Marcy,
"Sit around for hours" was an allusion to the cumulative amount of
time spent on such things over consecutive meetings and gatherings, not
what I thought was being proposed for tomorrow. If we have a vote
tomorrow that leads to action, I will consider that good.
Speaking of action, was any activism done at the last two meetings?
And did anyone volunteer to choose an activism activity for this month
at our last meeting?
If not, I would like to propose that we sit around a map of San
Francisco and start the process of identifying possible sites to
include on a walking tour, by sticking in numbered pins to correspond
with a list of sites and descriptions. I can bring a map, pins, and
stickers for this purpose. I would ask others to bring their
suggestions for sites, with as much specific information as possible,
especially the precise location in question. If someone has a laptop
computer they can bring, this would be helpful for the process of
creating a list which can be emailed and printed out later, saving the
trouble of writing everything down by hand.
Yours in liberty,
<<< Starchild >>>
I once again agree with you, Starchild. "Sitting around for hours"
talking about outreach is definitely not good; that is why the
subject only has 15 minutes on the Agenda. Voting on what flavor
(constituency) our cake (outreach) should have is good; that is what
I have in mind for Saturday. Emphasis on "who" is going to do
outreach rather than "who" the outreachee should be is good; and I
hope some of us will be energized into action.Regarding your question about the status of propositions: Nothing
was decided (not enough interested "who" to act on the issues that
were presented).Marcy
Who is our constituency? Human beings are our constituency!
Sure, we
could spend a lot of time talking about which subset of human
beings is
likely to be most sympathetic to libertarianism. That's been done,
and
the results are never conclusive, because human behavior isn't as
cut
and dried as scientific phenomena. If they had been, we would have
heard about it. And while we were talking, we could have just donesome
kind of outreach to a random group of people that would have had a
better chance of finding new libertarians than all our talking.I am not opposed to bringing critical thinking to bear on our
endeavors. But let's make the thinking and analysis secondary tothe
endeavors themselves, not the other way around. The first "who" we
have
to deal with is not "who" to outreach to, but "who" is going to do
the
outreach, how will they do it, and how will we support them! We can
sit
around for hours talking about what kind of cake would taste best
at
our party and still be nearly as uncertain at the end of the day
with
nothing to show for it, so instead of doing a bunch of research and
speculation on the merits of chocolate versus carrot versusvanilla,
let's just take a vote on which flavor to make, put on our aprons
and
start cooking. We'll always have time to bake more cakes tomorrow
if we
plunge right in and do it without spending hours debating the
proper
oven settings!
I ask again,
What has been happening with our ballot initiative efforts?
Most
recently I recall seeing a proposal to support a
decriminalization
initiative by the Sex Workers Outreach Project in SF, or come up
with our own.Yours in liberty,
<<< Starchild >>>Dear Everyone;
Based on my own personal experience I have to ask the following.
Who in San Francisco knows there is such a thing as the
Libertarian
Party? I found the Libertarian Party by total accident. If I had
known
there was such a party and what it stood for I would have been a
registered Libertarian voter 15 years ago!So personally I believe you need to ask what can be done to
define who
a potential Libertarian may be and how do you let them know there
is a
Libertarian Party and what it stands for? This way you can start
to
define a constituency. Then once you have defined the
constituency
then you can create activities to attract their attention to
introduce
them, to the Libertarian Party.
Based on my background which involves various sorts of sales
marketing
and advertising what you have is a niche market to go after. How
do
you go after this niche market - where is it located - what will
attract it's attention? etc etc etcRon Getty
SF Libertarian"Amarcy D. Berry" <amarcyb@h...> wrote:
And our constituency is?? Starchild, you know that I totally
agree
with your principle of doing rather than talking. The proposed
discussion got on the agenda as a result of my noticing that EBLhas
an annual strategy/planning meeting, Rich Newell suggested the
topic
of constituency-based outreach (vs. issues-based outreach), and
Michael Edelstein thought a 15 minute discussion might beworthwhile
(which I agree). So, if you come up with an activity, we will do
it
during the Activity slot in the agenda (how about writing down
some
spots to film for our upcoming Public Access TV series, "A Walk
Down
the Streets of a Once Free City.") But I would like to see what
happens when we ask ourselves "Who is our constituency, ifanybody?"
Marcy
--- In lpsf-discuss@yahoogroups.com, Starchild <sfdreamer@e...>
wrote:
Marcy,
Rather than "discussing and formulating guidelines on whowe
are as a
group, what is our constituency, how do we reach our
constituency,"
I'd
like to suggest that we could spend our time more productively
by
actually doing something, such as actually trying to reach our
constituency.What has been happening with our ballot initiativeefforts?
Most
recently I recall seeing a proposal to support a
decriminalization
initiative by the Sex Workers Outreach Project in SF, or come up
with
our own.
Yours in liberty,
<<< Starchild >>>I would like to once again agree with Don on the matter of
unity
in
the LP against government intrusion in our private lives. And
since
we are on the general subject of what might be appropriate
response/action by LPSF, as a group, to the current political
landscape, I would also like to invite everybody to come thethe
next
LPSF monthly meeting on July 9 (Round Table Pizza on 16th Ave
and
Geary, room upstairs, 3:00 pm), when we will be discussing and
formulating guidelines on who we are as a group, what is our
constituency, how do we reach our constituency.Regards,
Marcy
LPSF,
If Doug Newman is a bigot as some people claim, I wish
America
had
more
bigots like Doug Newman and less prohibitionists like Supreme
Court Justice Ruth
Bader-Ginsburg, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala
Harris
and
President
George W. Bush.
Ginsburg, Harris and Bush have long lists of people and
things
that make
their "unbigoted" Progressive and Neo-conservative,
Religious-
rightist stomachs
do 360's. Instead of minding their own business and leaving
peaceful people
and private property alone, they advocate and use the
unconstitutional force
of government to kill, destroy and incarcerate peaceful
people
and
private
property they do not like. They, and their diverse group of
supporters, all
agree: No matter the problem (real or imagined), the
solution is
always more
government. Doug Newman is a critic of that common, Statist
mode
of thinking and
destructive, unconstitutional form of government.
To agree or disagree with Doug Newman's strongly stated
dislike
of
the gay
lifestyle is to be petty and miss, or deny, his point. That
point
being: To
take a stance on a controversial issue is of little or no
importance compared
to, as a matter of principal, disapproval of government
regulation
and
involvement with issues of any type, including controversial
issues. Doug Newman's
point to the Religious-Right is this: The only way to get
government out of
your affairs is to also advocate getting government out of
the
affairs of people
outside your group, including the lives of peaceful people
that
make your
stomach's do 360's.
No group of people, including Libertarians, will ever be in
unanimous
agreement on any issue, therefore, it is far more important
and
unifying for
Libertarians to stand united on principal against government
regulation and
involvement in peaceful people's affairs. Because Doug Newman
promotes the idea of
across-the-board, less government (therefore more freedom),
I
welcome Doug
Newman to the Libertarian Party.
All the best,
Don Fields
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