Meeting minutes for the June, 11th meeting.
Chris Mendes
Chair, LPSF
6-11-22 Minutes.pdf (617.4 KB)
Chris, a question about the minutes. You write of discussion to target neighborhoods where voters supported “the recall”. Do you mean the school board recall, which we supported? It would not make much sense imho to target neighborhoods with higher levels of people supporting the DA recall which we didn’t support.
When we most recently talked about targeted outreach, something Richard Fast brought up, I suggested focusing on (1) registered Libertarians in SF, and (2) areas with the highest numbers of young people, who are less likely to be hardened in their existing political views than older voters, and also will probably be around longer.
I think it’s important that the LPSF be very wary, especially given perceptions about the recent changes in the national party, of coming across as conservatives, and not appealing more overall to people on the right than the left. Especially given that most of San Francisco leans to the left. I believe it would be shooting ourselves in the foot, and could have the effect of marginalizing Libertarians in the public’s mind as just another right-wing organization, not the truly “third way” alternative that libertarianism actually represents. I think the way the Tea Party and Occupy movements got marginalized as far-right and far-left respectively, and subsequently faded and lost their potential to catalyze a mass movement to bring about change in governance, is instructive.
Thoughts on these suggestions and observations?
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
(415) 573-7997
Hi Starchild,
Getting back from Belize has been tough. Broke my phone and have been locked out of accounts for a bit.
You also mentioned that Richard found a relatively concentrated pocket of Libertarians are in Chinatown. The Chinese American community was a large driving force behind the successful recalls of both the School Board & DA. Targeting people who want to change the status quo and get active in politics could be beneficial to growing membership. I have a call scheduled tomorrow with an LP Alameda member about translating materials into Mandarin & Cantonese.
The LPSF should be reaching out to both left & right of center. It’s important to distinguish the LPSF from the DSA SF. I’ve been in contact with the LPCA Northern Area Coordinator about setting up a zoom call with Angela McArdle for July. We’re working on the details and will keep you updated.
Chris Mendes
Chair, LPSF
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the update. Sorry about your phone, that’s a bummer! I’ve had a rough few days as well. After Pride weekend, I think I finally came down with Covid on Monday, as I’ve had like no energy and spent most of this week in bed (less enjoyably than I prefer to spend time in bed!)
I think what Richard reported finding was a relatively high concentration of votes for Jo Jorgensen in Chinatown, which isn’t necessarily the same thing as finding actual Libertarians. We don’t necessarily know why folks in that neighborhood were marginally more likely to vote for her than folks in other neighborhoods. The reason(s) could have nothing to do with ideology. Anyway, I’ve copied him on this message so he can weigh in.
While the status quo is obviously in dire need of reform, the Chesa Boudin recall clearly illustrates that not everyone seeking to change it wants to move the needle in a pro-freedom direction. Remember “change” was a huge buzzword for the Obama campaign.
As to distinguishing ourselves from the Democratic Socialists of America, I’d bet a large amount of money that a scientific poll of San Franciscans on the question would reveal that far more of them see us as politically closer to the Republicans than to the DSA. Again, if anything, these perceptions may have been reinforced or heightened by the recent changes to the LP’s platform at our convention. In SF, we tend to get handed more ready-made opportunities to side with the right than the left, since the Democrats who control the local political establishment put out a steady stream of anti-freedom fiscal measures worthy of opposing. So I don’t think we need to worry about a lack of issues on which we will be taking positions more likely to be shared by those on the right. But of course local political governance is simply a reflection of the fact that San Franciscans themselves overwhelmingly lean to the left. If we don’t frame our message in ways that can appeal to this left-leaning super-majority, our local growth potential will be extremely limited.
These are reasons why, if we do targeted outreach, I strongly believe it makes much more sense to focus on appealing to the left than to the right. But I continue to think that better than either would be to start with outreach to registered Libertarians, and after that, to younger voters.
Great to hear we have a volunteer interested in helping translate materials into Mandarin and Cantonese. (Is that Calvin Liu?) I do think we should try to have materials available in as many languages as possible. Not to mention some brochures on local issues. Not all Asian-Americans in SF lean conservative, obviously; in fact the opposite is almost certainly true, since they are like 1/3 of registered voters in the city.
Are you trying to schedule Angela as guest speaker for our July 9 meeting (barely over a week off, by the way)? That would be awesome. Anything else in mind for that meeting?
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
···
On Jun 28, 2022, at 11:53 AM, CDMendes via LPSF Forum noreply@forum.lpsf.org wrote:
CDMendes https://forum.lpsf.org/u/cdmendes
June 28
Hi Starchild,Getting back from Belize has been tough. Broke my phone and have been locked out of accounts for a bit.
You also mentioned that Richard found a relatively concentrated pocket of Libertarians are in Chinatown. The Chinese American community was a large driving force behind the successful recalls of both the School Board & DA. Targeting people who want to change the status quo and get active in politics could be beneficial to growing membership. I have a call scheduled tomorrow with an LP Alameda member about translating materials into Mandarin & Cantonese.
The LPSF should be reaching out to both left & right of center. It’s important to distinguish the LPSF from the DSA SF. I’ve been in contact with the LPCA Northern Area Coordinator about setting up a zoom call with Angela McArdle for July. We’re working on the details and will keep you updated.
Chris Mendes
Chair, LPSFVisit Topic https://forum.lpsf.org/t/6-11-22-meeting-minutes/21674/3 or reply to this email to respond.
