583 responses so far ↓

• 1 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 29, 2010 at 7:18 pm

  To whom it may concern:

  Over the last couple weeks, several of IPR’s writers have considered, and debated the propriety of, giving a full write-up to the California LP’s suspension of two members and their appeals of those suspensions, one of which is the subject of the release above.

  I can’t speak for anyone else, but as for myself I’ve refrained from doing so for several reasons. I’m not in California, I don’t know all of the people involved well, it’s difficult from this distance to ascertain the facts, and it’s questionable whether or not the matter is even particularly newsworthy.

  Nonetheless, several readers are obviously interested in the matter, and comment threads on a number of unrelated articles have been “hijacked” by discussion of it.

  While the Judicial Committee release doesn’t shed a great deal of light on the matter, it’s at least a hook to hang discussion of the matter on.

  Best regards,
  Tom Knapp

• 2 Jeremy Young // Jan 29, 2010 at 7:48 pm

  If that’s the case, why doesn’t IPR solicit opposing views from both sides, and publish those? That would clue in some of us who have no idea what Hinkle is talking about, without compromising IPR’s journalistic integrity.

• 3 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 29, 2010 at 7:59 pm

  Jeremy,

  You write:

  “why doesn’t IPR solicit opposing views from both sides”

  What makes you think there are only two sides?

  Why do you believe that we know how many sides there are, or what all of the sides are?

  I may search my email archives tonight to see if there are any prior official statements that I can append/link to, but my experience so far is that as evasive and uninformative as the Judicial Committee release is, it’s about par for the course on this issue.

  Half the people involved don’t want to to talk about it, and the other half do so either incoherently or on such “inside baseball” terms as to be functionally incoherent to the ears of people who don’t have a doctorate in the internal affairs of LPCA.

  I’ve started writing a piece on this about five times. Each time I’ve realized after a couple of minutes that’s like a non-Italian-speaking Protestant trying to write a piece on some inside baseball kerfuffle at the Vatican.

• 4 Ralph // Jan 29, 2010 at 8:08 pm

  Ok, I’ll bite.

  What’s the LP history of the purported miscreant?

  Is he a radical or reform? Is he a mole or plant? Who’s against him?

  Should LP’s have a policy on officers and candidates with problems in their pasts involving moral turpitude?

  Has CALP had such problems before?

  Do the Greens? The GOPs? etc.

  Are other state LP’s?

  Are these the questions enquiring minds should want to know?

• 5 Ralph // Jan 29, 2010 at 8:11 pm

  Where-a de Pope, I wanna he make-ah me be a-Protestant a-bishop for a-1000 lira?

• 6 Brian Holtz // Jan 29, 2010 at 8:25 pm

  All in due time. At a minimum, some details about the suspensions will eventually emerge in the minutes of the LPCA ExCom.

  It still seems likely that the other suspension will be overturned, but that could be changing as we speak. If both suspensions end up overturned, then a lot of us in the LPCA will be happy to forgive the suspension effort and avoid talking about it publicly. It will then be up to the would-be suspenders to decide whether to talk about it, but (as I understand it) the point of the suspensions was to minimize embarrassment to the LPCA. So they may not want to talk much about it either.

  Much of the truth is out there, scattered across various IPR comment threads. So are a lot of allegations — some false, many others unsubstantiated, with a fair cross-section of both being borderline hysterical. So far, I’m even more embarrassed at the LPCA’s reaction to the underlying problems than I am about what’s been proven so far about the underlying problems.

• 7 Someone was asking // Jan 29, 2010 at 9:07 pm

  Since this blog talking about suspension, someone was asking about Bruce’s.

  paulie // Jan 8, 2010 at 1:58 pm

  Here is what Bruce just sent me

  ——————————————————————————–

  Paulie,

  I swear under penalty of perjury this is an accurate and
  complete copy of the email Zander Collier sent to me
  listing the charges against me that lead to my expulsion.

  Thank you,

  Bruce Cohen

  ——————————————————————————–
  Mr. Cohen:

  I have inquired with the Chair of the Judicial Committee, Mark Hinkle, and he agreed that it would be acceptable to disclose the reason for cause, but not the case for cause. That is to be handled by the Judicial Committee should you request an appeal.

  Reason for Cause:
  Ongoing pattern of pernicious and toxic behavior, resulting in sabotage to the success of the Libertarian Party of California, while an officer and member. Particular offenses include but are not limited to:
  - Conduct unbefitting an officer of the Party
  - Harassment of members out of the Party
  - Opening the party to lawsuits by engaging in sexual harassment of multiple female members and volunteers
  - While serving in a leadership role, repeated personal endorsement of non-party candidates
  - Operating campaigns of sabotage against other Libertarians
  - Recording of auto-dial campaign messages for non-Libertarian candidates that the LPOC refused to endorse
  - Character assassination
  - Threatening to air private party disagreements and/or business as “dirty laundry”
  - Airing private party disagreements and/or “dirty laundry”
  - Public mischaracterization of political views of party members
  - Sending of anonymous threatening emails so as to provide yourself plausible deniability.

  There are others that have been itemized and documented but they refer to particular individuals and those individuals will again, be allowed to testify without threat of intimidation, harassment, or lawsuits. I trust the reason for cause is clear to you now.

  Regards,
  -Zander Collier
  Southern Vice Chair, Libertarian Party of California, 2007-2011

• 8 Bruce Cohen // Jan 29, 2010 at 9:17 pm

  I’m not sure I really intended the world to see it or whatever, but that’s the real deal.

  I’m certainly sorry I shared it with anyone now.

  The JC has asked me and everyone to really try and clamp down on discussing this.

  I want to discuss it and I want an open trial where anyone that wants to can listen.

  But it’s not up to me.

  So I’m going to pretty much be a good boy and cover my mouth. I swear I’ll try.

• 9 Gary Chartier // Jan 29, 2010 at 9:21 pm

  It seems to me that the lack of an open process, with a clear record, should be cause for concern whatever we think about the specifics of the cases to which Tom has referred.

• 10 Don Lake .......... Nonlibertarian Micromanagement ?????? // Jan 29, 2010 at 9:40 pm

  Reason[s] for Cause:

  - Opening the party to lawsuits by engaging in sexual harassment of multiple female[s] [rather sexists and demeaning to women, who I suppose are unable to cry 'foul' on their own situation[s] ??????]

  - endorsement of non-party candidates [other non Democans and non Republicrats ?????? Hmmmmm where does lack of free speech come in ??????????????]

  - campaign messages for non-Libertarian candidates [other non Democans and non Republicrats ??????????]

  - Character assassination [but what if the targets have no character ??????????]

• 11 Bruce Cohen // Jan 29, 2010 at 9:53 pm

  Just for the record, I have never voted against or opposed a Libertarian Candidate.

  The other allegations may or may not be answered at the upcoming trial, I’m not really sure what’s exactly going on.

  Nobody told me, they just said what time the trial is going to be without even asking me if I was available.

  Keep your eyes open and if you find out first, call me and tell me. Thanks.

• 12 Another cowardly anonymous poster // Jan 29, 2010 at 10:16 pm

  Here’s some evidence:http://www.meganslaw.ca.gov/search_main.aspx?searchtype=zipcode&lang=ENGLISH

  Type in either Temple City (91780) or Matthew Barnes

• 13 Solomon Drek // Jan 29, 2010 at 11:12 pm

  My God. This is really a classic example of arguing about deck chair arrangements on the Titanic.

  With all this time and energy wasted on such nonsense, no wonder the LP is irrelevant.

  I’m just glad I came to my senses ten years ago and stopped subsidising this circular firing squad with my time and money.

  And I thought Alan Keyes was dysfunctional.

• 14 Geof Gibson // Jan 29, 2010 at 11:50 pm

  While the excom and judcom are busy suspending and unsuspending, I wonder how many new candidates they’ve could’ve recruited, how many opportunities for positive press have been missed, how many new members have joined the party?
  What have these “officers” done for the POLITICAL party?

• 15 Born Again Non-Voter // Jan 30, 2010 at 12:55 am

  When I first saw the piece, I thought “the member” he was referring to was Matthew Barnes. But he was referring to Bruce Cohen?

  It’s gonna be confusing to many readers if people try to discuss this, without saying too much, lest any embarrassing items be revealed.

• 16 Don Lake .......... Nonlibertarian Micromanagement ?????? // Jan 30, 2010 at 1:24 am

  Solomon Drek // Jan 29, 201o:

  ” ………. a classic example of arguing about deck chair arrangements on the Titanic.”

  “With all this time and energy wasted on such nonsense, no wonder the ___________ is irrelevant.”

  “I’m just glad I came to my senses ……. years ago and stopped subsidizing this circular firing squad with my time and money.”

  And yet the Dems and GOP have been soooooo horrible to the nation. How to keep fighting the bad guys while you stave off ‘allies’ whom are almost as rotten ??????

• 17 Carolyn Marbry // Jan 30, 2010 at 3:39 am

  They’re talking about Barnes here. His is the only hearing they’ve held thus far. Cohen’s is next week or so, I believe.

  As to “unsubstantiated,” the problem here, Mr. Holtz, is that some of us are right in the middle of this while you are not. Some of us have been members of San Bernardino County and were drawn into this against our wills by our desire to find the truth and (it was our hope) to exonerate Barnes, only to discover we could not.

  I could show you the emails between SBC members regarding what falsehoods he told them about the case and communications from excomm members regarding what he said to them, if you were here. But you are not, and I do not want to publish this information publicly. They were, however, included in the brief for the judicial committee, who I assume saw them.

  Your own lack of information on this case should not be construed as everyone’s lack of information on this case. I agree that there appears to be hysteria on both sides of this and it’s (wrongly) focused on Barnes’ conviction as a child molester. I will say openly that I do not believe it’s in the party’s best interest to have a convicted pedophile OF HIS TYPE (that is to say, someone who molested pre-teen children under his care multiple times over several years) in a position of leadership or social responsibility within the party. Especially not with the lack of judgment he showed in giving alcohol and marijuana to underage persons (substantiated — I witnessed this myself on countless occasions). Regardless of how we all feel about legalization and reducing the drinking age, when we have functions that are party related, we should not appear to be scofflaws. It opens the party up to liability and lawsuits.

  Again, as I said before, had he come clean about this as soon as the information hit the excomm, then simply stepping down from his positions of leadership and social responsibility within the party would have been enough. Instead, he chose to lie and threaten and put his own ego ahead of the party. He has caused public scandal that can be said to have caused damage to the party by running for vice chair in SBC again. Again, substantiated by the newspaper article about it. But the simple fact that so many have resigned from the leadership and from the state party over this also demonstrates the damage done. As Brian Miller said, “Libertarian” has now become too toxic for a normal person to want to be associated with it.

  I understand that the judicial committee may have had other considerations in making this judgment. I get that. I just wish they’d make those considerations known and ease the minds of those of us who can only look at this with what we know and ask, “WHY?”

• 18 Eric Dondero // Jan 30, 2010 at 8:25 am

  Bruce Cohen should join the Republican Party. He would be immediately welcomed into the Republican Liberty Caucus with open arms.

  Yes, he’s got some personal eccentricities. But they can be easily excused. Cohen is Pro-Defense and Pro-Israel. And the Libertarian Party has become increasingly Anti-Defense/Anti-Israel as of late. (A recent press release had the LP now taking the position that the War in Afghanistan was a mistake.)

  There’s increasingly less room for Pro-Defense Libertarians in the Libertarian Party. Cohen is one of the last remaining hold-outs. I can’t help but thinking that all this anti-Cohen fervor has more to do with an Anti-Israel attitude in the California LP, than anything else.

• 19 Brian Holtz // Jan 30, 2010 at 9:54 am

  Ms. Marbry, my understanding was that there was only one cause enumerated for Barnes’s suspension: “he stood for election and was elected to Executive Committee on false pretenses: He failed to disclose to the Convention multiple felony convictions of non-victimless crimes wherein he abused a position of authority and the abused were children.”

  Are you saying that a member can be purged for reasons other than the cause(s) explicitly charged by the ExCom in suspending him?

  Are you saying that a member can be purged based on secret evidence — evidence not available to the membership?

  I of course agree that someone with his record should not be an LPCA officer at any level, and that is why I helped pressure him to resign from ExCom when his record started circulating.

  You claim you witnessed Barnes “giving alcohol and marijuana to underage persons” “on countless occasions”. About how many is “countless”? Were these persons closer to 11, or closer to 17? Was Barnes ever alone with them? Were any of these LPCA events? If so, when/where was the first such event? Why was this allegation not included in the stated cause for the suspension? Why did these “countless occasions” only seem to become a problem when word circulated about Barnes’ 20-year-old crimes?

  You say he “lied” and “threatened”. Those are serious charges. What is the evidence that he did either? When Cohen publicly claimed Barnes was “unrepentant” in his court proceedings, I told him that if he didn’t correct this reckless (if not deliberate) falsehood, I would forward it to the JudCom as a follow-up to the amicus brief I’d sent them opposing the suspensions. He responded by saying I was “threatening” him, and in so doing he completely undercut his own vague allegations that Barnes had “threatened” people. Are your allegations any different than Cohen’s?

  You say he “ran” for LPSBD Vice Chair, and that the article substantiates this. In fact, the article only says that he was elected. You know very well that LPCA offices can be hard to fill. Do you have evidence that Barnes actively sought this office, and wasn’t instead pressured by his county into accepting it? While I agree that he shouldn’t have accepted it, why wasn’t this charge included in the cause for his suspension? And why shouldn’t the LPSBD be disaffiliated for electing him with full knowledge of his record? After all, what’s embarrassing here is not that a pedophile was nominated, but that he was elected. Barnes obviously can’t elect himself.

  You say you “wish [JudCom would] make those considerations known and ease the minds of those of us who can only look at this with what we know and ask, ‘WHY?’” How can you say this in a message scolding me for asking for substantiation that you say you have but have been unwilling to provide to us members who are not “right in the middle of this”?

  I’ve asked you fifteen questions above, and I’m sorry if that’s a lot. However, you’re a candidate for Vice-Chair of the LP, and purging members is an extremely serious thing. It’s arguably the most serious thing that an LP officer can do. You’ve put yourself forward as a material witness in this case, and have repeatedly publicly criticized a JudCom team that is obligated not to make any material response. I’d be grateful if you made a serious effort to answer each of these fifteen questions.

• 20 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 10:35 am

  I don’t agree with how Mister Holtz characterizes one of our ‘off the record’ conversations here. The way he uses the word ‘threatening’ is out of context and misleading in reference to our conversation.

