In a recent post on X.com, the author of @LPNH, allegedly Jeremy Kaufman, said that Americans would view as a hero the person who assassinated Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris. LPNH also claimed that this statement is protected by the First Amendment. The hero statement appears to be well outside the penumbra of First Amendment protections.
The LPNH posts on X.com follow.
ThirdPartyWatch can report with great certainty that the Secret Service is aware of the statement, and is taking it very seriously. As of this writing, we are aware of no indications that the Libertarian National Committee has taken note of the LPNH statement.
Regarding people in politics making threats via social media and getting arrested for it, this is from the Indianapolis case I mentioned. This is effectively happening now.
https://indypolitics.org/former-indiana-congressional-candidates-arrest-connected-to-online-intimidation-per-new-documents/
The situations are not analogous. I’ve not dug into the Whitley case, and am not particularly interested in doing so, but at the very least according to what you yourself posted here Whitley posted a home picture, home address, and “encouraged action” in terms that were (I’m guessing) much more explicit than Kauffman/LPNH. Perhaps it consisted of a great deal more than one twit that in very general terms says action “would be justified” under Kauffman’s interpretation of libertarian ethics plus a deleted twit that says a hypothetical person who would do so would be a “hero”?
Yes, at some point speech crosses enough thresholds to credibly bring prosecutions of intimidation, solicitation if violence, threats, etc. Publishing a home picture and address starts to hint at the difference between the two incidents. I’d have to dig into it deeper to see what else, but I’ll guess it was probably a lot more and a lot more explicit for the government to bother bringing a legal case, which even then they have yet to prove in court.
Based only on what you’ve said of Whitley, his prosecution would not be unprecedented. A much more loosely based prosecution of Kauffman/LPNH, much less of their out of state party factional allies based only on association, would go much further down the government overreach road of criminalizing mere speech.
Charges, a conviction and jail time? It’s not nearly specific enough to be a threat or direct incitement or solicitation of a crime. “If someone killed X they would be a hero” is just an opinion, even if X has what passes for secret service protection. “We offer $y to anyone who brings us the head of X” would be solicitation or incitement. “We’re going to murder Z” would be a threat.
Any number of people, including well known public persons openly under their own names and not in any hot mic moments, have wished death to Trump, regret would be assassin’s didn’t have better aim, etc. For that matter, wishing unpleasant death to politicians and various other kinds of prominent people is a time honored form of free expression. In the vast majority of cases, there is no reason to suppose any actual assassination attempt is being contemplated, much less a way to prove it in court “beyond a reasonable doubt” at significant taxpayer expense.
It’s a bad look for a political party to play into that kind of ugliness, especially when actual assassination attempts on a candidate have taken place in this particular contest. But there’s a vast difference between that and charges, convictions and jail time. Expressing the view that a theater is dangerously fire prone, or a craphole that ought to burn down even, isn’t the same as screaming fire in a crowded theater. It isn’t the same as providing specific guidance and enticement to anyone who might be inclined and capable of following through.
A single, quickly deleted twit from a state level minor party is far from what it takes to make a legal case of terroristic threats or solicitation or incitement or whatever the specific legal charges would be. The government would generally have to prove some ongoing collusion with specific people, internal communication indicating specific intent, etc. If it sought to posit, much less prove, a conspiracy theory, “allies in a political party internal faction fight” is grossly insufficient.
As it should be, unless we wish to see political imprisonment rise to a level which would require massive expansion of federal investigation, prosecutorial, judicial, prison construction and staffing or contracting budgets and a climate of fear in getting involved with antiestablishment political parties or groups of any kind, since sooner or later an overzealous spokesman, officer, account manager, ally or agent provocateur would say something stupid like that in public. That doesn’t seem like a policy direction that would make government smaller or people more free, does it?
I’ve explained why I think the liberal party is a particularly bad idea with particularly bad timing elsewhere here, so there’s no point in going over that unless someone asks. Leaving the allegedly libertarian party certainly seems rational, but is insufficient to prove rationality; many people of various degrees thereof have left it over the years, far more than stayed for very long all told. Being that out of touch on what it takes for the federal government to successfully prosecute a case and imprison people isn’t a good indicator of rationality. Neither is the belief that a new quasilibertarian political party would produce better results, especially if it’s named liberal.
