Got this from the Bob Barr 2008 campaign this morning:

Last Friday I wrote you with a clever message soliciting an $8 gift for the Bob Barr for President campaign._ It was, after all, 8-8-08 and I figured perhaps an appeal to your superstitious side may work.

But unless our computer is wrong, it didn’t._ I’ll admit it, my feelings were hurt - a little.

So today I write to tell you about how good fortune has fallen on several of our supporters who wrote to tell us what happened after giving their first $8 in support of Bob Barr.

__ _+ + +__ _Larry J. of Miami won the Florida Lottery and can now afford to give much more.

___ + + +__ _Karen T. of Seattle reports meeting the man of her dreams and thinks this could lead to a beautiful marriage and a lifetime of happiness.

__ _+ + + __ _John M. of San Antonio told us that his warts suddenly disappeared.

__ _+ + +__ _Kyle G. of Nashville writes that all of the weeds in his yard had disappeared.

__ _+ + +__ _Kevin B. of Akron says that after six months of unemployment, he’s got a job.

__ _+ + +__ _And Alan C. of Portland met the woman of his dreams…in Seattle.

Think of what you may have missed out on….

OK, I’ll admit it, I made all of this up._ But I’m not going to give up._ Shane Cory, our deputy campaign manager who has a cubicle next door to mine, suggested I sweeten the deal.

So here it is._ Five bucks from you today and I’ll send you a Bob Barr bumper sticker absolutely free._ (Shane wanted me to double the offer like that guy on TV selling cleaning products, but come on, this IS SERIOUS business.)

Come on, $5 is not much more than the cost of one of those fancy coffees from Starbucks._ In fact, $5 is less than lunch at McDonalds…and besides, do you really want those calories and fat grams?_ To donate, click here: https://www.bobbarr2008.com/donate/?c=bb0816

Please, $5 today - and I’ll never nag you again._ Thanks.

Sincerely,

Robert Stuber, the official Bob Barr beggar

This isn’t the only donation solictitation I’ve seen from the Barr campaign with this type of pathetic plea. He’s not alone though. McCain’s campaign has sent out a few emails that are almost as sad.

Barr is going to be in NYC this upcoming Monday. I’m not yet sure if I’ll be attending. I’ve been saying he still needs to convince me to vote for him… perhaps this is his chance. What I do know is he’s not getting the $250 VIP donation required so I may hang out for an hour before he mingles with the regular fokes.

Is Richard Viguerie Trying to Buy the Libertarian Party? by David F. Nolan

Key developments in the weeks leading up to the Libertarian Party National Convention, which takes place this weekend, show a disturbing pattern. While none of them is sinister in itself, taken together they add up to a strong indication that outside forces are in the process of trying to take over the LP and turn it into an arm of the conservative movement.

Some of the principal officials working on the campaign for former Georgia Republican Congressman Bob Barr appear to be veteran “partyjackers.” Barr finance operative Richard Viguerie, a longtime conservative fundraiser, mounted an unsuccessful hostile takeover attempt on the American Independent Party back in 1976. In 2000, Russ Verney, now Barr’s campaign manager, first opened the Reform Party up to a successful takeover by “the Buchanan Brigades,” then defected and ran a rump convention to further split the party by nominating Natural Law Party invader John Hagelin.

Recent events within the LP show a similarly disturbing trend.

The convention organizers were told that they must invite Neal Boortz, a conservative Barr supporter, to be the speaker at the Sunday Banquet. Boortz had to cancel because of knee surgery, but the pattern of placing Barr supporters in many of the prominent speaking spots has continued.

The convention organizers were told that they must have Barr himself as the convention’s keynote speaker. After Barr launched his presidential exploratory committee, they were then told that his replacement would be Richard Viguerie. This choice of having Viguerie, a movement conservative, deliver the keynote was imposed on the convention organizers contrary to their own desire, which was to fill the slot with one of the many Libertarian speakers available and eager to fill the keynote slot.

The LP’s former Executive Director, Shane Cory, used the national office to release without authorization a statement that many considered to be openly hostile to candidate Mary Ruwart. He then resigned and has since accepted a position within Viguerie’s organization. (The unauthorized press release appears to have been taken down, but here’s the text.)

