How to Win in the Game of Politics your own lobby groups, pursue higher forms of law, and social graces therein. I will however give you three ways to help the by JD Stuer Libertarian Party with constant lobbying commitments and simultaneously make participants more successful with both Unfortunately, almost money and position as a result. everything we have experienced as libertarians is a shroud over 1) Meme groups, social media groups, and party position: The our eyes. Politics is a very Libertarians actually form a glue between the Republican and tough subject with a lot of Democratic parties. We have become well-known as the emotional tension surrounding “mortar between the bricks” or “the referees” of the political issues often held dear to people. arena. These are powerful metaphors to use in social situations For this reason, the Republican to bridge the gap between the unreasonable Left and Right. and Democratic parties have Use powerful metaphors to draw power and interest from our adopted a “stick-to-it-iveness” opponent parties and/or people upset with these parties for about platform policies and letting them down, directing them towards Libertarian ideals! have functioned in the past like opposing mafia groups, 2) Find news articles about gridlock: These are easy to find but supporting only those who are arguably harder to respond to for Libertarians. The idea here is on their own side regardless of right or wrong. that gridlock isn’t all about Republicans or Democrats, but rather about Americans. Libertarians as being “the glue”, What I have noticed recently, in the polls and throughout the “mortar”, or “referees” between world, is that Republicans and Democrats, like gangs, have the two old parties holds a certain become increasingly more infatuated with winning. power to get more out of bills and demand Democrats and Where do libertarians fit in? We form oddly like a porcupine Republicans alike to consider group, but, true to form, we do fit in. We don’t function much third party interests in their like a gang since we maintain standards of peace, ethics, social legislation as a way to bridge liberty, justice, and economic sensibility – and so what sets us gaps between them and form a apart from the larger elephants and donkeys we are running up bond in gridlocked negotiations. against? Money, plain and simple. This indeed is the ultimate reason for our country’s 3) Go party with the blue politics, the non-malleable D emocrats and the red platforms, and the often R epublicans ( w earing gold) ! complete disregard for ethics Remember, without the help of and morals in the political an the old parties, it is much harder legal process. So the question to leverage the political then becomes what can we do environment. You may actually find yourself helping the two to get more money into the old parties to satisfy a gridlock issue and in return it could Libertarian Party, and the open the door to the funds Libertarian Party needs. answer again is simple: Libertarians are the real party animals! Best to party with Lobby for LP efforts! every party and bring back the best to the Libertarians. This helps us make the case directly so that our government can There are lots of how-to fully understand and begin to implement more libertarian videos, books, and content solutions to ongoing problems. (Think of it this way: Most out there about how to lobby printouts cannot be done with just cyan blue ink, or magenta and make a successful career red, they also need the yellow to print it out in full color!) doing it. I won’t attempt to We’re all Americans, remember, and we were never promised cover all of that material, but will leave it up to you to find 100% intelligent libertarians in federal or state houses even
Page 1 Libertarian Party of Dallas County, Texas June 2021 since the country’s inception. President Washington warned as Are Medical Associations Responsible much in his farewell address. There will always be a share of Republican and Democratic stooges creating clannish for Your Irrational Medical Bills? divisions. Our goal is to learn to enjoy them, party with all by Naveen Sankar parties, negotiate, build our own individual platforms, all the The cost of healthcare has grown in America significantly over the last 60 years. Numerous attempts have been made to control cost, but none of them have seen any success. As of 2019, total healthcare expenditure stands at 17.7% of GDP.
Many factors can cause the price of a service to rise. In a supposedly free market, such as in the US, it always comes down to the underlying market fundamentals. So let’s take a quick look at it. while lobbying for our party’s positions.
These three things, if we communicated to the Republican and Democratic parties properly, would allow Libertarians better pay as referees.
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. The law of demand says that at higher prices, This committee currently needs a chair! We could use a buyers will demand less of an economic good. reliable volunteer who has good organizational skills to The law of supply says that at higher prices, take on this role. If interested, send an e-mail to the LPDC sellers will supply more of an economic good. Chair! These two laws interact to determine the actual market prices and volume of goods that are traded on a market.