  In any case, my trial is supposed to be secret.
  Not that I want it to be, or anything.

  I am only correcting Mister Holtz on this one point so he doesn’t claim I constructively accepted his assertion.

• 21 Eric Dondero // Jan 30, 2010 at 10:51 am

  Cohen, why in the hell are you wasting your time? You know what’s behind this? You know this has far more to do with your Pro-Israel views, and dare I say Judaic religious affiliation, than it does internal CLP matters.

  I’ve spent a great deal of time in California in Libertarian circles. I’ve seen first hand the strain of Anti-Semitism that exists in that particular State Party. Bashing Israel is a sport for California Left-Libertarians who control that Party.

  You’re a thorn in their side. You’re an embarrassment to them; a Jew in their midst.

  With you gone, they can go full-speed ahead towards support for Hamas, and the Radical Palestinians agenda. They can go full speed ahead towards their Anti-American agenda masquerading as “non-interventionism.”

  You need to switch Cohen, and now. The Jewish Libertarians are essentially defunct in the Libertarian Party. But there’s a growing Jewish presence within the Republican Party, and I’m sure you’d be welcome to start a Jewish GOP libertarian wing.

• 22 Brian Holtz // Jan 30, 2010 at 10:59 am

  brianholtz1965 (1/27/2010 9:17:47 AM): If you don’t today publicly correct your reckless falsehood about Barnes being unrepentant in his court case, I’m going to write to JudCom tomorrow saying that this is the clearest case I know of of you issueing a deliberately libelous falsehood.
  brucedcohen2002 (1/27/2010 9:18:06 AM): Knock it of.
  brucedcohen2002 (1/27/2010 9:18:08 AM): off
  brucedcohen2002 (1/27/2010 9:18:14 AM): Stop threatening me, you silly goose.

  Bruce, I haven’t revealed any of the things you contacted me “off the record” to tell me. “Off the record” is about forwarding information. It’s not about giving you carte blanche to scold me for giving you advance notice that I’m about to go on the record to the JudCom. I stand by my assertion that if my giving you this advance notice prompted you to use the word “threatening”, then that word is very cheap in this case.

  I’m a Libertarian. I believe in keeping secrets, but I don’t believe in secret trials or secret evidence.

  Mr. Dondero, take it from a liberventionist: there is not a hint of anti-semitism in the LPCA. One of the reasons Cohen is in trouble is that he publicly accuses LPCA members of being anti-semitic when their only crime is defending the individual rights of Palestinians under Israeli occupation. He’s repeatedly said this about the Chair of my neighboring county, I’ve repeatedly asked him to substantiate his charge of anti-semitism, and he never once has done so.

• 23 Carolyn Marbry // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:07 am

  Holtz, why do you assume I must be lying or making things up? YES, he ran, and he ran with opposition. I have this from the party secretary.

  The people he threatened were members of the executive committee. You’d have to talk to them to get their story. He’s since threatened Mr. Cohen, as well, and yes, I’ve seen the message which was forwarded to a member of the excomm.

  Countless occasions means over the course of a year, at least once a week and sometimes twice a week when I was at his house. Were there always people under 21 there drinking beer? Much of the time. Were all those events party related? No. Notwithstanding that some of those people were party officers and we did discuss party business, the only times I will call party-related were his barbecues where he handed out Libertarian literature, recruited people to the party and kept voter registration forms on hand to sign people up. Often party members (including officers on the excomm) were present for these events. The marijuana smoking took place in a separate room but it did involve those who were underage.

  The legal age for drinking alcohol is 21 in CA, Mr. Holtz, and if the party is busted for providing alcohol even to 20 year olds, it’s still a problem for us. Pot for non-medical use is also illegal in CA, same thing. All it takes is someone deciding to press charges because someone gave their 18 year old pot at one of our events, and we have an expensive court case to defend and potential bad press.

  I’d point out that I’m not the one keeping the evidence secret. The excomm is and the JC, and in deference to their wishes, I’m not releasing the additional information I have except by reference. If in your mind that means I made it all up, so be it. I will not publish emails and evidence without their permission. I do have the emails and the file, however, and I’m sure if you asked either the JC or the XC, they could verify that the emails were part of the case.

  “Failed to disclose” is an interesting way of saying he “mischaracterized,” but if that’s how they chose to put it, that’s their choice.

  What I would have the JC make known is not the particulars of the hearing but their reasoning behind retaining Barnes when they’re hemorrhaging members and leaders right and left over this. I guess you didn’t understand that.

  You seem to think I’m all about getting Barnes removed from the party. Again, a misunderstanding on your part. I want to know what the JC’s reasoning was — why, in the face of the case brought by Mr. Collier and in light of the testimony and evidence I’m aware of that apparently you are not and are unwilling to believe exists, why did they choose to reinstate him at the risk of losing so much of the CA leadership and membership?

  It’s not an unreasonable question. Stop pretending it is.

• 24 Carolyn Marbry // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:23 am

  One more thing. If you don’t like the secrecy of the proceedings, don’t take it out on me just because I happened to know some of the facts by virtue of being involved and you do not.

  If you have questions, ask the excomm or the JC, as I have done. And as the JC has said, if you don’t like how it’s been handled , change the by-laws.

• 25 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:24 am

  My characterization of Mister Holtz as a ’silly goose’ attests to the slightly teasing, and as the Honorable Mister Seebeck says, snarky tone I was addressing Mister Holtz on this matter.

  I stand by my words, and again will assert that Mister Holtz is definetely a ’silly goose’.

  By the common, standard and traditional uses this proves my intent in using the T word that shall not be spoken here, nor shall the name of the unholy ‘chomo’ who besmirches the good name of the LPCA.

  [Let his name not be spoken on the Internet, or the great Yahoo Gods Holtz and King Naga will zap you with their stare and secret emails.]

  Brian Holtz, you are the most silly of the extra super top-secret double silly of the silly gooses in this world.

  I am going to tell both of my neices this and we will all laugh at you.

  And then we will play air tea and not say your name anymore.

  Because one should not loosely speak of the great Yahoo gods. Or of the unmentionable one of the chomos.

  For Google or other search engines will pick up the accursed one’s name and tag all of the LP world as forever associated with chomos.

  And let us never use the word ‘chomo’ again.

  Because the silly goose might complain.

  HONK!

• 26 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:31 am

  Secret Decoder Page:
  *Threaten: the ‘T’ word
  **Prison Slang for Child Molester: ‘Chomo’

• 27 Gene Trosper // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:45 am

  @25 Bruce, my man. Could you pass whatever you’re smoking instead of bogarting it?

• 28 Brian Holtz // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:46 am

  Ms. Marbry, there are more ways to have mischaracterized an event than to 1) lie or 2) make things up.

  You can keep repeating this allegation of “threatening” all you want, but until I see some evidence, I’m going to give a presumption of innocence. It’s unfair to say I’m “unwilling” to believe the secret evidence exists. I’m just not willing to see a member expelled over evidence kept secret from the membership.

  If it can be publicly proved that Barnes as an LPCA officer exposed the LPCA to legal liability by giving alcohol or marijuana to underage people at a public LPCA event, that would be reasonable grounds for expelling him if he refused to relinquish all LPCA offices. If instead he just shared alcohol or marijuana with a 20-year-old friend in a room of his own house at a private party where he happened to promote the LPCA, then it’s clearly none of the LPCA’s business.

  You didn’t answer my most important questions: when did you learn of the Party’s alleged legal exposure, and why didn’t you do anything about it? Why should we elect as LPUS Vice Chair somebody apparently uninterested in protecting her state affiliate from what she now claims is dire legal trouble?

  My position is that none of the evidence used to purge a member should be withheld from the rest of the membership. If people attempting to purge a member fail to make their case to the JudCom, it’s up to them to make their case to the membership. It’s not the JudCom’s job to explain why any particular member should be allowed to continue to be a member. Nor is it the JudCom’s job to decide what member(s) should be thrown under a bus for the sake of our overall membership numbers or contribution levels or whatever. Expulsion should only be based on public evidence of the cause for expulsion. Period.

  You also didn’t answer my second-most important question: since Barnes didn’t elect himself, why shouldn’t the LPSBD be disaffiliated for electing him?

  I’m not “taking it out on you”. You’re a candidate for the Party’s second-highest office, you’ve made public allegations in support of a member’s expulsion, you’ve claimed first-hand knowledge of dire legal danger to the LPCA, and you’ve publicly criticized a JudCom that has already explained to you why it can’t answer your questions and criticisms.

  It’s not my job to investigate whether any given member should continue to be a member. If people have evidence that somebody should be expelled, they should share it. What part of “presumption of innocence” is so hard to understand here?

  (Note that I’m of course not presuming Barnes innocent of his 1980’s-vintage crimes. As the JudCom noted, his expulsion was not sought simply because he has a criminal record.)

• 29 Gene Trosper // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:46 am

  Of course, I say that with love and kindness.

• 30 NewFederalist // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:46 am

  I guess that’s why they are called “minor” parties, folks.

• 31 Gene Trosper // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:46 am

  @30 *rimshot*

• 32 NewFederalist // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:48 am

  OR… circling the bowl!

• 33 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:52 am

  It’s so much more curiouser than it were as curious before it were.

  Dondero correction: There is some anti-semitism in the LPCA, no question. One of the most anti-semitic and dishonest of them just resigned, a board member, no less.

  I don’t think this prosecution has anything to do with my religious views per se.

  Certainly there are people who are involved who that is part of their matrix of disliking me, but this story about the MB guy from San Berdoo who just was reinstated, shall his name never be spoken again, this and it’s effect on me is not because I am a Jew.

  I’m being persecuted for other reasons, not directly related to that, in the prosecution’s defense.

• 34 Brian Holtz // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:53 am

  Bruce, I stand by my assertion that if my giving you this advance notice prompted you to use the word “threatening”, then that word is very cheap in this case. Thank you for “standing by” your choice of that word. QED.

• 35 LibertarianGirl // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:53 am

  Carolyn makes the most sense here.

• 36 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 12:00 pm

  I’m jest an unlern’d boy wifowt non edjewkayshun.

  What arr them “QED” y’all r talking aboot?

• 37 Carolyn Marbry // Jan 30, 2010 at 12:01 pm

  Holtz, I became aware of Barnes’ background as an issue the same time everyone else did, so there was no “telling” anyone to be done about that. They already knew.

  One more time for the slow-to-catch-on. I am not calling for anyone to be removed with “secret hearings.” That this is how the process works in CA and in RONR with JC hearings is not my doing, so quit trying to pin that on me. I didn’t even call for Barnes’ expulsion from the party. NOWHERE is there any record of my suggestion or motion to the party along any such lines because I made none. I was not pleased that he ran for office again, and in light of what I saw and what members of the excomm told me re: his statements regarding his victim(s) that do not match the case file and the threats, I did expect the JC to uphold the suspension. That, by the way, does not make me in any way responsible for it.

  My point is that, in light of the exodus of members, the JC might want to explain their ruling a little more to the purpose. Since you’re not on the JC, I’m not entirely sure why you feel compelled to answer for them.

  Hopefully I won’t need to get out the handpuppets to make it any clearer for you.

• 38 LibertarianGirl // Jan 30, 2010 at 12:07 pm

  I feel like it’s splitting hairs when Barnes agreed not to run for any offices yet after being elected to SBCLP VC , at least Holtz is saying theres a difference between “running” and being “elected”.

  No theres not . If he was pressured to run , he should have declined. apparently , there was another candidate willing to run. Im my veiw , thats a breach of the agreement that he made.

  * Im sure Brians mighty debate mind will tell me why Im wrong and that it’s not the same thing and play technical semantics with the details but I prefer simplicity…

  he said he wouldnt run and now he’s an officer of the San Berdoo county LP.

• 39 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 12:09 pm

  RONR says these kind of hearings are confidential, right? To protect the accused, the Defendant and their privacy and name.

  But what if the Defendant wants to have them be held openly?

  What if the Defendant waives confidentiality?

  Interesting question for all you amateur hour Parliamentarians out there.

  I sure don’t even qualify for amateur hour.
  Wish I did, much less professional hour.

  And I don’t smoke, Gene.
  Though I am seriously thinking of ending my abstinent ways for health reasons.

• 40 Carolyn Marbry // Jan 30, 2010 at 12:16 pm

  In fairness to Barnes, he did step down as vice chair of SBC around the time the excomm suspended him, so he is no longer in office.

• 41 LibertarianGirl // Jan 30, 2010 at 12:18 pm

  but didnt he get elected again?? isnt he currently the Vice Chair of the SBCLP?

• 42 Brian Holtz // Jan 30, 2010 at 12:24 pm

  Ms. Marbry, is your “hand puppet” snark indicative of how you plan to answer member questions throughout your Vice Chair campaign?

  Your comment about “Barnes’s background” was conveniently vague. I’ll repeat: when did you learn of the Party’s alleged legal exposure over Barnes sharing substances with the underaged, and why didn’t you do anything about it?

  And I’ll also repeat: since Barnes didn’t elect himself, why shouldn’t the LPSBD be disaffiliated for electing him?

  It’s shocking to me that you are calling on the JudCom to publicly explain why Barnes should be allowed to remain a member, instead of calling on the ExCom to publicly explain why Barnes should be purged. You admit you know more about the prosecution’s case than we rank-and-file members do, and yet you seem unable to put yourself in our shoes and ask for public evidence from the side on which falls the onus of providing it.

  I can believe that our rules would keep proceedings secret if the evidence is ruled as not warranting expulsion. What I can’t believe is that you would ask that such secrecy be violated by the JudCom just because you disagree with the JudCom’s decision. I hope this has nothing to do with the fact that the JudCom Chair is running for LP Chair against your friend and ally Mr. Phillies.

  I don’t doubt that our rules muzzle the JudCom, but I would be shocked if anything in our rules muzzles people who know about evidence submitted to the JudCom. I can’t believe that our rules turn certain facts into state secrets just because they were repeated in front of JudCom in a failed attempt to purge somebody.

  LG, I’ll ask again for like the fifth time: what exactly is the evidence that “Barnes agreed not to run for any offices”? People keep saying this, but nobody has provided any evidence of it. Until I see such evidence, I’m going to presume Barnes innocent of violating an alleged binding agreement not to ever again serve in LPCA office.

  If Barnes is in fact not currently in LPSBD/LPCA office, then why are we even talking about this any more?