Dear Editor, you’ve now at least 3 or 4 times not accepted for publication each attempt to clarify that this was in response to Stewart Flood, not the original post, and that this problem keeps recurring on different article discussions for no obvious reason. I don’t know why you’re doing that, but please allow the clarification and, if at all possible, fix the underlying problem, whatever it is.
This has happened in Indianapolis recently where a failed Republican Congress nominee Gabe Whitley posted a picture of home and home address of a journalist reporting on him (as well as calling a friend of the journalist a pedophile which said journalist then represented as lawyer) and encouraged action against said journalist. Whitley got a class 6 felony charge for intimidation.
https://indypolitics.org/former-congressional-candidate-arrested/
This doesn’t seem to be a direct threat or immediate incitement, but it might serve as Exhibit B for a similar and more direct declaration he/they made.
VP Harris put out an X post about reinstating an assault rifle ban, to which the LPNH replied “Under libertarian ethics this is a violent threat to violate rights and deserves the appropriate response.” That translates into “You did a violence (with your words), so it is not just justified but morally required to perform an act of violence (contextualized by our other posts about your statement as meaning ‘with a gun’) against you now.” It’s easy to argue that the threat is more explicit than implied. It would depend on the jury and the day, but the case is ready to be made.
“The real action is the enemy’s action” + “Moral authority is derived from victimhood” = Goad as hard and abrasively as you can, then when called to account fall to the ground like a professional soccer player shouting about oppression. Standard Cold War ‘Commies in Community College’ Alinskian nonsense, just what you should expect from the MC Neo-Bolshevists.
It’s terribly sad to see a guy who pioneered censor-proof video streaming reduced to someone “victimized by words”, who wants press members who disagree with him kicked out of society.
“Harris put out an X post about reinstating an assault rifle ban, to which the LPNH replied “Under libertarian ethics this is a violent threat to violate rights and deserves the appropriate response.” That translates into “You did a violence (with your words), so it is not just justified but morally required to perform an act of violence (contextualized by our other posts about your statement as meaning ‘with a gun’) against you now.”
Harris is doing far more than merely uttering words. She’s VPOTUS, a very plausible candidate for POTUS, and her previous track record as a DA, prosecutor, AG, and Senator show every indication that she would do everything she can to push for such a ban, sign it into law, and vigorously enforce it once signed if she wins. I don’t want to delve into the morass of libertarian ethics to the point of discovering at what point extrajudicial resistance to tyranny or its threat becomes justifiable, or what forms such resistance could justifiably take if it ever is, but I agree that doing so is a particularly bad role for an electoral political party organization.
“It’s easy to argue that the threat is more explicit than implied. It would depend on the jury and the day, ”
It’s very clearly only implied. It says that what it deems the appropriate response is justified under its interpretation of libertarian ethics, which is far short of actually threatening to do it. Saying someone who would would therefore be a hero (or somewhat more accurately martyr) is still far short of an actual threat, particularly in a legal sense.
If such a jury could plausibly be found, or the case brought at all merely on the basis of those words, that itself would be a severe indictment of the justice system and a basis to conclude tyranny has already arrived. In which case, the original logic behind the Second Amendment indicates that armed resistance would indeed be justified. “It would be justified” or “if someone did that they would be a hero” isn’t remotely equivalent to “we’re going to do it.”
Notably, though, the American revolutionaries didn’t attempt to assassinate King George, and wouldn’t have gained independence had they assassinated him or led anyone to try. What they did in fact do still involved a great deal of violence and would have been prosecuted as treason had they lost, as they were well aware. Whether this was heroic on their part or justified under libertarian ethics or not, it is in fact the background of why an “assault” rifle ban is not already long in place, as well as why a jury system exists at all.
The LPNH posting was wrong, foolish and embarrassing.
It’s inconceivable that the Libertarian National Committee has not disaffiliated LPNH yet.
On another note: the last Libertarian activist I know of who publicly advocated killing the president was sent to jail for something like 5 years, then upon release kidnapped a child, was sent to prison again, and died in prison. The difference is his LP state affiliate kicked him out of the party, whereas LPNH has made Kauffman its main spokesman.
“The hero statement appears to be well outside the penumbra of First Amendment protections.”
