Which thread was this supposed to be on?

I don’t think it was this one, since we have not had 57 comments here, at least yet.

Seen this?

First step we should see whether we can get the existing domain or if we need to get a new one. Do you have hosting?

PHP boards…not wedded to these, but people will waste time talking on any medium if that is what they want to do.

A few months ago during my campaign, at a forum (at a Catholic Church) with the other candidates, we were asked this question.

I went well over my 90 seconds for a response. But I think most in the room agreed with me.

I said it was a DEEPLY personal question. Twenty years ago, I got my wife pregnant with our third child. My wife had been adopted in 1962. ANYBODY who is adopted is more than likely against abortion. During childbirth, my wife suffered a stroke that left her brain dead. The baby died. My wife died after a five year “persistent vegetative state”, much like Terry Schiavo.
Before the baby was due, MANY people urged her to get an abortion. Including many who I thought were pro-life. This baby WAS high risk, as our second child was only a few months old.
During Debi’s coma, many people urged me to “pull the plug”. That was something I could not do, but I hadn’t had to live with it for 16 years like Terry Schiavo’s husband did.
I don’t know if we did the right thing. Afterall, our two surviving children had to grow up without a mother.
And I don’t know if the same thing were to happen today, if I would do the same thing. I probably would.
But I will NEVER question somebody else’s decision. Because it is a DEEPLY personal decision.

Congressman Tiberi was clearly choked up, he went next. But he echoed my “it is a deeply personal decision”.

PEACE

The reason (or much of the reason) was that contraception was perceived to be “killing children”. Some people still hold that view.

And that’s why government shouldn’t be involved in any contraception or abortion decisions.

There is no bright line as to when life begins.

Those who believe that life begins at conception SHOULD be opposed to all current forms of contraception, except for the barriers and abstinence – none of them completely prevent fertilization. They all rely on preventing implantation of an already fertilized egg.

I’m definitely PRO-LIFE. I made my choices. Each person has to make their own.

Wrap it in blue jeans, wrap it in latex, or wrap it in a baby blanket. Each of us chooses. ;o)

I agree…excellent book.

One thing though: I discourage the use of PHP bulletin boards for discussion as people tend to focus more on talking than doing. There has to be a more effective means of communication that doesn’t distract from actual activism.

First step we should see whether we can get the existing domain or if we need to get a new one. Do you have hosting?

How many of these things Donnelly was talking about can you do on the tech end? If there are any you can’t do, know someone who can and would?

PHP boards…not wedded to these, but people will waste time talking on any medium if that is what they want to do.

One thing though: I discourage the use of PHP bulletin boards for discussion as people tend to focus more on talking than doing. There has to be a more effective means of communication that doesn’t distract from actual activism.

Liberty Activists website.

The idea is to create and share effective outreach material for activists who are guided by the non-initiation of force principle in the political arena. Although I don’t think LP infighting is the most productive focus, message boards for things like ride and room shares would help get more of “our” people to be able to afford conventions.

Here’s what I am thinking:

Having effective outreach tools will help recruit the kind of people we need in the party as well; we especially need young people, women, artistic types (including musicians, etc), racial/ethnic diversity. Having tools like youtube clips, flier designs, etc. created and passed around will help with such recruitment efforts.

The boring and stodgy, unupdated in a gazillion years, outreach materials LP national has are not very attractive, thus ensuring an aging, non-diverse, left-brained thinking predominated, non-activist membership base. This is bad both for the LP and the radical agenda within the LP.

Materials should be available for downloading as well as editing multiple versions, wiki style.

The website should be a hub of activity and a place for activist tools.

There should be a PHP board, or something where ideas for action can be kept in one place.

Libertarians are aging; where is the concerted effort to reach a new generation? For the most part there is a lack of creative youtube clips and art and street activism, such as we saw with the Ron Paul campaign. I don’t think it’s because we are more liberal on some social issues.

The party is overly focused on left brained logic – not enough on music, art, different ways of reaching more people. Activism is not encouraged or nourished; the party is mainly interested in members for their money only. No activist culture; main activity is monthly get together boring bitch and moan fests.