• 43 LibertarianGirl // Jan 30, 2010 at 12:34 pm

  the SBDLP website link off the LPCA website is defunct. so where else might there be a listing of county officers?

• 44 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 12:34 pm

  Was B-chom ever relieved of his LPCA Bylaws Committee Seat? Or does he still hold that?

  I think B-chom was elected and is now the VC of the San Berdoo County Chapter of the LPCA.

  Despite any grey areas before said election.
  He is now currently a legally acting County officer of said affiliate, as well as a Member in good standing of the LPCA state Party.

  Him.

  The guy King Naga and his good Prince the Holtzenjammer who fight the Google dragon to prevent his cyberconnection to their baby, the LPCA.

  How DID this cyberconnecting tar baby end up in the LPCA’s briar patch anyhow?

  Hmmm?!!!!?

  Who wanted him as a teammate?

  I don’t know?

  Perhampzzzz…

  Could it be?

  SATAN?!??!!!!!!

  BWAHAHAHAHA!!!

• 45 Carolyn Marbry // Jan 30, 2010 at 12:39 pm

  Hahaha wow. Just wow. Yeah, y’know, I wondered why you were pushing so hard on that issue, too, Holtz. For that matter, I wonder why you’re straining so hard to make this my fault, but I guess now I know. You think this has something to do with my campaign or something. Or supporting George Phillies. Sorry, I thought you were actually interested in the issue, my mistake.

  Nope.

  But keep flailing, it’s fun to watch. See, the problem is, the evidence is documented by testimony at a secret hearing (again, not my fault) of things I’ve been told by excomm members and people who were at the meeting. TOLD. or EMAILED. You would never accept that as evidence, which is why I told you you should talk to the excomm members yourself and let them tell you what they can directly. Don’t take my word for it. Take theirs. But no, you’d rather sit around and demand everyone else do the legwork for you. Do it yourself. I did.

  I don’t need to ask what the excomm used to determine the case against Barnes because I’m well aware of most of it, except what was said in executive session. As I said, having seen the emails and having spoken to the members, not to mention having gone to look at the file — I ask again, have YOU bothered to look at the file yourself? I understood what could make them think it worthy of his suspension. Again, knowledge of the situation. Their reaction made sense to me based on the case put before them. I have not heard of a single person resigning from the party or the excomm over that decision, by the way. And knowing it would be appealed, I trusted that any issues would come out. They apparently have, hence my frustration that we don’t get to know why the excomm voted one way and the JC voted the other, and unanimously at that.

  Since the JC had the more recent vote and since the party is now bleeding members, and since I knew less of the case they heard, my question goes to them. That, and this is their thread.

  Again, why you’re answering for them is beyond me since you’re on neither the excomm nor the JC. I should think you’d want to know the answers as much as anyone instead of simply trying to make this into some kind of campaign issue.

  Your question about why we even care about this if he’s no longer an officer in the party is like asking why we should bother trying someone who isn’t in the process of murdering or kidnapping someone right now? He did that LAST week. The reason is because the breach did happen. His resignation may be sufficient to make the JC forget about that charge, it may not. Guess we’ll never know.

• 46 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 12:39 pm

  Something out of date on the LPCA WEBSITE??!!!!!

  I have fallen down and I can’t get up.

  Shock me over with a staticy sock!!!

  And King Naga is the Yahoo King of cyberaffairs.
  How could this BE?
  He of all people can do website stuffy-stuff no?

  The uber-competent graduate of the West Wing School of Politics?

  I’m going to go drown my sorrows in some more shots of ristretto.

• 47 LAWS // Jan 30, 2010 at 12:41 pm

  Barnes as an LPCA officer exposed the LPCA to legal liability by giving alcohol or marijuana to underage people

  If I am not mistaken, there are laws that prohibits giving alcohol to a minor. So while the party could have liability issues. The actual person giving alcohol to a minor should have been arrested under “corruption of a minor” charges.

  Also someone mentioned that there are a lot of jews in the repulican party. Yes that may be true. But a lot of Jews are hard core LIBERALS. Bruce my guess joined the LP Party because he is NOT A LIBERAL. It is very sad that there are a lot of anti-semitism in the Libertarian party.

• 48 LibertarianGirl // Jan 30, 2010 at 12:45 pm

  Is he or is he not Vice Chair of the SBCLP right now??

• 49 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 12:50 pm

  My understanding is he IS the VC as of now,yes.

  And a full-fledged Member in good standing of the LPCA as of now also.

• 50 Born Again Non-Voter // Jan 30, 2010 at 12:58 pm

  I’m not in the loop on the Barnes issue, so I can’t offer an opinion on it. But I have two questions for Carolyn. I hope she will answer.

  1. Why should the LPSBC not be disaffiliated?

  It’s a legitimate query. Since Carolyn won’t answer, I can only speculate.

  The apparent answer is that the LPC expelled Barnes, but not the SB county party, because the LPC wanted Barnes out, but wanted to keep the county party.

  IOW, pure self-interest, rather than principles. Just like the Demopublicans. Bylaws apply, unless it would mean losing a county party. In that case, the bylaws no longer apply.

  2. How many members has the LPC lost over this?

  Carolyn talks about the LPC bleeding and hemoraging members. That characterization may be accurate, or not, depending on the facts.

  I’d like to know the facts. Approximately how many officers and members has the LPC lost over this? Five? Ten? Fifty?

  I’m not taking Holtz’s or Cohen’s or Marbry’s side over this. I’d not taking any side. I’d just like those two questions answered.

• 51 Chris Bennett // Jan 30, 2010 at 1:04 pm

  There is a lot of anti- something in the LP but the wrong anti-(insert your favorite race, creed, ethnic group, sexual preference) but that anti-ism has been prevalent since the rise of the conservatarians. Most libertarians used to not be this way and was less prevalent when I first joined in 91. Don’t depend on the LP to help you fight your battles, do it on your own merit and don’t allow the LP to take credit for any successes you do have

• 52 Michael H. Wilson // Jan 30, 2010 at 1:08 pm

  From what I have read of this it seems as if the rules were twisted. This is not the first time a state party has twisted the rules to achieve a desired result and it suggests that the rules need to be clarified and perhaps an outside group should be called in to mediate. Certainly the procedure needs to be clarified.

• 53 Michael H. Wilson // Jan 30, 2010 at 1:10 pm

  BTW did y’all write your congress critters this week and give them your opinion on how to reduce government?

• 54 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 1:11 pm

  Yeah some rules would be nice.

  And sticken’ to ‘em liyk we all uneducemayterd folks heer in da holler do.

• 55 Brian Holtz // Jan 30, 2010 at 1:11 pm

  Ms. Marbry, don’t pretend that you didn’t connect this case to Hinkle’s Chair race before I did. Please deny it, so I can justify finding the comment I recently saw you make connecting the two.

  You were the one repeatedly and publicly claiming here that a member “lied” and “threatened” and that this justified his expulsion. If you feel no obligation to provide any evidence for those claims, then I certainly feel no obligation to corroborate or debunk your claims.

  Yes, I’ve read the entire 52-page court file. Are you claiming that it’s sufficient to justify purging Barnes?

  I’ll ask again for a third time:

  1) When did you learn of the Party’s alleged legal exposure over Barnes sharing substances with the underaged, and why didn’t you do anything about it?

  2) Since Barnes didn’t elect himself, why shouldn’t the LPSBD be disaffiliated for electing him?

  I’m not “answering for” the JudCom, I’m just defending them from your demands that they break the confidentiality rules protecting our members from failed attempts to purge them.

  Again, it’s not my job to extract from the ExCom the accusations and evidence that they tried to use to purge a member. Now that the JudCom has slapped down this purge attempt, I’m willing to forgive and, to the extent possible, forget. If you’re unhappy with the status quo ante (of Barnes being off the ExCom but still able to hold county office), then you go ask ExCom to make a better case, or to disaffiliate the LPSBD.

• 56 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 30, 2010 at 1:17 pm

  Carolyn,

  Mr. Holtz continues to raise one disturbing question that you keep sliding right past.

  You seem to be claiming to have seen Mr. Barnes plying minors with alcohol and marijuana “over the course of a year, at least once a week and sometimes twice a week when I was at his house.”

  Is that correct or not?

  If it’s correct, why wasn’t it an issue DURING that “year, at least once a week and sometimes twice a week?”

  And why did it suddenly BECOME an issue when you got pissed about the Judicial Committee’s ruling?

  Was the party somehow less liable when you weren’t pissed off about something?

• 57 Zander Collier // Jan 30, 2010 at 1:25 pm

  I realize that I may be breaking protocol here and divulging things that RRoO state that I should not be. At this point I don’t care as I have resigned my position as Southern Vice Chair in the wake of the 5-0 reinstatement of Barnes’ membership and while Barnes has made no threats against me yet, I imagine they will be in the offing.

  During the private pressuring of Barnes to step down from the Executive Committee (late September ), on or around October 1, Chair Kevin Takenaga and I shared a teleconference with Matthew Barnes. Matthew said that he wanted this public imbroglio to go away. We told Matthew that we would not proceed with a suspension of membership against him if he were to agree to not run for any further office in the LPCA. As no local/state discussion occured the implication was that Barnes would remain a member and activist and would not seek any further office. In doing so it was understood that he would not create any further embarrassment and PR liability that would damage the credibility of our party or of our candidates.

  Barnes agreed to this.

  2 weeks later he was elected to the position of Vice Chair of the San Bernardino County party.

  Both Kevin and I testified to this in the JC hearing.

  Barnes did not refute it.

  There were many more items, each of which was testified to and failed to be refuted. Frankly, when Chapter XX, Section 61, lines 2-3 says “In most societies, it is understood that members are required to be of honorable character and reputation” stands in stark contrast to someone who is elected to a body because he failed to disclose that he was convicted of child molestation.

  Then again, it may seem that the JC has decided that the Libertarian Party of California is not like most societies. Either that, or the JC has decided to the the LPC on notice that it needs to draft a set of membership standards; that there is no longer any latitude in the “…or for cause” section of the Bylaws describing membership suspension since not every instance of personal conduct that is offensive to common decency isn’t documented.

• 58 All your stone soup are belong to us // Jan 30, 2010 at 1:31 pm

  There are two things I have learned from reading this thread:

  1. Never let Carolyn Marbry any where near your home or family.

  2. Matthew Barnes and Bruce Cohen must both be very successful people to deserve this much attention.

• 59 LibertarianGirl // Jan 30, 2010 at 1:34 pm

  Did you get that Brian?? He agreed to not run for any further office , then was elected to Vice Chair o San Berdoo , just want to make sure you got that…, theres your proof , altho Im sure you’ll find yet another way to split technical semantic hairs.

• 60 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 1:40 pm

  Carolyn is not my friend.
  I get the feeling I am not on her good guy list, either. I only know her barely in passing and owe her nothing.

  With that disclaimer out of the way, @58 is unfair in comment #1.

  There is no need to say that without cause.

  The sarcasm in comment #2 is duly noted and is quite humorous, even if I were not involved

• 61 Disassociate the SB LP // Jan 30, 2010 at 1:41 pm

  Interesting. something may have been confirmed. I wouldn’t be surprised, this last statement came from Barnes himself.

  I would recommend that all county lp and CAlp get rid of the SB libertarians that have put Barnes back in office.

• 62 Adding to #61 // Jan 30, 2010 at 1:43 pm

  I am referring as last statement @58.

• 63 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 30, 2010 at 1:44 pm

  Zander,

  Thanks for weighing in. Your comment may shed some light on this.

  You seem to be saying that the LPCA exec comm did not suspend Barnes’s membership because he failed the RONR requirement of “honorable character and reputation.”

  Rather, you seem to be saying that the LPCA exec comm cut a deal with Barnes under which they ignored that RONR standard entirely …

  … and then expected the Judicial Committee to uphold both the standard the exec comm had itself ignored, and the notion that the deal they had cut in ignoring it was binding.

  Does that about cover it?

• 64 Brian Holtz // Jan 30, 2010 at 1:47 pm

  What Knapp said. Zander, I wish you would pick an accusation and stick to it.

  You just tried to suggest that, as of Jan 2010, you think that a criminal record like Barnes’s should disqualify one from LPCA membership. But you also just suggested that, as of Oct 2010, you thought that such a record should merely disqualify one from LPCA office. However, the stated cause for the suspension wasn’t either of these two problems, but rather was for the crime of non-disclosure of that record as he stood for ExCom election. And now you tell us about a fourth accusation made before JudCom: that Barnes violated your “understanding” of an “implication” associated with his October resignation from ExCom.

  I don’t see anything inappropriate about you relating alleged facts you know that later became part of a case before JudCom. Again, I don’t think a JudCom hearing can create a state secret out of something that somebody already knew.

  However, I think it’s unfair and inappropriate for you to claim without elaboration that Barnes will soon be threatening you. Again, if there is specific credible evidence that Barnes has threatened anybody in connection with this case, that would be extremely disturbing and would be a far stronger cause for suspension than anything that’s been made public so far.

• 65 LibertarianGirl // Jan 30, 2010 at 1:53 pm

  O.k so Im with Tom , Kevin and Zander cut a deal with Barnes to ignore their own standards then we’re appalled when Barnes ignored that deal and ran for office anyway …

  and this is prior to the actual suspension , so what were the grounds when the actual suspension took place?? breaking a deal , or very very poor character??

• 66 LibertarianGirl // Jan 30, 2010 at 1:56 pm

  ahh , non disclosure

  so let me see , we know there was non-disclosure , we know there was dealbreaking( perhaps out and out lying) the reputation of ill repute is w/o question and the problem is…???

• 67 LibertarianGirl // Jan 30, 2010 at 2:00 pm

  and Brian im wondering if the people he threatened are too afraid to come forward because they actually fear the threats , but that probably never crossed your mind.

• 68 Brian Holtz // Jan 30, 2010 at 2:06 pm

  Zander just came forward, so he’s obviously not afraid. If Zander thinks Barnes is a physical danger to anybody, then Zander (or the threatenee) should go to the police, not to the JudCom.

  LG, I thought you said you didn’t favor expelling Barnes. Are you taking a position on it?

• 69 LibertarianGirl // Jan 30, 2010 at 2:14 pm

  I would have been just fine with the deal Kevin and Zander had cut with him and if u remember I STFU about it when I was contacted privately and told he would not be an officer anymore.

• 70 LibertarianGirl // Jan 30, 2010 at 2:15 pm

  and then…..