It’s not even close to the edge of First Amendment protections. At least if the First Amendment means anything at all. It is neither a true threat nor a direct incitement.
Thomas Knapp is correct on this point. It’s a shame that many libertarians, of all people, would disagree.
Being legal doesn’t make it good politics. It isn’t something that belongs coming from an LP media account.
As already mentioned throughout this thread, I agree. I disagree with the people calling for the machinery of government investigations, prosecution, and incarceration getting involved.
Unfortunately, restating what I already stated earlier burns yet another response. I don’t know how many responses per day I’m being limited to here, and there are still quite a few responses left to post on this article alone, so I can only hope that no other articles or comments that deserve a reply are posted in the meantime, and that no one else posts any more comments like Jim did which might imply that I hold a position counter to the one I in fact hold and require further such correction which would in turn delay my ability to post comments on more current articles.
I am not keeping exact count of posts per day.
Point of clarification: Also: In all truth the FBI and Secret Service want to get to the root(and not run a clown show) of this they should go after the current LPNH Board, LNC Chairman McArdle, and the Mises Caucus. Correction: I am not currently an officer(of the LPNH) or I would be initiating such an investigation.But here also criminal intent can be traced(as it has been clearly stated by allegedly Jeremy Kaufman).And in that case it is a legitimate use of government to investigate such a threat of initiated force. Also: You can clearly see that they consider(being agents of chaos) that force and threat of force to be legitimate speech and action-of course they also consider someone else exercising their legitimate free speech (one of the non baptized) to be libertinism or license.This is the same old crap we came up against from Conservative Republicans when the Libertarian Party was founded.The leopard may change its name but not its spots.
It would be far worse than a clown show if the FBI and Secret Service were to abuse their investigative authority to read criminal intent onto highly general theoretical statements about what would be ethical or heroic, even if they are stupidly and injudiciously trolled out from a political party social media account.
Wistfully pining for wide-ranging federal dragnets to also ensnare out of state factional allies on such an extremely flimsy basis is even worse. Be careful what you wish for, because such dragnets might not distinguish as to the party factions that are so all-important to you, and become extended to your whole party, or some other group you are involved with, or that someone you care about is involved with. If not in this case, at some point someone who is a factional ally of yours will get carried away with their rhetoric, say something stupid. and get you and yours ensnared as well.
Factional enmity among members and supporters of the libertarian party being carried to the point of not only turning a blind eye to, but actively and openly wishing for, more and greater government investigative and prosecutorial dragnet totalitarianism is a great reason to dissociate from the allegedly libertarian party and any party being put forth as a replacement for it.
More imbecility(that covers merely the tip of the iceberg) from the Kaufman-Borysenko gang which now calls itself the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire. As the founding chairman of the LPNH they have blocked me and I roundly condemn them as being anything and every thing (MAGA-which should be called Make America Colonial Again) but Libertarian. If you consider that Libertarian National Chairman Andrea McArdle is their Mises friend and she just visited Mar A Largo one can surmise the apple falls not far from the tree.Vice President Harris has never threatened anyone-her naive platform and proposed solutions to the myriad problems confronting this nation do not constitute any justification under rule of law for any such awful thing. I have made it clear that a Harris victory and Libertarian Democrat contest after(with the Republicans being consigned to the dustbin of history) is preferable to Trump and a Marxist-Calvinist-Augustinian descent into savagery. Indeed it is interesting that this statement comes out at the time an assassination attempt was made on Donald Trump(who typically is blaming Biden Harris for this). The one this was intended to hurt was Chase Oliver the Libertarian Party candidate and the only Presidential candidate with some real solutions partially. One can surmise from this that through his surrogates Donald Trump continues to nurse the feud he picked with Libertarians for taking away part of what he thought was his vote in 2020(it wasent) for the Biden victory, and then being booed at the Libertarian National Convention. Scapegoat,scapegoat(indeed having scapegoating both ways here-Vice President Harris and legitimate Libertarian Chase Oliver) the same tactic used on Haitian immigrants and political parties. Whether from the Kaufman-Borysenko-McArdle gang or directly from the horses(I think here of another anatomical sector) mouth: Vance and Trump. They indeed sound like the voices in power in 1692 related later in Arthur Millers THE CRUCIBLE. Like a pack of Puritan Divines targetting old nanas. And compounding it by infiltrating an organization which began in rule of law and reason to spout their stupidity. Cowardice hiding in a Lie!
