I'm not sure if I was just feeling surly after two days on a roof or an email from Angela Keaton made me do it, but I popped off an acerbic reply to what I thought was an absurd challenge on the Yahoo list for the LP PlatCom. The challenge went something like this:
I repeat my offer of $100 for identifying any other position we could take that 60% of Libertarians and 60% of Americans support and that is not already staked out by the Ds or Rs or Greens or CP.
Last April I was appointed to the National Platform Committee by the outgoing LPNY chair Richard Cooper at the prompting of M. Carling. I guess the thinking was that despite any inherent radicalness I may possess, at least I was more practical/reasonable than the typical Gothamite out to push guns on toddlers. We actually teach them how to use real guns and hunt upstate. It only took until the following Thursday after the late July LNC appointment of the other PlatCom members for me to realize that arguing about nuclear weapons in my garage or the relevancy of Icelandic (circa 1000 AD) anarchism was not my goal until next February. I needed to get some windows into this old wreck of a house I live in. Here's my reply to the challenge and bit from Angela that started this whole thing . . .
Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2007 10:59 PM
To: LPplatform-discuss@yahoogroups.com
Subject: On banning cigarettes, the LP should claim the undefended popular
high ground
Nearly 50 percent of Americans favor banning cigarettes.
Perhaps if 95.8% of Libertarians could be convinced (the small lot
that they are) I could stake a claim to that C-Note.
Here's my argument to Libertarians;
Stop worrying about principles, people want cigarettes banned. If we
can attract 50 percent of the electorate based on this issue, the LP
would climb out of it's Rothbardian trance and be a responsible and
responsive party with solid ambitions and demonstrative success.
If greater health, protection of your children and safe work and home
environments are your goal, then you should support this ban. It
should be noted that law breakers would not be imprisoned, but
treatment centers, counseling and eventual decriminalization of
European brands would focus more attention on person's well being than
any actual heavy handed corrections mentality with regard to
institutional and community based outreach to the victims of addictions.
The Greens come close to staking this out.
If the Constitution Party agrees that cigarettes are illegal than
we're toast on this issue.
Happily roofing and patching my ancient homes in the great Northeast
before the winter winds start flying . . .
Eric Sundwall
Of course one of the replies was less than judicious and seemed to miss the point.
It is absurd to support a ban on cigarettes. They should absolutely
NOT even be taxed in a different manner than any other product. The
simple fact is that refined sugar does tremendously more damage to
everyone's health but most assuredly children's health than all the
tobacco products, alcohol products and illegal drugs COMBINED. If you
even open your piehole to blabber your mindless rantings about
cigarettes without a more vociferous rant against refined sugar, you
are just demonstrating what a hypocritical statist you are.
How anyone keeps a straight face using the term 'Lesserarchist' or purports to advocate a 'Liberventionist' foreign policy is beyond me too. Angela's original angst about this whole process came in a confessional;
After much thought I did what every miscreant does when he is at the end of his rope, I found Jesus. I am turning my life over to the Lord. Now, you think, What? Why? Well, given that the Bush administration only real use for Xtians is as cannon fodder, I might be able to make some headway with the anti-war stance. Sure, Pat Robertson maybe a little pinko on capitalism but since most fundies are working people, they'd probably appreciate the tax relief. Sure, but Angela, come on, the sex? The drugs?
Here's the snippet that set Angela off:
Our situation can also be discussed in terms of the people of this country being stuck in a sub-optimal Nash-Cournot equilibrium, in which the typical individual cannot get better outcomes only by changing his own strategy unless others also change theirs. What we in the LP are, in effect, trying to do, is to persuade enough people to change their individual strategies so that we attain a Nash-Cournot equilibrium with a higher utility function value of the liberty component.
I suppose if anyone needs a black and white explanation it would be:
Stop belly aching about the Libertarian Party's past and focus on the absurd statist future. Your 'tweaks' to attract voters won't amount to a hill of beans. We need savvy voices for freedom, not overly intellectualized ambitions to side step the old school. The average person with libertarian sympathies doesn't quote Rothbard or has even heard of Brian Doherty's book, Radicals for Capitalism. I never did finish my review of that one and didn't let Angela sign Brian's name at the last LNC meeting. Maybe if the guy I let borrow it gives it back by next Spring . . .
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LPplatform-discuss/message/3486
I suppose if the fight comes to me I have to respond . . . I do hate the tit for tat argumentation that Yahoo Groups breeds in reformers and radicals alike, but if Tom Knapp thinks its good to engage Brian Holtz, here goes:
BH)The 45% cited is a far cry from the 60% I asked for, but I'm not completely surprised that 57% of 18-29-year-olds favored prohibition. Despite all my attempts at counter-brainwashing, school and society have convinced my 7- and 4- year olds that if the wheels of the car turn before their seat belts are buckled, injury or death becomes a near certainty.(BH
The differential is meaningless in terms of my point. Whether its 45% or 60% the idea is that if 60% found cannibalism desirable, it doesn't follow that staking out a position on it is a good idea for the LP. I've been fighting the seatbelt law ever since Papa Cuomo introduced in 1984 and have a court date tonight in fact.
BH) You're too smart to confuse 95.8% with the 60% that I specified, so I confess that this point sails right over my head. Whatever its meaning, there's just no chance that 60% of self-described libertarians -- much less LP members -- will ever support banning the non-nuisance uses of cigarettes. (BH
Again it's not the numbers that matter. Apparently you're too obtuse to see the implication that 98% of libertarians would need to be convinced of my absurd reckoning.
BH) This apparent attempt at parody fails for the simple reason that not even 6% -- and probably not even 0.6% -- of LP members would ever favor cigarette prohibition. My argument was that on abortion there is a position where (1) a supermajority of Libertarians agree with (2) a supermajority of Americans on a (3) principled position that (4) does not contradict libertarian principles and (5) is not already staked out by our four biggest competitors. This confluence of five independent factual predicates remains unprecedented, and your analogy to simply adopting non-libertarian positions for their mainstream popularity (if 45% minority opinion can be called "popular") is wildly off the mark.(BH
The whole bloody point is parody Brian. My experience has been that abortion is split down the middle for all Americans. Talk about confluence of predicates all day, but the average voter votes their pocketbook and agree to disagree on the abortion issue. It's not a winner.
BH) Thus my C-note -- actually, the reward was recently re-doubled to $200 -- is looking safer and safer.
It's pretty clear that my proviso that none of our four big competitors have staked out the position rules out essentially all of the traditional left/right issues of personal and economic freedom/security for competent adult enfranchisees. To scrape up another issue with any chance of satisfying my criteria, we probably have to reach all the way down to something like a consumer-friendly position on copyright and DMCA-style technology restrictions. (However, the Greens vaguely say they favor "expanding fair use", so the high ground here may be contested.)(BH
There are two competitive political parties in the US. Whether or not the LP, Greens or Constitution Party stake out a position is irrelevant. Please reference Steven J. Rosenstone's "Third Parties in America" and Micah Sifry's "Spoiling for a Fight". I believe your conception of competition doesn't account for historical fact or electoral reality. Most people are quite comfortable with two main choices at the ballot and recognize the inviability of going off the reservation. In a single plurality district, votes will predominantly occur as an either/or proposition. It takes a Kierkegaardian leap of faith to submit a protest vote, which is what the other parties represent. That is not to say that a viable third party candidacy is impossible. It takes the perfect storm of a candidate, certain issues and changing demographic.
As far as the money, I've already lost a couple billable hours already (approx. $200).