• 71 Zander Collier // Jan 30, 2010 at 2:15 pm

  Brian, what part about Robert’s Rules of Order that describes that membership expulsion proceedings are to be made and kept private do you not understand?

  You can’t have it both ways. You cannot say that Robert’s Rules of Order is swell beans and then demand that expulsion proceedings be made public.

  There was no suspension proceeding that began against Barnes in September. Just because there is threat of one does not mean that one took place. Robert’s Rules of Order describes what must be done to suspend someone and it does not say that what someone did 20 years ago is reasonable fodder. It does say that conduct (implying recently) is reasonable fodder.

  I thought it was tenuous but I kept in the charge about failure to disclose which was about all we had in September.

  In January, additional charges were added, but most specifically the above: that after promising not to run for any further office, that he did so.

  This was also in the brief that was sent to him per the prescribed 7 days of notice in the Bylaws. If you were so interested in this sort of thing, why didn’t you run to be on the JC? You claim you want to get “at the truth of the matter” but then get annoyed because facts are withheld because Robert’s Rules of Order SAYS they are supposed to be. Your beef isn’t with the EC or the JC. It’s with Robert’s.

  Yes, the phone calls he made with threats implied in them have been saved. Kevin Takenaga is the recipient of one, Dana McLorn is another. I invite you to contact them yourself to verify.

• 72 Brian Holtz // Jan 30, 2010 at 2:16 pm

  @46 : more disinformation from Cohen. In my decade of LPCA activism, I don’t recall the LPCA web site ever trying to list even county chairs, let alone county vice chairs.

  Bruce, I’m going to keep bird-dogging every cheap shot you take at the LPCA and its members — even the ones I don’t particularly respect, such as Tom Sipos — until you learn to cut it out.

• 73 Zander Collier // Jan 30, 2010 at 2:25 pm

  @63:
  You need to understand that in September, we wanted to make this go away as quickly and as quietly as possible we didn’t believe there would be further risk exposure and didn’t have the information that we did on December 31.

  Are we human beings capable of mistakes? Yes. Looking back would I have acted differently? Knowing what I know now? Yes. Knowing what I knew then? No.

  If that attempting to fix one’s error is justification for condemning me, then have at it.

• 74 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 2:26 pm

  Huh? What about County Chairs? I don’t get it. Was my grammar strange? I don’t recall anything about that, let me go check @46

  I have no idea what you are talking about, Brian. I just checked 46 and I’m missing something, sir.

• 75 Brian Holtz // Jan 30, 2010 at 2:27 pm

  Zander,

  I can believe that in the case of a failed purge attempt, the proceedings — and even the charges — against the exonerated person should be kept confidential. (However, that makes the minutes somewhat interesting, and creates a moral hazard for ExCom’s to go fishing for expulsions.) But I’ll just repeat: I can’t believe that our rules turn certain facts into state secrets just because they were repeated in front of JudCom in a failed attempt to purge somebody. If you show me the page of Robert’s that says that, I’ll dice that page into a salad and eat it.

  I do believe that only the JudCom is entitled to know the evidence behind failed purge attempts. However, I believe every member is entitled to know the evidence behind successful purge attempts. And I also believe that public charges against our members should either be substantiated or not made publicly in the first place.

• 76 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 30, 2010 at 2:31 pm

  The non-transparency is the most troubling part of all this.

  If RONR does indeed mandate secrecy in suspension and appellate procedures, then it is not a fit procedural manual of resort for a public organization like a political party, at least on those matters.

  Because there’s no transparency, anyone who is not on the LPCA Executive Committee or Judicial Committee pretty much has to GUESS at what the hell is going on here, and the available accounts don’t make ANYBODY look very good.

  The one thing that stands out to me over the long distance and through the dense fog is this:

  The Judicial Committee’s vote to overturn the suspension was 5-0.

  3-2 would be one thing. It could be persuasively argued that personal loyalties or ideological considerations or whatever had trumped the duty of 3 members to apply rules faithfully and without bias.

  But 5-0? Unless LPCA uses its Judicial Committee as a place to stick its special needs kids on the supposition that they’ll never have to actually rule on anything, 5-0 says to me that there was something truly and unmistakably broken in the executive committee’s argument for the suspension.

• 77 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 2:32 pm

  My Parliamentary question is out there now.
  What if the Defendant wants an open trial?

  Would there be any requirements, such as waiving confidentiality?

• 78 Brian Holtz // Jan 30, 2010 at 2:35 pm

  Bruce, your @46 obviously referenced @43, which talked about where to find a list of county officers. But it also talked about the link to the LPSBD being broken. The actual problem here seems to be that the LPSBD no longer uses http://www.sbclp.org/. This is more of a LPSBD problem then an LPCA problem, and in fact the LPCA social networks page correctly links to both the LPSBD Facebook and Meetup pages.

  So I’ll stand by my statement that you unfairly — and gleefuly, and ignorantly — impugned the maintainers of the LPCA web site.

• 79 jbhsf@aol.com // Jan 30, 2010 at 2:39 pm

  Will the LP party learn from this, I don’t know. Will it clean up it’s party and have a clean state from here on out. I don’t know.

  It would be nice if that could happen and do what the party is suppose to do. Work on getting concrete clean slate people elected to office.

  Bruce sometimes I think you mean well, but you have your issues as well. I believe you care a lot about libertarian and it causes. You are correct in exposing the Barnes cases. But you need to also work on your own personal issues and grow from that. I am not saying anything specific, just generalizing.

  And that goes for anyone else so the bigger picture can be looked at here.

• 80 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 2:46 pm

  I think the LPCA website is poorly and infrequently maintained.

  I stand by that statement.

  Whoever is responsible for the website is lazy and lacks creativity.

  So there, I raise you one, too Brian.

  The site is stale and has objectionable stuff on there to this day.

  http://www.ca.lp.org/convention2008.shtml

  Would be one example I have been pointing out quite a bit that maybeeeee just maybee should kinda/sorta get yankie-pooed off the webbiesite.

  I know you wizbang guys with college degrees and jobs in the upper nether reaches of the IT world can figger that wun ouwt.

  Oh, back to the dead link.
  Why is a dead link on the website?

  Isn’t it the webmaster’s job to make sure there are no dead links?

  I read one time there are utilities that run all over your website and check for that.

  Freeware.

  I know you and Kevin like three things:
  1) Freeware
  2) Open Source (code)
  3) Open and Transparent Proceedings

  Unless you all change your mind.

  By the way, Brian.
  I have a question:

  Where do you get all the hair to split?

• 81 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 2:47 pm

  Gee Ms. Anonymous MM in 79, what are my issues, dear? I waive confidentiality and give you permission to spill it.

• 82 Born Again Non-Voter // Jan 30, 2010 at 2:56 pm

  I believe that Kevin Takenaga is the webmaster.

  I’m still waiting for Carolyn to explain why the San Bernardino County LP shouldn’t be disaffiliated.

  Any approximately how many members and officers have resigned the LP due to the Barnes issue.

• 83 Eric Dondero // Jan 30, 2010 at 2:57 pm

  Mr. Holtz, you’re a good guy. I like you. I generally agree with most of what you write. But I am well aware of that “LP Chair in the neighboring County,” you speak of. I’ve had my own dealings with the guy.

  He’s a flaming fucking Nazi. I’ll tell that to his face. I’ll tell that to any California Libertarian to their face.

  I had an email exchange with him a few years back, quite intensive. I was appalled by some of the guy’s views. He hates Israel. And he uses the same code word language that all Jew haters use to signal their support for Israel’s enemies, and for hatred of Jews in general. “Zionist this, Zionist that, blah, blah, blah…” There’s a Zionist lurking under every bed. Didn’t you know that?

  I know a Jew hater when I see one. That “LP Chair in a neighboring County,” is an absolute Jew hater.

  I don’t believe you live in California, right? Missouri or Indiana, or something, correct?

  I lived in CA for 4 months in 2006. Most of that time I spent working within libertarian circles. I can tell you straight out, that anti-Semitism is not limited in the California LP to that “LP Chair in the neighboring County.”

• 84 Eric Dondero // Jan 30, 2010 at 3:00 pm

  Just a clarification: I don’t want anyone here thinking that I’m a big fan of Bruce Cohen. I am not. He can be quite the asshole on a personal level. He’s terribly lacking in the How to make friends department.

  But I do know, from first hand knowledge, that most of the opposition to him from certain quarters there in southern California are mostly based on his Jewish affiliation, and his Pro-Defense/Pro-Israel stances on foreign policy.

  Southern Cal is flooded with a lot of Ron Paul/Alex Jones/Isolationist/Lew Rockwell types.

  They use Cohen’s asshole-ness as an excuse. But what they really hate him for is his Judaism.

• 85 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 3:06 pm

  Hey, with enemies like Dondero, who needs friends?

  And Eric, Brian lives in California.
  And I don’t think you guys are both talking about the same person.

  Let me guess: Dondero is thinking MS, and Holtz is thinking HH.

  And I think they both are wrong.
  Both HH and MS are anti-Ss.

• 86 Eric Dondero // Jan 30, 2010 at 3:06 pm

  Mr. Cohen, I take your correction and honor it. I don’t mean to imply that the California Libertarian Party is Anti-Semitic, just a few individuals mainly based in southern California.

  But I would disagree with you on one point: Just because that “certain individual” is no longer local LP Chair, doesn’t mean he doesn’t still have a great deal of influence.

  Additionally, I would assert, that it’s not just limited to that “certain individual.” I experienced this rampant Alex Jonesian/non-interventionist/9/11 Truther/Rabid Ron Paul isolationism/Hamas good, Israel bad attitude from numerous southern California LPers while I was there.

  I know you are protective of the Libertarian Party and its reputation. I don’t have to be. I can tell it like it is. And I’m telling you that Pro-Israel/Pro-Defense Libertarians are not welcomed in the California Libertarian Party on the whole any more.

  Bolt now! Join the California Republican Liberty Caucus.

• 87 Brian Holtz // Jan 30, 2010 at 3:07 pm

  Bruce, the LPCA site is OK, but I agree it could be a lot better. For example, it could be more like http://www.calfreedom.net/.

  But that still doesn’t mean that it’s the LPCA webmaster’s fault that the LPSBD has let their domain name expire. Archive.org says it was alive as recently as August, so I stand by my statement that this is an LPSBD problem more than an LPCA problem.

  And I’m going to keep trying to potty-train you, because I’m the one who argued to the JudCom that your brand of childishness is best dealt with methods other than expulsion.

• 88 Eric Dondero // Jan 30, 2010 at 3:07 pm

  I’m talking mainly of that shit-for-brains who lives on the Coast, and had that two-day on-line battle with over foreign policy. Forget his name?

• 89 Eric Dondero // Jan 30, 2010 at 3:10 pm

  Holtz, you’re falling into their trap. It’s not Cohen’s asshole-ness that they hate him for. That’s just a smoke-screen. Again, it’s the fact that he’s Pro-Israel/Pro-Defense and religiously a Jew.

  Stop trying to divert the issue here.

  This is a classic Pro-Defense vs. Anti-Defense Libertarian battle. This has little if anything to do with personalities.

• 90 Zander Collier // Jan 30, 2010 at 3:14 pm

  @75:
  “I can’t believe that our rules turn certain facts into state secrets just because they were repeated in front of JudCom in a failed attempt to purge somebody. If you show me the page of Robert’s that says that, I’ll dice that page into a salad and eat it.”

  Robert’s Rules of Order, 10th Edition, Chapter 20, Section 61, Page 630, Lines 17-35, page 631, Lines 1-4

• 91 LibertarianGirl // Jan 30, 2010 at 3:20 pm

  and we’d like a video of you shredding and eating those pages otherwise it’s just hearsay and unprovable

• 92 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 3:20 pm

  If Zander and Kevin and the Holtzenjammer all really want to keep the name M*tth*w B*rn*s off the Front Page, and not on any Google or search ranking, and not be associated with the LPCA, why is B*rn*s’ name still on the LPCA Official Website?

  Hmmm… I’m jest ay stoupide kountry guy.
  Wy four yew all doew daytz?

• 93 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 30, 2010 at 3:25 pm

  Now that Donny Ferguson is no longer at LPHQ, I move that the term “Donny” be retired as shorthand for “Donny Ferguson” and be re-introduced as shorthand for Eric Dondero. Like so:

• 94 LibertarianGirl // Jan 30, 2010 at 3:30 pm

  I 2nd that motion

• 95 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 3:39 pm

  BTW, for the record, whatever Eric says about me being rude, he was living at my house, driving my car, eating my food and breaking my fine crystal when he had a temper tantrum and I told him to knock it off.

  When I stood up from the couch and he remembered he couldn’t bully me like he did little skinny defenseless Jake Witmer, he shut up.

  Eric is a good petitioner, but a horrible roomate.

  I still have his suitcase full of whatever sitting in my guest room.

  I guess it’s rude to help Eric.
  That’s just how libertarians treat you.

  Woo I just won a big hand in a poker game. Aces full of tens and almost doubled up. Woo!

• 96 Lidia Seebeck // Jan 30, 2010 at 3:41 pm

  @90,91

  What type of dressing do you prefer there, Brian? Ranch, French, Italian, Honey Mustard, Balsamic, Russian….?

  No further comments please.

• 97 EVG // Jan 30, 2010 at 3:52 pm

  Dondero,

  I’m a libertarian who doesn’t agree with most of Israel’s foreign policy, and I certainly don’t agree with your rabid militarism. Does that make me an anti-semite? Bear in mind that my girlfriend is Jewish, as are a lot of my friends.

  I’m tired of fundamentalists who don’t like others’ views on Israel calling said others ‘anti-semites.’ You can love a country (and its people) withouth loving its government.

• 98 LibertarianGirl // Jan 30, 2010 at 3:56 pm

  exactly what I tell Bruce…LOL

• 99 Gene Trosper // Jan 30, 2010 at 4:05 pm

  @92 C’mon Bruce, putting asterisks into the name of Matthew Barnes isn’t going to cover up the truth. His name is out there. The cat is out of the bag. He even has his own Megan’s Law website.

• 100 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 4:07 pm

  EVG is right.

  Just like Mark Selzer calls folks he doesn’t like “Nazi” a lot, Eric overdoes it with the anti-Semitism.

  There is some around and it’s a shame.

  I’ve dealt with these people before and I’m sorry about how they are a blemish on the face of humanity.

  But most Libertarians are not.

  I am not as militaristic as Eric, nor do I call people who disagree with me anti-Semites.

