In house only post here folks, move along non Party folk . . . .
Several years ago I used to play over thirty hardball (I'm still pictured here as a Cardinal, back row second from right). Not softball mind you, there is a difference. The team had a mixture of aging athletes, jocular types and some average guys who enjoyed the game. But every once and a while you could tell when the young idiot jock was still inhabiting an old man's body. He became irate when a teammate screwed up. He was short with the otherwise duly embarrassed second baseman or outfielder whose own aging body just failed them as they remembered how much easier it was 20 years ago. 
In a hurl of defiance and rage he would justify his obnoxious behavior as being a result of being 'competitive'. Maybe I remember the fact that I didn't make the team in high school because I had refused to cut my hair on demand. Even though I started as a 14 year old the summer before on the local all-star team with most of the guys on their way to Varsity, I didn't make the junior varsity team that fateful Monday because I didn't show up like a 'Yankee' on Friday. So I bark back occasionally too when I'm feeling the injustice twinge. In this case it was dressing down the pudgy idiot scraping his glory days off the back of a few guys who just wanna play ball on the weekend.
" You're not competitive, you're emotional " I responded one time . . . He hated that, but it was true.
The recent foray of the Reform Caucus in the LP is playing up a series of ads designed to rally the 'reform' troops in Denver this weekend. I truly hope it backfires on them, because I'm tired of playing with such kids in grownup situations.
Brian Holtz you're emotional at heart. Use for good if you can, perhaps as metered passion, but not petty bickering.
I haven't been around the Libertarian Party long enough to see all the blood letting and curling cries of indecency that plague every third party far and wide. In fact my previous experience was with pretty like minded people who often agreed to disagree and eventually just became aparatchicks for Papa Pataki up in Albany. When I started to go up to Albany and participate in my local Libertarian chapter it was a pleasant experience. No one sought to eject me or didn't impose a litmus test. When I suggested a Congressional run, it was met with muted concern more than any ideological rampage. I still keep getting new jobs since I started just showing up.
As I became more aware of national goings on as a member of the LNC these last two years, it has become apparent that there is a divide on some level. I truly believe it is not as divisive and horrible as people like Brian Holtz make it out to be. In many ways the reformers behave in a manner they often accuse the old school of doing. Constantly obsessing over roads, the role of police and other such nonsense that the real world doesn't care one iota about. There are plenty of 'Radicals' (and I dislike that term) like myself who recognize that purity isn't the only dog in the race. Coalitions and compromises are what real world politics is about.
Despite my own personal holdings of anarchy as a better philosophy or way of life, I live in New York ! We chat people up and laugh around the edges. People come and go and what you do today may never matter. Family, friends and associates are rarely convinced that the elimination of government is possible or desirable. But every once and while you can remind someone of their Heinlein roots or Friedman sympathies. It's all good. Any candidate who runs on more than three issues is a tin foil hat type who thinks that their own personal influence in the matters of legislation or an executive position (if somehow miraculously elected) will somehow gloriously transform life or government, is surely delusional.
The Libertarian Party is a demonstrable product with a niche understanding. It exists quite well in the shadow of power that the two party system demands and weaves into pop culture, ideology and media coverage and understanding. While I'm perfectly willing to concede that candidates in Indiana might suffer if it is perceived that Libertarians favor legalizing heroin or crack, it is often the logic of absolute liberty that people find so intriguing when the ask " But Who Will Build the Roads ? " As every libertarian must, they often have to go into extended explanations about theory or some civics caveat or crunch when what they are really trying to say is " End the War on Everything Stupid ".
While I might not be as doted over as King Knapp or Galloping Gordo, here is what I propose as my little plan for Liberty in the Party. Let's acknowledge the howlers and the moaners on either side of this supposed divide. Let's partake in politics as a rational means to meaningful protest. An occasional win would be nice, but come on be real for the Intelligent Designer's sake . . . Let's understand that everyone comes from a different perspective and experience and that if we enter the room to fight the outside forces, Republicans and Democrats (not statists or anarchists), let us fight them, not ourselves.
