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Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney’s campaign has agreed to participate in the Bailout Town Hall next week. It’s yet to be determined whether the Congresswoman herself will appear or whether she will be represented by a surrogate.

While I disagree with Congresswoman Maloney’s votes for the bailout I think she deserves some credit for agreeing to participate. She could have ignored us but she didn’t. I think she should be commended for that.

The event is scheduled for this Wednesday October 29 from 7 pm to 9 pm at the Ukrainian East Village Restaurant, 140 Seconds Ave, NYC. You can get details here.

The Bailout is co-sponsored by a diverse group of political organizations and campaigns including: The Manhattan Libertarian Party, The NYC Green Party, The Queens Libertarian Party, the Campaign for Liberty (Ron Paul’s grass roots network). Both of Congresswoman Maloney’s opponents, Libertarian Isaiah Matos and Republican Robert Heim are co-sponsors and both will be speakers at the event. Bill Buran who is a candidate for New York State Assembly will speak for the Campaign for Liberty.

The Conservative and Independence Parties and the Nader campaign were also invited to participate in the event but either declined or did not respond.

This will be a truly unique opportunity to see Democrats and Republicans, Greens and Libertarians together presenting their views and answering voters’ questions on the single most important issue of the time.

The format is designed to emphasize getting facts to the voters. In the first hour, speakers will make a short opening statement then take predetermined questions for the moderator. The last hour will be exclusively dedicated to questions from the audience.

This should be interesting. Maloney better do her homework or Bill and Isaiah will likely run circles around her. Good luck gentlemen.

Last night, October 21st, 2008, the Greater NYC Campaign for Liberty, some members of the Manhattan Libertarian Party and other liberty activists demonstrated in Grand Central Station. A bit of theater. A breadline containing a decent amount of individuals with others as satellites handing out literature, discussing the bailout with passer bys and filming the event. I was in the latter group. Not 10 minutes into the demonstration officers started speaking with Russ, requesting our reasons for being their, what exactly we were doing and I’d imagine if we had a permit.

I was at one point, not caught on video, threatened by the officer seen walking away from Russ at approximately 48 seconds into the video. A very loud and angry, similar to: “Back up! Get away from me!” I was merely walking up to inquire to what the problem was and why Russ was being engaged. After talking with Russ briefly I went around to the other side to get a different angle and hand out more literature. I soon noticed another officer appear (about 1 minute in) and start approaching the breadline. You can see at about 1:04 the first officer points me out to the new cop.

At 1:45 I’m approached by the first officer and told to stop filming the officers. The officer in particular was 5 or more feet from me and I was attempting to pick up the dialog in the rather loud station. I was not at any point noticed by the officer as I was completely behind him so there was no possibility of my existence being an interference. There were others standing closer who were not filming who were not harassed. I was left alone only because he become distracted by another officer or his radio. As Russ was being handcuffed I believe it’s the original officer who threatens to lock me up too if I don’t “take a walk.” So I took a walk. Following closely Russ and the two officers who were bringing him to the holding cell. I unfortunately stopped recording while in the police office talking with the officer at the main desk though I got some of it.

It one point an officer threatens to bring out the K-9 unit to sniff all our bags. A short time one happens to just walk right by all of us and our belongings and does not react.

At 6:30 the officer who was talking with Andrew asked if he could help me. I inform him I’m a member of the group there implying my reason for being next to him… though I think obviously the problem was my filming. When you see the camera go from facing the floor to the side is when the officer grabbed my arm motioning to either take my camera or start to place cuffs on me. He too was distracted by what appeared to be a superior officer calling on the radio. I hand the camera off to Andrew in case he came back to detain me. Listen to the radio. “You were told what to do. THAT’S ENOUGH. OK?! Do what you got to do!”

I kept the camera going while trying to act as it wasn’t. We were told the office was not a waiting room even though there had been people in there waiting and instructed to leave. Shortly after Russ is released.

Once we left the station after a couple minutes we noticed most of the officers involved in the incendent standing just inside the doorway staring and talking among themselves. I wasn’t quick enough, nor would it had gone over well, to record them watching us but I was able to get them walking away. A rather good ending to the video I think.

Take aways:

1. Don’t carry ‘official’ state identification when doing these things. That way when you tell them you don’t have ID to show them you’re telling the truth. In fact I now plan to not carry my state ID with me on a regular basis.
2. Don’t ever stop recording. These things don’t take long and it’s better to have too much footage and have to spend more time editing then missing some of the good parts.
3. I had my Free Talk Live press pass on me but forgot to wear it. However, it’s my ‘official’ one with all my information on it. I need to get another one printed with basic info which doesn’t give away my full identity.

We plan on doing this again in the next couple weeks. We’ll see how it goes.

Not that we very much care but if someone is familiar with the laws regarding the actions we took please post the relevant statutes in the comments. Thank you.

> Thanks for answering our questions, very nice from you.
>
> 1- First of all we would like to know what is exactly SERVICE NATION
> SUMMIT and what’s your position there?