Markets in which prices can move freely are always in equilibrium or moving toward it. For example, if the market for a good is already in equilibrium and producers raise prices, consumers will buy fewer units than they did in equilibrium, and fewer units than producers have available for sale. In that case, producers have two choices. They can reduce the price until supply and demand return to the old equilibrium, or they can cut production until the quantity Page 2 Libertarian Party of Dallas County, Texas June 2021
supplied falls to the lower number of units associations. This is where subtle changes were made to demanded at a higher price. But they cannot keep reduce long-term supply. The vehicle for this throttling was the price high and sell as many units as they did the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 championed by President before. Bill Clinton.
Residency Cap of 1997 US med students pay for the first four years of their medical education either out of pocket, through student loans, or a combination of the two. Once a student graduates, they enter residency. In the residency phase, they practice care with an experienced physician.
Funding residency training is another subject. A major player in this process is Medicare. Enter US Congress.
Congress passed the BBA in 1997 partly in order to place some controls on the continuing growth of GME positions. The BBA contains several important changes in the GME funding Also, let’s take a quick look at what a cornered market is. mechanisms, designed to affect the number and mix of residents trained. Cornering the market consists of obtaining sufficient control of a particular stock, We must note that when Congress instituted this cap there commodity, or other asset in an attempt to was a predicted surplus of 70,000 physicians, and some in manipulate the market price. One definition of the medical field were worried about the ramifications of cornering a market is “having the greatest market having too many MDs in the United States. share in a particular industry without having a monopoly”. The impact of the law is better visualized by this picture published by a UCH Study. Just wonder what happens to all The asset that we are talking about is healthcare professionals those who are on the left side of the funnel. that can provide a service. By reducing the number of healthcare professionals, the supply stays down and keeps the service cost high. This is comparable to the strategy adopted by Gulf states when they formed the Oil cartel OPEC in 1960 to reduce oil supply production. Lack of transparency in the health insurance industry is also contributing to this problem, but that’s another article.
The supply I am talking about here is new medical professionals. Let’s take a look at how medical trade unions such as the Texas Medical Association or American Medical Association are in a unique position compared to any other industry. They are in control of the supply while writing rules and regulations of their industry. Source: University of California Health The steps involved in becoming a physician presently consist of, at the minimum, a 3-step process. Texas Medical Association
1. Complete medical school and pass your boards to Coming back to my title, what does the medical association become a licensed doctor (4 Years) has to do with all of this? Do a search for ‘Texas medical 2. Complete your residency (3-4 Years) association’ online and you will find pushes to stymie efforts 3. Pass your final boards to practice independently to fix this government-created problem.
The standard for all these steps is defined by medical
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Medical trade unions effectively destroyed crown jewels of TMA Online Lobbying Effort American health care ‘teaching hospitals’ using the BBA of 1997, and now they are attempting to throttle the only other Texas’s 87th Legislature had bills open to change rules around source of medical professionals: advanced nurse practitioners. a nurse practitioner’s ability to prescribe in Texas. The bills in It’s interesting to see that these medical associations by question were contrast have only minimal advocacy going on for issues that plague healthcare professionals such as HB2029 : Licensing and authority of advanced practice registered nurses 1. Burnout, 2. Lack of residency opportunities, and SB915 : Licensing and authority of advanced 3. The administrative burden placed by insurance practice registered nurses industry.
The effect of these bills would have been to increase the If you want to read more on this check out my earlier article, number of care providers that can prescribe medicines. TMA " The Right to Prescribe” . has actively opposed this legislation because they believe this is a threat to their livelihood when the market reality is that As a nation, we need to reverse the supply side problems to physician shortage is only increasing due to the throttling of address the sky-high healthcare costs. I am standing in residency. This is clear from this report prepared for the opposition to TMA’s throttling efforts. AAMC by IHS Markit Ltd. that there is a shortfall of 50k to 139k projected for 2033. This is not something we can fix easily.
