[Lnc-business] [Lnc-votes] Committee Transparency revived

Fri Aug 12 22:55:41 EDT 2016

I agree with Starchild.

>From a political perspective, lack of transparency, authoritarianism and
cronyism go hand in hand.

>From an economic perspective, transparency builds trust.

>From a social perspective, transparency builds relationships.

>From a business perspective, transparency is good business.

>From a communications perspective, transparency results in accurate
information and knowledge.

>From an organizational perspective, transparency inspires collaboration.

Hmmmm - Transparency has a lot going for it, doesn't it!

Thoughts?

Celebrate Life, Set the Bar High and LIVE FREE!

~David Pratt Demarest

Secretary, Nebraska Libertarian State Central Committee

Region 6 Representative, Libertarian National Committee

Nebraska State Coordinator, LP Radical Caucus

Secretary at LPNE.org <mailto:Secretary at LPNE.org> 

David.Demarest at LP.org <mailto:David.Demarest at LP.org>  

DPDemarest at centurylink.net <mailto:DPDemarest at centurylink.net>  

David.Demarest at firstdata.com <mailto:David.Demarest at firstdata.com> 

http://www.LPNE.org <http://www.lpne.org/> 

http://www.LP.org <http://www.lp.org/>   

Cell:      402-981-6469

Home: 402-493-0873

Office: 402-222-7207

From: Lnc-business [mailto:lnc-business-bounces at hq.lp.org] On Behalf Of
Starchild
Sent: Friday, August 12, 2016 8:21 AM
To: lnc-business at hq.lp.org
Subject: Re: [Lnc-business] [Lnc-votes] Committee Transparency revived

            As most if not all of you are probably aware, I think
transparency is absolutely vital. Thank you Caryn, for raising the issue in
relation to our subcommittees. I fully agree and support.

            Why is transparency vital? Ultimately it is because how we
handle information is closely related to the issue of power. 

            How power functions in an organization or system is something
that those who have power are often uncomfortable talking about as such.
Nevertheless I think it behooves us as Libertarian leaders to overcome this
discomfort and both think about it and talk about it openly and frankly,
because the nature of power is central to the problem of State aggression
that we are seeking to address.

            To my concerns about how the Libertarian Party's structure and
culture address, or fail to address, the problem of power, I've sometimes
heard the response, "But Libertarians don't have money or power!" That's
mostly true, at this point. But if and when the Libertarian Party does gain
the political clout that we would like to see it attain so that it will be a
more effective vehicle for advancing the cause of freedom, it will become a
very real issue - and if we wait until then to address it, it may be too
late. By then we may have proceeded irrevocably far down the path taken by
the Democrats and Republicans into becoming organizations whose movers and
shakers are motivated by seeking power and money not as means to an end, but
as the desired ends. I believe we should try our utmost to set strong
structural and cultural foundations and safeguards now, to at least
forestall, if not prevent, what I think may otherwise be a natural
eventuality. Not for nothing has it been said that the price of liberty is
eternal vigilance!

            As Libertarians, we are familiar with and generally accept the
axiom that when it comes to government, power corrupts. While I've
occasionally heard people in the freedom movement flirt with the idea that a
benevolent dictatorship might be better for society than democracy, I think
most of us see the big problem with that:  Dictatorships don't tend to
remain benevolent, for the aforementioned reason that power corrupts. But we
perhaps have not thought enough about the fact that power, with its
attendant problems, doesn't exist only in governments. While not every group
is a government, every group has governance. By this I mean that every group
has some process by which decisions get made, whether that process happens
formally in accordance with rules laid out in some document such as bylaws
or a policy manual, or informally such as via a discussion during which a
group of colleagues who happen to meet in a hotel lobby and form a dinner
party decide where to eat.  Thus every group must somehow answer this
question of how decisions within the organization are made, and how it
answers that question says a lot about the nature of the organization.
Naturally the larger and more powerful the group and the more significant
the decisions it makes, the more crucial the answer becomes.

