Back to the top

Letter from Thomas Knapp

Re: "The Golden Secrets of Victory" by L. Neil Smith

On the subject of dumping William Weld from the Libertarian Party's presidential ticket, L. Neil Smith writes that "if [Gary] Johnson doesn't want to go down in history as the most simple-minded, unlibertarian, and destructive candidate (short of drug-thug Bob Barr) the LP has ever fielded, he will listen up".

Great advice. Unfortunately it assumes that Johnson cares how he goes down in Libertarian Party history.

I don't think Johnson cares about that.

What DOES he care about? I can think of two possibilites, one or both of which might be true.

The first possibility is that he's started swallowing his own guff, deluding himself into the belief that he might actually win this election—but only if he can convincingly emulate the usual respectability politics style campaign that the GOP decided not to go with this time.

The second possibility is that this campaign, like his last, is a Harry Browne style black box into which money flows and out of which comes … well, not much, and certainly nothing both identifiable and of consequence that has to be paid for.

Browne's campaigns were, from a financial standpoint, really just ways to provide for the care and feeding of Perry Willis and Michael Cloud. Johnson's last campaign was, and this one so far seems to be, dedicated to the care and feeding of campaign manager Ron Nielson.

Yes, Johnson is raising more money than Browne. Yes, Johnson is getting more attention than Browne. But that attention is of the "free media" variety, not advertising paid for by the campaign (a couple of PACs are doing a little bit of advertising "for" Johnson, but seemingly not so much that the spending takes a noticeable bit out of staff salaries). The campaign's main activity when CNN isn't offering free camera time seems to be, a la Browne, raising money so that it can spend money to raise more money.

Of course, Browne actually did pretty good on the messaging front, probably because his fundraising pool consisted almost entirely of LP members and other libertarians. I remember him getting spanked twice -- once in 1996 over matching funds and once in the 2000 campaign when he floated a "flat tax" trial balloon—and both times he straightened up ASAP. Since Johnson is raising most of his money outside of libertarian circles, he doesn't have to care nearly as much about what libertarians might think.

The Libertarian National Committee seems to have no intention of doing anything about the Weld problem. I doubt that Johnson will, either, unless Weld completely bombs on the fundraising end, which looks like it may be the case. Johnson's big selling point on Weld was that Weld is great at raising money. So far all we've seen out of Weld on that point since the nomination is excuses for why he isn't delivering yet.

A couple of state Libertarian Party organizations have passed, and the LNC is considering, resolutions to the effect of "we support gun rights and due process rights." But those resolutions don't actually mention Weld, so they have a flavor of "we wanted to let you know that we still support what we've always supported; sorry, we can't tell you why it would occur to us that you might have heard otherwise." I guess that's better than nothing. But not much.

Yours in liberty, Tom Knapp
[email protected]

Was that worth reading?
Then why not:

Just click the red box (it's a button!) to pay the author

Back to the top

Letter from L. Neil Smith

To Whom It May Concern (and to those it does not):

There is an Internet troll calling itself Jeremy George claiming the the intellectual property known as Alongside Night is actor Kevin Sorbo's creation, not J. Neil Schulman's. I admire Mr. Sorbo more than I can express, and if his beautiful wife Sam wasn't the best feature of the film of the book, then he was. It's even possible that he made writing and directorial suggestions along the way, as stars often do, but the property is entirely Neil's.

I have personal knowledge of this. Not only did Neil message me frequently during the cinematic production of Alongside Night the movie, but I first met him in 1979, when he was a skinny kid, and his first novel had just beaten mine, The Probability Broach, into print by only a few months. Both books are still in print (although I have always thought his transcendent second novel, The Rainbow Cadenza is a greater work of art, and I hope to see it, too, made into a movie someday). We started in this trade together, and, although we have disagreed from time to time on minor details (as what friends don't?), we have been friends ever since the Libertarian Party convention where we met, at the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles. I have known his family and he knows mine.

My personal hope for this Jeremy George thing is that he has a lot of money—or is prepared to go deep into hiding where process servers can't find him. I am going to advise my friend Neil to sue him blind.

L.Neil Smith
[email protected]
http://www.NCC-1776.org
Fort Collins, Colorado, August 21, 2016
Check me out on Google, Wikipedia.
and at Amazon.com

Was that worth reading?
Then why not:

Just click the red box (it's a button!) to pay the author

Back to the top

Letter from Jeff Fullerton

Re: Where "Liberal" and "Conservative" REALLY Come From L. Reichard White

A very informative lesson on the the reasons behind why the human race divides politically; according to the famous Heinlein quote. It makes me think some of the stuff I've heard before in a college anthropology course pertaining to the value of group size in relation to group survival. There is also another phenomenon I learned from that course—redistributive feasting which involves big parties thrown by tribal leaders engaged in popularity contests with each other. I could not help but think: that sounds a lot like what goes on in Congress when they are handing out the largess. And that has been my perception of pork barrel politics ever since. No wonder it's called the Spoils System.

Could the consequences of the bourgeoning national debt be our version of the wasteful behavior of tribal chieftains who brought the society on Easter Island to ruin?

Jeff Fullerton
[email protected]

Was that worth reading?
Then why not:

Just click the red box (it's a button!) to pay the author

Back to the top

This site may receive compensation if a product is purchased
through one of our partner or affiliate referral links. You
already know that, of course, but this is part of the FTC Disclosure
Policy found here. (Warning: this is a 2,359,896-byte 53-page PDF file!)
TLE AFFILIATE

Previous          Contents          Next