Opinion by Nolan Schmidt
Within the past couple of terms, members of the Libertarian Party have seen chaos, deception, and corruption within its national leadership, and as the Libertarian National Convention in Grand Rapids, Michigan comes nearer and nearer by the day, it is time for members who are sick of the chaotic and childish behavior of certain members in this party’s leadership to step up and demand that enough is enough! We can’t just make the national leadership of the Libertarian Party Libertarian again. We also need to make it professional again!
To make this party professional again, there are issues that should be addressed fully. The biggest thorn in this party’s side right now is, obviously, the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire. Their support of authoritarian and racist rhetoric has hurt our party to the point where they are the equivalent of an infected limb that has greatly become gangrenous. Both the Libertarian Party of Guadalupe County in Texas and the Libertarian Party of San Francisco in California already called that they no longer recognize the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire as an affiliate last Summer. As with amputating a gangrenous limb, the right thing to do is for members of the delegation body to formally disaffiliate the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire at the convention, and no longer acknowledge them as part of the party. The body also must pass a resolution that we cut all ties to them if successfully disaffiliated. Afterwards, a new state affiliate for New Hampshire should be created with very strict bylaws that would prevent any Republican, racist, and Neo-Nazi supporting rhetoric from touching the new affiliate. This is the first big step to make the Libertarian Party professional again.
Second, voting for members of the LNC who have shown to be professional and supportive of the party’s platform, bylaws, and, most importantly, candidates. We cannot have a repeat of what happened to many of our candidates in the last election cycle, especially the treatment that our presidential candidate, Chase Oliver, received. It is also very important that those who are obviously defenders of embezzlement of party funds or agents of chaos are not voted into those positions. It should be suggested that the new leadership, if we successfully get those who are professional and supportive of our party and its candidates, should release a formal apology on behalf of the party to the candidates who were hurt by the previous leadership, and should seek full legal action to regaining our funds from those who embezzled the party.
Finally, the new leadership, where professional and supportive members are voted in, should work to rebuild the party and try to bring back those who left the party because of the previous leadership which endorsed and supported authoritarian criminals, pedophiles, and the such over our principles, platform, and bylaws. We also, as a party, must create safeguards that nothing like the McArdle takeover and leadership or affiliates like the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire will happen again. We need to make sure we keep David F. Nolan and the other founders of the Libertarian Party’s message of liberty and freedom alive and well over corruption and sabotage.
May the Libertarian Party become Libertarian and Professional Again!
I have worked in the retail sales world for 40 or more years and one thing for certain in my opinion that needs to be fixed is to develop some material that explains where the LP stands on a number of issues that are racist in origin and cause poverty, such as zoning laws, and occupational licensing laws. The drug laws are a good example. We did good work for a few years but seem to have dropped the ball recently.
Take a stand against poverty and say so but without being rude.
Send out news releases weekly and get a few hundred members to write letters to the media in support of the issues covered by the news releases as well as to the elected officials.
Maybe we should promote reducing poverty by opening markets. I’ve been promoting this since I was in Oregon.
Repealing the Corn Law
I was not influenced much by Rand.
Here’s Cobden and Bright of the Anti-Corn Law League where I found my inspiration. Here’s a piece from FEE and some interesting benefits.
“From 1846 until the outbreak of World War I, England’s industrial output soared 290 percent. Imports were up 701 percent, and exports 673 percent. Money wages in England increased about 59 percent for agricultural workers, 61 percent for industrial workers.”
https://fee.org/articles/richard-cobdens-triumphant-crusade-for-free-trade-and-peace/
Now imagine what could be done if the LP led the fight to repeal zoning laws and building codes. How about opening the hemp market to industrialization?
I am 65 years old. I voted for the Libertarian candidate the first time I voted in a Presidential election, in 1980. I have admittedly since then drifted to a more moderate and liberal political position, but still admire some core Libertarian political positions. I was appalled to receive a fund-raising text message from the Democratic candidate for Congress in New Hampshire today, not because he is a Democrat, but because of threats on his life by the Libertarian Party of NH! After 30 minutes of research, I became only more disgusted that such an organization could exist. How is there seriously any debate about disassociating the national Libertarian party from this group of juvenile, Nazi-loving, uneducated, racist ranting fools??
The message of Nolan and the founders was, and is, laudable. But ,after 50 years, hasn’t the strategy for advancing it through third party politics been shown a failure?
I would prefer to characterize it as a necessary but insufficient approach. Advocacy *must* also be for electoral reform away from the winner-take-all system that led to and entrenches the two-party system and towards the system that most multi-party system countries use, Proportional Representation.
And there’s been great progress, as the LP added support for PR in its platform a couple of years ago.
You are absolutely right Nolan. I appreciate you.