Some useful feature this website should have:

- Membership. A point of contact and knowing who is who is basic.

- Member blogs and/or aggregation of outside blogs. This foments a libertarian blogosphere and ferments ideas, discussion and participation.

- Collaborative creation and editing of documents. This is critical for coming up with a public agenda, so we’re all on the same page and
know what we’re working for.

- RSS. So people can easily be informed of updates. This makes it easy for people to stay informed and active.

- Forums, mailing lists, chatrooms, mini-sites, IT technical help documents. For on-demand IT infrastructure for collaboration and projects.

- Howtos. Activism resources. Introductions to LP and radical topics for newbies

- Document archive. For reference purposes.

- Highly searchable, pages rank well in the search engines, easy to find. This makes it easy for like-minded people to find us.

Not sure if George wants to keep the domain I suggested for this purpose, which he registered and hosts:

http://www.libertyactivists.com/

“Either way, Nolan is just one guy. Hawkridge is just one dame. There’s no reason to suppose that either one of them represents any sort of authority. The whole point of the philosophy of liberty is that each individual is free to choose for himself, to follow the dictates and whimsy of his own conscience.”

Whenever people express views like the above from Prospective Advertiser, I continue to move even closer to making the jump from libertarian (lowercase “l”) to a Libertarian (uppercase “L”).

Indeed, I have signed both the pledge and the covenant of unanimous consent, and I don’t see how either one of them limits my freedom to defend myself, nor my freedom to retaliate against aggression, nor my freedom to withhold my consent from government, nor my freedom (and, as Jefferson expressed it, duty) to overthrow tyranny.

Maybe Nolan has explained it somewhere? Or maybe this is just another myth.

Either way, Nolan is just one guy. Hawkridge is just one dame. There’s no reason to suppose that either one of them represents any sort of authority. The whole point of the philosophy of liberty is that each individual is free to choose for himself, to follow the dictates and whimsy of his own conscience.

The LP has a broad diversity of views on abortion. I think Ron Paul’s concern is not with a woman giving up her child or terminating her pregnancy, but with the specific treatments of the child after it is removed from her womb. In other words, if there were a way to separate ending her pregnancy from killing the child, many people who are against “abortion” would shift their concern from the reproductive freedom of the woman to the survival of the child. And I think that would be better.

In fact, in his book “Revolution: A Manifesto” Dr. Paul speaks of witnessing an abortion where the infant did survive the procedure and then was left to die in a bucket. We have much better neo-natal and premature care now than ever before, so this sort of thing should be preventable. And as I consider life to begin at the moment of conception, I think where such children can be saved, they should be. I am against creating a class of “unpersons” from whom organs and stem cells are harvested.

You could ask the LP to put together a poll on your question, or you could do some scientific survey work. But, what questions are asked always make a big difference.

I think most people who are in favor of reproductive freedom for women regret the loss of life involved with abortion and would rather other choices were taken. Happily, the extreme Puritanism which met this issue in the 1950s and 1960s has mostly passed.

In those days, it was illegal to display contraceptive devices or even talk about birth control as an option in many states. I’m not sure where you stand on the view that contraception is also immoral.

I think people who disagree with Libertarian Party’s official views on any given issue can be welcome.

However, I would ask party officers and candidates who disagree with the party’s official stance to make the distinction clear.

For example, if someone agrees with every LP stance *except* ending drug prohibition, I would only endorse them for nomination if they would clearly agree to say, whenever they answer any question as a candidate or party official “I believe we need to do X, Y, and Z about the drug problem…but the Libertarian Party supports ending the drug war. I agree with most of the party’s views, but that’s just one area where we have a difference of opinion”

Just as, or even more, importantly, I don’t want the Libertarian Party to ever officially call for increased government as a solution to any social problem. There are enough other parties and organizations that want government smaller on A, B and C but larger on X, Y and Z. We have to be consistently for less government on everything – or we cease to be of any use whatsoever.