In Reply To
Starchild https://forum.lpsf.org/u/starchild
June 18
Chris, a question about the minutes. You write of discussion to target neighborhoods where voters supported “the recall”. Do you mean the school board recall, which we supported? It would not make much sense imho to target neighborhoods with higher levels of people supporting the DA recall which we …
Previous RepliesStarchild https://forum.lpsf.org/u/starchild
June 18
Chris, a question about the minutes. You write of discussion to target neighborhoods where voters supported “the recall”. Do you mean the school board recall, which we supported? It would not make much sense imho to target neighborhoods with higher levels of people supporting the DA recall which we didn’t support.When we most recently talked about targeted outreach, something Richard Fast brought up, I suggested focusing on (1) registered Libertarians in SF, and (2) areas with the highest numbers of young people, who are less likely to be hardened in their existing political views than older voters, and also will probably be around longer.
I think it’s important that the LPSF be very wary, especially given perceptions about the recent changes in the national party, of coming across as conservatives, and not appealing more overall to people on the right than the left. Especially given that most of San Francisco leans to the left. I believe it would be shooting ourselves in the foot, and could have the effect of marginalizing Libertarians in the public’s mind as just another right-wing organization, not the truly “third way” alternative that libertarianism actually represents. I think the way the Tea Party and Occupy movements got marginalized as far-right and far-left respectively, and subsequently faded and lost their potential to catalyze a mass movement to bring about change in governance, is instructive.
Thoughts on these suggestions and observations?
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
(415) 573-7997CDMendes https://forum.lpsf.org/u/cdmendes
June 12
Meeting minutes for the June, 11th meeting.Chris Mendes
Chair, LPSF
6-11-22 Minutes.pdf https://forum.lpsf.org/uploads/short-url/3w8VW7cyen67rCI7bTsbB7qGIyk.pdf (617.4 KB)Visit Topic https://forum.lpsf.org/t/6-11-22-meeting-minutes/21674/3 or reply to this email to respond.
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I hope you feel better.
Correct. That’s why we should reach out to find out why they voted that way and if they would be interested in getting involved.
I believe the former DA intended to be more freedom oriented but didn’t get his successes known. To the best of my knowledge, the anti-democracy, DSA member, Jason Kruta, was never prosecuted.
Pew Research Report Left Right Divide.pdf (4.0 MB)
The left in SF was put in power because of Jim Jones and his cult rigging the election for Harvey Milk. I’ve uploaded a PDF from Pew Research from 11/2021 on the Left Right Divide to get a better breakdown of modern politics.
Left:
Progressive Left
Establishment Liberals
Democratic Mainstays
Outsider Left
Stressed Sideliners
Right:
Faith & Flag Conservatives
Committed Conservatives
Populist Right
Ambivalent Right
Stressed Sideliners
Please see page 104 of the PDF. There’s a breakout of how each group views government involvement. Based on the Pew Research data, I don’t see how anyone could justify targeting the left with Libertarian messaging. They overwhelmingly, across all subgroups, support more government involvement in individual lives. Stressed Sideliners seem to be a better group that trends towards the young and may not have a preconceived notion of the LP due to their lack of political involvement. I look forward to any sample emails or marketing strategies targeting registered Libertarians and the youth at the next meeting.
I don’t have any assumption the political makeup of any group; statistics have shown that areas of Chinese Americans in SF largely voted to recall the DA. That seems to me like a good place to target disaffected voters-regardless of prior political affiliation. The DA lost; we can acknowledge the current political environment in SF.
Chris Mendes,
Chair, LPSF
CDMendes https://forum.lpsf.org/u/cdmendes
June 30
I hope you feel better.
Much better already, thanks! For three days I was dead tired, had virtually no appetite, and spent like 20 hours a day sleeping, but other than that it wasn’t really unpleasant. Now it just feels like a regular mild cold.
Anyway, continuing the conversation on outreach, etc. my responses are interspersed below…
Starchild:
I think what Richard reported finding was a relatively high concentration of votes for Jo Jorgensen in Chinatown, which isn’t necessarily the same thing as finding actual Libertarians. We don’t necessarily know why folks in that neighborhood were marginally more likely to vote for her than folks in other neighborhoods. The reason(s) could have nothing to do with ideology.Correct. That’s why we should reach out to find out why they voted that way and if they would be interested in getting involved.
If we knew who those individuals were, I’d agree. But we have no way of knowing that. Remember we’re talking very small differences in percentage terms between vote levels for Jorgensen in different neighborhoods, and even where she got the best showing, those who voted for her were a tiny fraction of the people voting in that district. Given this reality, I think we’d likely get better results following up with people we know are registered Libertarians – data we can get from the Elections Department – a significantly greater percentage of whom likely voted for her.
Starchild:
While the status quo is obviously in dire need of reform, the Chesa Boudin recall clearly illustrates that not everyone seeking to change it wants to move the needle in a pro-freedom direction.I believe the former DA intended to be more freedom oriented but didn’t get his successes known. To the best of my knowledge, the anti-democracy, DSA member, Jason Kruta, was never prosecuted.
