<div dir='auto'>There are beings who have received a gifted membership who can not sign of their own volition who may in fact be being counted in the formula that decides delegate allocation. <br><br><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature">Erin Adams Region 7 alt.</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Dec 29, 2019 3:12 PM, Caryn Ann Harlos via Lnc-business <lnc-business@hq.lp.org> wrote:<br type="attribution" /><blockquote class="quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><p dir="ltr">Mr Frankel is spot on.
<br>
<br>
---------- Forwarded message ---------
<br>
From: Libertarian Party <web@lp.org>
<br>
Date: Sun, Dec 29, 2019 at 1:48 PM
<br>
Subject: LNC Contact Form - Expulsion/denial of memberships redux
<br>
To: <chair@lp.org>, <alex.merced@lp.org>, <treasurer@lp.org>, <
<br>
secretary@lp.org>, <joe.bishop-henchman@lp.org>, <sam.goldstein@lp.org>, <
<br>
alicia.mattson@lp.org>, <william.redpath@lp.org>, <joshua.smith@lp.org>, <
<br>
richard.longstreth@lp.org>, <johnny.adams@lp.org>, <steven.nekhaila@lp.org>,
<br>
<victoria.paige.lee@lp.org>, <elizabeth.vanhorn@lp.org>, <
<br>
dustin.nanna@lp.org>, <jeffrey.hewitt@lp.org>, <kenneth.olsen@lp.org>, <
<br>
james.lark@lp.org>, <susan.hogarth@lp.org>, <john.phillips@lp.org>, <
<br>
phillip.anderson@lp.org>, <whitney.bilyeu@lp.org>, <erin.adams@lp.org>, <
<br>
justin.odonnell@lp.org>, <pat.ford@lp.org>
<br>
<br>
<br>
*Contact LNC members:*
<br>
Contact all LNC members
<br>
Your Information
<br>
*Subject*
<br>
Expulsion/denial of memberships redux
<br>
*Affiliate*
<br>
Alabama
<br>
*Name*
<br>
paul frankel
<br>
*Email*
<br>
secretary@lpalabama.org
<br>
*Phone*
<br>
(205) 534-1622
<br>
*State*
<br>
Alabama
<br>
*Address*
<br>
710 Chickamauga Cir
<br>
<https://www.google.com/maps/search/710+Chickamauga+Cir+Tuscaloosa,+AL+35406+United+States?entry=gmail&source=g>
<br>
Tuscaloosa, AL 35406
<br>
<https://www.google.com/maps/search/710+Chickamauga+Cir+Tuscaloosa,+AL+35406+United+States?entry=gmail&source=g>
<br>
United States
<br>
<https://www.google.com/maps/search/710+Chickamauga+Cir+Tuscaloosa,+AL+35406+United+States?entry=gmail&source=g>
<br>
Map It
<br>
<http://maps.google.com/maps?q=710+Chickamauga+Cir+Tuscaloosa%2C+AL+35406+United+States>
<br>
*Message*
<br>
Hello again LNC. My apologies for writing you all so frequently about
<br>
this but I’m not sure whether anyone else is going to raise these points
<br>
otherwise in your discussion or not. I’m again requesting a forward to the
<br>
public list.
<br>
<br>
1) “"The Libertarian Party does have requirements to become a member. Most
<br>
importantly:
<br>
<br>
• ARTICLE 4: MEMBERSHIP
<br>
1. Members of the Party shall be those persons who have certified in
<br>
writing that they oppose the initiation of force to achieve political or
<br>
social goals.
<br>
<br>
Regardless of anyone’s opinion, this person is in prison for violating the
<br>
individual rights of several people, and that is clearly a violation of the
<br>
certification. Until acquitted / found innocent, or until this person has
<br>
served time and offered something to the people whose rights he violated,
<br>
this is a fact and must be taken into consideration.””
