Comments on the 2001 Convention of the Arizona Libertarian Party ("NOT Inc.")
The standard caveat applies -- what follows are my own observations generously interleaved with my frank and unfiltered opinions. They are not in chronological order and certainly do not constitute the official minutes of the convention. If you want the official minutes, please see the ALP secretary, Tim McDermott.
THE GOOD:
There's only one place to start this category. Marc Victor, who spoke on Saturday night, was absolutely awesome. He not only told interesting case histories but provided a lot of information that may prove very useful in dealing with police officers and "the system" should that ever befall me. Every time I think about throwing in the towel with ALP (usually because of things like those listed under "THE BAD" and "THE UGLY") they provide some information that I deem to be of such high personal value that I decide to stick around. Marc Victor's talk provided that type of benefit to me. There's a profound lesson that shouldn't be news to Libertarians: people are selfish. Give 'em something they consider valuable and they may stick around even if they're very pissed off about other things.
Information was also provided about something called "The freedom sumit", which will be taking place in Phoenix in October. This event is not being put on directly by ALP, although it was clear that the impetus behind it is certain individuals who are very involved with ALP. The event will feature big name speakers from various well known organizations in the freedom movement, and it sounds like it will be both fun and informative.
As usual, the conversation with fellow Libertarians was interesting and enjoyable.
Finally, I can't conclude this section without mentioning the excellent job ALP did in selecting the location. The facilities were nice and the weather in Flagstaff was a most welcome respite from the heat in Tucson.
THE BAD:
Attendance: Only 19 people showed up for the 2001 ALP convention. That's beyond abysmal and almost qualifies as "ugly" in its own right. The pre-convention promotion and publication were virtually non-existant and certainly not provided with much lead time. The excuse given was, "we didn't want to get packed"*, yet ny fool would know that if someone was motivated enough to "pack" a convention, poor publication on ALP's part would HELP rather than HURT that effort. Good thing the bylaws were changed to allow people convicted of violent felonies to be voting members of the party (no kidding!), otherwise ALP might have to start holding the conventions in someone's living room. Now we may have to start holding them in the visiting room of the state penitentiary.
There were no objections to the handling of my removal from the ALP GovCom for the crime of being elected to ALP, Inc. Ernie Hancock summed up the feelings of the delegates, "it was short, sweet, and hard to beat". No need to take time or muddy the waters with inconvenient things like fact-finding, requiring proof of wrong-doing, or allowing the accused to formally present his case.
Nothing concrete was decided or done regarding how to increase Libertarian registration, win elections, or influence the political process in any direct way. Much praise was heaped upon the vague strategy of getting the R's and D's to implement our policies, with no specifics of what the party can uniquely do to cause that to happen.
There was a general air of pessimism -- many statements to the effect that we're beyond the point of fixing the system politically and some form of revolution (violent vs. non-violent not really specified, but presumably non-violent is preferred :-) will be required.
THE UGLY:
Not only are felons convicted for crimes OTHER THAN "non-violent victimless crimes" now eligible to be party members-of-record, there was strong sentiment to elect one in particular to the Governing Committee. This couldn't be directly done because the bylaw permitting it had been adopted at this convention and wouldn't take effect until after its close. So, a slot on the GovCom was held open to be "appointed" by the other GovCom members. The general sentiment was that a particular convicted felon would be so "appointed" at the next GovCom meeting. This qualifies as "ugly" for two reasons totally unrelated to the guilt or innocence of the particular individual involved:
(1) Interest in participation in ALP has degraded to such a level that the election of convicted violent felons to party office in abstentia sounds like a good idea, even though it's known that they will be unable to participate in any meaningful way. It's not like there was any competition for the office. Everyone present at the convention was either already an officer, was completely adament about being unwilling to serve, or (in my case) declared to be "ineligible".
(2) More importantly, the presumption is that conviction by a jury in today's system is not only fallible but is so worthless as to warrent disregard so long as the convicted felon has signed the pledge. This is WORLDS different from exempting "non-violent, victimless crimes" like drug crimes, where we don't care if the individual is guilty because the action shouldn't be a crime. This is essentially throwing in the towel on our entire cour system and saying "we ARE against attempted murder, but we don't care if the courts say you're an attempted murderer because that's a government process."
The convention came very close to passing wording in a resolution saying we would explicitely NOT seek statewide ballot status for the party because it could be used by some candidates to participate in the clean elections fund. Fortunately this resolution was "watered down" to merely condemning, disowning and otherwise spitting upon any candidate who participates in the clean election fund, along with a profoundly notable lack of any resolution, program, etc. to achieve statewide ballot status.
No one who was to receive an award (John Buttrick or Ray Price) actually showed up to claim it.
--- *NOTE I'd like for someone to please explain to me exactly what, beyond the obvious (fraud, paying people to attend, etc.), qualifies as "packing" an ALP convention. I want to make sure that I don't ever cross the line and get accused of that heinous crime. Is asking people who agree with your point of view to go to the convention "packing" it?
--Jason Auvenshine
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