In my estimation Mr. Holtz committed the unforgivable sin of suggesting liberation of other peoples through state means. I won't bother to find the evidence, but I'm pretty sure he has admitted it and will certainly come 'referencing in', if my blog is on his radar, let alone an aggregator. Not only does this imply a certain pang of emotional patriotism if you will, a la the Greatest Generation, it suggests a serious lack of understanding in traditional foreign relations theory. It's all about realism folks. Yeah, I know the conception of the 'state' is the ultimate problem. But it is the world we live in.
Attempting to re-write the history of the movement, it's ideas and the people who made them is ludicrous. We need to embrace that culture and attitude. Let it play out as it will in the polity. It's working. Big time players are coming to us and asking us for help and support. We may not support them, but it's happening. The quality Ron Paul people aren't afraid of the criticizing the Federal Reserve as some in the Reform the LP movement are.
Tweaking around and arguing about platforms is bush league stuff in real politics. Sure it makes the membership happy and common bonds help. Ripping off old commercials or silly movies is intellectually and creatively lame, even if it is legal.
I'm generally sympathetic to all those folks who spend their lives in cubicles. No matter how smart or gifted they are, they made a choice to be part of a Matrix like Office. I've worked in and around them since my days as a Uni-'Sissy' in the mid to late eighties. It's not an easy life being fussy for code's sake. It's my hope that those who do get involved with the LP don't mill around the homestead issues or don't tire until their way to win the West is done. We don't need emotional cripples on this little pirate ship. There is still time to save yourself Brian. I did when I bailed on the whole PlatCom sequence.
As far as 'the One' is concerned, isn't there a better use of political time than cheap ripoffs of bad ideas anyway ? Who cares ? Start a show, talk to real people, maybe even people from other third parties, expand online social networks, raise money, secure better or more ballot access. My time in the party isn't spent on ideological litmus tests or ornate argumentation. Instead of picking on someone like Angela Keaton about not having a mini-van or a lawn to mow, go after the real interlopers and bad guys out there. Release your inner thug Brian, don't fantasize about mythical beings and hordes of bullet casings cascading around you has you fight your own White Whale.
I have mini-van and lawn btw and would invite Mr. Holtz to a debate on either Hardfire in Brooklyn or Capital Outsider in Schenectady. Any where any time challenges come to mind.
Hardly anybody listened to poor Steve Kubby's show last night and they brought up a lot of relevant interesting stuff. Have we as a group and party lost our way so much that our complete focus is simply tweaking some electoral chords on the un-hope-able harp?
Let's demand quality without the emotionalism. And if you do have to use it, save for calculated debate or media moments. Voters think that is cool.
All the cool kids gather around, next time you hear all this flak getting kicked up and tossed around in person or online, cough 'quacas'. See who looks up in acknowledgment and know that they 'get it'. Trundling around worrying about the sky falling is no fun for anyone. Perhaps you can just mumble it and indiscreetly start to back off from the offending whiner or moaner. But know that whether it is 'radical' or 'reformer' it makes no difference.
Join the Quacas. We need a Quality Caucas in the LP. The current LNC has a lot of quality people on it, whom I've come to respect and call friends. Let's keep moving folks.
I dished out a hundred an eighty bucks one season to go play baseball on the weekends. The final straw was a game when I was at bat and a new guy got picked off at second. The manager came running down the line demanding to know why I stayed in the batter's box while he was giving signals (which everybody thought were archaic anyway). Rather than argue or cry indignation as some do, I went about the rest of the game and quit altogether soon after. There were simply too many quality things to do in life then go out and get yelled at by adults on my own dime.
Quacas.
PostScript: This is an admitted hit piece on Brian Holtz. I have no intention of extending the radical/reformer meltdowns at every turn. It is a response to something that required a pre-convention answer. With any luck the rest of my summer will be spent in far more productive arenas.