<br>
<br>
Actions which constitute the initiation of force are not necessarily the
<br>
same thing as supporting the initiation of force **to achieve social and
<br>
political goals**. There are various ways the latter can be interpreted.
<br>
Taken in historical context, many have claimed that this was merely a cover
<br>
our butts statement to assure the government we were not planning to engage
<br>
in terrorism on behalf of our radical agenda of social change, and if any
<br>
LP member did, that we would have their membership pledge to prove that it
<br>
was not in line with what we are about as an organization. To keep this in
<br>
perspective the party was created in the early 1970s when there was a rash
<br>
of politically motivated domestic terrorism from the far left, much as
<br>
there now is from the far right.
<br>
<br>
Another plausible explanation is that it is a certification of opposition
<br>
to initiation of force as seen in libertarian philosophy to achieve social
<br>
and political goals, which would amount to an anarchist pledge or endless
<br>
debates over whether various minimal government proposals are somehow not
<br>
initiation of force. Although I’m an anarchist myself, I would not want a
<br>
pledge that excludes all non-anarchists from the party, Nor would I want
<br>
endless purge trials over whether any members have expressed support for
<br>
policies which initiate force to achieve social or political goals or not.
<br>
I hope we can all agree on that.
<br>
<br>
One thing the pledge does **not** say is “I will not engage in initiation
<br>
of force for any reason.” It’s an admirable standard and one I would aspire
<br>
to, but have fallen short of myself, regrettably. It does not even say “I
<br>
will not stand convicted in a court of law of criminal activity stemming
<br>
from actions which initiate force.” That’s a far different pledge than the
<br>
one we all took, and while it’s also an admirable standard, I’m also not
<br>
the only party member who has regrettably fallen short of this standard. If
<br>
we retroactively reinterpret the existing pledge as being that, and
<br>
enforceable (whereas to my knowledge it never was before) my expulsion
<br>
trial ought to be scheduled as well, along with an expensive audit of all
<br>
other memberships and who knows how many other such trials. All the more so
<br>
if we also have to investigate all potential new members as well.
<br>
<br>
However one interprets the membership pledge, there is no enforcement
<br>
mechanism in it, nor to my knowledge anywhere else in bylaws. The
<br>
historical and bylaws experts can correct me if I am wrong, but to my
<br>
knowledge we have NEVER had such a mechanism at the national level. I think
<br>
this is probably because people realized that having one could open a huge
<br>
can of worms. Such a process has existed and been used at the state level
<br>
in various states, to my knowledge only in a small handful of cases.
<br>
However, even those trials often prove to be very divisive and time
<br>
consuming, eating up much time and good will at the state and local level
<br>
and causing many other members to quit or scale back involvement regardless
<br>
of the outcome.
<br>
<br>
2) “• (Roberts rules) Art. XIII. Legal Rights of Assemblies and Trial of
<br>
Their Members.
<br>
<br>
72. The Right of a Deliberative Assembly to Punish its Members. A
<br>
deliberative assembly has the inherent right to make and enforce its own
<br>
laws and punish an offender, the extreme penalty, however, being expulsion
<br>
from its own body. When expelled, if the assembly is a permanent society,
<br>
it has the right, for its own protection….”
<br>
<br>
<br>
However, this does not say what happens if the matter is not addressed in
<br>
the bylaws of an organization (“its own laws”). Since our bylaws don’t have
<br>
an expulsion provision, I don’t see how this section creates one for us. It
<br>
just says we have the right to make and enforce such a bylaw, but we have
<br>
not done it. If something in Roberts creates a right to expel members, this
<br>
is not it.
<br>
<br>
3) Gift memberships: Please correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding
<br>
is that gift memberships are not valid unless the person being gifted signs
<br>
the membership pledge of their own free volition, and is a person capable
<br>
of informed consent, regardless of who pays the attending fee. Otherwise
<br>
it’s just a fundraising tool, but does not create a true membership.