            As Libertarians, we seek a society where power is radically
decentralized, down to the level of each individual choosing how to run his
or her own life so long as it does not involve initiating force or fraud
against others. Part of the reason we have faced difficulty in persuading
the public to embrace this vision, I believe, is that people are
insufficiently accustomed to being independent and empowered in other parts
of their lives. Take two individuals and put them into a situation where
someone is making unjust demands upon them, one who was reared as a slave
and taught to be obedient to authority, and another who grew up in a culture
where she was encouraged to always think for herself and question authority.
Which one is likely to be more assertive in standing up for her rights?

            To have the best chances of effectively advancing the interests
of the freedom movement, an organization like a political party which seeks
to enlist and mobilize members of the public en masse should seek to
organize itself so that power is highly decentralized, and individuals in
the organization empowered from the bottom up, and to cultivate an
organizational culture which reflects these values. In other words, build an
institution that will not only fight for freedom directly, but will also by
more indirect and subtle influences mold those who participate in it to be
more suited to living as free men and women in a free society. Or as Gandhi
said, be the change we wish to see in the world. 

            The State after all is not just a parasitic organization that is
wholly alien and external to society, much as it can seem that way at times.
Parasitic it certainly is, but like a cancer it grows out of society itself.
The degree to which it metastasizes or is contained depends upon the
attitudes that the populace collectively holds toward power - how much they
are willing to trust "leaders", how much control they are willing to turn
over to those leaders for the sake of convenience, expediency, etc. 

            I'm sure you've all heard the saying, "knowledge is power". If
knowledge is power, then those in an organization who have the knowledge,
have the power. Therefore if we want power in the Libertarian Party to be
decentralized and distributed - if we want a grassroots party truly run by
its members, and not by a small, entrenched clique at the top - then
knowledge in the party needs to be decentralized and distributed. In
particular, knowledge that is empowering with regard to participation in the
decision-making processes of the organization.

            Failure to share knowledge may not always carry a readily
visible price tag, but I believe the price we pay is a high one.
Libertarians - especially those in leadership positions who currently
control information - often express concerns about the potential costs of
transparency, but meanwhile we pay little attention to the costs of secrecy.
I believe secrecy does far more damage to our party on a continual, ongoing
basis than transparency would under the hypothetical scenarios in which it
has been speculated that our political opponents might find out information
about what we're doing that they could somehow turn to their advantage.
Among the costs of secrecy:

. It breeds rumors and mistrust

. To the extent we keep secrets from our own members while decrying
government secrecy, it makes us look like hypocrites

. It reduces party unity and solidarity by undermining the sense that every
pledge-signing LP member is a trusted and valued part of the team

. It impedes the development of a "farm team" of people with the knowledge
of how to do the various things that we do

. To the extent we keep secret the amounts we are paying in salaries, to
contractors, and for supplies and services, we deny ourselves the
cost-savings advantages of competitive bidding, because people who might be
willing to offer us equivalent or better goods or services for less than
they are currently costing us, lack access to the information needed to make
those offers

. Most crucially of all, secrecy interferes with accountability

            To the extent that you don't know what your leaders are doing,
you cannot hold them accountable. Allowing a situation in which ordinary LP
members cannot or do not hold our leaders accountable is very dangerous. It
sets us up to slide gradually down the slope to becoming just another
political party run from the top down by people who are in it for power and
money.

            I referred above to members who cannot or do not hold our
leaders accountable. The "or do not" part is important. We know that the
American people could, if they paid attention to what those in power were
doing and made wise voting choices and exercised their civic
responsibilities accordingly, hold those in power accountable. That premise
is the reason for our existence as an organization. But over the past few
decades, we've seen how difficult it has been to get them to collectively
use that power as they ought to. So why don't they? For many reasons,
obviously, but I think some of those reasons have to do with how easy it is
to see and understand what is going on.

            P.J. O'Rourke said the following, and I think he was only partly
joking:

"The government is huge, stupid, greedy and makes nosy, officious and
dangerous intrusions into the smallest corners of life - this much we can
stand. But the real problem is that government is boring.  We could cure or
mitigate the other ills Washington visits on us if we could only bring
ourselves to pay attention to Washington itself."