J. – 29 Sep 21 https://jweekly.com/2021/09/29/former-jvs-employee-arrested-in-school-board-recall-petition-theft/
Former JVS employee arrested in recall petition theft – J. https://jweekly.com/2021/09/29/former-jvs-employee-arrested-in-school-board-recall-petition-theft/
A former staffer at the nonprofit JVS was arrested Tuesday, according to news reports, the result of a police investigation that stemmed from a widely shared video showing Jason Kruta allegedly pocketing recall petitions signed by opponents of the…Est. reading time: 2 minutes
To be clear, the petitions Kruta stole were for the school board recall, not the DA recall. Not that this makes it less of a crime, obviously. But it would look worse if Boudin had failed to prosecute one of his own supporters who stole petitions. According to this page, he was prosecuted, and his case was settled:
According to the link above, he has another hearing on July 19. Want to try and attend? 
As someone who spent at least a little time collecting signatures for the school board recall (and had recall signs up in my windows), I’m mildly interested in hearing what he has to say for himself. It seems like he got off relatively easy on the face of it, although apparently he is also facing a civil case – Wind Newspaper | 風報 – and as someone pointed out in the comments at Reddit, we don’t know how much he’s already had to pay lawyers for his defense. Personally I think the practice of allowing both civil and criminal cases against people for the same crimes amounts to double jeopardy, but it happens all the time. Perhaps there may be an opportunity to file a “friend of the court” petition urging further consequences? It’s possible there will be another school board recall, especially since the attempt to make them more difficult fortunately failed – the reason only three of them were targeted the first time was the other members who’d aroused public ire hadn’t been in office long enough to qualify. If there is, requiring him to donate money to the second recall campaign would seem like a mete punishment.
Pew Research Report Left Right Divide.pdf https://forum.lpsf.org/uploads/short-url/qf5HbJkUYhslSTXiN11eCsLxrz.pdf (4.0 MB)
The left in SF was put in power because of Jim Jones and his cult rigging the election for Harvey Milk.
Jim Jones was a progressive, and was indeed aligned with figures in that wing of local politics including Harvey Milk, but I don’t recall ever hearing anybody say members of his group rigged the election for Milk, and would be very surprised if Pew Research were making such a claim (in case anyone reading got the impression you were saying that was in the Pew report you linked, it isn’t – his name doesn’t appear in the document at all).
Remember that even cult members (including D’s and R’s who keep voting for the cartel parties, lol!) have just as much right to vote and campaign as everybody else, and if Jones’s supporters were willing to go out and hustle to elect whoever he told them to work for, that may be evidence of their having been gullible tools, but it’s not illegal or rigging an election.
I’ve uploaded a PDF from Pew Research from 11/2021 on the Left Right Divide to get a better breakdown of modern politics.
Left:
Progressive Left
Establishment Liberals
Democratic Mainstays
Outsider Left
Stressed SidelinersRight:
Faith & Flag Conservatives
Committed Conservatives
Populist Right
Ambivalent Right
Stressed Sideliners
Well, there’s an obvious glaring problem with Pew’s analysis. Totally missing from their list of categories are libertarians! Which makes it about as reliable as presidential opinion polls that only name the Republican and the Democrat in the race. The argument that we’re too small a segment of the population to matter doesn’t really hold water in this case, since other pollsters have analyzed the public in other ways that show us basically holding a plurality:
Please see page 104 of the PDF. There’s a breakout of how each group views government involvement. Based on the Pew Research data, I don’t see how anyone could justify targeting the left with Libertarian messaging. They overwhelmingly, across all subgroups, support more government involvement in individual lives.
Maybe it depends what issues are most important to you. There’s a host of issues on which Democrats and people on the left tend to favor less government involvement in people’s lives than Republicans and people on the right:
• abortion
• civil liberties of criminal defendants
• civil liberties of homeless people
• the draft
• drug prohibition
• freedom of movement (immigration)
• ID laws
• LGBTQ equality
• mass incarceration
• military spending (which accounts for over 10% of the federal government budget and nearly half its discretionary spending – U.S. Defense Spending Compared to Other Countries)
• moral panic over pedophilia
• nuclear disarmament (a nuclear war could really mess up a lot of people’s lives!)
• nudity
• persecuting dissidents like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning
• prison conditions
• prostitution
• separation of Church and State
• torture
• youth rights
Many observers tend to rate Democrat Jimmy Carter favorably in contrast with Republican Ronald Reagan on libertarian grounds (see e.g. Rand Paul Is Right: Carter Was Thriftier Than Reagan ), and both of them favorably in contrast with the more recent Bush II (R), Obama (D), Trump (R), and Biden (D). It may be fair to say Republican U.S. presidents have tended to sound more libertarian than their Democratic counterparts, although it was Bill Clinton who said “the era of Big Government is over” (not that his policies reflected that, sadly). Not much of a pattern of one cartel party’s recent presidents being more pro-freedom than the other from where I sit.
Rather than get bogged down in all that however, let’s set it aside and assume for a moment you’re right that people on the left are generally much more anti-freedom than those on the right.
If this is true, then we can assume most new libertarians will come from the right (especially if we compound the effect by actively trying to recruit from the right and not the left).
And if that is true, still further consequences can be predicted. Because people typically bring some of their former political baggage with them when new to libertarianism, in many cases only gradually over time and exposure to more libertarian ideas in the party/movement becoming more libertarian and radical in their beliefs, the LP and libertarian movement will themselves slowly become more conservative as these new folks join. This in turn will greatly slow the “red pilling” or political awakening of new libertarians.
Meanwhile, this migration would mean the Republican Party shrinking relative to the Democrats, resulting in more Democrats in power more of the time. If you really believe the Republican half of the duopoly is much better than the Democrat half, making the LP more like the Republicans so that they’re both competing for the same hearts and minds, is logically something you’d want to avoid.