Sunday, it was announced that Mr. Viguerie has purchased the popular blog Third Party Watch, which until now has been a largely unmoderated site where proponents and opponents of all third party candidates could freely express their views.

Monday morning, longtime libertarian activist and Third Party Watch contributor Tom Knapp attempted to post a piece about a highly critical story appearing in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about Bob Barr’s fundraising practices. Within minutes, his piece was deleted and his previous posting privileges on the site were revoked.

Clearly, Barr and Viguerie are attempting to gain control of the LP so that Barr can campaign on a conservative/libertarian hybrid platform and Viguerie can extend his fundraising empire into the libertarian quadrant of the political universe. If they succeed, the Libertarian Party will become just one more mouthpiece for malcontent Republicans.

This makes the attempts of some Libertarians to get back to first principles, such as by restoring the 2004 platform, all the more important.

This may be a more recent development but was easily predicted. From the ‘74 Dallas Accord to the Reform Caucus to even the Ron Paul Revolution.

Update:

You can find more at Steve Kubby’s radio show from the 20th.

Libertarians call for increased communication to combat child pornography

The Libertarian Party is calling for increased coordination and communication between federal and state law enforcement agencies in order to help to apprehend and convict child predators and those who engage in child pornography.

“FBI Chief Robert Mueller was correct when he said we are losing the war on child pornography,” says Libertarian Party Executive Director Shane Cory, referring to comments made by the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday before a House Judiciary Committee meeting. “We have an obligation to protect children from sexual exploitation and abuse, and we can do this by increasing communication between state and federal agencies to help combat this repulsive industry. While privacy rights should always be respected in the pursuit of child pornographers, more needs to be done to track down and prosecute the twisted individuals who exploit innocent children.”

I tend to agree with Stephan Kinsella over at LRC:

While child abuse is obviously evil and unlibertarian, it is still bizarre that the LP would issue this release. To specifically call for the national police force to work more with state and local police is not just something radical libertarians would have trouble with. It is also unconstitutional. Under the Tenth Amendment, criminal justice questions–-including murder, rape, arson, theft, child abuse, violence against women, drug policy, gun laws and the like–are to be handled by state and local governments, not the federal government.

There is some gossip that this release was a stupid inner-party power play, to make radicals, including believers in decentralist law enforcement, feel uncomfortable in the party. By forcing this issue over the very emotionally charged issue of child porn, some people in charge of the party are trying to force anarchists and other radicals to admit they do not think the federal government should be involved in such questions. Specifically, they are attacking one presidential candidate, Mary Ruwart, over this and using it as an excuse to alienate radicals.

Ruwart–who spent 19 years as a pharmaceutical research scientist for Upjohn Pharmaceuticals and holds a PhD in biophysics–says she has been unfairly attacked and her words have been misrepresented in a smear attempt. Apparently the sell-outs and compromisers are trying to destroy her career.

In any case, why should a presidential election even have anything to do with this? The 1996 and 2000 LP presidential candidate, Harry Browne, used to point out that “The Constitution recognizes only three federal crimes — treason, piracy, and counterfeiting. The federal government has no Constitutional authority to deal with any other crimes.” He convincingly argued that this was a reason even pro-life libertarians should oppose federal abortion laws. (And Ron Paul would argue that pro-Choice libertarians, for similar decentralist, Constitutional reasons, might oppose Roe v. Wade.) (See Browne on prohibition and drugs; Browne on abortion.)

Would Harry Browne feel left out of what the Libertarian Party has become?

David Nolan, the minarchist founder of the Libertarian Party, was outraged by the press release. He wrote:

“The question is, how does society best protect its members from these bad things? And the LIBERTARIAN answer is ‘rarely, if ever, by giving more power to governments, especially at the Federal level.’ I am appalled at the national HQ staff putting out a press release that implicitly disowns one of our candidates over such a relatively minor issue. First, because that’s not a proper role for paid staffers to assume, and second because several other candidates have taken overtly anti-Libertarian stances on a number of issues, and none of them have been shot at by the national staff for doing so. This whole fiasco just reeks of cronyism and witch-hunting.”

This is why I hate political activism and electoral politics. The desperate attempts to seem respectable, the constant disingenuous smearing of more principled opponents as racists or pro-pedophiles, the selling out of even Constitutional government to hysterical federal wars on terrorism and child porn, and under-the-belt punches. It’s all very disgusting.