Service Nation (http://servicenation.org) is an organization which
is attempting to get more people to be volunteers. Primarily by
increasing US federal government programs such as PeaceCorps and
AmeriCorps. The Service Nation Summit was to “bring together 500
leaders of all ages and from every sector of American life from
universities and foundations, to business and politics to celebrate the
power and potential of citizen service, and lay out a bold policy
blueprint for addressing Americas greatest social challenges through
expanded opportunities for volunteer and national service.”

I’m not a member of the organization. I attended as a member of the
press representing the Manhattan Libertarian Party
(http://manhattanlp.org), Free Talk Live (http://freetalklive.com) and
my own blog, http://blogofbile.com.

> 2. Then, why do you think Jon Bon Jovi there?

He is a well known celebrity and well liked. He’s made significant
charitable contributions and created his own organization to help
people. Inviting that sort of individual would gain attention for
Service Nation and the summit.

> 3. How was the speech of Jon Bon Jovi?

I thought it was fine. What I disliked was that Service Nation is
advocating expanding government funded service and yet most of their
examples of service, like Bon Jovi’s, are in fact private voluntarism.
I whole heartily support private individuals volunteering their time and
money to charities they believe in. However, taxing the populous to
provide similar services which they may not agree with is both an
inefficient use of resources and immoral. Incentivising people with
education grants and the like negates the meaning and nature of voluntarism.

> 4. What is the feeling there in the States about the charity things
> Jon does? People like them or they think “God! he’s doing this with a
> purpouse!”?

The United States is the most charitable nation
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16638810/,
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-06-25-charitable_N.htm) and
voluntarism is a major component of many people’s lives. You may find
people who disagree with his methods or target but the fact he’s doing
something to help those in need likely gains the respect of most
Americans.

> Thanks so much iambile, feel free to add any comments to the interview
> outside the questions.
>
> Regards
>
> Javier

I just want to make sure it is clear that those in the liberty movement
completely support true private voluntarism. What we don’t and can’t
support is government funded service, so called voluntary service or
compulsory service. Compulsory because it’s tantamount to slavery and
so called voluntary because the government is inefficient and the
taxation process is theft. Taking from John to give to Paul is wrong
regardless of the reason it’s done or the individual doing it. So
called voluntary service is what Service Nation is advocating. However,
several members of their coalition desire compulsory service and the
natural progression of government increasing the size and scope of
voluntary service is toward mandatory service.

UPDATE:

You can find the interview, translated, here.

I’m not sure how well the translation is… putting a couple things into Babel Fish I’m not so sure my points get across. Though the one comment made on the post seems to understand that I’m being critical.

Yesterday I received a response back from Melissa Biffert concerning request to attend the summit in addition to my already granted press credentials. Of which I’ve yet to be updated on what the press schedule will be.

Hi bile,

Thanks for your interest. Unfortunately at this time the Summit is filled up and I am unable to offer you a spot at the event. I hope that you will continue to be involved in the ServiceNation campaign and that you would consider joining the Coalition (see attached materials).

Attachments: ServiceNation Coalition Overview.doc, ServiceNation FAQ.pdf

My response indicated that while I don’t speak for the Manhattan Libertarian Party I’d suspect they are likely not in agreement with Service Nation’s goals and therefore would kindly refuse the offer. Though I did say I’d ask at the next meeting.

http://manhattanlp.org/

Now that petitioning season is over, it’s time once
again to get busy on another issue of Serf City. All
submissions must be libertarian in outlook, preferably
NYC/NYS-oriented, but we’ll accept articles on
national issues. The deadline is Sept. 8.

Please email any articles, photos or cartoons. And ads
– we especially need ads. Rates and ad dimensions can
be found at http://serfcity.us.
Thanks,

Jim

You can send submissions to me or Jim Lesczynski (editor of SerfCity)

The problem here isn’t free speech cages in and of themselves. The right to speech is derived from property rights. Since these lands are owned by the public government, according to rights theory, they should have the ability to dictate what is done on their plot of land. However, as a result of the whole “the public owns it” farce we come to a situation where there is a tragedy of the commons. Their founding documents claim that the public has the right to peacefully assemble and freedom of speech. Therefore one would derived the right to use common land as a platform for those. Let’s accept that as I think historically that can be shown true. What these protesters need to do then is disobey. Stop listening to the thugs who are attempting to disrespect their rights. During the 2004 Republican National Convention the NYPD had setup similar free speech zones. The Manhattan Libertarian party told the city to go pound sand and went off to Central Park and protested there. They received international attention for doing so and no one to my knowledge was harassed. I, however, who at the time was not an MLP member nor protesting, was nearly caught up in one of the NYPD’s protester nets where dozens were taken to Pier 57. Had I not found a low part in the orange netting and hopped over I may have ended up at the pier for just walking down the street. No damage should come of the cages or cameras nor should anyone get violent obviously. They should just not listen, en masse.