Richmond High Political Fair [2 Attachments]

Activists List
1

Dear All,

As of right now LPSF has 4 committed for sure volunteers to represent the Libertarian Party at the Richmond High School Political Fair (Aubrey, Leslie, Marcy, Starchild). I have not heard from the East Bay contingent as to whether any of their members are planning to attend.

Attached once again are the official questions which one representative from each party needs to answer. Also attached is the format of the presentation. Please note that this is not a simple tabling opportunity, but a serious effort by these students to pull off a serious debate.

I can serve as the representative, but certainly do not feel that my life depends on that; so if any of you feel strongly about being the representative, please speak up.

I will post some tentative answers to the questions on this list, for review and input by all, so that we can have a good consensus by end of day Monday. Of course, if others have a chance to post their answers for input before that, that would be great.

Marcy

2

Marcy,

  I'd be happy to serve as representative and debate.

Love & Liberty,
        ((( starchild )))

3

Hi Starchild,

Thank you. Can you please post a BRIEF summary of the answers you will give to the official questions, as was agreed? It is not my intention to make a big deal out of this, but we do need to present a untied front!

Marcy

4

I have no problem if Starchild wants to give the speeches.
I am not a good public speaker.
I spent part of today making an outline of what I would say if I were speaking.
The ideas presented are my own.
You may use them or not as you see fit.

DEFENCE AND MILITARY
We should not remain in Afghanistan
as we cannot dictate their political institutions and culture.
We cannot transport our democracy to Afghanistan.

GAY RIGHTS
Individuals have a right to live their own lives as they see fit as long as they
respect the rights of others to do the same.
We do support the rights of gays to marry.
It's not a question of Federal issue or state issue; state's do have
rights.....individuals do.
We believe that any benefit offered to heterosex couples ought to be extended to
same sex also.
As to whether one state has to recognize same sex marriages of other states,
it's is not clear.
Article 4., Sec 1, Sentence 1 seems to say so, but ......sentence 2 seems to
imply that Congress may grant exceptions.
Is DOMA constitutional? I think it probably is.
Article 4 does not apply sincce Federal govt is NOT a state.

EDUCATION
Public education is too costly largely because it has no competition.
It is not very effective because of it's coercive nature.

Vouchers are not entirely acceptible, but it would be an improvement because it
would place consumers (students and their parents) in control in place of
education bureaucrats.

Year around schools?
In a Libertarian world there would probably be schools that offer a 9 nine mo
year and others that offer a 12 mo year.
Students could decide for themselves which they wished to attend.
There is no reason why educrats have to make that decision for everyone.

What is responsibility of Cal to Fund state colleges and universities?
First of all state does not fund anything; it is merely middleman between
taxpayers and taxreceivers.
Second lets suppose the state decides to "fund" colleges and univ 10 billion
dollars.
One of four possiblities will exist.
A They will fund some education for some students
B They will fund some education for every student.
C they will fund all education for some students
D They will fund all education for every student.
Options A and C are unstable as students who are not subsidized will clamor for
a subsidy.
It is not fair to tax students who do not or can not go to college to subsidize
the education of those who do.
Optioin D is unattainable as there is no finite amount that will fund all
education for every student.
Option B is fairest, but it is unstable as students will clamor for more
support.
If you decide that the state should "fund" education, you have problem in that
you can never raise enough money to pay for all education for everyone
and
there is no point between zero and infinity that is stable or in
equalibrium.
No matter how much money the state spends, there will always be unmet needs and
wants and demands for still more funding.

ECONOMY
Wall Street is definately NOT responsib le for the mortgage crisis and
economic downturn.
The federal government is!

The feds began the mortgage problem back in hte 1990s.
The Senate and House banking committees were holding hearings threatening
bankers with regulatory and/or statutory punishment if they did not make more
loans to low income persons.
They did pass a law (CRA) requiring them to do so.
To do this bankers had to lower their lending standards.

The Federal Reserve facilitated this by holding interest rates artificially low
throughout the 2000s.
This stimulated a bubble of mortgage loans many of which were subprime.
Congresspersons pressured Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy these loans from
banks and sell htem to investors.
Some investors bundled them into derivative securities and resold them to other
investors.

