The Search for Brave Candidates While many people in the party were thrilled about having a by Amber Jewell candidate like Jo Jorgensen, many others were extremely disappointed. They believed her to be a cookie cutter Libertarians often candidate, put into place as a safe option – and several ridicule those who believed that she wasn’t even the best option with which to support the two-party play it safe. On the flip side, her running mate Spike Cohen system. They strongly was seen as a force to be reckoned with. His presence showed oppose the idea of a certain amount of strength through his passion and choosing “the lesser of communication that made him a great candidate. two evils” and use the oppositional argument As a third party, Libertarians have to work harder than the old against everyone who parties in order to be taken seriously. This has created a claims that a binary challenge in choosing candidates. Many candidates want to be choice is the only way. seen as boisterous so that they can draw attention to the LP in For example, in this past an effort to bring in more members. Others may only want to election, most people be “paper candidates,” not actively involved in campaigning, seemed to despise the just to get names on ballots. But choosing a serious candidate choices of Donald that does not reflect that same boring tactics as the Trump and Joe Biden; so, Libertarians tried vehemently to Republicans and Democrats can be tough. remind others that there are other options.
What if, though, the Libertarian Party had a bad habit of doing the same thing?
There is a middle ground, though. We need to find serious candidates who know how to make their voices heard. We need people to run for office who are loud and proud, but are not here to make a mockery of our party. We need people who are willing to stand out, willing to be judged, and willing to stand by their convictions – without making their campaign laughable.
The Libertarian Party needs more people willing to run for offices, from local all the way to federal. We need our voices heard and the only way to do that is to get in front of people. If you are thinking about running for office, consider making yourself a candidate that is true to your beliefs and willing to take the hit, while bringing more people into the party.
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External Events Committee!
Among many of the LPDC’s goals is our desire to send representatives regularly to the events of other groups, both like-minded and otherwise. The External Events committee manages the calendar of upcoming events around the county and keeps track of which libertarians attend which events. In the aftermath of 9-11, in the debate over climate change, and during the pandemic, I’ve noticed CSPs, both Americans This committee currently needs a chair! We could use a and foreign observers, sadly smiling and shaking their heads, reliable volunteer who has good organizational skills to blaming our troubles on the way we Americans look at life. take on this role. If interested, send an e-mail to the LPDC They think we’re dangerously naive and childish by Chair! championing freedom, individualism, prosperity, and optimism. They express the hope that these new challenges we face will bring us to our senses and convince us to settle into regimentation, habitual and unquestioning obedience, “Grow Up”, They Kindly Advise Us collectivism, and (as one pundit being interviewed on NPR put it) resignation to hard, boring, ascetic lives of drudgery by Barry Smith relieved by an occasional festival. This is the way they think the enlightened majority of humanity behaves, and they want This article is about America us to follow suit. They say all this softly, soothingly, and with and its critics in this time of apparent reasonableness, as if speaking to children, trying to multiple challenges to persuade us to accept the inevitable. They point to any current libertarian values. This country freedom and prosperity as a brief anomaly in the grimmer is far from perfect, but I think sweep of world history. it is friendlier to our goals than most nations are. However, We need to think about how to respond to these people, who those goals and values and consider and present themselves as realists. We could find their role in American life are ways to claim realism for ourselves. We could also build on being insidiously eroded. and reinforce existing American patriotic ideals that support our goals. I realize that patriotism is always potentially Since the American founding, dangerous, but in a world of nations as this still is, we might there has existed a usually best make use of it, carefully, to our advantage, especially in hidden mentality opposed to the current climate of public opinion. We need to hold up our values, among both many Americans and many of those in American traditions of freedom, individual rights, optimism, other countries who observe America. The forces behind this and progress as something worth pursuing. mentality wait for the right circumstances to bloom openly. I don’t think that this is a sinister, deliberate conspiracy, but rather people of a certain persuasion (I’ll call them condescending, soft-spoken pessimists, or CSPs) who express their natural inclinations against liberty when opportunities arise.
There has been a perfect storm of such opportunities coming together in the twenty-first century: the September 11 attack, climate change, and now the pandemic. I take terrorism, climate change, and the pandemic seriously as threats to our well-being that require us to act in some way, but I’m just as concerned about just how we have reacted to them. I’m afraid the CSPs naturally take all this as an opportunity to bloom, and that embattled, weary Americans find them too persuasive.
