[Lnc-business] Email Ballot 2017-03: Cuban Arrests

[Starchild]

Alicia,

	You don't think we should give imprisoned libertarian activists the benefit of the doubt over the Castro regime?

	As I pointed out in another message, if we get something wrong in a case like this, we can always send out a clarification or retraction if necessary. But I have a pretty high degree of confidence that the regime is guilty of doing essentially what it's accused of doing here. "Innocent until proven" guilty is a safeguard intended to protect individual rights, not secretive, authoritarian dictatorships. As the Nevada LP representative's update document pointed out, the story was reported by multiple media outlets. And you yourself acknowledge that this case is illustrative of "a much broader problem of a communist dictatorship with secret courts, and many, many, many people in Cuba are victims of it", so a false accusation on the specifics of this particular case wouldn't be much of an injustice anyway. 

	But as I've said, this is about movement solidarity, and standing up for our own, as much as it's about protesting broader injustices. We can't speak out against every bad thing that government authorities do, but when we're specifically requested to speak out on behalf of specific victims who, to the best of our knowledge, have had their rights violated as a consequence of their libertarian activism, it behooves us not to remain silent. If it were friends or relatives of yours sitting in jail somewhere, I imagine you'd want us to offer our support even if we did not have the complete picture of what happened – and how often do we have the complete picture of anything that we communicate about, when it comes to other things on which we issue press releases, resolutions, etc.?

Love & Liberty,

                                   ((( starchild )))
At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee
                                (415) 625-FREE
                                  @StarchildSF


On Feb 24, 2017, at 2:54 PM, Alicia Mattson wrote:

> I vote no.
> 
> The nature of the Cuban government makes it impossible for us to know whether or not what we're saying is accurate.  It may well be true, but we just can't have a lot of confidence.  The problem is not limited to just these two libertarian activists.  It's a much broader problem of a communist dictatorship with secret courts, and many, many, many people in Cuba are victims of it, though there are also people there who do steal, murder, etc.  We could probably just change the names and issue a whole lot of similar statements about other Cuban prisoners, and we'd be right about some and wrong about some.
> 
> -Alicia
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 1:49 AM, Alicia Mattson <agmattson at gmail.com> wrote:
> We have an electronic mail ballot.
> 
> Votes are due to the LNC-Business list by February 24, 2017 at 11:59:59pm Pacific time.
>  
> Co-Sponsors:  Starchild, Harlos, Demarest, Vohra
> 
> Motion:  The Libertarian National Committee condemns the unjust detention of libertarian activists Ubaldo Herrera Hernandez and Manuel Velasquez by agents of the Castro regime in Cuba on February 2, and demands the immediate safe release of these political prisoners who were targeted for their peaceful activism promoting limited government and free markets. We further ask the U.S. government's State Department to place diplomatic pressure on the Castro regime for their release, and encourage Libertarian Party members and supporters to contact their elected officials toward that end. 
> 
> 
> -Alicia
> 
> 
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