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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. Page 1 Libertarian Party of Dallas County, Texas December 2020 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. Page 2 Libertarian Party of Dallas County, Texas December 2020 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.

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