  And I haven’t ever called LG an anti-semite.
  (And not because I don’t want her to kick my butt again, either.)

• 101 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 4:09 pm

  Gene@99

  It’s about King Naga and his new Knight Prince dicsciple the Holtzenjammer.

  They want to keep it out of the rankings somehow.

  I heard a rumor some LPCA types had some method of lowering rankings and discussed it about doing that to enemies as well.

  Oh the shame!

• 102 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 30, 2010 at 4:26 pm

  Bruce,

  It’s not really complicated or sinister.

  If you do a Google search for the name in question, it will not produce a hit on a page that has M*t!!@w B^!)es instead of the actual letters.

  The use of the garbage characters is to keep this thread of discussion from showing up on Google when people search on his name (or, if other people are using the full name, at least to avoid driving this thread up higher in the search results).

• 103 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 4:30 pm

  I know, you didn’t realize I know that?

• 104 Born Again Non-Voter // Jan 30, 2010 at 4:55 pm

  Doesn’t anyone think it’s a little Orwellian, trying hide this from the public?

  The Inner Party wants to toss Matthew Barnes into the Memory Hole.

  As if the most important thing is not to punish, or to vindicate, or to seek the truth whatever it may be, but to hide everything from the public.

  It’s like the Stalin era, where people became “unpersons” and were erased from photos.

  Get votes at any cost, just like the Demopublicans. Accuse your opponents of coverups, but hide your own dirt from the voters.

  Party of principle? Really?

• 105 Why? // Jan 30, 2010 at 5:13 pm

  Why is child molester Matthew Barnes STILL involved in the California Libertarian Party after all of this was exposed? Why does child molester Matthew Barnes continue to drag the party through the mud through his obstinate and egotistical behavior? Why is child molester Matthew Barnes still an assistant organizer of the Inland Empire Libertarians Meetup group? http://libertarian.meetup.com/441/members/5903584/

• 106 Gene Trosper // Jan 30, 2010 at 5:25 pm

  @104 isn’t sunlight supposed to be the best disinfectant? I do find it curious as to why they would like to cover this up.

  Are they ASHAMED at what Matthew Barnes has done? Are they AFRAID that the multiple child molestations he committed on numerous boys under the age of 13 would look bad and harm their image?

  Guess what! Trying to cover up the despicable acts of initiated force only makes the LPCA look more like a hidey hole for pedophiles.

• 107 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 6:01 pm

  Remember, the good King Naga ran on the big picture idea of ‘openness and transparency’.

  Gene is right.

  Let everything come out in the open.

• 108 Michael H. Wilson // Jan 30, 2010 at 6:33 pm

  One of the problems here is that publicly distributing this information may place the party in the position of being sued for libel which is, as I recall, the reason RRONR tell us to shut up about proceedings that go on in executive session.

  As much as we may wish to be open we have to live with the present system.

• 109 Gary Chartier // Jan 30, 2010 at 7:30 pm

  @107, I guess I’m not sure why “we have to live with the present system.” Concealing information is bad news for the people directly affected, often enough, and always so for members-in-general, since it denies them the opportunity to assess the actions of their representatives. It seems to me that we would do well to support bylaws changes that would let in a lot more sunshine.

  One option, presumably, would be to require that Judicial Committee rulings be spelled out in the same kind of detail as typical court rulings.

  I’d suggest that, if there’s a realistic concern about libel, people could be asked to approve release of personal information related to party activities at multiple stages, including candidacy for local or state-wide office and participation in Judicial Committee proceedings.

• 110 Rachel H // Jan 30, 2010 at 7:35 pm

  @93 Thomas L. Knapp said . . .
  ” Now that Donny Ferguson is no longer at LPHQ, I move that the term “Donny” be retired as shorthand for “Donny Ferguson” and be re-introduced as shorthand for Eric Dondero. ”

  And @94 LibertarianGirl “I 2nd that motion”

  Hearing no objection, the motion carries.

  Jeez, it’s not often I get to chair the meeting.

• 111 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 30, 2010 at 7:38 pm

• 112 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 30, 2010 at 7:40 pm

  Try, try again:

• 113 Gene Trosper // Jan 30, 2010 at 8:13 pm

  @107 I’m not a Libertarian, so I have a greater degree of independence and not beholden to any organization.

• 114 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 8:21 pm

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpIy6-y_wHE

• 115 Gary Chartier // Jan 30, 2010 at 8:23 pm

  Thanks for that, Tom. The more Coenite amusement the better, I say.

• 116 Don Lake .......... Notariety for the rest of the century // Jan 30, 2010 at 8:28 pm

  Gene Trosper // Jan 30, 2010:

  “multiple child molestations ……… on numerous boys under the age of 13 would look bad and harm their image ??????”

  “Trying to cover up the despicable acts of initiated force only makes the LPCA look more like a horrible hidey hole for pedophiles.”

  Ya think, ya think maybe ???????????????

• 117 Ted Brown // Jan 30, 2010 at 8:58 pm

  The LPC by-laws requires the party to follow Robert’s Rules of Order in the absence of a party by-law or rule on the subject. It seems to me that we should put rules for Judicial Committee hearings in our by-laws, to eliminate some of the secrecy issues.

  On the issue of anti-Semitism in the LPC, I am quite skeptical. I have been a member for 30 years and have certainly not noticed any such thing. At one point, I think we had 6 Jews on the ExCom out of 15 members (including Bruce Cohen). Of course, there are individual members who may harbor such views. However, I would like to think that members such as HH are merely against the policies of Israel’s government (as are many people) and have no animus against the Jewish people. Remember, a country’s government does not equal its people. After all, I doubt that very many Libertarians would like to be accused of supporting the policies of the U. S. government.

  Finally, I see that Zander Collier resigned as Southern Vice Chair over this incident. I find that very unfortunate. It’s like Vice President Biden resigning if he didn’t like a Supreme Court decision. Zander may have lost this battle, but there are plenty of reasons to stay in office and work for liberty (the same goes for the other ExCom members who resigned).

• 118 Michael H. Wilson // Jan 30, 2010 at 8:58 pm

  re 108. Gary I took a look at what I wrote above and have to say I needed to say it better. Poor wording on my part.

  I could not agree more with you. We need more sunshine in this party. I have always disliked RRONR simply because it is so complex and lots of people don’t have time to learn it or feel intimidated by the size of the damn book.

  I’ve always thought we need to write our own rules and simplify the whole thing.

  Sorry for the poor work above.

• 119 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 9:02 pm

  Matt B R Ness
  Jill Pyatt
  Alan Pyatt
  Zander Collier
  Mark Selzer

  And Gene Trosper.

  The buck stops where?

• 120 There are more ppl that left. // Jan 30, 2010 at 9:23 pm

  There are more that people left the party that are not named.

  It is really interesting. Here you have Mr. Barnes who has a criminal record and yet when the party made a so called deal that Mr. Barnes supposely agrees with, not to take elective office position but does so anyways. DUH. You think a person with that serious of a disfunction is going to change his behavior. Maybe his behavior just gets redirected in a different manner. But the lies are still there. They were there years ago and it looks like the pattern is still continuing. SOOOOOO why DUH should it surprise anyone that when someone supposely make a deal not to be an officer that this person is going to keep his word, and does it anyways.

  That just like saying. OH OH I STILL believe Obama doing good for the country because I was that stupid idiot that voted for him.

  Either these people are in denile because of their own addictive personality to believing an abuser or they are in DENILE, beeecaaause, they want to believe in this person and they don’t want to face the real facts because maybe in some way or another there was a lot invested in this person by some of these people.

• 121 Gene Trosper // Jan 30, 2010 at 9:24 pm

  @118 Add Lidia Seebeck to that list as well since she resigned a couple days ago.

  The buck has yet to stop

• 122 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 30, 2010 at 9:35 pm

  @51 Chris, A-Fucking-Men!!!

  Thank you!!! Thank you so much!!! I’m glad you noted this.

  I resent Dondero’s claim that the LPCA booted Cohen because of his ethnicity, like that was the reason for his removal from the Party. That was NEVER the case.

  The case is the fact that he can’t keep his mouth shut because he kept libeling the LPCA (including Takanaga and Zander) over a matter from 2004 to 2007. Keep in mind that Aaron Starr was the chair of the Party and that he used the LPCA was used as a “Starr Chamber” vehicle against certain people he didn’t agree with. And so was Cohen.

  Plus, Cohen is responsible for helping pushing me out of the Party in May 2008, on the same day Barr was coronated King of the LP. I don’t have the old Yahoo chat on that, but I do remember the bullshit he pulled on me at that time.

  I will say this: I will give Cohen some credit. After all, he’s consistent with his beliefs on pedophilia. After trying to crucify Mary Ruwart during her presidential run in 2008 by claiming that she was advocating “kiddie porn” and “pedophilia” (which is bullshit; she never supported such a thing, considering she’s a grandmother for goddess’ sake), he did go after Matthew Barnes and advocated his dismissal from the LPCA Exec Comm. (Some of the shit that he’s written in past posts regarding that situation is full of half-truths and half-lies, but what do you expect from a lying sack of shit like Bruce Cohen?)

  Interestingly enough, isn’t it interesting that Matthew Barnes was a Bob Barr crony and was involved in persecuting Mary Ruwart, yet the fucker is a known conservative pedophile.

  I guess conservatives love to engage in pedophilia when it’s in their favor, but when the opposition is accused of advocating it (when that’s bullshit anyway), they crucify that side.*

  Hypocrisy knows no bounds in Eric Dondero-Bruce Cohen-Wayne Allyn Root-Bob Barr Pound-A-Child-Land…

  The drama on this list is so great, I could write a five-act play Shakespearean style. Hehehehe

  Yours in Liberty,

  Todd Andrew Barnett

  Publisher & Founder, Let Liberty Ring
  http://letlibertyring.blogspot.com

  Let Liberty Ring
  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/libertycaptalklive

• 123 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 9:56 pm

  Toddler@ 121

  Wow, that’s a lot of BS to refute all in one bite.
  I’ll say, I’d love to address each and every one of those allegations from the ‘libel’, to the Ruwart crucifiction.

  But I will not until after my super double tippy top secret trial that nobody can talk about that’s happening on February 5 at 8PM Pacific Time.

  Shhhhh (nobody can hear or know…)

  I will say one thing not related to the case:

  If I am so powerful I can get the great internet journalist Mister Barn-ette to quit the LP over a Yahoo message I must have superpowers.

  Yeah, that’s me.

  SuperLibertyMan!!!

  Just Call me SLiM for short.

  Bruce Cohen with SuperJewLiberty Powers!

• 124 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 10:10 pm

  Todd Barnett@ 121

  This is unrelated to the secret suspension/expulsion trial so I may address it.

  “Plus, Cohen is responsible for helping pushing me out of the Party in May 2008, on the same day Barr was coronated King of the LP. I don’t have the old Yahoo chat on that, but I do remember the bullshit he pulled on me at that time.”

  Oh no! Another sin on the part of the Evil Bruce (EB).

  The fact is EB was minding his own business, reading email when Todd contacted Bruce via Yahoo Instant Messenger (YIM).

  Todd, already upset at me for calling him a mean version of his own name, twisted around, was itching for a fight.

  And me, the ‘lightning rod’ and symbol of one so-called ‘faction’ of the LP was his perfect target.

  Todd, or ‘Toad’ as I sometimes affectionately call the boy, blamed me for the death of the Libertarian Party.

  “IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!!!!”, he screamed at me in full caps with plenty of exclamation marks.

  He called me a lot of names, including the one that Mark Selzer coined ‘a Republican Plant’ etc…

  The Toadster also made derogatory reference to my Jewishness, though he has no idea how or who or what I am as a Jew, since he’s never asked.

  He did make it clear that Jews are lower class citizens and to be treated suspiciously.

  I laughed in his face, as best as one can do by the text and smiley faces of YIM and he became enraged.

  I had a very good chuckle, goading the youngster as he vented his spleen on me for getting Barr elected.

  Except for one thing.
  I was for Root all the way.
  Doh.

  I mean, hey.

  Mister Barr is the nicest guy in person.
  He was nice to my dog and his staff was great to me.

  Bore-nett, another affectionate buddy to buddy, mano a mano term I lovingly call my Frend ‘Toadie’, is tilting at this particular windmill that’s just not interested.

  Todd, I don’t go to your McDonalds and complain about how you flip burgers, ok?

  Stop stalking me and messaging me.

• 125 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 30, 2010 at 10:30 pm

  @122 Bruce, as usual, you’re full of shit. And you know it.

  As a conservatoid, you know full well that what I’m saying is the damn truth. You’ve persecuted a lot of people in the Party, namely me. You’ve got a lot of nerve to make these baldfaced lies about me when you don’t have single shred of proof on me.

  Got any of the old chats? Spill them on here. I’d love to see them. If not, then you’re just grasping at straws.

  Until then, shut the fuck up.

  Todd

• 126 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 10:42 pm

  Oh! The bitter poison of my poison pen that I evilly weave my web with.

  That black and horrible nefarios pixel pusher Bruce Cohen is so Jewtastic he can manipulate people from afar by criticizing them.

  All hail the great and evil Bruce.

  Eeee Vil!
  BRoooo Oose!

  The great domain of the King Naga is under threat and yet another knight of the wobbly table has come to defend the Naga.

  Sir Knight Toad, of the order of the Boar.

  Knight Toad of the Boar pays for his dragon slaying lifestyle by his occupation – Welfare Check Recipient.

  I assume he has some side jobs too.

  Or possibly he’s changed careers since last time I saw the piggly wiggly little boarette.

• 127 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 30, 2010 at 10:42 pm

  @123 Blowhen,

  You’re full of shit. Except for jokingly making a reference to you about your ethnicity (when it wasn’t really anti-Semitic, but you took it that way; anyone who knows me knows that I’m not anti-Semitic and never really have a problem with Jews), I never said anything of the sort that you mentioned. I never SCREAMED the words “IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT,” and I called you a lower class because of your ethnicity.

  As usual, you twist shit around to make yourself out to be the saint when the truth is you’re nothing but a goddamn demon sucking the life out of the Liberty movement.

  Let it be known that I had already decided to leave the Libertarian Party the day Barr was coronated at the Denver convention. When I told Bruce about it, he said (and I’m paraphrasing, as I don’t recall the exact words) “good” and that he was gonna show me the door. I also think that he said “don’t let the door hit [you] on the ass on [your] way out.”

