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 . . . . . . . .
Eric said his complaint was with "the timing and scope of the reformer assault just prior to the convention". Eric, what "assault"? I made a couple videos and a few satirical slides (that were never even endorsed by the Reform Caucus), but who paid attention besides a few radicals like you? When else should one advocate for Platform changes, if not "just prior to the convention"?
Sorry, but this doesn't answer my question, which I repeat: 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 -- and instead "restore" -- your zero-government anarchist principles?
I don't know how I can make that point any clearer. I wasn't the one "obsessing about roads"; it was radicals on PlatCom who were obsessing about getting road privatization back into the Platform. The radical Restoration Caucus made a much larger pre-convention "assault", with a mailing to every delegate and a huge tabloid handout -- each of which dwarfed all Reform Caucus efforts in terms of delegate reach. Why didn't this "assault" earn your "petty bickering" label?
The answer is obvious: despite your studied protestations, you're the one here playing hardball, and you consider it fair game to take cheap shots at those you disagree with, calling them "emotional cripples" because they "spend their lives in cubicles" "being fussy for code's sake". (Newsflash: my coding in cubicles and elsewhere is not only easy but has made me a millionaire who works 30-hour weeks and spends tons of time with his wonderful children. You can lecture me about "emotional cripples" after you've had your infant son die in your arms as I have, and after you've helped counsel other parents grieving for their own neonatal losses as I have.)
I'll happily deal with your various red herrings, and feel free to point out any that you think I've missed:
1) Merely re-asserting that I was "picking on" Angela is not what I meant by "defending" your assertion. In each of the two postings you've cite, I clearly was reacting to specific criticisms that Angela had made against me or other moderates. If you think you have a case, feel free to try to make it. Angela and I are both grown-ups, and in fact are closer friends than you can possibly imagine. When I think Angela's actions deserve criticism, I'll offer it. Ditto when her actions deserve defending -- which I've done this week too.
2) Your "whole reformer notion" is a strawman in my case, and just demonstrates that your attempt to psychoanalyze me involved absolutely zero engagement with the substance of my own reform agenda. That agenda is not about "making voters happy" or "just want less taxes" or "political success" or "having folks change their ideology" or "wins" or "respectability". I _defy_ you to quote any of these items ever being an element of my reform agenda or rationale. As I wrote at http://libertarianintelligence.com/2008/05/restore74-with-denver-accord.html, my agenda was simply to seek a Platform that includes all and only the principles that unite the major schools of libertarianism. If you disagree with that agenda, then have the intellectual courage to say so.
3) Re: defending my liberventionism, see http://knowinghumans.net/search/label/Libervention. I invite you to try to critique my liberventionism by saying something I can't rebut just by quoting something from those postings. I'll start by answering your emotional charge of "unforgivable sin" with this paragraph: "But there is a fundamental ideological reason why opposition to war is considered by LP radicals to be the most important issue. The military defense of liberty is the textbook example of what in economics is called a 'public good' -- a good that markets will underproduce due to the Free Rider Problem and that thus needs tax financing. Anarcholibertarian dogma denies this textbook market failure, and so zero-coercion absolutists have a deep need to deny that any net good could ever be done by a tax-financed military."
4) To your simplistic enemy-of-my-enemy analysis of the Greens, I reply: http://knowinghumans.net/2006/07/fear-neophobia-not-police-state.html. However, I still seek to find common ground with misguided Greens (and with misguided anarchists) via http://ecolibertarian.org/manifesto.
5) If you thought your emotional "inner thug"/"puerile"/etc. comments would do anything other then set off my irony detector, you were mistaken. I care about the LP and its Platform, and I care about my friend Angela, and I'm happy to defend my discussions of them. However, I just have to chuckle when you say "trust me" about how much you think you could "illuminate" about my character if you stooped to engage me in an extended discussion. You keep on vouching; I'll let the record -- both past, present, and future -- speak for itself.
'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?'
Thought I answered this, but here goes again.
My 'petty bickering' crack did not hinge one side's advocacy compared to the other. At no time did I categorize the effort for small government principles in the Platform as such. Nor have I insisted that the Platform go 'anarchist', as others may have. I have steadfastly refused to engage in this particular discourse for numerous reasons.
That being said, certainly the videos and pictures resembled an assault within the context of the blogs before the convention. If they weren't a general Reformist plan, fine.
1. Whatever on the Angela thing. You're right, both adults. A little rhetorical flourish and suddenly I have no shame . . .
2. Platform. Yep, good luck with that.
3. Too long of a rebuttal required for that. Maybe if I have the inclination some day, sorry. I know I started it . . .
4. I like many Greens, they understand that one corporatist party is bad. Sure I disagree with many aspects of their program, oh well. They think libertarians are 'misguided' too.
5. Sure, that's fine, we both write and think a lot. I suppose the vast reading public is glued to their seats.
This reply is like three months late, what gives ? I thought you were beyond all this at this point. I'll get back to you on the Liberventionist thing . . .