The Republican commentary on this threat to Kamala Harris comes from a bunch of hypocrites who have egged little Donny on in all his tantrums seeking a political advantage. It was this kind of shenanigans that the Libertarian Party was founded to counter in the first place when it first reared its ugly head with Nixon. But since the Mises Caucus took over the Libertarian Party Of New Hampshire has been nothing but a puppet of the Republicans of Donald Trump.
Ray Buckleys assessment of this is typically superficial. That is why this election is the Democrats to lose. I have before compared them to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. That is preferable to destroying the lifeboats and exploding a bigger hole in the hull and then holding a prayer session which is what the MAGA Republicans are about And again as the Founding Chairman of the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire this is NOT the party I founded. And it has been a fight from the beginning. But I never thought it would be easy.
Rule Of Law backed by Reason,seem to be, judging from both the latest assassination attempt on Trump,lacking in both Republican and Democratic Parties. The latest looney toon to attempt this is a Democrat. And in the meantime another political party obviously infiltrated because they choose to throw out the window the non initiation of violence statement(which a real
Libertarian would have to abide by and which I helped draft) is clearly working for the Republican candidate.
The clearest statement on all this mess(and I expect Trump,serving his master Putin, to blame him too) comes from President Zelenski regarding the arrest of Trumps latest attempted assassin who was allegedly doing this for Ukraine. A clear statement of
upholding Rule Of Law and therefore Reason and a condemnation in so many words: practically, pragmatically, and morally, of
such action. And this applies in threats made to Kamala Harris.
‘O wad some Power the giftie gie us / To see oursels as ithers see us!’ R.Burns
Art Ketchen
Also: In all truth if the FBI and Secret Service want to get to the root (and not run a clown show)of this they should go after the current LPNH Board,LNC Chairman McArdle, and the Mises Caucus. As I am not currently an officer I would be doing this. But
here criminal intent can be traced. And in that case it is a legitimate use of government.
Maybe I missed something, but what does Chase Oliver have to do with any of this?
Chase Oliver has nothing to do with this! Every time he tries to put forth a positive position he gets undercut with this garbage(look elsewhere here you will see what the likely source of the problem is).
Chase has nothing to do with this as far as I’m able to tell.
Oliver denounced their action.
The the NH LP’s actions work to discredit the LP and the Oliver campaign.
Perhaps, but it’s a huge jump in logic to conclude that they are actually actively intended to discredit the LP as a whole, or your current extremely underwhelming (to put it generously) presidential candidate, much less part of an active conspiracy with Donald Trump, his campaign and loosely associated movement, and the Kremlin and its undercover agents for that specific purpose. I’m not interested in going down that rabbit hole, and if anything the fact that some of you are is what discredits your party far more than anything some troll(s) at LPNH social media posted, at least from my outside perspective.
I could say the presidential candidate discredits the party, but there’s no point – his campaign isn’t making enough waves to even bother disparaging. Most people I know aren’t even aware that it exists at all, much less anything about it specifically. It can’t help or discredit the party very much when it’s essentially a nonentity. I don’t think to what extent that’s the fault of the candidate and campaign staff and to what extent it’s the fault of internal party opposition matters, either. I can see why it might matter to you, but it doesn’t to me.
In one way or another, the libertarian party manages to find ways to continuously discredit itself after 50+ years. I don’t see reasons to expect that this is ever likely to or will change, or that better results will come from other party or parties in the same approximate ideological direction, particularly while it still exists.
All signs currently point to its problems getting worse, not better, going forward. That likely road ahead is fairly well mapped, at least in general terms, by what happened to the American/American Independent Party since 1976, the Reform Party since 2000, the myriad of tiny Marxist parties, etc.
“it’s a huge jump in logic to conclude that they are actually actively intended to discredit the LP as a whole”
“Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: ‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.'” — Auric Goldfinger
“As the founding chairman of the LPNH they have blocked me and I roundly condemn them as being anything and every thing (MAGA-which should be called Make America Colonial Again) but Libertarian.”
The Mises libertarians on Reddit assure me that the founders of the party would hate what had become of the party pre-Mises take over. It had variously become either leftist or milquetoast Republican, depending on what point they wish to make at the moment. Nolan himself, I am told, would have considered the then-LP leadership to be disappointingly timid and that the Mises Caucus was exactly what was needed to reinvigorate the party.
