The LPA convention was held last weekend. The “business as usual” faction put up an opposition slate at the last minute and won the field; since the rebel slate’s supporters had assumed (despite our warnings!) that we would be running unopposed, most of them didn’t show up to vote. (The entrenched establishment is largely located in Birmingham, where the convention was held; our supporters were mostly located elsewhere in the state.) We did get one member of our slate, Matthew Givens, elected (his opponent having failed to show up), plus I was chosen as the Regional Representative for the Selma-Montgomery-Auburn tier. Well, you win some, you lose some.
This was my first visit to Birmingham in years, so it was nice to see the art museum again. Though I have to grump about some dubious labeling in the Asian Art section; for example, bodhisattvas are not “Buddhist deities” (unless St. Francis is a Catholic deity). I initially thought the translation of lingam as “pillar” was another such error (or more likely censorship), but apparently there’s controversy as to whether lingam actually means “phallus” after all.
In other news, Olbermann’s at it again. Either last night or the night before, I saw him lambasting Joe the Plumber for saying that America’s founders had rejected socialism and communism. The concepts of socialism and communism, Olbermann explained, weren’t formulated until about 50 years after the American founding, so the founders couldn’t have rejected them. Now Joe the Plumber deserves lambasting for a good many things, but this isn’t one of them. The founders were well aware of the debate between Plato and Aristotle on the subject of communism, and took Aristotle’s side; see the Jefferson-Adams correspondence, for example.
I also saw an odd headline: “Sanford Mistress Breaks Silence, Says Nothing.” Did she belch?
Sounds like the LP has internally replicated the mainstream political establishment’s invisible hand process for keeping the radicals down and out.
Thankfully, as a result of that, I no longer feel obligated to Satanically curse you. You came this close to being literally thrown under a bus.
Gee, that sounds a bit harsh. I’m sure Roderick is a smart enough and principled enough radical to be able to maintain his radical principles when surrounded by varying types of reformists.
Bob Barr, he ain’t.
The solution to all our problems is to cut the rate of tax increases!
Abracadabra.
I’m sorry Bob, but we just can’t take that chance. We must destroy Roderick to save him.
She sent a letter to a reporter friend she used to know basically telling everyone to f*ck off and get off her case. So I suppose it does count as breaking silence of a sort.
I have to cringe any time anyone says “The founders believed…” about anything. With the possible exception of the idea that independence from Britain was a desirable thing, it’s hard to find anything that all the founders agreed on all the time. The history of our Constitution is a history of bitter arguments and endless compromises. We do a disservice to history by pretending it was produced by some homogeneous group of “founders”.
Anyone want to create the Alabama Libertarian Party?
Yeah, obviously the concept predated the term for it. That should be a given, otherwise you have nothing to name.
Greenleaf: I’ve been trying to for years!