Credit driven bubbles always burst sooner or later.
Financial publications in 2000s were constantly speculating on when that would
be.
The crisis occurred in 2007 when many variable rate loans reset to a higher rate
and mortgage payers were not able to make payments.

None of this would have happened if Congress had not pressured bank to lower
lending criteria.
Nome of this could have happened if Federal Reserve had not held interest rates
low and/or Congress had not pressured Fannie and Freddie to buy subprime loans.

Was it right to bail out the companies? No, but .....there would have been no
need to do so if the government had not caused it in hte first place.

What to do to improve the economy and reduce unemployment?
Government does not have any magic wand to solve these problems.
Excessive debt will have to be liquidated.
Excessive housing prices will have to come down.

Govt spending does not create wealth or employment.
Every dollar that govt spends has to be taken away from some household or
business.
Increased govt spending will be matched by decreased household or business
spending.

Hope this some ideas.
Les

5

Looks good, except that I think DOMA is unconstitutional. For reference,
here is the text of the two relevant sections (the first section just names
the law, says when it takes effect, etc.):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Marriage_Act#Text

Given that courts around the country are ruling state bans on same-sex
marriage unconstitutional on the basis of the 14th Amendment, I believe the
14th Amendment will eventually be used to rule DOMA itself unconstitutional,
as it goes beyond simply allowing states to not recognize each others'
marriages, but in fact bans federal recognition of same-sex marriages. So
one section of DOMA (Section 3) would be ruled unconstitutional under the
14th Amendment for enacting a federal ban, and the other section of DOMA
(Section 2) will become meaningless once all state bans are ruled
unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment.

Hope that helps with the presentation.

Rob

6

Hey Les,

Overall, your positions are excellent. IOW, they agree with mine. ( - ;

You wrote:
"It's not a question of Federal issue or state issue; state's do have
rights.....individuals do."

I think you meant "states do not have rights." Important point!

You wrote:
"We believe that any benefit offered to heterosex couples ought to be
extended to same sex also."

This is vague. Are you referring to work situations exclusively? Are you
referring to Govt jobs exclusively? Are you advocating the violent Govt
threaten even more violence against private business?

Warm regards, Michael

7

Michael:
You are correct; I did mean states DO NOT have rights.

On same sex issue I should have said that any benefit conferred BY GOVERNMENT to
heterosex couples ought to be extended to same sex couples also. I DO NOT
believe that govt has any business forcing private parties to accept same sex
marriages, if they choose not to.

Les

8

Hi Marcy & All! Thanks for all your responses, Les. When I get home tonight, I
will add my two cents worth and forward them to Starchild. Starchild, thanks
for being our representative. I am not keen to do public speaking and it is
much more your cup of tea. I'm glad you will be there with us.

I will start my milk run picking up you guys after 11 AM tomorrow. It should
take less than an hour to get there, but you never know with traffic, so better
to be there early. Les, please let me know where you want to be picked from.
Starchild, I will try to send my first wave of responses early, so you don't
pull another all-nighter. Try to get some sleep, young man!

Marcy, thanks for keeping us on target, as always. Also, thanks to Rob and
Michael for helpful input.

More from me later,
Aubrey

9

You have probably followed this issue more closely than I. I remain unconvinced.
Your post raises a whole host of questions.

What courts have ruled same sex marriage bans unconstitutional? Federal or
state?
On what basis? Is it the 14th amendment to the Federal constitution or clauses
in state constitutions requiring equal protection?

I don't believe that it is wise to base our objection to DOMA on constitutional
grounds. After all if the state may not make a distinction based on sex, why may
it make any distinction on number? If one man wants to marry two or three women
and they consent, is this permissible? If a 45 year old man wants to marry a 13
year old girl and she consents, is this permissible?

Let's approach this from another direction. Do you believe that any combination
of persons who desire a marriage license without regard to sex, number or age
have a right to get married? If not, on what grounds can you base such
objection?