  But, even if I had something anti-Semitic to him, it would be a reference to Arabs. (Hating Muslims and Arabs is actually anti-Semitic, not hating Jews.) I was *only* doing it to him because I hate that piece of shit personally. I was doing it to fuck with him and not because I really hated his ethnicity. Bruce, if you really thought I hated you because you’re a Jew, then you’re even more fucked up than I imagined. HELLO??? Angela Keaton is my friend, and I love her to death, and she’s a Jew. HELLO????

  I’m not the only person who despises Bruce. There are plenty of people who despise him. After all, he deserves it. He’s evil, disgusting, and is conservatard all the way.

  As a left-libertarian/agorist/voluntaryist, Blowhen can kiss my hairy white ass. But then again, I wouldn’t advise it. I’m known for my excessive flatulence when it comes to pricks like him trying to do just that.

  Yours in Liberty,

  Todd Andrew Barnett
  Founder & Publisher, Let Liberty Ring
  http://letlibertyring.blogspot.com

  Host, Liberty Cap Talk Live
  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/libertycaptalklive

• 128 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 30, 2010 at 10:49 pm

  @125 Bruce,

  You’re a riot, man. Seriously, you are, dude! ROTFLMFAO!!!

  This is Bruce Blowhen gone mad here, folks!

  Koo koo! Koo koo! Koo koo!

  As for this Mr. “Welfare Check Recipient,” prove it, squiggly! But then again, I wonder how many corporate welfare checks you’ve been receiving as of late with the help of the One and Great Bobby Barr and His Amazing Technocolor Sleezecoat….

  Oh my….did I let the cat out of the bag?

  Todd

• 129 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:07 pm

  By the way, folks, remember Richard Boddie? A former — and longtime — member of LPCA and the national LP? He used to be a prominent, well-respected (well, still is IMB) activist in the Party as well as the movement.

  Guess who was responsible for him leaving the LP?

  Blowhen.

  Just like he was responsible for me leaving the LP.

  Ain’t life grand.

• 130 Michael H. Wilson // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:26 pm

  Todd are you serious that Richard left the party?

• 131 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:34 pm

  No, Mister Boddie’s departure was during a time when I was relatively uninvolved.

  Mister Boddie fell on hard financial times and decided to not be involved quite on his own.

  Part of that was he had requested financial assistance from all the libertarian community in southern california. And then realized it would be easier to hide in his apartment, than to repay those who helped him in his hour of need.

  I was not involved with the LPOC at that point.

  What did happen, in point of fact, was that Mister Boddie, and his friend, a certain Gary Gagnon, would sent 5-10 articles a day to the LPOC discussion group, and overwhelm everything we did with their message.

  The message?

  Oh gosh and golly, it goes back to the Jew thing.

  And calling someone “dirty” and “jew” consecutively, by the way, Toadie, is not very well going to make your case that, and I quote you @126 ” I was doing it to fuck with him and not because I really hated his ethnicity.”

  But it does please Sir Cohen of the clan of the SuperJews that the mighty Prince Boar has come to take the place of the other fallen nights of the Wobbly Table.

  But fear not, my fair Prince Boarette, for I threaten not King Naga’s Castle.

  When Count Starr and I left the Kingdom to King Naga everything was in working order.

  Now the Kingdom is defiled and bankrupt, financially and morally.

  I want not the Castle of King Naga and you need not raise your mighty pen against me, Toadler.

• 132 Jill Pyeatt // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:37 pm

  As far as people leaving because we couldn’t get our way with Barnes, the bottom line is that many good, principled activists are leaving. Some of you will be undoubtedly thrilled. I would like to now publicly state that this whole drama is truly beyond belief to me. I must be incredibly naive, because I thought Libertarians had superior thought processes. I’ve most certainly been terribly wrong.

  The CaExCom signed up and were voted in to do what we thought was best for our party and our state. The revelation of Barnes’ background was a huge big deal to us, truly one of the most difficult decisions I’ve personally ever made. We came up with a result in September that seemed to work best with a minimum of damage to all concerned. We were wrong. In January we took our time and energy again to deal with the still difficult situation. As far as I’m concerned, there were no ulterior motives, or no personal agenda. And now it is us who are being villified???

  I’m leaving the Libertarian Ex Com because
  I can not represent so many unbelievably deluded people. I believe most of you really get that Matt Stone Soup Barnes poses a threat the the party with his record. Likewise, I get that his conviction was 20 years ago and our case should have included more actual evidence. You’re arguing now for the sake of arguing. Or maybe you really don’t mind having someone who molested several LITTLE BOYS–CHILDREN, for God’ sake–among you. Wow, what a good ol’ boys network. We had a situation here in California that many of you think you know all about. , but you don’t know about it. You don’t know the discussions, the possibilities discussed, the sheer horror at having to deal with Matt, who was our friend, in such a manner.

  I’m horrified that I’ve believed so much in the Libertarian party that I’ve run for office twice. At work and with my family, I’ve been treated as some strange outsider because I called myself a Libertarian. I really thought I was part of a select group of people who saw things as they should be. So why is the CaEXcom being treated like we’re goddamn idiotic Republicans or Democrats or something? Why on earth aren’t you giving us the benefit of the doubt that we were working in the interest of the party?

  The list of activists leaving will continue to grow of good people who can’t bear to see our beloved party go down the drain because of crap like this. No problem, there are plenty of pedophiles who will be happy to take our places. Hey, there are NAMBA members just waiting to be embraced by the Libertarians. I’ll run an ad in Craigslist for you.

  Also, to all of you who are certain the CAEXCom put ourselves thru this because of some other agenda than doing our jobs, maybe you’ve noticed a big percentage of the list of people leaving are women. You profess to want women in the party, but you sure don’t behave accordingly. This woman finds it shocking that this whole thing has become some Grand Event that everyone has their personal uninformed opinion of. It should have been something dealt with, then onto something like protecting the few remaining liberties in our lives.

  I am very proud of my work on the CaExCom, but now deeply ashamed of many in the party.
  Go ahead and make fun of me now and throw around your opinions of whatever. I’m outta here.

• 133 Food Fight // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:48 pm

  Looks like we have a food fight between Todd and Bruce.

• 134 Bruce Cohen // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:52 pm

  Jill I applaud your heartfelt message and do honestly feel a lot of the same emotions and hurt about this situation as you do.

  If I didn’t care about the LP and the LPCA as much as I do, I would not have complained quite as much about having the Barnes associated with us.

  Please look where the buck stops, because that’s where the bad decisions have been made all along.

  Don’t blame yourself, Jill.

  Some resignations very well might be in order.
  Not yours.

• 135 Mik Robertson // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:55 pm

  @132 “Looks like we have a food fight between Todd and Bruce.”

  I guess the email link between them no longer works, so they have to communicate through this venue.

• 136 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 30, 2010 at 11:56 pm

  @129 Michael:

  Yes, Boddie left the Party, and he’s no longer involved in it. He hasn’t been involved in it for years.

  He was on my show admitting this to me about Blowhen. In fact, he said, and I’m partly-quoting/partly-phrasing here, “Bruce Cohen is the reason I’m no longer in the LP.” In fact, I still have the podcast. I’ll believe him over Blowhen anytime, any day of the week.

• 137 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:11 am

  Toad @135:

  Richard hid out from the LPOC and LPCA before I got much involved, other than attending some group events.

  It was years after he dissapeared from the circuit, meetings and events that I became active more than volunteering and events.

  What I did ruin for him was not his participation in the Party, which he had run away from years before.

  In point of fact, it was Boddie and Gagnon who hijacked Orange County’s email discussion group with dozens of anti-Israel and anti-Jew articles every day.

  Every. Each. Each and every day Gary and Richard would assail the list with this stuff.
  You know, the stuff Harland Harrison always used to send out that freaked a lot of people out like Dave Peters and Doctor Sandor Woren who say THEY split because of folks like Boddie and Harrison.

  So, here you go, Toadie.

  I raise you. Call, plus two times your bet.

  And Paul Blumstein.
  NOBODY can say Paul is mean.
  Or controversial.
  But he had to cut Richard Boddie off for the same reason.

  The man hates Jews and Israel.
  Not me personally, of COURSE not, but just you know, them funny hatted sort.

  Boddie is just a minion for Mark Selzer, another anti-Semite.

  Thank you, fair Knight Boar for jousting with me.

  I feared I had wounded you so greatly in our last joust you would never bare your lance around me again.

  It’s been such a thrill donning armor together and we must do it again sometimes.

  Now it’s time for you to play Dungeons and Dragons some more, ok?

  Matt/hew Bar/nes loves to play that game and he could be your Dungeon Master.

  Isn’t that SPECIAL?

• 138 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:11 am

  @130 Bruce,

  I did NOT call you a “dirty jew,” let alone anything of that sort. Now you’re accusing me of expressing a deep-seated hatred of Jews, which I do NOT truly possess. That’s a baldfaced lie. Unless you prove it on here, it’ll remain an unsubstantiated, bullshit lie.

  But you’re making an issue of something that REALLY is NOT an issue anyway. Anyone who knows my paper trail knows that I never have harbored any hatred for the people of Israel and Americans of Jewish descent.

  Besides, I’ve been good friends with Jewish libertarians like….oh shall we say?…..Aaron Biterman, Leah Patrick, Angela Keaton, and Hannah Hoffman (a musician in New York and a hot looking gal!). And there are probably others I’m not even aware of, but that’s irrelevant.

  As far as I’m concerned, you’re a hack who has no redeeming value in the movement whatsoever….

• 139 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:16 am

  Oh how nice!!!

  Blowhen calls Boddie “an anti-Semite. Wow!! Quite a charge there!! More unproven and unprovenable BS that has no basis in fact whatsoever…

  Nice. Very nice.

  And I’m Dudley Do-Right….

  Nice yarn there, Brucie!! Good one. In fact, I’m sure Hollywood would be sure to write a script on that crud…but then again, who’s going to listen to shitheads like you?? lol

  It was nice chatting here. Bye, Brucie! We oughta meet and go out on a date sometime.

  I have such sights to show you. *blows a kiss to him*

• 140 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:17 am

  I thought you said it to sort of get my goat, Toadster, no? Now you didn’t make some sort of ‘Jew’ remark after all?

  Who is it that calls me to have a full tilt meltdown tantrum when Barr won and blamed it on me.

  Yes I did say for you to be careful of the door on your way out, I did indeed.

  And I meant it, you of no manners or breeding.

  This is fun.

• 141 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:24 am

  Isn’t it funny, people, that Eric and Bruce love to play the race card and use it to their advantage? They hate it when other groups use political correctness to silence and suppress people, but they don’t mind it using it when it’s politically convenient for them.

  Bruce and Eric are race baiters. Dondero is the Jewish answer to Jesse Jackson, and Blowhen is the Jewish answer to Al Sharpton.

  Color me unimpressed.

• 142 Positions in life // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:30 am

  Does anyone here have real life jobs, or is this their whole life?

• 143 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:30 am

  @139 Bruce,

  SO you admit it!!! Good. You admit you helped kick me out of the party. Nice.

  I stand by my statements, pendejo. Take it up the ass. Oh wait…that would be a bad idea for you.

  If I did hate a Jew, it would be you personally because you’re deserving it, you little fuckwit.

• 144 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:31 am

  *rubs Bruce’s crotch, licking his lips*

• 145 Chris Bennett // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:42 am

  Todd,

  It’s not worth the time to lower yourself to the level of Eric and Bruce…but then again you know the best “nuts” do come from California.

• 146 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:50 am

  @144 Chris,

  You’re right. The best “nuts” are in California. ROTFLMAO!

  That slam against Blowhen is to show how much of a homophobe/gay hater he is.

  In Bruce’s mind, he wouldn’t mind a holocaust for gay, lesbian, and bisexual people (the latter being me).

• 147 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:59 am

  Todd,

  Bruce didn’t kick you out of the LP.

  Nobody kicked you out of the LP.

  If you’re no longer in the LP, it’s because you no longer want to be in the LP.

  Nothing wrong with that, but don’t pretend that it’s anyone’s decision but your own.

• 148 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:06 am

  @146 Tom,

  I didn’t say Bruce kicked me out of the party. I said that he helped kick me out of the LP.

  I left voluntarily. I know this. I left on my own accord. But Bruce had played a role in that. Whether you believe that or not, I can’t help that, but that’s a fact.

  And please, don’t put words in my mouth. I hate it when people put words in my mouth and make it out to be something other than what I noted. OK?

  Thanks.

• 149 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:14 am

  And while we’re at it, let’s cut the semantics in these discussions. What happened in 2008 was a purge. Let’s not color it, let’s not ignore it, and let’s not pretend it was a dream that we had and then woke up to find that it didn’t happen, ok?

  2008 was a purge. Even Angela said it. Bruce, Barr, and their goons were the instruments of all of that. They are the reason for the mass exodus of activists who left the LP.

  I’ve been out of the LP for almost two years. I feel a hell of a lot better. I’m no longer active in the BTP, and I’m out of the politics matter for good.

  But I sure do like fucking with Blowhen’s mind. It’s great popcorn value.

• 150 Trent Hill // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:16 am

  Todd,

  There is a major difference between given a reason for exodus and a purge. I personally don’t think either occured in 2008 in the LP, but certainly there was an exodus of activists. A purge is non-voluntary–I would think a libertarian would know the difference.

• 151 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:27 am

  @149 Trent,

  Tell that to Angela Keaton who knows better as well as I do. And to call it a “non-purge” is laughable, considering activists were forced out of the party. They left because they were forced out, not because they wanted to leave. Nice hairsplit coming from you.

  Not that my advice means anything to everyone here, but I will offer it anyway: get out of the Party while you still can. It’s a waste of time. You’re never gonna get what you want. This idea that the LP can be “saved” or “reform” is hopeless. It won’t work. Not when the conservatoids control it entirely, and the compliment of the radicals has shrunk astronomically. And plus, trying to “save” the Party is meaningless.

  The conservatarians won. You’re never gonna win this one. Stop kidding yourselves. It’s better NOT to run a slate of presidential candidates when the national party is virtually bankrupt (financially, ideologically, and ethically), and membership levels are down much further compared to the levels of 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, and even 2008.

  The implosion of the Party is imminent. Get out while you still can. Save yourselves! There’s nothing to be gained from this.

  You’ll be doing yourselves a HUGE favor if you walk away while you still can.

• 152 Craziest Accusation So Far... // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:32 am

  Bruce Cohen @ 136: “Boddie is just a minion for Mark Selzer, another anti-Semite.”