Stressed Sideliners seem to be a better group that trends towards the young and may not have a preconceived notion of the LP due to their lack of political involvement. I look forward to any sample emails or marketing strategies targeting registered Libertarians and the youth at the next meeting.
My preference would be to start with just the reg-Libs; the language of a letter sent to that group with whom we have a pre-existing relationship would naturally be different from a letter to younger voters generally. If you’re asking can I write up some proposed language for that for our next meeting, sure I could do that.
I don’t have any assumption the political makeup of any group; statistics have shown that areas of Chinese Americans in SF largely voted to recall the DA. That seems to me like a good place to target disaffected voters-regardless of prior political affiliation. The DA lost; we can acknowledge the current political environment in SF.
Chris Mendes,
Chair, LPSF
Certainly we can acknowledge the election results, but disaffection comes in many different flavors. Did you check out the YouTube video from Berkeley I posted earlier complaining about property rights violations against the homeless? The woman narrating it sounds very disaffected with government actions in this area, and I’m pretty sure is a leftist – I noticed the slogan “Housing is a human right” at the end of the video. But I think people like her often oppose the mainstream Democrats who want to run a perpetual “homeless industrial complex” of payments to non-profits and such, without ever actually securing housing for people. It seems to me that it’s better from a Libertarian perspective that if X amount of taxpayer dollars are being stolen, that those dollars be spent on getting roofs over people’s heads, rather than hassling those living on the streets, rousting them from their encampments, etc., which ultimately just moves them around and solves nothing, maintaining the perceived need for ongoing government spending and programs to “help" them.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
···
On Jun 30, 2022, at 1:23 PM, CDMendes via LPSF Forum noreply@forum.lpsf.org wrote:
Visit Topic https://forum.lpsf.org/t/6-11-22-meeting-minutes/21674/5 or reply to this email to respond.
In Reply To
Starchild https://forum.lpsf.org/u/starchild
June 30
Hi Chris, Thanks for the update. Sorry about your phone, that’s a bummer! I’ve had a rough few days as well. After Pride weekend, I think I finally came down with Covid on Monday, as I’ve had like no energy and spent most of this week in bed (less enjoyably than I prefer to spend time in bed!) I t…
Previous RepliesStarchild https://forum.lpsf.org/u/starchild
June 30
Hi Chris,Thanks for the update. Sorry about your phone, that’s a bummer! I’ve had a rough few days as well. After Pride weekend, I think I finally came down with Covid on Monday, as I’ve had like no energy and spent most of this week in bed (less enjoyably than I prefer to spend time in bed!)
I think what Richard reported finding was a relatively high concentration of votes for Jo Jorgensen in Chinatown, which isn’t necessarily the same thing as finding actual Libertarians. We don’t necessarily know why folks in that neighborhood were marginally more likely to vote for her than folks in other neighborhoods. The reason(s) could have nothing to do with ideology. Anyway, I’ve copied him on this message so he can weigh in.
While the status quo is obviously in dire need of reform, the Chesa Boudin recall clearly illustrates that not everyone seeking to change it wants to move the needle in a pro-freedom direction. Remember “change” was a huge buzzword for the Obama campaign.
As to distinguishing ourselves from the Democratic Socialists of America, I’d bet a large amount of money that a scientific poll of San Franciscans on the question would reveal that far more of them see us as politically closer to the Republicans than to the DSA. Again, if anything, these perceptions may have been reinforced or heightened by the recent changes to the LP’s platform at our convention. In SF, we tend to get handed more ready-made opportunities to side with the right than the left, since the Democrats who control the local political establishment put out a steady stream of anti-freedom fiscal measures worthy of opposing. So I don’t think we need to worry about a lack of issues on which we will be taking positions more likely to be shared by those on the right. But of course local political governance is simply a reflection of the fact that San Franciscans themselves overwhelmingly lean to the left. If we don’t frame our message in ways that can appeal to this left-leaning super-majority, our local growth potential will be extremely limited.
These are reasons why, if we do targeted outreach, I strongly believe it makes much more sense to focus on appealing to the left than to the right. But I continue to think that better than either would be to start with outreach to registered Libertarians, and after that, to younger voters.
Great to hear we have a volunteer interested in helping translate materials into Mandarin and Cantonese. (Is that Calvin Liu?) I do think we should try to have materials available in as many languages as possible. Not to mention some brochures on local issues. Not all Asian-Americans in SF lean conservative, obviously; in fact the opposite is almost certainly true, since they are like 1/3 of registered voters in the city.
Are you trying to schedule Angela as guest speaker for our July 9 meeting (barely over a week off, by the way)? That would be awesome. Anything else in mind for that meeting?
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
··· (click for more details) https://forum.lpsf.org/t/6-11-22-meeting-minutes/21674/4
CDMendes https://forum.lpsf.org/u/cdmendes
June 28
Hi Starchild,Getting back from Belize has been tough. Broke my phone and have been locked out of accounts for a bit.
You also mentioned that Richard found a relatively concentrated pocket of Libertarians are in Chinatown. The Chinese American community was a large driving force behind the successful recalls of both the School Board & DA. Targeting people who want to change the status quo and get active in politics could be beneficial to growing membership. I have a call scheduled tomorrow with an LP Alameda member about translating materials into Mandarin & Cantonese.