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Practice Environment Related Articles https://medium.com/just-health-care/the-right-to- prescribe-8b1c0a3ae9a2
Editor's note: Re-published from Medium.com with permission from the author.
Political Operations Committee!
Are you a gung-ho political activist who is interested specifically in local events and politics? Does the incessant wasteful spending of the Dallas City Council really get on your nerves? Are you concerned about local government corruption and want to help keep tabs on it?
We're looking for more libertarians who are astutely interested in being watchdogs for Dallas County politics. These people are in charge of identifying strikingly anti- States that allow nurse practitioners to prescribe. libertarian government action and forming political plans Source: aanp.org practice environment study to couteract it. Interested? Send an e-mail to the LPDC Chair!
We need to turn this map green and keep looking for what we can do to improve care in this nation. Let’s fix the fundamentals of the healthcare market together and build a You're Not Less of a Libertarian If You market-based healthcare solution. Don't Exercise Some of Your Rights Notes & References by Curry B. Taylor There is a sentiment in https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/ libertarian circles which I health/healthcare-expenditures/healthcare- notice every now and then expenditures-as-of-gdp/ which essentially goes something like this: "You're https://www.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/hrsa/ not participating in XYZ advisory-committees/graduate-medical-edu/ activity, so therefore you're resource-papers/March-2000-balanced- less of a libertarian than budget.pdf those people who are." People also seem to form https://www.ucop.edu/federal-governmental- trust circles within the relations/_files/fact-sheets/fgr-health-factsheet- libertarian movement based gme-f1.pdf upon their judgment of who is doing the participating, https://www.aamc.org/media/45976/download sort of like in junior high when you had to play football or throw elaborate parties in order to be considered cool. https://web.archive.org/web/20210327114249/ https://twitter.com/texmed In short, what binds us together as libertarians is not what we choose to do with our work time or spare time, but rather how https://www.aanp.org/advocacy/state/state- strongly we defend each and every other person's ability to do practice-environment whatever they wish with their time (short of limited cases such as physical harm to others or theft, for example). There may be a lot of different reasons which you may wish to, or may not wish to, smoke cigarettes or grow marijuana, for example. Page 5 Libertarian Party of Dallas County, Texas June 2021
Simply, you don't have to partake (or refuse to partake) in it is necessarily to first order a rational choice for you. We're order to be libertarian. not all here to out-libertarian one another, or to vet one another or particular groups based upon their private choice of whether It isn't the fact that you exemplify the sum total of all possible or not they choose to practice a particular right. The key point libertarian-protected rights which makes you a libertarian. is to always defend individual rights at the source of the Rather, it's the fact that you defend all of those rights -- yes, denial of said rights. Choosing not to engage in a specific even the more esoteric ones -- against forces which seek to individual right is not a denial of an individual right. You don't remove them from public and private life which makes you a have to validate your choices by matching them to another libertarian. In fact, it's not at all possible to exercise all of libertarian's (or a non-libertarian's, for that matter). your conceivable rights, especially not simultaneously!
It's hard enough to fight against the state in oh-so-many ways because of the state's constant insistence of removing or lessening our individual rights. We don't need to make the challenge to ourselves even harder by pretending we are the embodiment of what we perceive to be the pinnacle of all libertarian choices, or by expecting our libertarian neighbors to make choices consistent with what we perceive to be the pinnacle of all libertarian choices.
Block Walking Committee!
