<div dir='auto'>Some thoughts already covered, and not bad points<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I will remind everyone however that the "snowball" is the same as a slippery slope. It is an argument that a few have made here with reference to "will we background check everyone" etc.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">A slippery slope argument is considered a logical fallacy. Can we at least attempt to refrain from those?<br><br><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature" dir="auto">John Phillips<br>Libertarian National Committee Region 6 Representative<br>Cell 217-412-5973</div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Dec 22, 2019 10:48 AM, Libertarian Party <web@lp.org> wrote:<br type="attribution" /><blockquote class="quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div>
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<font style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px"><strong>Contact LNC members:</strong></font>
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<font style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px">Contact all LNC members</font>
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<font style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px"><strong>Subject</strong></font>
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<font style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px">Returning donations/membership purges</font>
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<font style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px"><strong>Affiliate</strong></font>
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<font style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px">Alabama</font>
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<font style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px"><strong>Name</strong></font>
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<font style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px">Paul Frankel</font>
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<font style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px"><strong>Email</strong></font>
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<font style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px"><a href="mailto:travellingcircus@gmail.com">travellingcircus@gmail.com</a></font>
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<font style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px"><strong>Phone</strong></font>
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<font style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px">(205) 534-1622</font>
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<font style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px"><strong>State</strong></font>
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<font style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px">Alabama</font>
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<font style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px"><strong>Address</strong></font>
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<font style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px">710 Chickamauga<br />Tuscaloosa 35406<br />United States<br /><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=710+Chickamauga+Tuscaloosa+35406+United+States">Map It</a></font>
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<font style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px"><strong>Message</strong></font>
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<font style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px">Good morning LNC, <br />
<br />
As you may know, I read all your public emails, but try to write you sparingly (otherwise you'd get more emails from me than you do from your own current members, and if I was going to do that I should have run for a new term on your committee; I was on as an alternate in 2012-4). I think the membership purge/donation return issue is one that merits my input. I hope you'll agree and share my thoughts with the public list. <br />
<br />
Emotional cases make bad law, and those who sexually abuse, exploit and videotape teenagers are certainly a very emotional case. The more fundamental question however is whether LNC has *any* authority to refuse a membership pledge and donation from *anyone* regardless of what reprehensible things they may have done in the past or even do in the present or future. One answer is that the bylaws give LNC no such power, and thus it would be improper to refuse or refund a membership donation and pledge from anyone no matter who they are. I understand that this is the current ruling of the chair. The other answer I have seen is that Robert's Rules say that in the absence of such a bylaw the governing body does have the right to remove members for cause or refuse membership donations. I don't remember the exact citation and I am not a parliamentarian so I'll leave it to the parliamentarians among you to hash out, along with ferreting out where in Roberts that is, since (I apologize) I do not remember a specific cite, only being told that it's there. <br />
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A few things to consider:<br />
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1) if you do open the door to membership revocation, it could well snowball. There have been many historic cases in other parties and organizations where it started small with a tiny number of obvious cases and then gradually grew to wide ranging membership purges that devastated those respective organizations and crippled them over time. <br />
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2) But, it doesn't always have to. I am aware of a handful of state LPs which have revoked a very small number of individual memberships over the years, typically after some sort of internal judicial procedure, and as yet I am not aware that they have devolved into massive membership purges of the sort I would be concerned about. <br />
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3) It's also an undeniable fact that individual members who both advocate and practice initiation of force in violation of their membership pledge and tout their LP membership publicly can and have cause the party embarrassment in traditional and social media and among our own actual and potential membership as a result; most of the public does not understand that we may not have the power to dissociate from members in the way they assume any organization can. <br />
<br />
4) This could potentially be an issue to take to the judicial committee. But, as at least those of you who have been on the board since the start of the term are aware, it's questionable whether we have one which was impaneled in accordance with our bylaws right now. For those of you on bylaws committee, please do something to fix the voting system which caused this, even if it's just going back to the prior one. <br />
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5) If you do open the door to membership removal/rejection in this manner, please consider what precedents you set. For example, do we want to establish the principle that once someone has been convicted of a real crime with victims they can't have a change of heart and honestly sign the membership pledge, or that we should assume they don't mean it? What if someone does mean it, but despite best intentions does in fact violate their pledge -- but does not make it an ongoing pattern of behavior, nor advocates for it as policy (I can be included in that)? If the grounds for membership revocation include actions taken before the pledge is signed, do they include cases where those actions were done under color of law, yet amount to the same exact actions from our moral perspective? Example: As US Attorney, prior to LP membership, Bob Barr prosecuted a teenage boy for having consensual sexual activity with a teenage girl and privately videotaping it. As part of the prosecution Mr. Barr's office made that video public, allowing unrelated adults to watch the two underage children engaging in sexual activity. His actions were legal, but should they have been? Would setting this membership removal precedent open up grounds for someone else to request a membership revocation for our past presidential candidate and life member (if my memory serves correctly) on this basis? <br />
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6) It sounds like regardless of what you do this matter is likely to be taken up by the national convention in May. That may be the best venue to hash this out, especially in the absence of a universally recognized judicial committee. <br />
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Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings, if you did. I hope they are of some help to you in considering these matters. <br />
<br />
Paul Frankel <br />
205-534-1622 currently open for voice calls 6 am - 9 pm central, text any time<br />
secretary@lpalabama.org (not writing in my state party capacity but I hope we'll see some of you at our state convention Feb 28-Mar 1 in Birmingham https://lpalabama.org/event/2020-lp-alabama-state-convention-2020-02-28/ ) <br />
https://www.facebook.com/paulie.cannoli<br />
<br />
PS please let me know if you get this even if you don't want to pass it to the list; testing contact all feature of LP.org web form again).</font>
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<font style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12px"><ul><li>I want to receive email communication from the Libertarian Party.</li></ul></font>
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