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'Tis the Season for Treason
by Mike Blessing
kcufmedia@gmail.com

Special to The Libertarian Enterprise

This is my SECOND response to L. Neil Smith's article in The Libertarian Enterprise, titled "Time for a Purge?" It's also a follow-up to my own article, "Candidates, Purges and Principles."

After I finished "Candidates, Purges and Principles," I copied and pasted it to an email message, then sent it off to L. Neil and to Ken Holder, editor of TLE, as a submission. Neil got back to me, and while composing my response to his response, I spent some time looking through Tom Knapp's blog for supporting details. While there, I noticed this article about current Libertarian Party National Director Sean Haugh. It might be old news, dated 22 February 2008, but

It seems to me that the LP's Treason Caucus is in full swing this election cycle. Think about it—we have Bob Barr giving thousands of dollars to Republican opponents of the LP's candidates while he's been sitting on the LNC, and not giving much of anything to the LP candidates themselves.

(It was in the comments section of this story that I first found about Barr's providing cash to Republicans against Libertarian candidates while sitting on the LNC.)

And we have the LP's national Political Director, Sean Haugh, said that he would support a Republican over the LP's candidate, Susan Hogarth.

Is it time for some sort of a purge in the LP's ranks? YES, it is. But there's one problem.

The LP doesn't have any specific mechanism that I know of to kick people out of the organization. Maybe this is a bad thing, but in the mean time, those of us who are of the radical or "purist" mindset simply have to let the members of the LP's Treason Caucus know that this sort of behavior simply will not be tolerated.

Think about it—what if Barr or Haugh were hockey players, and said to their teammates, "Let's shoot the puck into our own net!" How would the team react to this insanity? I think that they would probably offer Barr and/or Haugh an enema of hockey sticks, minus any sort of lubrication. And deservedly so.

Now we've had this sort of problem in the LPNM at times, once from Socorro in 2000, and again here in Albuquerque in 2006. Both times, the perpetrators of this stupidity got hammered for it, and haven't repeated the offense.

What does it take to stop such idiocy? Simple—vigilance on the part of the membership, and a willingness to stand up (and speak up) for principle. That's it—nothing more needed. Nothing less will suffice.

First published on KCUF Media's Xanga Site Weblog

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