The LPSF should be reaching out to both left & right of center. It’s important to distinguish the LPSF from the DSA SF. I’ve been in contact with the LPCA Northern Area Coordinator about setting up a zoom call with Angela McArdle for July. We’re working on the details and will keep you updated.
Chris Mendes
Chair, LPSFStarchild https://forum.lpsf.org/u/starchild
June 18
Chris, a question about the minutes. You write of discussion to target neighborhoods where voters supported “the recall”. Do you mean the school board recall, which we supported? It would not make much sense imho to target neighborhoods with higher levels of people supporting the DA recall which we didn’t support.When we most recently talked about targeted outreach, something Richard Fast brought up, I suggested focusing on (1) registered Libertarians in SF, and (2) areas with the highest numbers of young people, who are less likely to be hardened in their existing political views than older voters, and also will probably be around longer.
I think it’s important that the LPSF be very wary, especially given perceptions about the recent changes in the national party, of coming across as conservatives, and not appealing more overall to people on the right than the left. Especially given that most of San Francisco leans to the left. I believe it would be shooting ourselves in the foot, and could have the effect of marginalizing Libertarians in the public’s mind as just another right-wing organization, not the truly “third way” alternative that libertarianism actually represents. I think the way the Tea Party and Occupy movements got marginalized as far-right and far-left respectively, and subsequently faded and lost their potential to catalyze a mass movement to bring about change in governance, is instructive.
Thoughts on these suggestions and observations?
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
(415) 573-7997CDMendes https://forum.lpsf.org/u/cdmendes
June 12
Meeting minutes for the June, 11th meeting.Chris Mendes
Chair, LPSF
6-11-22 Minutes.pdf https://forum.lpsf.org/uploads/short-url/3w8VW7cyen67rCI7bTsbB7qGIyk.pdf (617.4 KB)Visit Topic https://forum.lpsf.org/t/6-11-22-meeting-minutes/21674/5 or reply to this email to respond.
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Hi Starchild,
You’re missing my point. This isn’t a philosophy club; it’s a political party. I want to expand the demographic makeup of the LPSF. I’m working with Calvin to create a strategy focusing on the Chinese American community. If you think there’s a better avenue then create a strategy, estimate the costs and make a proposal.
Chris Mendes
Chair, LPSF
Who said anything about a philosophy club, Chris? I just want a sustainably libertarian Libertarian Party that effectively advances the cause of freedom! But I said – if you didn’t overlook it in that email that went a bit overboard, length-wise – I can write up a proposed outreach letter to SF registered Libertarians for our next meeting as you suggested.
I’ll be interested to see what you guys come up with as well. The furthest we went in the direction of Chinese-language outreach in SF that I recall is some modest print ads in the Chinese language edition of Epoch Times advertising our election positions, and several of us as candidates figuring out which symbols to use for our “Chinese names” to appear on Chinese-language ballots. The Chinese-American partner of former chair Rob Power (now in New York I believe) helped with the latter.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
···
On Jul 1, 2022, at 9:21 AM, CDMendes via LPSF Forum noreply@forum.lpsf.org wrote:
CDMendes https://forum.lpsf.org/u/cdmendes
July 1
Hi Starchild,You’re missing my point. This isn’t a philosophy club; it’s a political party. I want to expand the demographic makeup of the LPSF. I’m working with Calvin to create a strategy focusing on the Chinese American community. If you think there’s a better avenue then create a strategy, estimate the costs and make a proposal.
Chris Mendes
Chair, LPSFVisit Topic https://forum.lpsf.org/t/6-11-22-meeting-minutes/21674/7 or reply to this email to respond.
In Reply To
Starchild https://forum.lpsf.org/u/starchild
July 1
CDMendes Libertarian Party of San Francisco https://forum.lpsf.org/u/cdmendes June 30 I hope you feel better. Much better already, thanks! For three days I was dead tired, had virtually no appetite, and spent like 20 hours a day sleeping, but other than that it wasn’t really unpleasant. Now it just feels like a regular mild cold…
Previous RepliesStarchild https://forum.lpsf.org/u/starchild
July 1
CDMendes Libertarian Party of San Francisco https://forum.lpsf.org/u/cdmendes
June 30
I hope you feel better.
Much better already, thanks! For three days I was dead tired, had virtually no appetite, and spent like 20 hours a day sleeping, but other than that it wasn’t really unpleasant. Now it just feels like a regular mild cold.Anyway, continuing the conversation on outreach, etc. my responses are interspersed below…
Starchild:
I think what Richard reported finding was a relatively high concentration of votes for Jo Jorgensen in Chinatown, which isn’t necessarily the same thing as finding actual Libertarians. We don’t necessarily know why folks in that neighborhood were marginally more likely to vote for her than folks in other neighborhoods. The reason(s) could have nothing to do with ideology.Correct. That’s why we should reach out to find out why they voted that way and if they would be interested in getting involved.
If we knew who those individuals were, I’d agree. But we have no way of knowing that. Remember we’re talking very small differences in percentage terms between vote levels for Jorgensen in different neighborhoods, and even where she got the best showing, those who voted for her were a tiny fraction of the people voting in that district. Given this reality, I think we’d likely get better results following up with people we know are registered Libertarians – data we can get from the Elections Department – a significantly greater percentage of whom likely voted for her.Starchild:
While the status quo is obviously in dire need of reform, the Chesa Boudin recall clearly illustrates that not everyone seeking to change it wants to move the needle in a pro-freedom direction.I believe the former DA intended to be more freedom oriented but didn’t get his successes known. To the best of my knowledge, the anti-democracy, DSA member, Jason Kruta, was never prosecuted.
