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Libertarian Intelligence
Global Intelligence
Director of Decentral Intelligence
- Brian Holtz
- Los Altos Hills, CA, United States
- Only elected Libertarian in Silicon Valley: Purissima Hills Water District board member since 2009. Drafter of current (v.2008) LP Platform. Software engineer at Sun (1990-2001), Yahoo (2002-2010), Kabam (2011-2018), Walmart Labs (2019-). Husband of Melisse Lusin, father of 3 wonderful girls.
6 comments:
Are facts actually important?
If so, this makes no sense.
At the 1983 convention, the majority of the LP Radical Caucus voted to support Earl Ravenal, the Cato candidate. Justin Raimondo and I led the LPRC to support Ravenal.
If you want to restore the pre-84 platform I would love it, that is the one the Cato people wrote and it is far more radical than any subsequent version.
Yes, facts are important. Do you actually dispute any of mine?
Are you disputing that Rothbard and his radical acolytes didn't hound the Cato folks to the point of quitting the LP? Re-read the newsletters. Re-read David Boaz's essay Tim West posted. Didn't you yourself suggest on Angela Keaton's show this winter that you aren't proud of all the things the radicals did back then, and that looking back now the disputes seem petty?
Yes, Rothbard says that you and three others of the Radical Caucus leadership -- as opposed to the membership -- committed a "stab in the back" in supporting Ravenal. But are you claiming that a "majority" of self-identified radicals supported Ravenal? Puhleez. Rothbard's newsletter talks about how critical you guys were of Ravenal, and that your last-minute switch was so inexplicable that he says you were bought off with promises of campaign jobs. He also estimates that your switch took only about 30 radicals to Ravenal, which would be a small minority of delegates who consider themselves radical. Rothbard's "Leninist caucus discipline" indeed was not perfect, but it's laughable to suggest that constant criticism from the radical bloc didn't help induce the Cato faction to leave.
I'd like to hear some "facts" about the pre-1983 platforms being more radical than post-1983. For example, personal secession wasn't in the 1980 platform, but it was in the 1986 platform. The platform was indeed radicalized by Rothbard and Evers in the 1970s, but I consider the 1986 and 1990 platforms to be the most radical.
I fought for Ravenal and didn’t care for Rothbard’s tactics which often resorted to smearing people. I campaigned hard for the Clark campaign and actually liked the way they handled things. But none of these “moderates” wanted to destroy the party plantform. To this day Cato types remain good on immigration -- which is more than I can say for many of the so-called “radical caucus” types who are now allied with the Rockwellians.
Rothbard’s idea of “fighting for principles” were often personal vendettas that Rothbard wanted to settle. He confused his own petty bickering with principle.
The problem I have with the rape of the platform is that it no longer functions as some sort of litmus test. We now have a neocon like Root and theocon like Barr. Neither are libertarian. Both are pretty hard conservatives. But suddenly that is acceptable. Sure Gravel is running from the Left but he doesn’t have party officials pimping for him the way Root and Barr do.
I don’t mind if a candidate has a interim program. I don’t even mind if the candidate decides some issues are too “hot” to campaign on. But I damn well mind when they publicly take statist positions the way Bob Barr does.
One can be reasonable and be radical. What many so-called “moderates” screw up is equating reasonable with abandoing principle. In their day the Radical Caucus, in my opinion, was a cancer in the party because they seemed to be intentionally offensive (some more than others). But the so-called moderates today want to be so unoffensive that anything and anyone can be called libertarian. A pox on both groups.
I fought for Ravenal and didn’t care for Rothbard’s tactics which often resorted to smearing people. I campaigned hard for the Clark campaign and actually liked the way they handled things. But none of these “moderates” wanted to destroy the party plantform. To this day Cato types remain good on immigration -- which is more than I can say for many of the so-called “radical caucus” types who are now allied with the Rockwellians.
Rothbard’s idea of “fighting for principles” were often personal vendettas that Rothbard wanted to settle. He confused his own petty bickering with principle.
The problem I have with the rape of the platform is that it no longer functions as some sort of litmus test. We now have a neocon like Root and theocon like Barr. Neither are libertarian. Both are pretty hard conservatives. But suddenly that is acceptable. Sure Gravel is running from the Left but he doesn’t have party officials pimping for him the way Root and Barr do.
I don’t mind if a candidate has a interim program. I don’t even mind if the candidate decides some issues are too “hot” to campaign on. But I damn well mind when they publicly take statist positions the way Bob Barr does.
One can be reasonable and be radical. What many so-called “moderates” screw up is equating reasonable with abandoing principle. In their day the Radical Caucus, in my opinion, was a cancer in the party because they seemed to be intentionally offensive (some more than others). But the so-called moderates today want to be so unoffensive that anything and anyone can be called libertarian. A pox on both groups.
I see that you deleted my answer to your question as well as my question to you about why you are so snide to me.
I offered to talk in a civil manner with you and that is apparently too much for you to allow on your blog.
I have never met you and I see no reason that you should treat me with such disrespect from the get-go.
Eric, I haven't deleted anything here. Once again, a claim from you that I can check is at variance with the truth.
"Snide" is saying "I don’t recall seeing you in New York in 1983". If you're going to invoke your eyewitness advantage over me here, then you'd be wise not to squander it by trying to suggest e.g. that a change of one vote would have elected Ravenal, or that the majority of radicals voted for him in 1983.
I'll of course answer any question you can manage to post, but in the meantime, I wish you would address my complaint that you've already slanted the 1983 facts more blatantly than any slanting my video may have done.
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