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Government, Deep State and The Swamp are three heads of a Pride Committee! dragon that seeks power for the sake of power and will crush all who get in its way. The question is whether libertarians and Are you interested in leading and managing efforts for the other freedom-loving people can defeat it? LPDC to participate in the annual Dallas Pride festival and/or parade? Typically, the LPDC manages a booth for It all begins with government. The only hope for a free an entire day during the festival, and some years we have peaceful future is to abolish the age-old vicious, venomous, created and ridden on a parade float. violent, barbarian concept of government and replace it with something more intelligent. You can help the LPDC by volunteering to organize LPDC presence at one of the largest festivals in town, and also help support gay rights in Dallas County at the same time. If interested, send an e-mail to the LPDC Chair!
Libertarians and the Enemies of a Free Society by Garry Reed
It doesn’t really matter which elitist ruling political power wins whatever election in whatever year and takes over Libertarians in the Age of Mob Politics the puppet strings of power Kevin D. Williamson admits that he took the title of his book, because government is still The Smallest Minority from Ayn Rand who famously—or government. infamously according to those who suffer from chronic Ayn Rand Derangement Syndrome (ARDS)—said “The smallest Government is still an evil minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual criminal mob because it is, rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.” was and always will mean rule by a few over the lives The best thing about Williamson is that he doesn’t pull his of the many. All punches for libertarians or anyone else. Writing for the governments, everywhere, to Foundation for Economic Education in 2016 under the header varying degrees of bad and worse, are based on attempts by “The Nationalist-Socialist Moment Is Here” he made it clear the world’s psychopaths, sociopaths and others with antisocial that “the libertarian moment” was decidedly not here: personality disorders to seek control, power, wealth and personal glorification at the expense of entire populations. “The people who don’t like free markets and free people, who want to control who you can buy from and sell to, or regulate who can criticize a politician and when and how, don’t think that way simply because libertarians have never figured out how to translate the gospel into their language. They have other values and other agendas. The white nationalists in the Trump camp and the Black Lives Matters activists opposed to them do not secretly want to be libertarian individualists on the Randian model: They want their identities affirmed by state action. They want a politics of Us and Them. Populist movements cannot survive long Page 3 Libertarian Party of Dallas County, Texas December 2020
without a Them.” The Libertarian Party reported at this writing “Presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen has over 1,788,000 votes, which is the second-best showing for an LP presidential candidate, The key to the whole concept of real freedom is a society following Gary Johnson’s performance in 2016.” based on the libertarian non-aggression principle against coercion, intimidation and fraud. They also listed several actual LP office-winners around the country who became town or county council members, board The State of Freedom Today members, commissioners, trustees, aldermen (alderpersons?), and two who gained Parks and Recreation seats. (No, neither The following observations point an accusing finger at the was Ron Swanson of the TV comedy show “Parks and 2020 Election battle between Biden and Trump but they apply Recreation” but rather a pair of real Libertarians in two universally to all elections. The Republican and Democratic different jurisdictions.) Parties do not occupy a straight Left-Right scale with each positioned on the opposite ends of the line; they sit on an Authoritarian-Libertarian scale that is forever sloping downward on the authoritarian side with a big bucket of slop waiting for us at the bottom of the slope.
Government always means the loss of individual autonomy, liberty, freedoms, rights, choice, voluntary action and personal sovereignty. The only option we get from this condition is what kind of authoritarianism we end up with.
Did the Party Torpedo Trump? Writing in National Review two days after Election Day The Smallest Minority author Kevin D. Williamson speculated that Libertarian Party candidate Jo Jorgensen’s bites from the ballot box lunch may have been bigger than the spread between Biden’s and Trump’s big mouthfulls. Her numbers, in other words, may have beaten the spread between the two contenders in states like Georgia, Pennsylvania and Nevada.