J. – 29 Sep 21 Former JVS employee arrested in recall petition theft – J. https://jweekly.com/2021/09/29/former-jvs-employee-arrested-in-school-board-recall-petition-theft/
Former JVS employee arrested in recall petition theft – J. Former JVS employee arrested in recall petition theft – J. https://jweekly.com/2021/09/29/former-jvs-employee-arrested-in-school-board-recall-petition-theft/
A former staffer at the nonprofit JVS was arrested Tuesday, according to news reports, the result of a police investigation that stemmed from a widely shared video showing Jason Kruta allegedly pocketing recall petitions signed by opponents of the…Est. reading time: 2 minutes
To be clear, the petitions Kruta stole were for the school board recall, not the DA recall. Not that this makes it less of a crime, obviously. But it would look worse if Boudin had failed to prosecute one of his own supporters who stole petitions. According to this page, he was prosecuted, and his case was settled:reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/u29c5m/school_board_recall_petition_thief_jason_kruta/
r/sanfrancisco - School Board Recall Petition Thief Jason Kruta Has Settled His… https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/u29c5m/school_board_recall_petition_thief_jason_kruta/
https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/u29c5m/school_board_recall_petition_thief_jason_kruta/
60 votes and 60 comments so far on RedditAccording to the link above, he has another hearing on July 19. Want to try and attend? As someone who spent at least a little time collecting signatures for the school board recall (and had recall signs up in my windows), I’m mildly interested in hearing what he has to say for himself. It seems like he got off relatively easy on the face of it, although apparently he is also facing a civil case – Wind Newspaper | 風報 https://windnewspaper.com/article/volunteer-parent-man-kit-lam-in-recall-school-board-campaign-sues-jason-kruta-for-stealing-petitions – and as someone pointed out in the comments at Reddit, we don’t know how much he’s already had to pay lawyers for his defense. Personally I think the practice of allowing both civil and criminal cases against people for the same crimes amounts to double jeopardy, but it happens all the time. Perhaps there may be an opportunity to file a “friend of the court” petition urging further consequences? It’s possible there will be another school board recall, especially since the attempt to make them more difficult fortunately failed – the reason only three of them were targeted the first time was the other members who’d aroused public ire hadn’t been in office long enough to qualify. If there is, requiring him to donate money to the second recall campaign would seem like a mete punishment.
Pew Research Report Left Right Divide.pdf https://forum.lpsf.org/uploads/short-url/qf5HbJkUYhslSTXiN11eCsLxrz.pdf https://forum.lpsf.org/uploads/short-url/qf5HbJkUYhslSTXiN11eCsLxrz.pdf (4.0 MB)
The left in SF was put in power because of Jim Jones and his cult rigging the election for Harvey Milk.
Jim Jones was a progressive, and was indeed aligned with figures in that wing of local politics including Harvey Milk, but I don’t recall ever hearing anybody say members of his group rigged the election for Milk, and would be very surprised if Pew Research were making such a claim (in case anyone reading got the impression you were saying that was in the Pew report you linked, it isn’t – his name doesn’t appear in the document at all).Remember that even cult members (including D’s and R’s who keep voting for the cartel parties, lol!) have just as much right to vote and campaign as everybody else, and if Jones’s supporters were willing to go out and hustle to elect whoever he told them to work for, that may be evidence of their having been gullible tools, but it’s not illegal or rigging an election.
I’ve uploaded a PDF from Pew Research from 11/2021 on the Left Right Divide to get a better breakdown of modern politics.
Left:
Progressive Left
Establishment Liberals
Democratic Mainstays
Outsider Left
Stressed SidelinersRight:
Faith & Flag Conservatives
Committed Conservatives
Populist Right
Ambivalent Right
Stressed Sideliners
Well, there’s an obvious glaring problem with Pew’s analysis. Totally missing from their list of categories are libertarians! Which makes it about as reliable as presidential opinion polls that only name the Republican and the Democrat in the race. The argument that we’re too small a segment of the population to matter doesn’t really hold water in this case, since other pollsters have analyzed the public in other ways that show us basically holding a plurality:Reason.com – 8 Mar 16 https://reason.com/2016/03/08/the-libertarian-moment-is-so-over-that-l/
The Libertarian Moment Is So Over That Libertarians Are Now The Single… https://reason.com/2016/03/08/the-libertarian-moment-is-so-over-that-l/
Don’t mistake presidential races for broad-based changes in attitudes that will ultimately shape public policy.Est. reading time: 2 minutes
Please see page 104 of the PDF. There’s a breakout of how each group views government involvement. Based on the Pew Research data, I don’t see how anyone could justify targeting the left with Libertarian messaging. They overwhelmingly, across all subgroups, support more government involvement in individual lives.
Maybe it depends what issues are most important to you. There’s a host of issues on which Democrats and people on the left tend to favor less government involvement in people’s lives than Republicans and people on the right:• abortion
• civil liberties of criminal defendants
• civil liberties of homeless people
• the draft
• drug prohibition
• freedom of movement (immigration)
• ID laws
• LGBTQ equality
• mass incarceration
• military spending (which accounts for over 10% of the federal government budget and nearly half its discretionary spending – U.S. Defense Spending Compared to Other Countries https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison)
• moral panic over pedophilia
• nuclear disarmament (a nuclear war could really mess up a lot of people’s lives!)