Want to get some exercise while talking to people about Libertarian candidates and libertarianism? Enjoy long walks with like-minded libertarians on the weekends? Some people are heavily religious while others don't have an Want to reach out to voters in one of the most effective ounce of religious belief about them. Some people think it's ways possible? very important to wear masks during pandemic outbreaks, others do not think that is important at all. Some people think The Block Walking Committee is looking for volunteers corporations should voluntarily pay their employees more to travel across Dallas County to reach out to people by across the board, others think that those tough choices should dropping literature and talking to interested folks. This be left to the board of directors. The thing which binds activity occurs all of the time, but increasingly as together all of these different types of people under the elections approach. If interested, please contact the libertarian label is that no libertarian would use government to committee Chair here! force their point of view or way of life on any of the others. To be sure, a libertarian would defend the right to the other person's choice with just as much fire as they would defend their own choice.
In some sense, this goes without saying. You don't have to exercise a right in order for that right to exist. It is probably true that if nobody or very few people exercise a particular right then it becomes easier for the state to ignore that right or dismiss it out of hand, this I do not deny at all. However, you do not have to prove your libertarian worthiness by practicing any particular right yourself, especially if you don't think that
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A Libertarian Society: How Do We Get widely identified. There From Here? The Free State Project wants 20,000 libertarians to move to by Garry Reed New Hampshire and take it over. Attempts have been made to create libertarian enclaves in Europe (The Free Republic of PREFACE In the James Liberland), the ongoing Mu Aye PU project in Southeast Asia, Blish Cities in Flight SF a libertarian startup city in Honduras and seasteading on the classic entire cities waters of the world. emigrate into space using an anti-gravity This last is just one variation discussed in Titus Gebel’s book drive called a on the subject, Free Private Cities: Making Governments “spindizzy.” Many Compete For You. His "free private cities" are based on the libertarians love science idea of explicit contractual agreements between residents and fiction because it, like the city government, making the government a “service libertarianism itself, is a provider" rather than a politically imposed power source. future-oriented ideal. The first step, the free The Beginning has Already Begun private city of Próspera, is already here.
Gebel is founder, President and CEO of Free Private Cities There are plenty of blogs, articles and books explaining why Foundation. A review of his Free Private Cities at Books That there are not now, never have been and never will be any Can Change Your Life offers an in-depth summary of Gebel’s libertarian societies and some will even attempt to explain basic approach, that “governance,” as opposed to what the parameters are for having such a society. “governments,” between city and citizen is a new form of market. The review then goes into some detail in discussing It’s simple to define: Maximize freedom and minimize Gebel’s concept, creation and vision for the future of his free government to the furthest extent possible, including private cities. abolishing “governments” and replacing them with “governance.” But his is only one of many approaches to creating a future The hard part is to figure out how to get there from here. free society. The question remains, what about the “getting That’s because there is no single way of getting there and there” part? The long-term process is to devolve everything because there is no single “there” to get to. governmental into the private sector except law courts, cops and military and find ways to fund them voluntarily, then abolish even those vestiges of government and create a The Modern American Libertarian Movement is, as a mutually voluntary post-statist society. philosophy, still in its infancy, having only really been around since the early l940s. That means the idea of “getting there” The short term goal this early in the movement is all about might need to wait until some of the “theres” have been more numbers. It’s all about spreading the word. It’s all about
Page 7 Libertarian Party of Dallas County, Texas June 2021 advocating and promoting and publicizing and proselytizing and twists and turns while constantly being preyed upon by and teaching and preaching and campaigning and educating politicians and bureaucrats and law enforcers and ideologues and persuading. It’s all about growing the relatively small and propagandists and endless hosts of self-serving pond of libertarians into an irresistible tidal wave of manipulators and philosophical con artists and similar criminal conviction. mentalities of every kind.
The Convictions Have Already Been Chosen And that’s how they will know that the goal at the end of this long road will likely be reached not by themselves but by their descendants.
Some advocates for a libertarian future think everyone must be libertarianized before it can work. But that isn’t true. There will be many others trodding the same path toward the same goal who don’t self-identify as libertarians. They will be liberals who want the freedom to create their own voluntary coops or communes or worker-owned businesses and traditionalist conservatives who plan on creating their own voluntary gated communities and religiously oriented enclaves.