            To provide truly excellent Libertarian leadership, I think we
should not only fully embrace transparency, but actively encourage our
members to use it for purposes of empowering themselves and holding us
accountable! Let's ask ourselves which operational practices we can
implement that will do the most to build a party culture in which knowledge
and power are shared and ordinary members are actively engaged in their
party's governance, so that some of these habits of individual empowerment
and questioning authority will rub off on everyone who has any significant
contact with our organization, and they can carry these values with them out
into the larger society.

Love & Liberty,

                                   ((( starchild )))

At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee

                                (415) 625-FREE

On Aug 11, 2016, at 8:46 PM, lnc-votes at hq.lp.org
<mailto:lnc-votes at hq.lp.org>  wrote:

PS:  That means that most of Ken's concerns are problem he should have with
the system we have right now.  I am not proposing anything new or
revolutionary.  I am simply wishing to codify that with the transfer of any
authority the duties of that authority, as it exists right now, must also be
transferred.  

If anyone is truly opposed to that, I am in wonder that no motions or
attempts to change the LNC rules as they are right now hasn't been
attempted.

On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 9:41 PM, Caryn Ann Harlos <carynannharlos at gmail.com
<mailto:carynannharlos at gmail.com> > wrote:

Thank you for your input!

I will respond in full this weekend (maybe tomorrow) but the elephant in the
room that is being ignored is this:  these items are being taken care of by
the LNC right now.  It is transparent right now.  I am not proposing further
transparency than we have right now.  Since we have that right now and it is
supported by our membership and was passed by the LNC, I would find any
attempt to shift this to a committee without the transparency we have right
now as a back door attempt to abrogate current policy and would oppose.

That being said, there are some of Ken's points I can agree to or concede.
More details in my full response.

I thank you sincerely for your participation.

-- 

In Liberty,

Caryn Ann Harlos

Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona,
Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann.
Harlos at LP.org <mailto:Harlos at LP.org> 

Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
<http://www.lpcolorado.org/> 

Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus
<http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org/> 

On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 9:26 PM, Sam Goldstein <goldsteinatlarge at gmail.com
<mailto:goldsteinatlarge at gmail.com> > wrote:

I agree with Ken in his analysis of this proposal 100%  We are a political
party, not a social club and the members and delegates

elect LNC members to do the business of the party.  Committees have enough
serious work of the party to accomplish without 

having to worry about every action or word being help up for criticism.

I would consider supporting Ken's proposal if there were an amount of
spending that would trigger a review or approval of the chair.  I 

doubt the chair wants to be involved in micro-managing the expenditures of
several committees for stamps and envelopes.  Either a 

set dollar amount or percentage of that committee's budget would be
acceptable.

Sam Goldstein

Libertarian National Committee

Member at Large

8925 N Meridian St, Ste 101

Indianapolis IN 46260

317-850-0726 <tel:317-850-0726>  Phone

317-582-1773 <tel:317-582-1773>  Fax

On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 11:15 PM, Ken Moellman <ken.moellman at lpky.org
<mailto:ken.moellman at lpky.org> > wrote:

So, I'm breaking this down, and I still have a few concerns. (I never
intended to de-rail before, sorry about that.)

First, there are committees with no power to spend, but are strategic in
nature that would fall under this proposal. Specifically, I can tell you
that the Ballot Access Committee has discussed important strategies on how
to achieve ballot access. 

I have already heard from some members that they believe committee
transparency would expose our strategy, putting us at greater risk of being
on the wrong end of shenanigans. By the wording, these substantial
strategies would be required to be exposed. 

And it's not even just the Ballot Access Committee. Look at Affiliate
Support or Candidate Support; do we really want to let our opposition know
our next few chess moves?  I foresee a day where our opposition raises money
to counter the actions of a candidate to be funded by the LNC before the
candidate even gets the money from the LNC.  Politics is a game of chess,
and telling your opponent your next 3 moves means you're either really good,
or really dumb. And I don't see us winning elections, so that might narrow
such a move into only one of those two categories...