  Isn’t Mark Selzer Jewish?

  Bruce Cohen is accusing Jews of being anti-Semitic?

  Will he next accuse Starchild of homophobia?

• 153 Lidia Seebeck // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:36 am

  Only one thing to say:

  ((Jill)). You’re one of the really good ones.

• 154 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:42 am

  @152 Lidia:

  Lidia, I agree. Hear, hear!

• 155 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:45 am

  @151 Craziest:

  Excellent point! Very well stated in a few words.

  Will Blowhen accuse Chris Bennett of being a racist towards blacks? Heh.

  This is so entertaining, I’m surprised E! Entertainment News ain’t covering this….

• 156 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:04 am

  Todd,

  “to call it a ‘non-purge’ is laughable, considering activists were forced out of the party. They left because they were forced out, not because they wanted to leave.”

  Bullshit. Deciding to leave — no matter how good one’s reasons for that decision might be — is simply not the same as being forced out.

  There was, in fact, an attempt to “purge” Ms. Keaton (and Mr. Wrights) from party office.

  There was no attempt to “purge” them from the party proper, because there’s no mechanism through which such an attempt could be conducted at the national party level … although I expect that we’re within a year of the Starr/Sullentrup cabal announcing that it has found such a process hidden and encrypted somewhere in the bowels of Robert’s Rules if that cabal survives in power after this year’s national convention.

  Cohen didn’t help kick you out of the party because you WEREN’T kicked out of the party. You DECIDED to leave the LP. Maybe your reasons for doing so were good ones, but the decision was yours and no one else’s. Own it.

• 157 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:16 am

  Cohen and Barnett make even IPR’s worst trolls look sane — and clever. What a pathetic display.

  Ms. Pyeatt, I’m not “arguing for the sake of arguing”. I’m arguing because Party members should not be purged without a case that, at a minimum, the JudCom considers airtight — and that really ought to be transparent to the membership.

  Purging is the nuclear option. There is nothing more serious that an ExCom can do. There’s no excuse for not getting it right.

  You say “The CaExCom signed up and were voted in to do what we thought was best for our party and our state.” Well, that’s infinitely more true of the Judicial Committee. The JudCom is elected specifically to be the Supreme Court and conscience of the LPCA between conventions. These five gentlemen have collectively over a century of experience in the LPCA. As much as I’m willing to trust ExCom’s judgment, I trust JudCom’s even more — because I trust in the wisdom of the delegates who chose them for this specific job.

  I wrote @64: “I can’t believe that our rules turn certain facts into state secrets just because they were repeated in front of JudCom in a failed attempt to purge somebody. If you show me the page of Robert’s that says that, I’ll dice that page into a salad and eat it.”

  RRONR pp. 630-631 has two relevant rules:

  1. Since a society has the right to prescribe and enforce its standards for membership, it has the right to investigate the character of its members as may be necessary to this enforcement. Neither the society nor any member has the right to make public any information obtained through such investigation.

  2. Neither the society nor any of its members has the right to make public the charge of which an expelled member has been found guilty, or to reveal any other details connected with the case. To make any of the facts public may constitute libel.

  The phrases “details connected with the case” and “any of the facts” refer to the charges and the aforementioned “information obtained through such investigation”. This means information that is developed/revealed/unearthed by the investigation, and clearly can’t include every arbitrary piece of information that happens to get presented in support of a cause for suspension. For example, Zander like most of us already knew that “2 weeks later [Barnes] was elected to the position of Vice Chair of the San Bernardino County party”. Zander presented that fact to JudCom in support of the suspension, but it can’t possibly be a rule of RRONR that for as long as Zander is an LPCA member he no longer can state in public that Barnes was elected VC of the LPSBD in Oct 2009.

  There has to be something more about a fact, beyond its mere recitation in front of the JudCom, that makes it a Party Secret, whose public discussion is verboten. The fact can’t be one that was already public, or that was circulating relatively freely among Party members before the investigation. The fact has to be an essentially private one, and if only Kevin and Zander knew about MB’s alleged promise not to run for LPCA office, then that arguably qualifies. But it wasn’t “just because [this fact was] repeated in front of JudCom” that it became a Party Secret, and so I won’t be eating p. 630 of RRONR. If instead I’d announced that I would eat the page of Robert’s that said Zander can’t repeat in public any relatively private fact that was part of the case for suspension presented to JudCom, then I’d be getting some unwelcome fiber in my diet.

  And I still don’t consider it fundamentally “inappropriate” that Zander publicly describes his and Kevin’s conversation with MB. However, I’ll now concede that doing so became against our rules as soon as that relatively private fact was made part of a case for suspension.

  I agree with Knapp that such a rule is inappropriate for a political party. We should have a process similar to the sequence of a secret grand jury followed by a public trial. The grand jury part could be that the ExCom assembles and debates its charges and evidence in executive session, but the case presented to JudCom should be fully revealed to the membership and to the public. How we govern ourselves should set an example for how we’d govern in office.

• 158 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:18 am

  Mark Selzer is not Jewish.
  Though to some, he pretended to be so for a while.

  Markie knew I was on to him, so he didn’t try to play that game with me.

  I know about Mark’s skeletons too.

  Does the Toad want me to share some of that dirt?

  Because if it’s not directly related to my top secret suspension/expulsion trial, I can talk about it.

  And I do think these people are ready for this particular canary to stop singing.

  When you started sending me your unsolicited messages, tantrum boy, you already were going.

  Your mind was made up because you didn’t like the way the vote turned out.

  Well, you know what?

  I didn’t like it either.

  But I didn’t go whining to mommy when I didn’t get my way.

  I worked for Gary Nolan for an extraordinarily long time pro bono. And Michael Badnarik beat him.

  Both men are still my friends and I didn’t go south of the border just because Badnarik won.

  So boo hoo and stop complaining I am mean to you.

  You came here itching for a fight with me, you weakling. So you got it and come get some more.

  You are the one who dreams of purging people, you thin skinned pantywaist. You call names and then you go yelping off all wounded because someone stands up to you.

  Go call Richard the ‘Fibbertarian’ as he likes to call anyone who supported the war in Afghanistan, for example.

  And have your radio show with 14 listeners, 12 of which are your parents checking the link.

  But go away and do your own thing.

  Remember, you hate the LP and me and all this other stuff so stop coming around and making me beat you up, Bore Nut.

• 159 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:37 am

  @155 Tom,

  All right. Fine. I left and Bruce Blowhen didn’t help force me, let alone push me out with help from the activists.

  Happy now?

  I’m not going to get into a pointless debate with you on that anymore. But if you want to stick to your statements, why don’t you talk to Angela about the purge? She, by the way, was vocal about it on my show on NowLive at the end of 2008. I have the podcast. Are you going to call me out on that? Are you going to call her a liar on that?

  Let’s put it this way, so that we can actually agree on something here: Barr’s coronation pushed me into deciding to leave. Yes, I did leave. YES, I made the choice to do exactly that.

  I realize that you always want to be right and always have an excuse to prove that someone else is either wrong or mistaken. Not that there’s anything wrong with that (personally speaking), but that doesn’t change the fact that 2008 resulted in many activists to abandon the LP. We can engage in word play games and semantics all day we like until we’re blue in the face, but it doesn’t change the fact that there was:

  a.) a takeover of the LP by the Barr/Root wing

  b.) a mass exodus of activists who felt that the LP was no longer their home, and they left because these conservatarians have co-opted the LP

  c.) membership at the state and national levels are down — and I MEAN down — by a whopping percentage

  d.) members no longer felt welcomed in the Party. So if they no longer felt welcomed in the Party, what’s the point of staying?

  and

  e.) those who left did not want to have anything to do with a Party that was becoming a Republican-lite version that was contrary to principles. I was among many of those people who DID leave, Tom.

  If you mean that the activists were not forced out because they were not physically thrown out, you’re right. They weren’t.

  But they felt no longer welcome there, so they left. They weren’t given much of a choice to stay or leave. (Well, they were given a choice, but it was a crappy choice in this case. What’s the difference anyway?)

  And that’s NOT bullshit.

• 160 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:40 am

  Blowhen,

  Blow me.

  Better yet, blow yourself.

• 161 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:44 am

  @156 Holtz,

  The trolling and soap opera started LONG before I was posting on this thread. I just threw in more than my 2 cents into this. Actually, try an entire paycheck’s discussion on this thread.

  But what’s there to expect from a crack like that from you? Cohen was trolling the list for a long time. I just added theater to it.

• 162 Not a Bruce or Todd Troll // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:45 am

  Todd, I don’t think Bruce would blow you…it’s not kosher…..

• 163 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:49 am

  @161 Not a Bruce,

  LOL!

• 164 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 31, 2010 at 3:03 am

  Todd,

  It’s not a matter of me having some need to be right every time.

  It’s a matter of what actually happened.

  Yes, some members left the party, partially or completely, in 2008.

  Yes, some members supported, or even ran on, other tickets because they weren’t happy with the nominated ticket. You may recall that I was one of those latter members.

  Bruce Cohen didn’t “make” me do what I did. I did what I did because that’s why I decided to do.

  And you did what you did because you decided to, too.

  We weren’t “purged.” Everything that we did was something we decided to do, not something that was forced on us.

  The Craniacs have been whining about the non-existent 1983 “purge” for 26-odd years now. Never happened. Not a single one of them was escorted to the party’s door. They went to it, and walked out of it, under their own power.

  Ditto for the radicals who left in 2008.

  Keaton arguably WAS the subject of an attempted purge — from party office, not from the party itself. That attempted purge and SHE left under her own power, too.

  The word “purge” should not be cheapened, for the same reasons that the little boy shouldn’t have kept crying “wolf.” When it really happens, we need to be able to use it and have it listened to rather than dismissed as likely another false alarm.

• 165 Craziest Accusation So Far... // Jan 31, 2010 at 3:22 am

  RE: Bruce Cohen @ 157.

  I heard Mark Selzer say, many years ago, that he was an atheist.

  Is that what you mean @ 157? That Mark is not a religious Jew?

  But ethnically, Mark is Jewish, no?

  I’ve read Mark’s listserv posts, long ago, where he defended Israel.

• 166 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 3:23 am

  @163 Tom,

  One correction: you don’t “partially” leave. You just leave. Period. Unless you drop out of the national party and stay with your state and local parties, you don’t “partially” leave. That’s a silly way of explaining it.

  Read my private email I sent you, dude.

• 167 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 31, 2010 at 3:34 am

  Todd,

  You took the words right out of my mouth — by “partially leaving” the party, I’m referring to people who abandoned national while continuing with their state parties. Sorry if that was unclear.

  I’m sorry to be so narrow and legalistic here, but there’s a reason for it.

  When and if the LNC does in fact start attempting purges of membership (not just office), I want the word “purge” to be in pristine shape for use to describe the phenomenon.

  If we yell “purge” every time someone gets pissed off and leaves, we cheapen the word, no matter how good their reasons for leaving might be. And if we cheapen it enough, we’ll get nothing but yawns in response when a real purge comes along and we call it that.

• 168 Nixon's Ghost // Jan 31, 2010 at 3:36 am

  Bruce Cohen: I know about Mark’s skeletons too.

  What do you do, hire private detectives?

  The rumor in party circles was that you were the anonymous emailer who found and circulated the dirt on Matthew Barnes.

  Do you, Bruce Cohen, have an enemies list? Do you hire private dicks to dig up the dirt on your enemies? Is that how you spend your leisure hours?

• 169 Lady Gaura // Jan 31, 2010 at 3:58 am

  Foxes play, I watch
  soap opera convention
  with hot popcorn.

  *munch*

• 170 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 4:09 am

  No it was not me.
  I was accused of it by some and rumors did go around to that effect.

• 171 Robert Capozzi // Jan 31, 2010 at 6:47 am

  tk 163, I’ve not seen Craniacs use the word “purge” about the events of 83, although the Berglandistas did fire the ED and did move the national office to Houston.

  Rothbard certainly conducted a vicious and personal attack on the Crane Machine and the Kochtopus. Rothbard was himself removed from the Cato board.

  Leading figures in the Radical Caucus refuse to acknowledge that I am a L, although one suggests she’s OK with my being in the LP, as its an opportunity for me to be re-educated on Rothbardian theory, which I openly reject in large measure.

  So, legalistically, are these things technically “purges”? I guess not. They are all examples of pressuring people to tow a particular line.

  Is there a better term for this behavior?

• 172 Don Lake .......... Notariety for the rest of the century // Jan 31, 2010 at 7:08 am

  The Deform Party/ Reform Party syndrome ????

  The Constitution Party/ American Independent Party syndrome ???????

  Uncivil disagreements and splintering upon splintering ………..

• 173 LP pragmatist // Jan 31, 2010 at 8:29 am

  No wonder 95% of the population thinks the LP are “nut jobs”. Look at this email garbage. For God’s sake take this crap off-line. The LP HAS to be one of the WORST organizations with MARKETING that I have ever seen! All this internal ranting and raving. You guys should be ashamed. We are our worst enemy (nightmare), when our targets should be the two party duopoly. Don’t you guys get it. There is only so much time in the day, and you are pissing it away on “ego trips” and who has the “biggest johnson”. Come on grow a pair, get in the same damn boat, and start to row in the same direction. While you are arguing, the competition is moving ahead of YOU. How about talking about driving the LP brand and electing some LP candidates.

• 174 Gene Trosper // Jan 31, 2010 at 8:59 am

  I’ve known Richard Boddie for many years, but haven’t physically seen him since we both worked on Steve Kubby’s gubernatorial campaign in 1998. It’s been quite a while, but the accusation that he is anti-semite is very difficult to believe. I would need to see verifiable proof before even considering that.

• 175 Gene Trosper // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:04 am

  Describing the behavior displayed here as shameful does not even begin to describe it.

• 176 Gene Trosper // Jan 31, 2010 at 10:08 am

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aItpjF5vXc

• 177 Eric Dondero // Jan 31, 2010 at 10:11 am

  For the record, Bruce Cohen made me pay for all his bills while I stayed at his home in Desert Palm Springs area, including gas for his clunker (read piece of shit) huge van of his. We’re talking $85.00 just to fill the damned thing up. And it was I who filled it up on my credit card, for all of Cohen’s many, many trips to the Indian Casino nearby in Coachilla.

  Oh, and guess who had to sit in that shitty van , bored out of my skull, for hours on end while Cohen took care of his “little addiction,” at the nickel slots?