On the (false) assumption that libertarians only take votes away from Republicans and never from Democrats The Swamp Will Continue to Swamp Us Williamson imagined Trump supporters squawking, “Stupid Libertarians! Why you gotta be such spoilers?” The DC Political Swamp is safe. This was always going to be Whether this ultimately turns out to be the case or not changes true no matter who won what vote. The establishment Dems little. Both establishment parties have long considered the LP and Reps fought with tooth, talon, fang and claw to keep their to be a threat to their dual hegemony as evidenced by the status quo power, wealth and egos intact. “White Privilege” many times various state parties have tried to manufacture comes nowhere close to “Political Privilege” yet few seem to laws to deny ballot access to the LP. care much about that. The psychopathic swamp critters are still in control and as long as those critters benefit the people Williamson (described by one Goodreads reader as “a good who voted for them both the critters and their voters will be conservative, and is also a proud libertarian”) sees all of this happy. as a lesson for the future of the GOP: “A better reaction, especially for Republicans, would be to give libertarians The Libertarian Party something more attractive for which to vote than the Libertarian Party, the attractions of which are limited.” At this writing following the 2020 Elections with lawsuits and vote recounting and name-calling still ongoing here’s a snapshot of the porcupine party. That’s precisely how many libertarians and LP members feel.
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But that’s not to say that the LP should ever back off. Running ever survive either process. Most libertarians are non-party as many candidates as possible all across the country is a great now because they see too much compromising going on in the way for the party to become a mass super-spreader of the LP. What kind of compromising, conceding, watering down libertarian philosophy. They should keep the pressure on both and just plain surrendering of principles would libertarians the GOP and the Dems. That’s because we understand now have to suffer to have any sway within the GOP? that people can’t be divided as formerly believed on the basis Ultimately dedicated true-believing libertarians don’t care of “fiscally conservative and socially liberal” because these whether the Libertarian Party ever wins anything; they just issues are deeply intertwined. Libertarians have always known want libertarian philosophy to win over the collectivist this. Fiscal AND social issues are equally important to philosophy. The Democrats have become Marxist; whether libertarians and should be to everyone else. political Libertarians become Republicans or Republicans become Libertarian may be irrelevant since we will still be living under the thumb of criminal government.
Should the LP Occupy the GOP? Many libertarians in and out of the party think the LP and the Republicans should make common cause as the only possible pushback against the New American Democratic-Marxist Figurehead Biden Party. Voting for Biden for President was always going to be a vote Some libertarians want to do exactly what the long-running for Kamala Harris, his VP running mate picked for him by the American socialist and communist third parties have done for establishment power structure. Good Ol’ Crazy Uncle Joe will decades. They never won high office just as the LP likely eventually be diagnosed as suffering from senility, dementia, never will but look what they did win: The Democratic Party. Alzheimers, feeble-mindedness, advanced dotage and otherwise mentally incapacitated and cognitively unfit under It’s becoming ever more certain that the whole political world the 25th Amendment so he can be pushed aside for the VP to has flipped head-over-buttocks. Republicans used to be the become Prez. party of big business while the Democrats were always “for the little guy.” But now the GOP is emerging as a working They may keep him around as a figurehead for a while if he class multi-minority haven while the Democrats have clearly will quietly do as he’s told. If not he will be subject to become the Big Politics Big Bankster Big Tech Big blackmail. His own party will begin threatening to leak new Corporatist Big Media home of the privileged elites, aka the information about his son Hunter Biden’s corrupt dealings expanded Deep State. with the communist Chinese government. Devastate his family. Destroy his legacy. His Presidential Library will fit in The sentiment of many seems to be that the Republicans had the back of a Wilmington Delaware McDonalds if he doesn’t best begin the process of stealing more and more of the best knuckle under. ideas from the Libertarian Party and thereby their libertarian- leaning followers if they want to survive. Or, optionally and Battling In the Belly of the Beast optimally, the LP should Occupy the GOP and turn it Many libertarians believe that any voluntary contact Libertarian. whatsoever with government like running political campaigns or becoming an office-holder or simply voting as an attempt to Either way there is deep concern whether libertarianism could Page 5 Libertarian Party of Dallas County, Texas December 2020 push back the growth of coercive government makes one a itself. They are libertarianism’s Trojan horses. “Statist.” The LP, Downsize DC and Institute for Justice may produce It’s why many reject the LP. But if that’s the case they will small victories for the libertarian movement, but every one is a also have to reject other libertarian efforts doing the same. double victory. They not only help people shake off the shackles of government but in doing so they introduce the For years the libertarian Downsize DC has identified anti- libertarian philosophy to people who may never have heard of freedom bills in congress and exerts pressure against the it before. politicians who support such bills by marshalling an “army” of volunteers to flood their DC offices with calls, messages, With time and effort small victories add up. letters, emails and petitions and even showing up at local congressional offices. In short, they work against government A Free Tomorrow? aggression by working within the legislative system of government. Does that make them “statists?” Most people at this stage in human mental development, many libertarians included, aren’t ready to even imagine a world without governing egomaniacs. They will scream and howl and slur libertarians who are willing to combat today’s evil and work toward a world free from government.