The Law makes all sorts of arbitrary distinctions: the age at which one can get
a drivers license. Tax Law is filled with all sorts of arbitrary distinction on
who can receive what benefit. Any law that bans some marriages for any reason
whatsoever is going to leave some people without "equal protection of the law".

I do NOT support DOMA. But I DO NOT believe we should be basing our opposition
on its constitutionality, but rather its moral aspects. After all slavery was at
one time constitutional; helping slaves escape was once unconstitutional (Art 4,
Sec 2, Sentence 3). At the meeting on Tues we ought to be basing our argument on
moral principals, not on constitutionality.

Les

10

Forcing private parties to accept ANY marriages, you mean? I understand
that in principle, but I'd not volunteer that information at the school if I
were you. Several of those kids probably have interracial parents and would
not look kindly on the suggestion that their parents could be considered by
a private hospital to not be married and therefore have no rights to make
medical decisions for each other.

The fact is that marriage is a contract, and government absolutely DOES have
a duty to enforce contracts, so if I have a marriage contract, a private
hospital should not be able to deny my spouse (regardless of sex, race,
religion, etc) the right to make medical decisions for me when I am
incapacitated. It is the job of government to guarantee that our marriage
contract is honored. The only right a private hospital would have would be
to insist that my spouse transfer me to another facility if they did not
want to honor our marriage contract. But they couldn't, for instance, keep
me in a hospital room and my spouse in the waiting room and deny him access
to me when we have a lawful marriage. In that case, it would be justifiable
for the government to require that they either let my spouse transfer me to
another hospital, or that they honor our marriage contract and let him make
medical decisions for me.

As an example, if Ron Paul's wife were incapacitated in a Catholic hospital,
and let's say for the sake of argument it's her second marriage (which it
isn't), and the Catholic hospital refused to grant him access to her, much
less the ability to make medical decisions for her, insisting that only her
first husband was truly her spouse, do we not all think Ron Paul would sue
the pants off that hospital? Of course, this doesn't happen, because
Catholic hospitals are already required by law to not impose their religious
beliefs on matters of opposite-sex marriage, and I see nothing wrong in
libertarian terms with such a requirement and would therefore expect the
same requirement to be extended to same-sex marriage. Marriage makes two
people into one legal entity for many purposes, and it would be very messy
for private institutions to start deciding to only recognize some marriages
while ignoring others. You think tort law is an expensive tax on our
economy now? Just wait until marriage ceases to be a bright line
distinction in law. It would be total chaos (and a trial lawyer's dream).

To every libertarian "rule" there is pretty much always an exception, and we
need to try to think of those exceptions whenever we formulate policy
statements, because, as they say, the devil's in the details. When we have
Truther wackos running the LNC, and anti-immigrant, anti-gay, pro-war
Republicans running the LPC, we already have enough of a credibility problem
-- we don't want to add to that credibility problem at the local level, too.
If we can build a name for the LPSF as being more reasonable than the state
and national LP, and that starts to get some positive notice in the press,
maybe it will have a good effect on the higher levels of the LP.

Rob

11

Aubrey:

I live in Diamond Heights just north of hte safeway store. I am near the
intersection of Portola/Market and Clipper. Specifically it's 175 Red Rock Way
off of Duncan Street. I could be at the intersection of Portola/Market and
Clipper by 11am and then you wont have to search for me, but....I do not have a
cell phone so once I leave home you will not be ab le to call me.

Les

12

Sorry, I don't agree with your logic. A contract is enforceable on hte parties
to the contract. A business or any other third party is NOT a party to your
marriage contract and should not be required to respect it, if you believe in
individual rights. I think it is self-contradictory to argue that you have right
to marry whomever you choose and that you and/or the state should initiate force
so that other people have to accept it.

Les

13

You have probably followed this issue more closely than I. I remain
unconvinced. Your post raises a whole host of questions.

What courts have ruled same sex marriage bans unconstitutional? Federal or
state?
On what basis? Is it the 14th amendment to the Federal constitution or
clauses in state constitutions requiring equal protection?