Indeed, at least as of 2008 Mr Nolan did consider the then party leadership to be disappointingly timid. This is a fact that I distinctly recall based on both personal conversation and written opinions published at the time, although I don’t feel like searching for the latter to prove it.
I can’t guess off hand what he would have thought of the Russian collusion conspiracy theory or hoax that is apparently implied in calling Make America Great Again “Make America Colonial Again.” We’d have to get into what the MAGA slogan actually means, and that would probably quickly get into territory where the discussion would not be permitted here.
I’m fairly certain he would not have approved of anything that hinted of glorifying political violence, given his role in authoring the party membership pledge if nothing else. At least from what I read, it was precipitated by fear of the party being falsely implicated in domestic terrorism investigations and prosecutions at the time, when there was a lot of that going around, at least as much as by Ayn Rand’s notions of what constitutes initiation of force or fraud. I suppose it’s possible he could have evolved or said “that was then, this is now,” etc, but absent some indication he would have, I’d start by presuming against it if anything.
The problem with using disagreements with one faction or leadership group or party direction to imply support for a competing one is the binary error which excludes opposition to both as an option. That seems like an ironically self unaware error for anyone involved in a “third” political party to make.
I didn’t know Mr. Nolan well enough, or read things he wrote often or recently enough, to competently speculate on what he would have thought of your current faction fights. There are people here much better suited to that, if they feel like doing so.
My personal impression, based on extremely cursory examination, is that there’s at least some truth to both factions accusations against each other, and at least some degree of those spinning off into overblown rhetoric, unfounded accusations and very loosely based conjecture as to motives and conspiracies etc. I’m in no way interested in acquiring detailed expertise in the matter.
The shortfalls of one faction don’t justify those of another, and vice versa..
By way of reference, I collaborated with Nolan on libertarian projects from 1967 until his death in 2010. We last met face to face, over a drink, at the Denver convention in 2008. He wasn’t real enthusiastic about either Bill Barr or Wayne Root as the candidates. He admitted to disappointment that the Party, then 36 years in existence, had not achieved a robust presence in every state and on campuses. Factional fights bothered him and he always tried to reconcile such over the years. I believe he would be upset at the current condition of the LP but I can:t really say if he:d be ready to pull the plug.
To reiterate: For Historical truth:The Bob Barr element was exactly what was(if not the root then a continuation) part of the betrayal of the LP and its principles. And Bob Barr was no candidate I could support because to me he represented that betrayal. Let me add that states rights candidates, if it is a hogwild endorsement contemptous of individual rights (and therefore of property rights), IS Statist! And what happened in New Hampshire, with their Mises board in control, with no running of any candidates and a sabotage of any robust presence,and with idiotic stunts like the one just witnessed, is as you note precisely the thing that disturbed David F. Nolan. He did begin a movement to counter this. Let me set the record straight to those who talk about this and know not what they talk about. I was on his side of this. They are representing the very dilution of the Libertarian ideology that we first proclaimed in 1972 in Denver.
I fully agree on Barr, but Barr isn’t who the MC complains about. It’s Johnson and Jorgensen they dislike. Jorgensen’s call to be “actively anti-racist” – supported by Johnson – is the sort of thing that infuriates them.
This stuff has been going on for years against real Libertarians. It could be traced back to William F.Buckley and Whittaker Chambers declaration of war on Ayn Rand for her stating the case in truth. Indeed even before that and certainly before the formation of the Libertarian Party. It has taken various forms but it has as its root the truth of what Libertarianism is versus what Conservatism really is(many Conservatives and those who seek to invade Libertarian space actually bring in Marxist formats or what is one mob fighting another? I have seen that commentary coming out of the Mises Caucus ranks). The MC and the LNC dont need to even mention Barr-the root and the branch are there. It goes a long way back. And it has been constant,sometimes receding but always coming back.
Like I said…they jumped the shark.
If this ends up with charges, a conviction, and jail time, then maybe the rest of their cabal will realize who some of their most visible people are and deal with them.
Or maybe the rest of the party will wake up and throw the bums out of their party.
Or maybe rational people will just leave. I did.
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