Last updated on February 18, 2024
Post by Trisha Butler
[Editor: Elevated from the Comments. ]
My Response to: An Opinion Piece from Tom Rowlette
by Trisha Butler, Chair, Association of Liberty State Parties
Organizing the Liberal Party was a desperate response to destruction.
Believing that this splintering is novel is to purposely close ones eyes to the events of the past two years. The Libertarian party sticking together for 50 years has been a blessing, but moreso has been beyond miraculous. The amount of infighting that has perpetually plagued our “big tent” party had us so distracted that the Libertarian Party hasn’t capitalized on the multiple times our philosophies have been the most desirable, and sorely needed.
In the event that the Liberal Party becomes the force you are so frightened of that you would write an opinion inciting fear of it, it will not be in the paltry numbers you arbitrarily cited. The Liberal Party USA will not be a “slightly different culture,” it will be completely different, or it deserves to wither and fail. Calling the issues within the current LP national leadership simply “personality disputes” and “rancor” while ignoring their dereliction, incompetence, and authoritarian corruption is paramountly destructive and naive. It’s not a part of “doing business,” as they are observably avoiding or subverting the accomplishment of anything.
The incoming generation has grown up in a world where cannabis and same-sex marriage are legal. They are over outdated wailing about a pandemic that ruined their most impressionable years. They are tired of having to earn respect from elders who don’t respect anyone. They are sick of division, manipulation, complaining about pronouns, geriatrics making laws, and they don’t care about philosophical economics. They just want to know solutions for survival in this atrocious economy. You know what they do like? The word liberal and the freedom, acceptance, equality, and hope it represents. They don’t want to join a team or submit to the endless binary of D or R, red or blue. They want something of their own.
The Liberal Party will incentivize them, by hearing them and acknowledging they are the future.
Playing nice, patience, and complacency is what got us here. It is why we are stagnant and were easily surmountable and corruptible. Your “least correct solution” is one you assumed with absolutely no data, nothing more than the fear of change.
The incoming generation … are sick of division, manipulation, complaining about pronouns, geriatrics making laws, and they don’t care about philosophical economics.
No one can speak for a generation. No one can generalize a generation.
Some things you say about Gen Z are true for some of its members, false for others.<p.
For instance, many Gen Zers practice division and manipulation in their social media, and they obsess over pronouns. And if they are sick of "division," it's only because the other side has not yet capitulated.
Polls have also shown that Gen Z is the first generation in which a majority thinks we have too much free speech. They think that "hate speech" and "fake news" should be outlawed.
You’re not wrong, I should have added the word “some” or specified “from my observations”..
TBF I was responding to a generalization; “New 18 year olds coming into the movement have to choose which team to join and whose candidates to vote for…Another 100 years of the Democrats and Republicans.”
What sucks here is that what I thought was the most important part got lost. It’s time we listen to them, and genuinely include them in the conversation. The oldest gen Z is 24, not only can they vote this POTUS cycle but many of them were old enough to vote last cycle.
No one can agree on these arbitrary generational lines. Just today I read elsewhere that Gen Z are those ages 12 to 27.
I also remember when Millennials were those born from 1981 to 1995. Which would mean Gen Z is turning 28 this year.