, we believe Drug Prohibition is a "cure" that is far worse than the disease.

One of the many concerns about our position on Drug Prohibition, is that if Prohibition is repealed, there would be a massive spike in the number of users. I tend to agree, but my personal theory is that this effect will most likely be due to congressmen, state legislators, and cops all heading en masse to their local drug store -- with teenage pages and interns in tow -- as soon as Prohibition officially ends. Don't expect any of these people to show up for work the first couple of weeks after Repeal.

In all seriousness, if you examine the trend in prohibited markets, it is always towards harder, more potent varieties of whatever the substance is. The history of Alcohol Prohibition showed this phenom very clearly: as Prohibition started, traffickers brought in anything people wanted. Over time, however, they began to gravitate towards ever-more potent hooch and other hard liquors; and of course always there was the danger of adulterated product.

After Repeal, years of persistent education pointing out the dangers of too much alcohol has led to wine coolers, non-alcoholic beers, and otherwise less and less potent varieties of social beverages.

Likewise, with Drug Prohibition, the trend has been to ever-more potent varieties of drugs, a constant search for better "delivery devices", and again adulterated product. With repeal, besides bringing street disputes (which currently end in bloodbaths) into the court system for resolution, the trend will be towards unadulterated and increasingly safe products.

In addition, keep in mind that Repeal advocates do not suggest that drug users should be permitted to operate motor vehicles irresponsibly. Everyone, even drug users in an environment without Prohibition, should still be held 100% responsible for their actions.

The side effect of Prohibition that does the most damage is that trade in illegal drugs finances terror around the world. The enemies of the United States routinely use drug trafficking to finance operations against US soldiers, civilians, and other targets (look at the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, not to mention the narcodollars propping up communist thieves Morales & Chavez in South America. We absolutely *must* remove this funding source from these crooks' toolkit. Continuing to ratchet up the drug war will do the opposite -- it will keep them in business.

Time to Lift the Freon Ban

The ban on dichlorodifluoromethane, the generic name for DuPont's "Freon", was based on junk science. DuPont funded a large fraction of the agitation against Freon in 1989-1990, because it had already developed alternatives to Freon and its original patent ont he product was approaching expiration.

DuPont has a log history of getting into bed with the government to give itself a de facto monopoly on any given market. For instance, DuPont funded the agitation to prohibit hemp products in the 30's -- an activity coincident with the company's development of rayon and other patented products in the same decade.

The media spoon-fed it to us all, just like all the other chemo-scares. Apocalypse remains in high demand -- fear-mongering sells newspapers and glues eyeballs to the screen. Here's a short list of hazards overblown by the media, way beyond the bounds of sound science: PCBs, DDT, dioxin, Alar, smoking, breast implants, irradiated foods, nuclear power, high-voltage lines, radon, acid rain, pesticides, herbicides, asbestos, ozone depletion, global warming, species extinction, deforestation and overgrazing, among others. Some were later shown to be complete lies, others remain controversial.

If you heard it from the lamestream media, it's probably false.

Abolish Licensure, Prohibition, Checkpoints and Chases

I had to shake my head in sadness and anger at the front-page headline and article, "Police Chase Tragedy". Of course Darryl Harris bears primary responsibility for Mr. Taylor's death. Harris will have to live with his actions for the rest of his life.

But as a Libertarian, I cannot overlook the role government had in creating the conditions that caused Harris to run. Until Harris began endangering others with his driving, all of his actions -- from his suspended license, to the marijuana + gun possession, even to departing from the checkpoint -- were victimless crimes. Unfortunately, in our society, the *discovery* of victimless crimes result in a ruined life -- and it was fear of being discovered that made Harris run.

So let's examine the state's role in Taylor's loss.

First, there's government licensure. Harris' license was apparently suspended. That's a victimless crime.

Travel is a right, not a "privilege", as the 'authorities' continually claim. A license is a 'grant of privilege'; and thus cannot coexist with something that is a right, free and open to all, such as the right of the citizen to ride and drive over the streets of the city without charge, and without toll, provided he does so in a reasonable manner. I agree with the Supreme Court of Illinois, which, in the twenties, stated that while a government can legitimately regulate commercial activities, "no reason exists why [licensing] should apply to the owners of private vehicles used for their own individual use exclusively, in their own business, or for their own pleasure, as a means of locomotion."

Licensure would not be an issue if the government would simply get out of the business of building and owning roads. Some of our major roads in the area today, such as Brook Road, were originally developed in the 1800's by the private sector. Were our roads privately held, individuals who refuse to use them wisely would then be committing the real crime of criminal trespass.

Then there are those "stop and confess" parties that the police call "checkpoints". Checkpoints are unconstitutional and un-American. They belong in third-world dictatorships - not in a nation that thinks of itself as "the land of the free". Yes, the Supreme Court has 'deemed' checkpoints to be constitutional, but that's because we have too many lawyers who make it to the federal bench who can't read plain English. Check out the Fourth Amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

"Effects" simply means "property"; and your car is property. Police searches of you or your property are unconstitutional unless they have a warrant based on sworn evidence. During a police checkpoint, police routinely demand your papers, they reach into your vehicle with electronic surveillance devices hidden in their flashlights (Google the "preliminary alcohol sensory device"), among other activities. No one should be forced to comply with a checkpoint. They are clearly unconstitutional, and no matter what kind of lipstick and hair spray the Supremes put on them, they will remain unconstitutional.

In the end, however, the events that led to Taylor's death can be laid at the feet of Drug Prohibition.

Prohibition itself is a constitutional and moral abomination. It has ruined tens of millions of lives and has cost hundreds of thousands of other lives -- millions, if you count a half-century of war, terror and aggression by global narcotics-funded religious and ideological extremist movements, along with decades of drug-related violent crime. Prohibition's toxic stew includes an aggressive and arrogant drug warrior law enforcement culture that by itself has killed and maimed tens of thousands of innocents in "collateral damage". And worse, drug warriors largely don't care about the damage their war causes.

Repeal Prohibition, end the "papers, please" roadblocks, and call an immediate end to all chases except where the suspect is known to pose an immediate violent threat to others. The cost of doing otherwise is simply too high, and no spin by the Henrico PD or its 'defenders' can change that fact.

Concerned citizens across America have repeatedly warned police bureaucracies that chases are too dangerous and result in innocent deaths, to no avail. Henrico PD's statement that the chase "complied with written guidelines" is insulting and meaningless. Most people who study American policing are aware that police bureaucracies' statements that an action "followed policy" is simply code-phrasing, acknowledging "yeah, we messed up, but we're not going to do anything about it, and neither are you."

Had a private individual conducted a similar chase that ended in disaster, that person would end up facing jail time. For instance, if a security guard attempted to arrest someone at the entrance of his private, gated neighborhood, and that individual then fled with the security guard in pursuit and crashed into a park bench of children, the government police would then quickly and gleefully arrest the guard for contributing to the slaughter.

No cowboy logic justifies high-speed chases. They are stupid and dangerous in the best of conditions. They should be banned except in cases of violent individuals who present an immediate threat to additional potential victims.

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Marc Montoni is a Libertarian and a technician who resides in Henrico County. To request more information about Libertarian ideas, email or visit http://www.LP.org

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