Both. Gill in Massachusetts is the case that basically forced Obama to
admit that Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Marriage_Act#Challenges_in_federal_court

I don't believe that it is wise to base our objection to DOMA on
constitutional grounds. After all if the state may not make a distinction
based on sex, why may it make any distinction on number? If one man wants to
marry two or three women and they consent, is this permissible? If a 45 year
old man wants to marry a 13 year old girl and she consents, is this
permissible?

We don't have a ready construct in law for poly marriages (in a two-person
marriage, if the spouse is incapacitated, the other spouse has 100% decision
making ability -- in a poly marriage, if a spouse is incapacitated, and the
other spouses are split 50-50 on what to do, how is the decision made?), so
my main argument in legalizing same sex marriage immediately and saving poly
marriage for the future is one of expediency. Same sex marriage can happen
just as easily as interracial marriage happened, in terms of contract law,
so there's no good legal reason not to allow it in terms of complexity, as
is unfortunately the case with poly marriage.

And I don't believe 13-year olds can consent to contracts. I wouldn't mind
the arbitrary age of 18 changing, but I think there needs to be an arbitrary
age, again for the sake of legal expediency. Such bright line distinctions
in law cut out a lot of the legal mischief that the trial lawyers would love
to engage in. :slight_smile:

Let's approach this from another direction. Do you believe that any
combination of persons who desire a marriage license without regard to sex,
number or age have a right to get married? If not, on what grounds can you
base such objection?

Philosophically, yes, but realistically, no, given the legal expediency
issues I raised earlier.

The Law makes all sorts of arbitrary distinctions: the age at which one
can get a drivers license. Tax Law is filled with all sorts of arbitrary
distinction on who can receive what benefit. Any law that bans some
marriages for any reason whatsoever is going to leave some people without
"equal protection of the law".

Again, one can make an argument of legal expediency for creating bright line
distinctions such as an age of majority, but that same argument simply
cannot be made regarding same-sex marriage. Since the era of women's
liberation, there has been no distinction in law that one sex has more
rights in marriage than another sex, but rather that both sexes have the
same rights in marriage, so it's incredibly easy to extend the same rights
to same-sex couples. Massachusetts is the perfect example of this -- I
challenge anyone to name one single law regarding married couples where
same-sex marriage created conflict or legal ambiguity. This ease of
legalizing same-sex marriage certainly wasn't the case back when husbands
had all property rights and wives owned nothing, as there would be serious
legal questions of who owned the property when there were two wives or two
husbands, but those distinctions of marriage rights based on sex have been
gone for decades. Spouses have joint ownership of property, and same-sex
marriage has no effect on that.

I do NOT support DOMA. But I DO NOT believe we should be basing our
opposition on its constitutionality, but rather its moral aspects. After all
slavery was at one time constitutional; helping slaves escape was once
unconstitutional (Art 4, Sec 2, Sentence 3). At the meeting on Tues we ought
to be basing our argument on moral principals, not on constitutionality.

I understand, but I'm pretty sure the question asked of the panelists was
whether DOMA is unconstitutional, not whether it was immoral. I think it's
pretty clear that it's unconstitutional.

14

Set marriage aside. If I have a durable power of attorney contract saying
that another person has the right to make medical decisions for me when I am
incapacitated, do you think a private hospital has a right to keep me in one
of their rooms, disallowing access by the person with whom I have contracted
to make decisions for me? How is that not kidnapping or imprisonment?
Shouldn't they either have to comply with the contract or release me to the
person holding that contract?

Again, a private hospital should have only two choices -- let a spouse make
medical decisions, or agree to discharge the patient to the spouse for
admittance to another hospital. Simply holding the patient and denying the
spouse access is kidnapping/imprisonment, and I think the government has a
duty to keep that from happening. There's no self-contradiction.

15

The fact that 13 year olds cannot consent to contracts is a legal construct. It
is not chiseled in the structure of the universe. It could be changed as easily
as changing the law to allow same sex marriage. I am not impressed that some
judge in Massachusetts ruled that the ban on same sex marriage is
unconstitutional. You can find a judge somewhere to say just about anything you
want. It just seems to me that claiming that the government should initiate
violence to get other people to recognize your contract is....unlibertarian to
put it mildly.

