From: "Jason Auvenshine" <auvenj@mailcity.com>
On Sat, 05 Feb 2000 13:32:43 Thomas Oliver Martin wrote:
>I believe this makes him rightfully eligible for expulsion. If the
>national LP won't take that responsibility, who will? It's time we
>exercised integrity.
Given his latest email I doubt his membership status in ALP means anything anyway. But if supporting election laws is grounds for expulsion, how about supporting public schools? The national park system? Public roads? Drug prohibition? I supported all those things at a time when I classified myself as a Libertarian. I don't support any of them now, but I know lots of Libertarians who do. (OK, before anyone says it they're not _all_ from Pima County... :-) If supporting such things had been grounds for expulsion/exclusion from the party, I likely wouldn't have hung around long enough to change my mind.
Is there any practical way to welcome people who just haven't thought every issue through long enough to be libertarian, while excluding people who are willfully aggressive?
>The irrational defeats the rational when terms are ill defined. I'm
>calling for clarifications so freedom can have a chance.
Clarification is fine and good. It's the expulsion/banishing stuff that strikes me as unwise.
>Failure to exclude counterfeit libertarians in effect excludes
>principled
>libertarians. The ALP, Inc. bylaws prove that.
Only when the unprincipled outnumber the principled, and the principled do not act rationally. I've said from day one on this discussion that I think the rational thing for the party to do is obey the law but oppose it by every means possible. That's not a violation of principle. If that's what ALP had done in the first place Schmerl would not have been able to split the party and there would be no ALP, Inc. bylaws.
>I don't understand your counterintentions. Would you care to advise
>us of a wiser course of action?
See above. When someone is promoting a course that is contrary to principle, figure out the underlying reason people might support it and take that reason away without violating principle. Exclusion, particularly of someone(s) who have a significant number of supporters, is a recipe for disaster.
--Jason Auvenshine