As a fun metaphor picture a group of libertarians; American They, like libertarians, seek to harm no one but just want to be libertarians and all those around the world who accept the left alone to live peaceful lives as they choose. Non-Aggression Principle against initiated force, intimidation and fraud, who at least accept the Golden Rule, the Live and The Future Has Already Been Imagined Let Live tenet, the Good Neighbor policy.
This milling mass of activists represents all of those types of libertarians: Libertarian Party members, minarchists, agorists, voluntaryists, individualists, mutualists, Constitutionalist libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, post-statists, Left and Right libertarians, and all other people who believe in non-coerced voluntary interactions.
All, again, who accept the Non-Aggression Principle and live accordingly no matter what they consciously or unconsciously call themselves. That is, after all, the way the vast majority of people try to live their lives today. So here’s the metaphor. A seething throng of libertarians are In this metaphor they decide to set foot on a path toward their already trekking down the track toward Libertarian Land, ultimate goal. That goal is not some utopian fantasy but a picking up packs of other peaceful freedom-loving people as realistic human-centric society founded on peace, prosperity they go. But some will be dropping off before reaching the and freedom where the only purpose of its form of governance end of the road. is the protection of everyone’s individual rights, meaning there will be no such thing as a “victimless crime.” The early drop-offers are the Constitutional Libertarians and others who still believe in the idea of a democracy or republic The process will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary or federation under an elected government. This may include since libertarians will fail if they betray their own Non- advocates of the night watchman state such as conservative Aggression Principle, even as they know they have every right Libertarian Party members, libertarian minarchists, to defend themselves against the coercive aggressions of philosophical Objectivists and classical liberals in addition to others. quasi- and non-libertarian fellow travelers (pun intended) who want only to minimize government and maximize freedom. And that’s how they know it will be a Long road, full of twists and turns and potholes and mud puddles and hills and valleys Page 8 Libertarian Party of Dallas County, Texas June 2021
Government is Humankind’s Biggest Killer of But they will be replaced by even more libertarians linking up Humans with those legging it further down the lane.
The march goes on until another batch detaches and settles down to found a town where every tax is axed and government is funded through voluntary means.
But still others will join the jaunt.
Eventually the post-statist voluntaryists vacate the venture as they reach their vaunted venue (avowedly after too much V for Vendetta viewing?) They have rejected the endless anarchy of The State and replaced it with consumer-controlled governance.
Yet the ramble resumes with other newly-enrolled road warriors swelling the swarm. All through this extended hike toward the ideal, but not These are considered the ultimate radicals, the anarcho- “utopian,” libertarian society the act of educating others in this capitalists, the agorists, the voluntary socialists and all left most humane of human philosophies should never cease. libertarians , anarchists, individualists and mutualists who Concomitant to that is educating everyone about the explicitly embrace the Non-Aggression Principle that rejects unspeakable evil that is government. Since the earliest initiated force, intimidation and fraud while accepting the use beginnings of humanity when some arrogated to themselves of defensive force as a counter against initiated force. the power of governing others governments with their armies and their internal enforcers have been, second only to disease, The important thing to remember is this: ALL libertarians who the single biggest killer of human beings. Human-on-human begin the journey, no matter where they drop out along the predation can be considered humankind’s vilest mental road, are helping all of the others reach their respective disease. destinations. So everyone should continue to advocate their own personal preferences but should also refrain from bad- war a state of usually open and declared mouthing the others. armed hostile conflict between states or nations.—Merriam-Webster Dictionary In other words, don’t forget the old Chinese proverb: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." The Democide is the murder of any person or anarchists of the thousandth mile should thank the minarchists people by their government, including of the first mile who helped them begin their journey. genocide, politicide and mass murder.— Wikipedia
Yet many still dream about a limited government. But limited how? The only legitimate government does nothing more than protect everyone’s individual rights. That means enforcing the non-aggression principle. That means no laws or regulations that create victimless crimes.