<br>
<br>
As a reminder I also sent a second email which as far as I know was never
<br>
forwarded to the list, correcting a factual matter in my first email:
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Thomas L. Knapp quoting my first letter: “As US Attorney, prior to LP
<br>
membership, Bob Barr prosecuted a teenage boy for having consensual sexual
<br>
activity with a teenage girl and privately videotaping it. As part of the
<br>
prosecution Mr. Barr's office made that video public, allowing unrelated
<br>
adults to watch the two underage children engaging in sexual activity."
<br>
<br>
TLK: My recollection is different -- or perhaps we're referring to
<br>
different events. {p: no, error is mine; I misremembered what I read Knapp
<br>
write about this, and he corrects it here p}
<br>
<br>
TLK: My recollection is that the incident happened after Barr left
<br>
Congress, when he no longer held public office, and possibly while he was
<br>
affiliated with the LP. And my recollection of the incident is this:
<br>
<br>
In Georgia, trial evidence is a "public record."
<br>
<br>
A newspaper filed a request for the evidence in the case you mention -- a
<br>
cell phone video.
<br>
<br>
A judge denied that request because of the content.
<br>
<br>
As an op-ed columnist, Barr held that the law required the release of the
<br>
evidence, and that if anyone didn't like that, they should get the law
<br>
changed.
<br>
<br>
Which, as a side note, made Barr, not Mary Ruwart, the 2008 presidential
<br>
candidate who was on public record as supporting government provision of
<br>
child pornography on demand.
<br>
<br>
But he was also right. "Don't like the rules, ain't gonna go by them" is
<br>
not a reasonable position for a judge, a bureaucrat, an office-holder -- or
<br>
a party's national committee. (TLK)
<br>
<br>
Paulie: OK I mangled that, will need to correct. But that brings up another
<br>
good point of consideration: Is merely *advocating* for the initiation of
<br>
force to serve political or social goals (or some specific types of force
<br>
involving teenagers, sex and or video) enough for the potential
<br>
revocations/denial of membership being considered? Or does it have to
<br>
involve personal actions? In other words, the way I remembered what you
<br>
wrote involved an actual action under color of law. This refreshing of my
<br>
memory makes clear it was mere advocacy in a newspaper column.
<br>
<br>
In the case that stirred the current brouhaha on the LNC, I am not aware
<br>
that the guy in prison who is trying to join the party is *advocating* for
<br>
making what he is convicted of legal. In fact I do not know what he thinks.
<br>
He may be sincerely sorry and have turned a new leaf, he may have been
<br>
railroaded, he may think he did nothing wrong, he may just believe he had
<br>
to do what he had to do due to economic reality. In another case someone
<br>
both practices and advocates routinely initiating force and normalizing it,
<br>
and obviously fits both criteria - action and advocacy. In the corrected
<br>
version, Barr engages in advocacy but to my knowledge no action, at least
<br>
none that I know of evidence for. How many of these qualify for membership
<br>
revocation under whatever standard people are proposing here?
<br>
<br>
For reference earlier I wrote:
<br>
<br>
<br>
As you may know, I read all your public emails, but try to write you
<br>
sparingly (otherwise you'd get more emails from me than you do from your
<br>
own current members, and if I was going to do that I should have run for a
<br>
new term on your committee; I was on as an alternate in 2012-4). I think
<br>
the membership purge/donation return issue is one that merits my input. I
<br>
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
<br>
videotape teenagers are certainly a very emotional case. The more
<br>
fundamental question however is whether LNC has *any* authority to refuse a
<br>
membership pledge and donation from *anyone* regardless of what
<br>
reprehensible things they may have done in the past or even do in the
<br>
present or future. One answer is that the bylaws give LNC no such power,
<br>
and thus it would be improper to refuse or refund a membership donation and
<br>
pledge from anyone no matter who they are. I understand that this is the
<br>
current ruling of the chair. The other answer I have seen is that Robert's
<br>
Rules say that in the absence of such a bylaw the governing body does have
<br>
the right to remove members for cause or refuse membership donations. I
<br>
don't remember the exact citation and I am not a parliamentarian so I'll
<br>
leave it to the parliamentarians among you to hash out, along with
<br>
ferreting out where in Roberts that is, since (I apologize) I do not
<br>
remember a specific cite, only being told that it's there.
