It is a pretty sad day when the Libertarian Party rejects Ron Paul, the godfather of the modern libertarian movement, but unfortunately that time has come.
As many of you know, the LPMC has never been shy about our goal of shaking up the leadership of the party to give it a fresh look and principled direction that the majority of libertarians would be motivated to support. In fact, it is our first major milestone goal. We knew this would draw the ire of party leadership and it’s supporters.
However, we feel, as most libertarians do, that it is badly needed and much overdue. As part of this goal, it is only natural that we would want to feel represented at the convention and to have a voice both on the convention floor and the stage.
Nobody in leadership seems to be championing and putting issues like foreign policy, specifically the absolute humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen, blockchain solutions to statist problems and the Federal Reserve fraud on the forefront! We found success in this pursuit after connecting Jim Cantrell, part of the founding team for SpaceX, and CEO of Vector Space Systems, with Daniel Hayes, the chair of the LP’s convention committee.
We recommend everybody buys their ticket to the 2018 Libertarian National Convention in New Orleans to hear what the exciting future the private space market holds for all of us. This includes a partnership with Nexus Earth to launch an array of satellites into low earth orbit to both act as an added layer of security for their cryptocurrency network as well as beam decentralized internet to the planet to compete with the ISP cartel. You read that right, now buy your tickets, and consider joining us at the convention as a delegate!
Having established this working relationship with Mr. Hayes, I decided to follow up and inquire about what we would have to do to get Ron Paul and Judge Andrew Napolitano to the convention as speakers, it doesn’t get more libertarian than that!
I had the pleasure of discussing the caucus and our goals with both Dr. Paul and the judge at the Nexus Conference in September, both expressed interest and support, so the potential was there. Mr. Hayes made it clear that the party would not be willing to pay any potential fees that may come with such AAA speakers. I told him that we would work on taking care of the fees. He was very interested in having the judge out, but oddly seemed to be lukewarm about having Ron Paul speaking at all, regardless of fees, without having expressly denied him at that point. Dr. Paul and Judge Napolitano are long time friends; if the party is going to disrespect Ron Paul, it is highly likely that the judge would not show up and stand with his friend.
They have the same representative and I wouldn’t even bother to make such a request in that event. Knowing this, I pressed on. After all, what self described libertarian who is motivated to sell tickets and put on a successful libertarian event would actually turn down Ron Paul as a speaker if handed to them on a silver platter? As it turns out, we found interested sponsors, and made contact with the representative for Dr. Paul and Judge Napolitano. Things were really starting to look up!
Than suddenly, I get the following Message from Mr. Hayes:
The article he linked, written by Dr. Paul and titled “Good News: Young Americans Want a New Political Party” has the following passage in it that seems to have outraged Mr. Hayes:
“Unfortunately the Libertarian Party has failed to live up to what should have been its role as an ideological alternative to Washington’s one-party system. As was quite obvious in the 2016 presidential election, the Libertarians yielded to prevailing attitudes on war, welfare, the Federal Reserve, and more. In believing that winning was more important than standing for something, they ended up achieving neither. I would still like to have some hope for the Libertarian Party, but to really fill its role as a challenger to our two party system (that is actually a one party system) it would need a major overhaul. It would need to actually embrace the core libertarian principles of non-aggression and non-intervention in the affairs of others.”
There is nothing untrue about that statement. Party leadership did nothing as the Johnson/Weld campaign acted almost as it’s own separate entity, completely distancing itself from libertarian marketing, trading principles of non-aggression, non-intervention, and Austrian economics for “fiscally conservative and socially liberal” which excited and motivated almost nobody. Weld, a member of the Counsel on Foreign Relations and member of the infamous neo-conservative think tank “Project for a New American Century” eventually “vouched” for Hilary Clinton on national television, and failed the libertarian base on gun rights, a foreign policy of peace and many other issues.
Their candidacy completely divided the Libertarian Party and failed to garner 5% of the vote against two of the most unpopular candidates in American History. The party never fully recovered despite registered voters going up; it has remained divided and has been losing paid members ever since. This environment, made worse by the ineffectual leadership of the party that would rather pick fights with libertarians it doesn’t like than unite them, has kept the vast majority libertarians away from the party.
Libertarians want and deserve better than what they are getting. Who better to rally the troops and bring people together than Ron Paul who garnered many millions of supporters across two campaigns? At this point, I let it go for a bit. I decided to let it cool off and pursue avenues to hopefully contact Dr. Paul directly and form a connection.
This was important to me as I felt that was a vital part of what made my efforts with Judge Napolitano a success. After about six weeks, I got back in touch with the representative who maintained an interest in making this happen. I decided to follow up with Mr. Hayes who at first saw my messages, than very unprofessionally ignored them, ultimately giving me a “thumbs up” when I said I’ll just tell him you aren’t interested. So, unfortunately, that is exactly what I had to do.
Mr. Hayes, who claimed Dr. Paul “has no idea what we represent” ironically asked me for my opinion/support on courting Glenn Beck as a speaker to the convention…
If you are a libertarian and that doesn’t make you want to #TakeHumanAction, than what will? We all know very well that this isn’t actually about Ron Paul, it’s about what he represents. This member of the Libertarian National Committee would rather hold a grudge over legitimate criticism than let Dr. Paul speak, just like the Republican Party tried to do to him. This type of pettiness is why this caucus exists. You would think that Dr. Paul would be a valued source of advice and that his followers and audience at the Ron Paul Liberty Report would be a prime recruiting ground for the Libertarian Party.
Unfortunately, Dr. Paul’s criticisms are right, and people like Mr. Hayes and members of leadership like him are rightly threatened by what would happen to their positions if even just a small percentage of Ron’s supporters joined the party. Fortunately for the future of the LP and the libertarian movement at large, they are and the Re(LovE)ution is alive and well! Many of you may feel this is a reason not to bother with the LP, but it is exactly why you should join. That type of thinking is what allowed the party to become milquetoast and uninspiring. Without your help, the Bill Welds and Daniel Hayes of the world are going to be the ones to eventually represent our message on the debate stage as an introduction to libertarianism to the American people. We cannot let that happen, we cannot let the word ‘libertarian’ go the way of the word ‘liberal’.
