SF Tea Party

Discussion
1

Dear All,

New Yahoo group just evolved out of the April 15 San Francisco Tea Party. If you are interested, please see e-mail below. Judging by the overall tone of the first batch of posts, these folks are advocates of the Constitution, the free market, and taxes out of our lives.

As most of you know, I have always advocated working with all sorts of groups on issues that they share with Libertarians, regardless of what other issues they might adhere to that would be anathema to our way of thinking. I personally believe this outreach to other groups might be especially important now that Libertarians are not the only game in town when it comes to free-market ideals. It seems to me that if we persist in what I view as our insular ways, we will become increasingly irrelevant.

Regards,

Marcy

2

I just joined

Mike

3

Marcy,

  I agree with your overall thoughts here about not being insular.

  However there is actually already an SF Tea Party Meetup list, (bayareateaparty-list@...), run by Ron Cabrera, who I believe leans more libertarian than Sally Zelikovsky who just started this Yahoo list. She's the organizer who scheduled Melanie Morgan, Dana Walsh, and Howard Epstein as the only official speakers, and who in conversation with us was objecting to signs against involvement in Iraq, etc., at the Tea Party, declined to schedule a libertarian speakers, etc. Thus I don't necessarily have confidence in her not to use this list to try to exercise control and steer things in the wrong direction.

  So if you just want to be on one Tea Party list, I would suggest joining bayareateaparty-list@.... If you have time/energy to join two lists, then by all means join Sally's as well -- voices speaking out for the libertarian perspective will no doubt be needed on both lists. I am already on Ron's, and will probably join Sally's too.

Love & Liberty,
        ((( starchild )))

4

Starchild,

Can you seriously blame her for objecting to the dilution of this event with
anti-war, legalize it etc..........

I am also for all of the above...........but can you once get behind a
diverse group who has a common interest with us...?

I went to the Tea Party day in SF and found the crowd to be polite, diverse,
and unanimous in their belief that our current tax structure is tyrannical.

The SF libertarians have a reputation for being a dogmatic,
difficult-to-deal with group. I hear this from other libertarians outside
SF on a regular basis..................

G

5

Glenn,

  Even if you agree with Sally about having signs against involvement in Afghanistan or against Drug Prohibition -- and that begs the question of whether she applied a similar standard to others, given that I saw signs at the rally against undocumented immigrants, attacking Obama in a partisan fashion, etc. -- her three scheduled speakers were all establishment Republicans. She was asked to schedule libertarian speakers, and declined to do so. While it fortunately turned out that libertarians (including yours truly) and others did in fact get to at least briefly speak at the rally, I overheard some people talking about there not being a permit, which means they wouldn't have had a legal basis to exclude anyone if push came to shove. I suspect they discovered that the cost of obtaining a permit due to government extortion for insurance, etc., were prohibitively high with the number of participants expected.

  The right-wingers at the event also led the crowd in singing "God Bless America." Invoking religion is certainly not the kind of approach to unite a diverse group with a common interest in opposing big government. But the bottom line is that Sally effectively assisted establishment Republicans in attempting to co-opt a movement started by libertarians and Ron Paul supporters. I am skeptical that she will be fair to libertarians on her list, or that she wants to build a diverse pro-freedom coalition. I suspect her agenda is to make sure traditional conservatives are in charge of the Tea Parties.

  Which libertarians are telling you on a regular basis that SF libertarians have a reputation for being dogmatic and difficult to deal with? You might want to examine their possible motives for saying that.

Love & Liberty,
        ((( starchild )))

6

Hi Starchild,

Yes, you are correct; and thank you for pointing out my having omitted mention of the several other "tea party" groups. I suggest LPSF'rs joint at least one of them, and try to interact in order to dispel the notion that Libertarians are not only dogmatic and hard to get along with, but also grow horns and a tail when the sun goes down.

: - )

7

Glenn,

There's a name for those "other libertarians outside SF" who say "SF libertarians have a reputation for being a dogmatic, difficult-to-deal with group."

They're called Republicans. Unfortunately, they've gained control of the LP California state party leadership and several county parties.

If you think that insulting SF Libertarians is going to do anything other than strengthen our resolve to act as a bulwark against the further Republicanization of the LP, then you're very mistaken.

I've spoken with the chairs of other large cities' LP organizations, who face similar criticisms, and we all agree that we really know we're doing something right when not-so-recently-former Republicans criticize us as "dogmatic" and "difficult-to-deal with" in our defense of ALL Liberty, both economic and personal (while Republicans are only interested in economic liberty, which is why they sound good at anti-tax "Tea Parties" but become more clearly un-Libertarian as soon as any other topic comes up).

Fortunately, from Ed Clark to David Nolan to Less Antman, we "dogmatic" Libertarians have the backing of those who were running the Party when we had our greatest electoral successes two decades ago. Since the Republicans who have risen to power in the LP have now gotten absolutely everything they asked for (a gutted platform, a Republican Congressman as our Presidential nominee, the removal or impending removal of anyone who isn't a social conservative from from our National and State party committees), and yet still have not improved electoral or fundraising success, their "strategy" is a clear failure. It's just a matter of time before either:

1) the membership of the LP realizes this strategy is a failure, and votes in new leadership at the state and national level, or

2) the LP simply vanishes as totally irrelevant -- the Reform Party had a bigger budget than the LP ever had and went from front page news to oblivion in less than a decade, because they were ideologically hollow.

I'm hoping and working for #1, but I have to admit, after attending the LP California convention in Visalia this past weekend, that I'm thinking the smart money is on #2.

Rob