I'm all about transparency, but only after the information is of no value to
our opponents anymore, and cannot be used by our opponents to cause harm to
the party or its candidates.

Second, a committee would be able to set their own rules on executive
session.  What stops a committee from adopting rules that puts them
permanently into executive session whenever they're in a business meeting?
Unless, of course, we create special rules for every committee (and clutter
up the Policy Manual -- sorry, but it's true!)

Third, you're talking about creating new mailing lists aliases.  That's more
work for the LNC staff. 

Fourth, the Ballot Access Committee has had one or two emergency meetings.
There are times when 48 hours notice is not realistic.

Fifth, I strongly oppose publishing my phone number on LP.org
<http://LP.org> .  I'm already annoyed enough that I get phone calls from
petition coordinators from around the US. It is great to have my phone going
off in the middle of the day while I'm trying to be on a conference call, or
trying to lead a meeting (sarcasm). Maybe some folks like having their
phones blown up and being put on spammer phone lists. I do not.

Finally, I would suggest not hardcoding the "public reflector" language.
There are better ways to publicize mailing lists that don't involve the
current configuration which could be examined in the future.  

So, now that I'm through everything that I see wrong with it, here's what
I'd counter-propose:

Any committee which has been empowered to expend funds shall notify the LNC
chair, in writing, of the exact wording of any motion passed by the
committee to expend funds, and the LNC chair shall be responsible for
approving those expenditures prior to funds being expended.  All
expenditures shall be recorded in compliance with the law and this policy
manual.  All expenditures shall be reported to the full LNC at the next
in-person LNC meeting.

---

Ken C. Moellman, Jr.
LNC Region 3 Alternate Representative
LPKY Judicial Committee

On 2016-08-11 22:20, Caryn Ann Harlos wrote:

As per the request of several committee members, here once again is what I
like to offer as a Policy Manual Amendment: 

2) Committee Transparency

The names and contact information (phone number, email address, or both)for
all committee members shall be posted on the LP.org <http://LP.org>
website.  Unless otherwise specifically excepted on a committee-by-committee
basis or within the committee's own published standing rules for "executive
session," all committee meetings shall be open to any member of the National
Party to observe or listen and all electronic committee correspondences
shall bemade available on a public reflector system on the LP.org
<http://LP.org>  website, the location of which will be published with the
committee contact information. Notices, minutes, agendas, and call-in
information of committee meetings shall be published to said reflector list
or otherwise on the LP.org <http://LP.org>  <http://lp.org/> website,
including a record of all substantive committee actions and how each
membervoted. At least 48 hours public notice will be given for any committee
meeting.

My intent for this is that I want to empower committees but will oppose that
if it adds a layer of opacity that does not presently exist.  Right now, we
as an LNC are micromanaging things, but at least the members can see the
decisions.

I would like some real discussion on this and respectfully ask that any
discussions about the policy manual being too long, or needing to be
consolidated, that do not debate or make suggestions as to the merit of this
specific proposal have their own email thread.

I want to sponsor with Joshua Katz a Candidate Support Committee.  But I
cannot/will not unless we have transparency in place either in the
description of that committee or as a general rule which guides all of our
committees.

-- 

In Liberty,

Caryn Ann Harlos

Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona,
Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann.
Harlos at LP.org <mailto:Caryn.Ann.Harlos at LP.org> 

Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
<http://www.lpcolorado.org/> 

Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus
<http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org/> 

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-- 

In Liberty,

Caryn Ann Harlos

Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona,
Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann.
Harlos at LP.org <mailto:Caryn.Ann.Harlos at LP.org> 

Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
<http://www.lpcolorado.org/> 

Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus
<http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org/> 

-- 

In Liberty,

Caryn Ann Harlos

Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona,
Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann.
Harlos at LP.org <mailto:Caryn.Ann.Harlos at LP.org> 

Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
<http://www.lpcolorado.org/> 

Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus
<http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org/> 

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