<br>
<br>
A few things to consider:
<br>
<br>
1) if you do open the door to membership revocation, it could well
<br>
snowball. There have been many historic cases in other parties and
<br>
organizations where it started small with a tiny number of obvious cases
<br>
and then gradually grew to wide ranging membership purges that devastated
<br>
those respective organizations and crippled them over time.
<br>
<br>
2) But, it doesn't always have to. I am aware of a handful of state LPs
<br>
which have revoked a very small number of individual memberships over the
<br>
years, typically after some sort of internal judicial procedure, and as yet
<br>
I am not aware that they have devolved into massive membership purges of
<br>
the sort I would be concerned about.
<br>
<br>
3) It's also an undeniable fact that individual members who both advocate
<br>
and practice initiation of force in violation of their membership pledge
<br>
and tout their LP membership publicly can and have cause the party
<br>
embarrassment in traditional and social media and among our own actual and
<br>
potential membership as a result; most of the public does not understand
<br>
that we may not have the power to dissociate from members in the way they
<br>
assume any organization can.
<br>
<br>
4) This could potentially be an issue to take to the judicial committee.
<br>
But, as at least those of you who have been on the board since the start of
<br>
the term are aware, it's questionable whether we have one which was
<br>
impaneled in accordance with our bylaws right now. For those of you on
<br>
bylaws committee, please do something to fix the voting system which caused
<br>
this, even if it's just going back to the prior one.
<br>
<br>
5) If you do open the door to membership removal/rejection in this manner,
<br>
please consider what precedents you set. For example, do we want to
<br>
establish the principle that once someone has been convicted of a real
<br>
crime with victims they can't have a change of heart and honestly sign the
<br>
membership pledge, or that we should assume they don't mean it? What if
<br>
someone does mean it, but despite best intentions does in fact violate
<br>
their pledge -- but does not make it an ongoing pattern of behavior, nor
<br>
advocates for it as policy (I can be included in that)? If the grounds for
<br>
membership revocation include actions taken before the pledge is signed, do
<br>
they include cases where those actions were done under color of law, yet
<br>
amount to the same exact actions from our moral perspective? Example: As US
<br>
Attorney, prior to LP membership, Bob Barr prosecuted a teenage boy for
<br>
having consensual sexual activity with a teenage girl and privately
<br>
videotaping it. As part of the prosecution Mr. Barr's office made that
<br>
video public, allowing unrelated adults to watch the two underage children
<br>
engaging in sexual activity. His actions were legal, but should they have
<br>
been? Would setting this membership removal precedent open up grounds for
<br>
someone else to request a membership revocation for our past presidential
<br>
candidate and life member (if my memory serves correctly) on this basis?
<br>
<br>
6) It sounds like regardless of what you do this matter is likely to be
<br>
taken up by the national convention in May. That may be the best venue to
<br>
hash this out, especially in the absence of a universally recognized
<br>
judicial committee.
<br>
<br>
Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings, if you did. I hope they
<br>
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
<br>
time
<br>
secretary@lpalabama.org (not writing in my state party capacity but I hope
<br>
we'll see some of you at our state convention Feb 28-Mar 1 in Birmingham
<br>
https://lpalabama.org/event/2020-lp-alabama-state-convention-2020-02-28/)
<br>
https://www.facebook.com/paulie.cannoli
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<br>
*In Liberty,*
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<br>
* Personal Note: I have what is commonly known as Asperger's Syndrome
<br>
(part of the autism spectrum). This can affect inter-personal
<br>
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<br>
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</p>
</blockquote></div><br></div>