And even Ian Free Talk Live has had enough:

The Libertarian Party (LP) had, after the late, great Harry Browne’s campaigns, been falling further and further from it’s original principles. In the early portion of this decade, when the LP removed from the party platform their calls for the abolishment of the CIA and FBI, I wrote their newspaper to say I’d not send them another dime of money until they got back to their founding principle: the non-initiation of force.As I drifted away from the LP and politics and toward market-based action, I paid less and less attention to the LP. I even said on the air recently on “Free Talk Live“, my talk show, that the only reason I was still a member is because I bought a life membership and it hadn’t been worth my while to cancel it.

Well, along comes this post on the LRC blog. I agree with the sentiments of the post, and felt this move by the LP was the last straw. I called and revoked my membership, and felt clean and fresh afterward!

The LP is dead to me and no longer resembles the party I joined ten years ago. After the 2000 Browne campaign, I jumped into LP activism. I attended meetings regularly and single-handedly organized and paid for libertarian outreach at the county fair, gun shows, and gay/lesbian pridefests as well as created and tended their website. I did and funded it all myself because of the political nature of the LP. It was not hard to notice how bureaucratic and slow they were. For example, they spent uncountable weeks debating over bylaws. Plus, at the non-bylaw-reviewing regular meetings, whenever an idea was proposed there would nearly always be someone who would derail the discussion into debate on the idea or the issue. Very little ever got done. This was just my experience with the local LP in Florida. (Nothing against the individuals, they are good people. It’s the central planning that is the major failure.)

The LP state conventions I attended were dull. Having watched the LP national conventions on TV, I can say that while some of the speeches were excellent, the bulk of the time was spent bickering over party platform, blah blah blah. I’m glad I never went to one. All of this distasteful bureaucratic, political garbage was frustrating to me, as I didn’t know what else to do to achieve liberty in my lifetime.

Since I discovered the Free State Project in the first half of the decade and especially since moving to New Hampshire, I’ve been learning about the free market and experiencing REAL, decentralized, activism. Sure, there are a bunch of political Free Staters (for those of you who still believe you can change the system from the inside), but the most exciting and effective activism has been market-based. There’s a cadre of great market-based activists (both NH natives and Free Staters) here in Keene, NH, and that number is growing. We’re creating our own media (TV, radio, print, blog) and have begun living free. If the Blue Light Gang interferes, we already have proven success at deterring their aggression. As more join in withdrawing from coercive society and joining the voluntary society, we will only be more successful as the coercive gang’s veil of legitimacy will crumble from its own inherent contradictions. Eventually, the transition to the free market will be completed and not one vote need be cast or politician promoted.

Goodbye LP. Their contribution to the dilution and destruction of the term Libertarian is appreciated. “Free Marketeer” is so much more descriptive of my beliefs. Thanks LP, for helping me realize that politics is never the solution to problems.

We will never be free by begging, but only by choice. I choose liberty. What about you? Will you join the Nonviolent Evolution?

I think the means to freedom is multifaceted. We need political and apolitical actors. If we don’t defend ourselves in both spheres we risk serious loss of ground. However, party politics will not be the vehicle for change. As you see here the “party of principle” has been infiltrated by rejected Republicans and Democrats. Mike Gravel, Bob Barr and Waine Allen Root may be better than your average D and R politician but that’s not saying much. This latest attack on Mary Ruwart has really turned me against the LNC moreso then I had been prior. The outright lies and slim being thrown around at Third Party Watch and the like is incredibly petty and sad.

The national LP will likely continue to run candidates who blow the competition away for some time but they will also likely continue to pick up D and R rejects and their downward spiral. Oh well…. one more reason to head up to NH.

http://thirdpartywatch.com/…

Her comment?

How can a libertarian argue against child pornography?

Ruwart: Children forced to participate in sexual acts have the same rights and recourse as a rape victim. We can and should prosecute their oppressors.

Children who willingly participate in sexual acts have the right to make that decision as well, even if it’s distasteful to us personally. Some children will make for choice is just as some adults do in smoking and drinking to excess; this is part of life.

What we outlaw child pornography, if the prices paid for child performers rise, increasing the incentives for parents to use children against their will.