• nudity
• persecuting dissidents like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning
• prison conditions
• prostitution
• separation of Church and State
• torture
• youth rightsMany observers tend to rate Democrat Jimmy Carter favorably in contrast with Republican Ronald Reagan on libertarian grounds (see e.g. Rand Paul Is Right: Carter Was Thriftier Than Reagan https://reason.com/2014/04/24/rand-paul-is-right-jimmy-carter-was-thri/ ), and both of them favorably in contrast with the more recent Bush II (R), Obama (D), Trump (R), and Biden (D). It may be fair to say Republican U.S. presidents have tended to sound more libertarian than their Democratic counterparts, although it was Bill Clinton who said “the era of Big Government is over” (not that his policies reflected that, sadly). Not much of a pattern of one cartel party’s recent presidents being more pro-freedom than the other from where I sit.
Rather than get bogged down in all that however, let’s set it aside and assume for a moment you’re right that people on the left are generally much more anti-freedom than those on the right.
If this is true, then we can assume most new libertarians will come from the right (especially if we compound the effect by actively trying to recruit from the right and not the left).
And if that is true, still further consequences can be predicted. Because people typically bring some of their former political baggage with them when new to libertarianism, in many cases only gradually over time and exposure to more libertarian ideas in the party/movement becoming more libertarian and radical in their beliefs, the LP and libertarian movement will themselves slowly become more conservative as these new folks join. This in turn will greatly slow the “red pilling” or political awakening of new libertarians.
Meanwhile, this migration would mean the Republican Party shrinking relative to the Democrats, resulting in more Democrats in power more of the time. If you really believe the Republican half of the duopoly is much better than the Democrat half, making the LP more like the Republicans so that they’re both competing for the same hearts and minds, is logically something you’d want to avoid.
Stressed Sideliners seem to be a better group that trends towards the young and may not have a preconceived notion of the LP due to their lack of political involvement. I look forward to any sample emails or marketing strategies targeting registered Libertarians and the youth at the next meeting.
My preference would be to start with just the reg-Libs; the language of a letter sent to that group with whom we have a pre-existing relationship would naturally be different from a letter to younger voters generally. If you’re asking can I write up some proposed language for that for our next meeting, sure I could do that.I don’t have any assumption the political makeup of any group; statistics have shown that areas of Chinese Americans in SF largely voted to recall the DA. That seems to me like a good place to target disaffected voters-regardless of prior political affiliation. The DA lost; we can acknowledge the current political environment in SF.
Chris Mendes,
Chair, LPSF
Certainly we can acknowledge the election results, but disaffection comes in many different flavors. Did you check out the YouTube video from Berkeley I posted earlier complaining about property rights violations against the homeless? The woman narrating it sounds very disaffected with government actions in this area, and I’m pretty sure is a leftist – I noticed the slogan “Housing is a human right” at the end of the video. But I think people like her often oppose the mainstream Democrats who want to run a perpetual “homeless industrial complex” of payments to non-profits and such, without ever actually securing housing for people. It seems to me that it’s better from a Libertarian perspective that if X amount of taxpayer dollars are being stolen, that those dollars be spent on getting roofs over people’s heads, rather than hassling those living on the streets, rousting them from their encampments, etc., which ultimately just moves them around and solves nothing, maintaining the perceived need for ongoing government spending and programs to “help" them.Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
··· (click for more details) https://forum.lpsf.org/t/6-11-22-meeting-minutes/21674/6
CDMendes https://forum.lpsf.org/u/cdmendes
June 30
I hope you feel better.Starchild:
I think what Richard reported finding was a relatively high concentration of votes for Jo Jorgensen in Chinatown, which isn’t necessarily the same thing as finding actual Libertarians. We don’t necessarily know why folks in that neighborhood were marginally more likely to vote for her than folks in other neighborhoods. The reason(s) could have nothing to do with ideology.Correct. That’s why we should reach out to find out why they voted that way and if they would be interested in getting involved.
Starchild:
While the status quo is obviously in dire need of reform, the Chesa Boudin recall clearly illustrates that not everyone seeking to change it wants to move the needle in a pro-freedom direction.I believe the former DA intended to be more freedom oriented but didn’t get his successes known. To the best of my knowledge, the anti-democracy, DSA member, Jason Kruta, was never prosecuted.
J. – 29 Sep 21 https://jweekly.com/2021/09/29/former-jvs-employee-arrested-in-school-board-recall-petition-theft/
Former JVS employee arrested in recall petition theft – J. https://jweekly.com/2021/09/29/former-jvs-employee-arrested-in-school-board-recall-petition-theft/
A former staffer at the nonprofit JVS was arrested Tuesday, according to news reports, the result of a police investigation that stemmed from a widely shared video showing Jason Kruta allegedly pocketing recall petitions signed by opponents of the…Est. reading time: 2 minutes
Pew Research Report Left Right Divide.pdf https://forum.lpsf.org/uploads/short-url/qf5HbJkUYhslSTXiN11eCsLxrz.pdf (4.0 MB)
The left in SF was put in power because of Jim Jones and his cult rigging the election for Harvey Milk. I’ve uploaded a PDF from Pew Research from 11/2021 on the Left Right Divide to get a better breakdown of modern politics.Left:
Progressive Left
Establishment Liberals
Democratic Mainstays
Outsider Left
Stressed SidelinersRight:
Faith & Flag Conservatives
Committed Conservatives
Populist Right
Ambivalent Right
Stressed SidelinersPlease see page 104 of the PDF. There’s a breakout of how each group views government involvement. Based on the Pew Research data, I don’t see how anyone could justify targeting the left with Libertarian messaging. They overwhelmingly, across all subgroups, support more government involvement in individual lives. Stressed Sideliners seem to be a better group that trends towards the young and may not have a preconceived notion of the LP due to their lack of political involvement. I look forward to any sample emails or marketing strategies targeting registered Libertarians and the youth at the next meeting.