Many people mock the idea of a libertarian country or society by pointing out that none has ever existed. But of course nothing, such as steamships and powered flight, has ever existed until it did. But what about a limited government? It did exist when the United States of America was founded; it had a government that limited political participation to white males; it limited women as non-voters; it limited black people
Page 9 Libertarian Party of Dallas County, Texas June 2021 to three-fifths of a person as slaves on white-owned Free Private Cities: A Step Toward a plantations; it limited Native Americans to reservations after Voluntary Society near genocide; it limited Americans of Japanese descent to concentration camps during World War II.
But even as great strides were made to reverse all of those unconscionable limitations the government itself grew more and more powerful and authoritarian while engaging in wars and democides along the way until today we live in a coercive collectivist corporatist-statist ant hill.
And somehow some people think living under an authoritarian regime is better and safer than a free society.
For all libertarians of every definition there is clearly far more educating left to be done.
References and Links Editor's note: Re-published from the Libertarian Opinionizer with permission from the author. Editor's comment: This The Plan “to create a libertarian America in as little as ten article was among the half-dozen very good choices from years” was introduced in 2019. It includes The Libertarian Garry's regular assortment of blog submissions. Check out his Census, an effort to locate “the 30-60 million Americans who blog; you'll become a fan! already self-identify as libertarians or who hold mostly libertarian views.” A must read for all libertarians. Upcoming Events
A Mises Institute Article, “Local Nullification: A Way to Fight • General Meeting: LP Governor Candidates Both State and Federal Despots” explains how states can ◦ June 8th, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM nullify bad federal laws, how cities and towns can nullify bad ◦ Zoom Meeting (see link for details) state laws, how even smaller localities can nullify those unwanted laws, leading to local self-governance. • LPDC Quarterly Executive Committee Meeting ◦ June 13th, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM Where Do Libertarians Go From Here?: the LP should focus ◦ The Drawing Board on the local level, building from the bottom up. National 1900 Jay Ell Dr., Richardson, TX 75081 candidates can educate but locals can actually get elected and demonstrate what they can do. And it’s easier to monitor local Up-to-date meeting announcements and details can always be politicos and keep them true to the NAP. found on meetup.com or Facebook.
Forget Politics and Forget The State. In “A Policy for Forcing the State Back” the author advocates creating local or J OIN the Libertarian Party of Dallas County using the neighborhood networks for self-reliance by creating “local link, or just DONATE to us! production facilities and markets with no effective State regulations and without the State’s knowledge.” Libertarian References
• Books ◦ Good to be King , Michael Badnarik ◦ Why Government Doesn't Work , Harry Browne ◦ Atlas Shrugged , Ayn Rand ◦ The Libertarian Mind , David Boaz ◦ Economics in One Lesson , Henry Hazlitt ◦ The Law , Claude-Frédéric Bastiat ◦ Healing Our World , Dr. Mary Ruwart
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• Videos ◦ Neitzsche and the Nazis , Stephen Hicks ◦ Bullsh*t! , Penn & Teller ◦ Free to Choose , Milton Friedman ◦ America: Freedom to Fascism , Aaron Russo ◦ The Philosophy of Liberty cartoon ◦ Cartoons by Tomasz Kaye
• Websites ◦ The Libertarian Party of Dallas County ◦ The Libertarian Party of Texas ◦ The National Libertarian Party ◦ 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 – A J Jewell
LPDC At-Large Directors Eddie Allen Gary Doan R achael Doan Kevin Hale Tom Misteli Joe Roberts Kyle Russell Barry Smith
Working Committee Leaders Block Walking – Kevin Hale Candidate Recruitment – Barry Smith External Events –
Other Volunteers Webmaster – Curry B. Taylor Newsletter Editor – Curry B. Taylor
The LPDC is a local branch of the Libertarian Party based in Dallas County, Texas. Find out more about the LPDC at http://lpdallas.org. The Libertarian Party is the third largest political party in the United States, and was established in 1971 to promote more freedom and less intrusive government in all aspects of life. Find out more about the LP at http://www.lp.org.
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