A peaceful voluntaryist libertarian Post-statist society based on the Non-Aggression Principle against coercion, intimidation and fraud? That’s idiotic. Impossible. Pie in the sky. Fantasy. Utterly outrageous. Perhaps. But the only other possible choice is the even worse never-ending rule of governments run by elitist maniacal psychopaths.
Libertarians with such a vision can only tell their detractors, “Join us or get out of the way” and continue advocating for a Also the “Merry Band of Libertarian Litigators” at the free tomorrow. Institute for Justice, a “National Law Firm for Liberty,” identifies what it stands for and what it does this way: References and Links “Since 1991, IJ has come to the aid of New to libertarianism and the Zero-Aggression Principle? individuals who want to do the simple things From “The Basics” to “Morality and Law” to many ideas in every American has the right to do— between you can jump in and learn about the voluntary post- including own property, start and grow a statist concept of “governance” as opposed to coercive business, speak freely about commerce or “governments.” politics, and provide their children with a good education—but can’t because they find The Deep State includes parts of the federal bureaucracy that the government in their way. The Institute for is unaccountable, secretive, opaque, permanent, and armed Justice combines cutting-edge litigation, with extremely dangerous powers. It has now expanded to include big business, big banks, big tech, big media and big sophisticated media relations, strategic billionaires. research, boots-on-the-ground advocacy and much more to fight on behalf of those Drain the Swamp means to drastically reduce the number of individuals who are denied their self-serving, power-hungry Republican and Democratic constitutional rights.” politicians, lobbyists, and government bureaucrats in and around Washington, DC who crave self-enrichment to the In short, they work against government aggression by working detriment of all Americans. within the judicial system of government. Does that make them “statists?” Illegitimate Government All individuals own themselves under the non-aggression principle against coercion, These are just three groups working inside the belly of the intimidation and fraud and can therefore not delegate a power beast as fifth columnists, saboteurs and monkey-wrenchers on they don’t have to a government or any other individual or behalf of freedom by using The State’s apparatus against collection of individuals.
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2020 LP Election Critique: Bold Future ◦ The National Libertarian Party Activism ◦ Students for Liberty ◦ Free Talk Live ◦ The Cato Institute ◦ Molinari Institute ◦ Objectivism In-Brief
LPDC Officer List Chair – Curry B. Taylor Vice-Chair – Eugene J. Flynn Secretary – Andrew Jewell Treasurer – Amber Jewell
LPDC At-Large Directors Eddie Allen Gary Doan Kevin Hale D arren Hamilton Editor's note: Re-published from the Libertarian Opinionizer Tom Misteli with permission from the author. Editor's comment: This Kyle Russell article was among the half-dozen very good choices from Barry Smith Garry's regular assortment of blog submissions. Check out his blog; you'll become a fan! Working Committee Leaders Block Walking – Kevin Hale Candidate Recruitment – Barry Smith Upcoming Events External Events –
Other Volunteers Libertarian References Webmaster – Curry B. Taylor Newsletter Editor – Curry B. Taylor • Books ◦ Good to be King , Michael Badnarik The LPDC is a local branch of the Libertarian Party based in Dallas ◦ Why Government Doesn't Work , Harry Browne County, Texas. Find out more about the LPDC at http://lpdallas.org. ◦ Atlas Shrugged , Ayn Rand The Libertarian Party is the third largest political party in the United ◦ The Libertarian Mind , David Boaz States, and was established in 1971 to promote more freedom and ◦ Economics in One Lesson , Henry Hazlitt less intrusive government in all aspects of life. Find out more about the LP at http://www.lp.org. ◦ The Law , Claude-Frédéric Bastiat ◦ Healing Our World , Dr. Mary Ruwart
• Videos ◦ Neitzsche and the Nazis , Stephen Hicks ◦ Bullsh*t! , Penn & Teller ◦ Free to Choose , Milton Friedman ◦ America: Freedom to Fascism , Aaron Russo
• Websites ◦ The Libertarian Party of Dallas County ◦ The Libertarian Party of Texas
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