I don’t have any assumption the political makeup of any group; statistics have shown that areas of Chinese Americans in SF largely voted to recall the DA. That seems to me like a good place to target disaffected voters-regardless of prior political affiliation. The DA lost; we can acknowledge the current political environment in SF.
Chris Mendes,
Chair, LPSFStarchild https://forum.lpsf.org/u/starchild
June 30
Hi Chris,Thanks for the update. Sorry about your phone, that’s a bummer! I’ve had a rough few days as well. After Pride weekend, I think I finally came down with Covid on Monday, as I’ve had like no energy and spent most of this week in bed (less enjoyably than I prefer to spend time in bed!)
I think what Richard reported finding was a relatively high concentration of votes for Jo Jorgensen in Chinatown, which isn’t necessarily the same thing as finding actual Libertarians. We don’t necessarily know why folks in that neighborhood were marginally more likely to vote for her than folks in other neighborhoods. The reason(s) could have nothing to do with ideology. Anyway, I’ve copied him on this message so he can weigh in.
While the status quo is obviously in dire need of reform, the Chesa Boudin recall clearly illustrates that not everyone seeking to change it wants to move the needle in a pro-freedom direction. Remember “change” was a huge buzzword for the Obama campaign.
As to distinguishing ourselves from the Democratic Socialists of America, I’d bet a large amount of money that a scientific poll of San Franciscans on the question would reveal that far more of them see us as politically closer to the Republicans than to the DSA. Again, if anything, these perceptions may have been reinforced or heightened by the recent changes to the LP’s platform at our convention. In SF, we tend to get handed more ready-made opportunities to side with the right than the left, since the Democrats who control the local political establishment put out a steady stream of anti-freedom fiscal measures worthy of opposing. So I don’t think we need to worry about a lack of issues on which we will be taking positions more likely to be shared by those on the right. But of course local political governance is simply a reflection of the fact that San Franciscans themselves overwhelmingly lean to the left. If we don’t frame our message in ways that can appeal to this left-leaning super-majority, our local growth potential will be extremely limited.
These are reasons why, if we do targeted outreach, I strongly believe it makes much more sense to focus on appealing to the left than to the right. But I continue to think that better than either would be to start with outreach to registered Libertarians, and after that, to younger voters.
Great to hear we have a volunteer interested in helping translate materials into Mandarin and Cantonese. (Is that Calvin Liu?) I do think we should try to have materials available in as many languages as possible. Not to mention some brochures on local issues. Not all Asian-Americans in SF lean conservative, obviously; in fact the opposite is almost certainly true, since they are like 1/3 of registered voters in the city.
Are you trying to schedule Angela as guest speaker for our July 9 meeting (barely over a week off, by the way)? That would be awesome. Anything else in mind for that meeting?
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
··· (click for more details) https://forum.lpsf.org/t/6-11-22-meeting-minutes/21674/4
CDMendes https://forum.lpsf.org/u/cdmendes
June 28
Hi Starchild,Getting back from Belize has been tough. Broke my phone and have been locked out of accounts for a bit.
You also mentioned that Richard found a relatively concentrated pocket of Libertarians are in Chinatown. The Chinese American community was a large driving force behind the successful recalls of both the School Board & DA. Targeting people who want to change the status quo and get active in politics could be beneficial to growing membership. I have a call scheduled tomorrow with an LP Alameda member about translating materials into Mandarin & Cantonese.
The LPSF should be reaching out to both left & right of center. It’s important to distinguish the LPSF from the DSA SF. I’ve been in contact with the LPCA Northern Area Coordinator about setting up a zoom call with Angela McArdle for July. We’re working on the details and will keep you updated.
Chris Mendes
Chair, LPSFStarchild https://forum.lpsf.org/u/starchild
June 18
Chris, a question about the minutes. You write of discussion to target neighborhoods where voters supported “the recall”. Do you mean the school board recall, which we supported? It would not make much sense imho to target neighborhoods with higher levels of people supporting the DA recall which we didn’t support.When we most recently talked about targeted outreach, something Richard Fast brought up, I suggested focusing on (1) registered Libertarians in SF, and (2) areas with the highest numbers of young people, who are less likely to be hardened in their existing political views than older voters, and also will probably be around longer.
I think it’s important that the LPSF be very wary, especially given perceptions about the recent changes in the national party, of coming across as conservatives, and not appealing more overall to people on the right than the left. Especially given that most of San Francisco leans to the left. I believe it would be shooting ourselves in the foot, and could have the effect of marginalizing Libertarians in the public’s mind as just another right-wing organization, not the truly “third way” alternative that libertarianism actually represents. I think the way the Tea Party and Occupy movements got marginalized as far-right and far-left respectively, and subsequently faded and lost their potential to catalyze a mass movement to bring about change in governance, is instructive.
Thoughts on these suggestions and observations?
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
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