COMMENTS I’VE POSTED
- Posted to Facebook —
Save the wildernesses, turn them in for valuable prizes!
- Posted to Facebook —
I haven’t used any Apple products since April, 1994, when I had to pull my floppy disk out of a Mac using the needlenose pliers on my Leatherman, after five useless tries of using the “Eject” command.
- Posted to Facebook here and here —
Elisheva Hannah Levin
Saturday, November 1, 2019 at 9:29 PMYou know, I have been extremely grumpy today. I have my reasons. I am grumbly and grumpily questioning how much of my time and money I am spending on the LP, and whether what I do with it matters.
I am a competent academic in the field of disability policy. I am a researcher fascinated with how people with disabilities might free themselves from the governmentalities that limit their lives and segregate them from full citizenship, and how this might look in different communities and circumstances. I am the only libertarian I know to have been appointed to the DDPC council by both a Republican and Democratic Governor. Boards like this exist in all 50 states as well as US territories. This is no small honor. Much of what I am doing was inspired by my upbringing by first generation Libertarians, my parents who passed to me the vision of Liberty in our lifetimes.
I go to LNC Discuss and other LP groups and see people avoiding real issues and hard discussions, using their dislike of a party official with autism as an excuse. At convention, I see the same people crowding the microphones again and again, while the chair is praised for ignoring limitations that would allow more diversity of expression. I see a party that is silent on issues such as the Free Hong Kong movement and the millions of ethnic and religious people being put in reeducation concentration camps in China. Such silence will be our shame in the future. I hear libertarians arguing for open borders with no order, while ignoring the human trafficking, the violent drug trade, and rights violations creating incredible human misery only a few hours south of where I live.
I am a competent policy researcher concerned with making systems more life-promoting and liberating. I know that for better or worse, people WILL create order where there is none. That is the origin of governments and governmentalities. Liberty is an order in which people govern themselves. Anarchy means no rulers, it does not mean no order. I want to see the kind of spontaneous order that promotes human happiness. Happiness is not an emotion, but a state in which liberty and property allow people to create a harmony that is productive and life-affirming.
For these reasons, I will not promote drug use, alcoholism, or prostitution, even though I do not believe they should be policed by the government. I doubt any recovered drug or alcohol addict or prostitute would seriously promote such life choices in their children. I believe that the civil society is the proper place for the development of life-promoting values, and that manners and mores that demonstrate respect for the lives, liberty, and property of others are appropriate for libertarians. I believe most libertarians do in fact have such respect and value such manners. There are some very disrespectful people in high and petty positions at national who lie about and slander others, and claim that this is appropriate behavior, and the LNC does nothing. The LNC does nothing even when persons in high position smear whole groups of people to the detriment of the party. Individuals have freedom of speech. Those charged with high office who represent the party either officially or representationally, have taken on privileges and with them, responsibilities that limit their rights while they hold office.
Liberty does not come free, even though it is a human birthright. Rather, it comes with the responsibility to respect the rights of others, and to treat others as valuable, sovereign human beings, worthy of respect unless their behavior proves otherwise.
The LP needs more quiet, competent people and fewer egoizers and grandstanders. The LNC needs a course in manners, and the courage to enforce the NAP and censure leaders who violate the rights of others, or who treat others with disrespect. The convention needs the courage to push back against the LNC when it treads on the rights and privileges belonging to the convention, no matter how much overtime is required. No office is so important that the LNC should violate the prerogatives of the convention. Better none-of-the-above hold the office empty than that the convention be violated.
I have said my piece. It is a lot longer than I expected. I do not expect to be appointed to any LNC or convention committees. I am competent, but quiet and unexciting. I did, however, offer my services as a volunteer to see to the accommodation of people with disabilities in the convention hall. I did so after seeing how badly the job was bungled in New Orleans. Although Libertarians do not believe that government should mandate accommodations, basic respect for others requires us to include all Libertarians, and this means making appropriate accommodations, not because a government forces us, but out of basic, human decency.
LISTENING / READING / WATCHING
- Target Books — Doctor Who: The Mark of the Rani by Philip “Pip” Baker and Jane Baker
- The Commonwealth: The Void Trilogy, Book 2 — The Temporal Void by Peter F. Hamilton
- Colion Noir — Wife with AR-15 Saves husband and daughters’ lives during home invasion [YouTube]
- KRQE News [Albuquerque, New Mexico] — City spending $1.75M for park security on infrastructure, APD overtime by Chris McKee
- AmmoLand Shooting Sports News —
- AC / DC — Back in Black
- Avenged Sevenfold — Waking the Fallen
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