GO TEAM !
Enjoyed your riff.
Perhaps you'll enjoy this ode to ballot access:
http://www.vimeo.com/1033943
I've only one question for you Eric, since I know you won't answer two.
Given how you've suggested above that the finer points of ideology aren't terribly important to the retail politics you claim are your priority, why is it "petty bickering" for me to ask that our Platform not contradict my small-government minarchist principles, but it's not "petty bickering" for radicals to insist that our Platform not contradict your zero-government anarchist principles? I keep raising this point, and my critics keep fleeing from it. I can imagine serious attempts to defend this asymmetry, but the above exercise in character assassination doesn't even come close.
Your "picking on" charge is simply Orwellian. All I did was defend my status as a normal suburban family guy after Angela Keaton out of the blue wrote about me: "For Brain Bowl? Great choices. As missionaries to the Normals, not so much. Brian Holtz? Brian is exactly kind of libertarian we need to keep locked in the basement if we are ever going to appeal to normal people."
I challenge anybody to read http://knowinghumans.net/2007/12/keep-holtz-locked-in-basement.html and then defend your characterization above as anything but unfair. So I guess I do have one more question for you: have you no shame, sir?
I suppose it was only a matter of time . . .
My problem is the timing and scope of the reformer assault just prior to the convention.
It's all petty bickering in context of the bigger game.
That's the whole point of the post.
The top Google item on a search of Brian Holtz Angela Keaton yields this;
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/knowinghumans?p=276
Seems like you're picking on someone there . . . that last link is gone now, but the sentiment is derision.
I believe that might have started it . . .
Purist logic:
A. Platforms don't matter.
B. DON'T TOUCH MY BEAUTIFUL PLATFORM YOU SQUISHY CLOSET DEMOPUBLICAN SOB!
BH - How does one respond to your posts ?
http://more.libertarianintelligence.com/2008/05/has-eric-sundwall-no-shame.html
I would expect a similar question if I took my own comment from another's post and turned it into an entire post of my own . . .
But the convention is nigh (not very many will read this anyway, you might even be on the way and not have time to respond to this . . . I understand) and I'm glad this melee didn't break out and continue for the last 9 months. So I'll write it off as pre-convention jitters or just the thin blood caused by California air. Perhaps you might investigate the price of a thicker skin ?
So OK, I read that whole thing and then repeat 'Stop picking on Angela'. Unfair ? Fare is what you pay on the bus bud, an old New Yorker quip. My back handed comment simply reflects the idea that you would change or alter ideological positions based on your relationship to the Universe.
" . . . Boy, if Angela wasn't part of the paying Liberty movement, she might 'get' us guys who just want less taxes and gotta mow their lawn on the weekend. Sure would be a lot better if we just had less government, it would help make those car payments easier . . "
Thus the whole reformer notion goes.
" . . . Hey guys ! It's not practical to advocate no government. And look, you never win. See ? We need to have cops and courts. And voters like that better. If you just do it this way another thirty years will go by with no wins, but at least it will be more respectable and less messy . . . "
In your case, you would have folks change their ideology in order to conform with the idea of political success in that Universe. Sorry, but when I strap my armor on, its to tilt at windmills, not make voters happy. I can still appreciate others who see otherwise.
Thus, I'll work with the Greens as a brother in arms in the third party movement. I recall your grumblings in Portland about your own Green opponent in your race and now realize that your own Liberventionist perspective kept you from a meaningful coalition amongst anti-war candidates.
BH - You took umbrage with the easy stuff. NO response to the liberventionist accusation, NO response to the idea that the real fight is elsewhere, not even a chirp about the 'inner thug' slur. If I had to uncoil all your embedded premises, subsequent logic and puerile dysfunctions, it would be a real character illumination rather than any assassination attempt, trust me.
Geeeeeeeeesh, I'm starting to carry on like Knappster now . . . . . . . .