[Lnc-business] IALP Conference Report

[Scott L.]

Mr. Wiener sayeth:

"The IALP charter says "The IALP shall respect the autonomy of the Members."
What suggests to anyone that the IALP might ever want to violate the
autonomy of its Members?  How could this explicit restriction even be
circumvented?"

 

 

 

>From the National LP Bylaws:

 

"ARTICLE 6: AFFILIATE PARTIES 

 

5. The autonomy of the affiliate and sub-affiliate parties shall not be
abridged by the National Committee or any other committee of the Party,
except as provided by these Bylaws."

 

 

Many of our members think that the National LP abridged the autonomy of our
affiliate in Oregon.  It would not be a huge stretch to imagine that the
IALP would attempt to abridge the autonomy of the LNC at some time in the
future.  For example, what if a competing Libertarian Party arises in the
United States, and the IALP chooses to recognize our competitor?  If you
think that is impossible, look at  

 

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greens/Green_Party_USA

 

 

   Scott Lieberman

 

 

  _____  

From: Lnc-business [mailto:lnc-business-bounces at hq.lp.org] On Behalf Of
Daniel Wiener
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2015 4:56 PM
To: lnc-business at hq.lp.org
Cc: Geoffrey Neale
Subject: Re: [Lnc-business] Fwd: IALP Conference Report

 

Daniel and Alicia have raised some interesting questions, but so far they
seem to be only that: questions rather than problems.  This is a brand new
organization with some amorphous (but desirable) purposes and no concrete
plan of actions yet.  Geoff Neale has not said that he has any binding
authority; he instead wondered what authority should be given to our
representative (which the Policy Manual states must be specifically
delegated by the LNC).  The LNC will probably want to know more about the
things the IALP will likely be doing before we authorize any specific
authority.  But if the answers make sense, then why not do so?  In the
meantime I'm comfortable with giving Geoff plenty of maneuvering room to try
to get things off the ground.

 

I was sanguine about the formation of the IALP, and remain so, for several
reasons:

*	The IALP charter says "The IALP shall have no authority over any
Member beyond those specified in the Charter".  And I see damn little if
anything in its charter which currently asserts any kind of authority over
Members.

*	The IALP charter says "The IALP shall respect the autonomy of the
Members."  What suggests to anyone that the IALP might ever want to violate
the autonomy of its Members?  How could this explicit restriction even be
circumvented?

*	The IALP charter says "A Member may terminate their membership in
the IALP at any time, for any reason."  So if we think the IALP is getting
off track, or violating its charter, or asserting authority it doesn't have,
or violating our autonomy, or whatever else we dislike, we can simply drop
out of it.

*	The IALP charter says "Each Member shall designate a Representative,
and is solely responsible for determining their Representative, for all
voting matters."  So if we become dissatisfied with Geoff's representation
(or that of anyone else), we can simply recall our Representative and
designate a new one.

I see the IALP as the equivalent of a voluntary trade association that wants
to make it easier for its members to cooperate and achieve common goals.  In
this case they are common political goals.  There's lots of potential
upside, and no apparent downside.

 

     Dan Wiener

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business/attachments/20150521/3e1ee080/attachment-0002.html>