And some responses from TPW:

Here are a few comments being left in defense of Ruwart:

• I don’t agree with the answer that Dr. Ruwart is quoted as giving to that last one—and I’m far from the only libertarian who would disagree with that answer. However, I think that the major defect in the answer is not that she wants kids to have sex (I doubt that she does), but rather that she’s attempting to apply a “short answers to tough questions” approach to a question that can’t be handled with a short answer.
• First of all, why should child pornography be illegal? Libertarian theory rests upon the concept that for a crime to exist, there must be a victim. While the photos depict an act of aggression, the possession of the photos harms no one. Certainly, the person collecting them could be seen as rather questionable, but so could a person who collects pictures of dead people or watches slasher flicks. There all sick in one way or another. An argument against this could be that the child owns the copyright or some such, but that would be a very different crime with very different penalties.
• Every society of which I’ve read, including those without formal governments, has considered capacity to be a required element in a contract, limiting the ability of children to consent to anything. The notion that any libertarian minarchist or anarchist believes there is no such element should be assumed to be false in the absence of evidence to the contrary. Citations by anonymous people that haven’t been verified are not evidence.

From Ruwart’s opposition:

• All I want to ask is this: why are we giving spin advice to someone who is an anarchist and represents the most radical view possible within the LP? Shouldn’t we consider WHY we would even want someone like this representing the party? Anarchism IS NOT THE SAME as libertarianism.
• Mary Ruwart’s views on child pornography and child sex are beyond the pale. I was thinking she would make a nice VP candidate, but not now… …She may have a Ph.D. in biophysics, but she flunked the basic course on common sense.
• I wonder what Shane Cory has to say about this Bullshit…because if it’s true…then you guys win. I will not associate with this level of trash…

As an AnCap I agree with her. She’s likely not referring to children as in prepubescent but post pubescent. We have criminalized the consentual act of sex between a physically mature young person and someone but a max 4 or 5 years older. Or even more ridiculous: charging 14-16 year olds with child porn creation and distribution for taking photos of themselves nude and sending them to a lover. I like what friend and fellow MLP member Jim Lesczynski said:

I attended a lecture by Dr. Thomas Szasz once, where he addressed this issue. Szasz advocated that in the case of alleged victims over the arbitrary age, the prosecutor should have to prove that the victim was incapable of giving consent (e.g., an adult who is severely mentally retarded). For those below the arbitrary age, the defense would have to prove to a jury’s satisfaction that the alleged victim was capable of giving consent.

Seems pretty good to me. I would make that age 12 or 13. The average age of puberty. Now only if we can start treating young people like mature individuals instead of children up to the age of 25 we could reverse a lot of these problems.

http://thirdpartywatch.com/…

I just got off the phone with Libertarian Party Executive Director Shane Cory and he confirms the following information: Former US Senator and Alaska House Speaker Mike Gravel has joined the Libertarian Party. Cory says he’ll provide more in a media release to be expected over the next few hours.

Gravel is currently one of the Democratic contenders for president. Wikipedia provides a bit of Gravel’s colorful background:

As Senator, Gravel became nationally known for his forceful but unsuccessful attempts to end the draft during the Vietnam War and for having put the Pentagon Papers into the public record in 1971 despite risk to himself. He conducted an unusual campaign for the Democratic nomination for Vice President of the United States in 1972, and then played a crucial role in getting Congressional approval for the Trans-Alaska pipeline in 1973. He was re-elected to the Senate in 1974, but gradually alienated most of his Alaskan constituencies and his bid for a third term was defeated in a Democratic primary election in 1980.

Third Party Watch covered Gravel’s endorsement of Green Party candidate Jesse Johnson here and Gravel’s libertarian streak here.

This should provide some refreshing news to those insisting that the right-left balance in the Libertarian Party is slightly out of whack. Gravel joins former Republican Rep. Bob Barr as a recent congressional addition to the Libertarian Party fold. Both Barr and current Rep. Ron Paul are “Life Members” of the LP.

He had indicated a few weeks back he’d consider a 3rd party run. Fairly recently there have been rumors he was going to run for the Libertarian Party nomination. Appears those were accurate. Some have called Gravel a left libertarian but anyone who supports national referendums and creates an organization which promotes direct democracy doesn’t seem to me to be all that interested in individual liberty. He’s better than any of those running in the main parties however by a long shot.