For the record, you still didn't actually answer the payload half of my central question, which was: why was it not "petty bickering" for radicals to insist that our Platform not contradict your zero-government anarchist principles?'
One can call any concerted advocacy effort "an assault", but that doesn't explain how my _defense_ against the Restore04 "assault" -- using a mailing and a tabloid to try to overturn the PlatCom's recommendations -- makes _me_ the one guilty of "emotionalism" and "petty bickering".
I accept your admission (via email) that your "reaction in 'Quacas' was certainly and ironically emotional". It takes a fine and rare mind to recognize and admit that kind of irony. It's true that you never signed onto Restore04 and mostly stayed out of the Platform debate, and you were always quite consistent in saying that platforms don't really matter. Your only inconsistency was that you directed all your criticism of platform advocacy at only one set of advocates. (For the record, I've never said that Platform reform is a magic bullet for LP success. Noting this truism was never an adequate answer to my point that the LP should occupy the undefended principled high ground on abortion.)
I've been on vacation from LP infighting since Denver and focusing on election/campaign activism, but in my renewed blogging over the last two weeks I came across this loose end and wanted to tie it off. I don't deny relishing the sporting aspect of both policy debate and of tactical political maneuvering, but it was perhaps projection to imagine I'm "emotional" in the sense of your hardball player. I don't lose my cool at either my teammates or my opponents, and I make a point of never trying to tell my fellow Libertarians what's the best use of their effort budget -- except to advise them that it's not good to invest effort in handcuffing fellow activists, e.g. through a narrow single-faction Platform. So I'm glad you now see the irony in invoking your teammate-berating hardball player in the same posting in which you angrily lectured me on how I should redirect my activism. :-)
At least you didn't question my motives, and thus avoided a diagnosis of what I call Libertarian Disease. LD is a malady that attacks the central nervous system of LP members, and induces the speech center of the brain to emit statements saying that any political effort not aligned with what the sufferer thinks is our optimal strategy is evidence of willful sabotage of our cause. Each year science makes great strides in understanding LD, and my dream is that it can be cured in our lifetime. :-)
Re: 2-4 above, there are some interesting and important ideas here, and I agree with you that our real political power is in the ability of our ideas to drive issues. If you ever want to defend e.g. the idea that a libertarian state should never liberate anyone, I'm game.
Oh, and what is "quacas"?
Thanks for the response Brian.
It may be that 'radicals' are also involved in petty bickering. I'm not sure I ever just leveled that phrase against one 'side'. Perhaps in this particular case, yes. I'm fairly certain that phrase was not in relation to any insistence that one side presented a contradictory view while the other did not. Holding me to task for something I didn't say or assert seems unwarranted. So I guess you'll never get an answer in so much as I refuse to engage in a premise that you in fact created. At least in my mind. I'm welcome to correction if I've said or implied otherwise. That's really your take, not mine. It is quite possible both sides are guilty of 'emotionalism'. In fact, I'm sure it is true.
I'm also quite sure that I did not say your defense of another 'assault' made you exclusively guilty of emotionalism or petty bickering. The premise of my 'emotionalism' critique was your final product. I certainly looked at the product (whatever the motivation was) and reached that conclusion. I did not like the movie the Matrix. I don't like Keanu Reeves. That certainly is my emotion about your appeal to such images and cultural references. Whatever greater critique I may have of your actual reasoning at times, I think we both could agree that these symbols and references tend towards the emotional, rather than the rational. If truth be told, my irony was intentional before the piece was crafted or posted. Granted my further psychoanalysis was over the top and I certainly do apologize publicly for that, as I did in my recent email. What does one call it when an actor takes their role too seriously ?
I certainly did level my criticism towards one side in this instance. Perhaps if their was a similar style effort (videos) elsewhere I may have gone after that too. I like to think of myself on permanent sabbatical from LP infighting, rather than just on vacation. I do recognize your cool and even handed approach in most instances and respect that. Perhaps we can agree that both of us let down our guard on the eve of destruction, if you will. As far as I can tell I don't suffer from LD as you describe. I would insist that my own 'emotionalism' was always intentional as far as this piece is concerned, not something revealed divinely afterward. The whole hardball theme/story just fit nicely.
For the record I would never defend a libertarian 'state', I find that an oxymoron. Therefore I guess the game has begun in that regard . . . I do have a kitchen floor to complete and my own activism to pursue (look for myself, A Greens and Nader supporter on Capital Outsider after next Tues . Sept. 23rd). Perhaps as our NE weather takes a turn for the cold and dark, I can better address that after the election etc. I haven't invested a lot of effort in your claims yet, but I already have a good idea at my approach given your stated premises in these comments.
Quacas is short for Quality Caucus (I suppose it should be spelled Quacus - blame the emotionalism of the piece). The whole point of the essay really. That we should unite on the side of quality rather than divide on ideological grounds. Therefore reducing the messy cycles of emotionalism that both sides use too often.