16

A person who is not a party to a contract has no obligation to honor it. The
first sentence of your second paragraph is correct. If a hospital does not wish
to honor the contract between you and your spouse, they should transfer you to
another hospital that does choose to honor it.

Les

17

I am not impressed that some judge in Massachusetts ruled that the ban on
same sex marriage is unconstitutional.

"Some judge"... and the President of the United States under the advice of
his Attorney General. :slight_smile:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Marriage_Act#Obama_administration

And I'd argue that kidnapping and false imprisonment are unlibertarian as
well.

We have many contracts that government enforces even when it affects people
who are not a party to a contract. You deal with tax law, Les -- is not a
will a contract between a person and the executor of their will? If I write
in my will that I leave all of my Bank of America accounts to Kai, and the
executor of my will takes that will to Bank of America after my death and
tells them to transfer all of my accounts with them to Kai, should Bank of
America, as a private entity, have the right to refuse that transfer and
keep the money? After all, they were never a party to my contract -- they
never signed my will.

Again, libertarians have a tendency to make statements in absolutes, and
that often makes us look unrealistic. If it's okay for government to
"initiate violence" against Bank of America for refusing to honor my will,
why is it not okay for government to "initiate violence" against Kaiser
hospital for refusing to honor my marriage? In my humble opinion, contract
law is our best way to avoid needing to "initiate violence" to resolve
disputes.

I'm not an anarchist. I do believe that there is a role for government in
the enforcement of contracts. That sometimes requires compliance by those
who are not a party to the contract, because my contract has conferred some
of my decisions to others, which means that those others get to act as if
they were me legally. If a contract says my spouse gets to act legally as
me when I am incapacitated, or that my will's executor gets to act legally
as me when I am dead, then even those who are not party to that contract
must honor the contract as if they were dealing directly with me. So the
hospital would have to act on my spouse's medical decisions as if I were
making those medical decisions (else they have engaged in
kidnapping/imprisonment), and a bank would have to act on my executor's
financial decisions as if I were making those financial decisions (else they
have engaged in theft or fraud). Since I have no problem with government
enforcing laws against kidnapping, imprisonment, theft, or fraud, I have no
problem with government enforcing these contracts.

Rob

18

The LPSF list is one of the few places I know where one can witness such a fine debate, with civility and reasonableness on both sides. I don’t think it would necessarily be a mistake to carry this debate to the high school, and abandon the idea of having to present a unified front. Whichever position is presented on certain issues, some contrary Libertarian opinion will not be represented, and that’s something we don’t necessarily have to conceal. An amicable debate would display to students both the range of variation in Libertarian opinion and the range of agreement, and at the same time model amicable disagreement on political issues, something they see too little of. Students can still see clearly which views are out of Libertarian bounds. Just a thought.

19

I concur with Mike.

FWIW, though: when you and I enter into a contract, it is implicit that
my agents may act on my behalf. And not all contracts are explicit.

When I am admitted to a hospital, there is a contract between me and the
hospital, that they will provide medical care in accord with my
preferences in exchange for funds from me or my insurance provider. If
I am incapacitated, then my agent may express my preferences on my
behalf. The person on whom I have conferred power of attorney — by
marriage or by explicit instrument — becomes my agent by default.

So the marriage under discussion is only binding on the hospital insofar
as the marriage is a means of designating my agent. It does not require
the hospital to recognize my marriage, per se, only my appointment of
legal agent in my incapacity.

Likewise, when I die, my will names an agent to act on my behalf, and
the bank that holds my funds is not being forced to hand money over to
someone else by a third party, but rather by my appointed agent.

A hospital or bank could, in an explicit contract, identify that certain
kinds of agent are unacceptable representatives for the patient or
account holder. While most such clauses would run afoul of current
discrimination law, even in Libertopia, service businesses with such
clauses would find themselves losing business due to the simple
annoyance of having to agree to an explicit contract.

~Chris

20

Hi Aubrey,

So glad you have volunteered to pick us up. Thank you. I will be ready whenever you get here.

Marcy