  Cohen is a fine libertarian. A very principled fellow, who I respect greatly on the issues. But I would not recommend anyone being his friend or room-mate.

  And whatever you do, don’t ever, ever, ever let Cohen convince you to accompany him to a Casino.

• 178 Scott Lieberman // Jan 31, 2010 at 10:16 am

  “Lady Gaura // Jan 31, 2010 at 3:58 am

  Foxes play, I watch
  soap opera convention
  with hot popcorn. *munch*”

  ************************************

  I am disapponted that Lady Gaura was not able to work Madame Defarge into her haiku.

• 179 Eric Dondero // Jan 31, 2010 at 10:17 am

  Brian Holtz, you just went up enormously in my estimation. Any foe of Thomas Sipos is a friend of mine. The guy ain’t no libertarian. He’s a fuckhead Leftist puke, who has infiltrated our libertarian movement, with his Hate America First propoganda.

  Glad to know you shun him as well, as should all of those who carry the label “libertarian.”

• 180 Eric Dondero // Jan 31, 2010 at 10:21 am

  EVG, your statements above are insane. You disdain the Israeli Government? Are you fucking kidding me?????????

  Israel has the MOST LIBERTARIAN GOVERNMENT IN ITS ENTIRE 60 YEAR HISTORY TODAY!!!

  Benjamin Netanyahu is a diehard devotee of Ludvig von Mises. He’s already slashed taxes, and cut spending across the board.

  On social matters, he’s not your typical social conservative either. Israel has both nude and semi-nude beaches right in the heart of Islamia. And Netanyahu is fighting back against Islamic puritinism, prohibitionism, and attempts to impose Sharia law on the region.

  To say you don’t like Israel is one thing. But to say you don’t like Netanyahu’s Israel from a libertarian perspective, is just completely absurd.

• 181 Eric Dondero // Jan 31, 2010 at 10:37 am

  Again, for the record, Bruce Cohen is not a good friend, he’s a bit of a moocher, and he’s a nickel slots gambling addict. And yes, I’ll say that to his face.

  But one thing I’ll say for Bruce, is he’s honest to the core.

  Above Bruce said the following about Todd Andrew Barnette, the un-employed girlfriend-less Left Libertarian living in his parent’s basement near Detroit:

  The Toadster also made derogatory reference to my Jewishness, though he has no idea how or who or what I am as a Jew, since he’s never asked.

  He did make it clear that Jews are lower class citizens and to be treated suspiciously.

  There you have it folks. Clear evidence that some if not a good chunk of all this animosity directed towards Bruce Cohen is anti-Semitic/anti-Israel based.

  Knowing where Barnette comes from on the political spectrum – Justin Raimondo/Anti-War.com Left Libertarian – I fully believe Bruce when he says that Barnette communicated those sentiments to him through Yahoo Instant Messenger.

  I’ll say it again, this has little to do with parliamentary procedure, or who fired who. This is about Foreign Policy/Defense. This is about Bruce Cohen being an outspoken Pro-Israel Libertarian, in the heart of one of the most heavily influenced Anti-War/Anti-Israel Libertarian Party regions in the country.

• 182 Dondero's Guilty Conscience // Jan 31, 2010 at 10:40 am

  Why does Dondero care so much about who is, and who isn’t, a libertarian — seeing as he’s a Republican who keeps urging Cohen to join the Republican Liberty Caucus?

• 183 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 10:46 am

  Barnett @121, how and when was MB ever “involved in persecuting Mary Ruwart”? I pay attention to our LPCA ExCom, and followed the Ruwart campaign closely, but I don’t recall MB ever getting involved in the controversies around it.

  Pragmatist, a discussion like this certainly doesn’t help the LP’s image, but such discussions among a tiny self-selected group of people have vanishingly little impact on that image. The real public relations issue here is to not increase the likelihood of the LP’s opponents finding and using information that can embarrass the LP and its candidates.

• 184 Eric Dondero // Jan 31, 2010 at 10:47 am

  Barnette, you slimeball piece of shit. Just by the fat alone that you hold such rabidly anti-Defense, anti-Israel and anti-Military positions makes you extremely suspect in regards to a potential underlying hatred for Jews and the Jewish people in my book.

  And that, “oh golly gee, I’ve got Jewish friends,” line is extremely condescending.

  It’s your views that matter. And your views are decidedly anti-Israel, and quite curiously directly in-line with the views of Islamo-Fascists who wish only to destroy the Israeli State.

• 185 Eric Dondero // Jan 31, 2010 at 10:53 am

  Of course, I meant to say “fact alone” not “fat.” Freudian slip there. Of course, I in no way meant to imply that Todd Andrew Barnette was “fat.”

• 186 Dondero's Guilty Conscience // Jan 31, 2010 at 10:57 am

  Re: @ 171

  It’s not so much the content, as the obscenities and ad hominem attacks that are embarrassing.

  Dondero, at least I haven’t seen Sipos or Holtz, whatever their faults, sink to the sort of gutter language used by you, Cohen, and Barnette.

  If anyone’s concerned about the LP’s public image, I suggest they disagree civilly. Try to be clever and literate in your insults, as was Oscar Wilde. Your arguments lose force when you resort to obscenities.

• 187 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:28 am

  What gutter language has this honorable Knight used?

  And please understand the fair Knight Price Toad from the order of the Boar.

  Verily, he is an excitable boy, and he doth learneth such foul language and manner in his pub. He is the owner of the Hog and Frog Pub in Dungeons and Dragons.

  He comes to rescue King Naga and his now reinstated Prince Errant Master Barnes of the order of Megan’s List.

  Please allow him this small indiscretion as he battles the evil pixels of the Jew Cohen and his Zionist Cabal.

  Who will help the Knight of the Hog, Frog and Bog?

• 188 Lady Gaura // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:36 am

  Knitted strands of dawn’s light
  removes all the purls of lies
  So too does the truth.

• 189 IF I DIDN'T KNOW ANY BETTER // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:41 am

  Todd Andrew Barnett must have the HOTS FOR BRUCE. He certainly acts like a scorned lover. It just that Bruce is not that type to reciprecate, so Todd needs to deal with that and stop acting like a someone who been rejected.

• 190 To Laura // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:43 am

  I like some room on that couch. I’ll bring the pepsi, and chips with that. Stay tune, for Days of our IPR.

• 191 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:47 am

  I like penny slots and I’d accompany Bruce to a casino anytime , ecsp if he’s giving me pennies!

• 192 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:01 pm

  LG is not only super smart, but she’s the cutest Jack Mormon I know.

  And I will have the assembled audience of fair Knights, Lords, Ladies and Nobles know, it was NOT a slot machine.

  It was a Video Poker game.

  And it was not a penny machine, it was quarters.

  It was a 9/6 Jacks or better machine, with a 99 44/100% payoff in the old nonsmoking section.

  In fact, one time, I did go with Eric, and he hated gambling, so I promised him to play for one hour only.

  And did.

  Eric had a good time complaining about how he hated gambling, though he did love the waitresses and single Mexican girls at the casino.

  I left about 10 bucks up for the night, at which point Mister Donny suggested I keep playing when he saw the real money woo-woo.

  I am not a gambling addict.

  I am a Liberholic and I refuse to do 12 steps over it.

  Who couldn’t tell I deeply in the throes of Liberholism, a terrible disease at that?

  Am I covered under the ADA against discrimination as a sufferer of said disease?

  For the record, Debra D is one of my favorite hot Libertarian chicks, and I wish there was a Calendar with her on it.

  I think she should be Miss Passover for the Hot Libertarian Chicks of the LP Calendar.

  I would go on a Casino date with Miss Passover any day.

  After all, we are both fundamentalist JackJewLibertarians, you know?

  And the JJL comes before the LP.

• 193 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:02 pm

  I could not ever
  have thought my LP would be
  a home for pedos

  Haiku anyone??

• 194 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:06 pm

  and for the record Id like to ask Brian a question, if you’re all about the transparency then why do you post under so many pseudonyms here ?

• 195 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:08 pm

  Mormons are Jews , thats all Im saying , from the house of Ephraim . the rest of y’all are just gentiles so………..LOL

• 196 Stop huffing from that brown bag // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:09 pm

  I like penny slots

  I like penny sluts.

• 197 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:12 pm

  Forsooth, there are maidens and young knights and persons of virgin ears listening.

  I beseech the all citizens of good nature and upbringing to please not besmirch this hallowed hall with bad language.

• 198 Embarrassed by the LP // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:13 pm

  if you’re all about the transparency then why do you post under so many pseudonyms here ?

  Because many of us are increasingly ashamed to be associated with the LP.

• 199 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:17 pm

  agreed. it must be real embarrassing to defend a child molester , I wouldnt use my real name either.

• 200 91% // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:21 pm

  and for the record Id like to ask Brian a question, if you’re all about the transparency then why do you post under so many pseudonyms here ?

  I’m not Brian, but I am all about party (and real world government) transparency, and I also post under some pseudonyms here.

  Why do I do that?

  Several reasons.

  One is that I don’t want some of my controversial views to have an impact on possible work, or on other people such as for example potential dates who might google me (an increasingly popular practice).

  Another is that there are whackos posting and lurking, and some of them might be dangerous. I don’t necessarily want them knowing who I really am.

  Yet another reason is that if I want to make a point and not have the argument descend into the realm of the personal, it may be better if people do not know who is saying what I am saying.

  Also, sometimes when I am posting I may wish to limit my time online – so it is easier to do so if certain people don’t know that I am online.

  As well, sometimes I may wish to try out a character who has views that are different from mine, and see how people answer the points that character makes.

  Those are some of the reasons.

  None of my characters are especially mean-spirited or foul, as far as I can remember.

  I don’t know about Brian, but if he has any pseudonyms, I have a hard time believing any of his pseudos would be the mean-spirited or foul type either.

• 201 A love connection // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:22 pm

  Libertarian Girl and Bruce Cohen, maybe a love connection. Yes!! Valentine coming up. Bruce take LP out for a nice date.

• 202 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:23 pm

  he has 3 that I know of for sure.

• 203 North American Boy-Boy Love/Hate Association // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:25 pm

  Todd Andrew Barnett must have the HOTS FOR BRUCE.

  It’s a thin line between love and hate. The sexual tension between them is palpable. We suggest some people may wish to “get a room,” as they say.

• 204 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:25 pm

  P-Daddy’s in the house!!!!!LOL love ya:)

• 205 Paulie // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:27 pm

  Libertarian Girl and Bruce Cohen, maybe a love connection. Yes!! Valentine coming up. Bruce take LP out for a nice date.

  I’m not the jealous sort, but I was hoping to get LG for V-day. It’s all good though….”we can share the women, we can share the wine “

• 206 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:31 pm

  we can share what we got of yours cause we done shared all of mine,

  Paulie wins for Vday with the dead reference!!!!

• 207 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:34 pm

  “Haiku anyone??”

  In melodrama
  Fright fights fact and wins each time
  Scream “PEDO!” and run

• 208 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:35 pm

  For the record, I have never posted under any name but my own real one here or on any discussion group or news board. A few places I have used the handle “Bruce966″, but not to anonymize myself.

  PS Anyone know what the 966 means?

• 209 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:42 pm

  based on what Ive heard
  facts trump the fright evry time
  the facts are the fright

• 210 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:44 pm

  Wow, Debra, did you just post as “LibertarianGirl” asking why somebody might be posting under a pseudonym?

  Yeah, yeah, it doesn’t count because many of us know who you are. Well, 91% just gave some interesting reasons for posting pseudonymously, so I’m not going to foreclose that possibility by setting a precedent of publicly confirming or denying claims that I’ve used any pseudonyms here. That said, I would love IPR to institute a policy of only allowing posts by users registered under their real name, with first-name-only allowed if there’s no ambiguity (paulie, morey) about what real-world-person is being named.

  Regarding transparency, what I’ve advocated is that people who make accusations against fellow Libertarians do so only with public evidence. I dare you to disagree with that position.

  Have you read MB’s 52-page court file? I have, and I still have no evidence that makes me embarrassed to oppose expelling him from the LPCA for the non-disclosure cause specified by ExCom, because he no longer holds any LPCA office that was won through non-disclosure.

  In fact, I’ll be in Long Beach with leaflets trumpeting the facts of my opposition to the MB and Cohen suspensions, because I will be running for JudCom if 1) Cohen’s suspension is upheld, or 2) Cohen’s suspension is overturned and any of the JudCom heroes don’t stand for re-election.

• 211 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:55 pm

  BH_Have you read MB’s 52-page court file?

  me__ yes

  BH_Regarding transparency, what I’ve advocated is that people who make accusations against fellow Libertarians do so only with public evidence. I dare you to disagree with that position.

  me__ really , on another thread you called me and Trosper embarrassments under a pseudonym I KNOW was you for a fact. Then you accused us both of having done nothing for the Liberty movement. you have no facts for this , both he and I have done lots but I wont get into listing it here.

  Brian , you dont see evidence that warrants suspension for non-diclosure since the new office he holds is after disclosure but…
  Do you find a reason for suspension for breaking an agreement in good faith not to run for any office?? do you think its a good PR move to have a pedophile predator in an office of the SBCLP?
  do there think theres reason for suspension based on his past at all as in he is a terribly bad character?? if evidence comes to light that he has in fact threatened people , would you say that then that would be reason for suspension -expulsion?

  please answer all my questions you have a nasty habit of only debating the parts of statments u know u can rip apart somewhat and ignoring the rest.

• 212 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:55 pm

  Forsooth the Knight HoltzenJammer, of King Naga’s Knights of the wobbly table has spoken.

  He the keeper of the semantical truth, and the golden ark of split hairs is going to the annual joust of Takenaga and Barnes.

  He, of good nature, cheer and character, Knight Holtzenjammer has picked up the King’s banner and standard and will stand and fight to defend the Kingdom of Naga.

  The Bards will long sing about the the festival of chomos that King Naga will host.

  We will learn from the songs and story about the heady days of power in Long Beach, those of us not attending the festivities.

  Knight Holtzenjammer is the rare Knight who is also a bard and we look forward to his tales and those of the Minstrel Knight Toad Boar.

  We will all drink mead late at night and sing songs about the exploits of King Naga and how he slew the dangerous Jew Dragon Cohen when he threatened the Kingdon of Naga with his mighty laptop.

  Would that we could all be there.

• 213 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:56 pm

  A certain young lady called “Girl”
  Was accustomed base charges to hurl
  No evidence needed
  For a rumor well-seeded
  Certain words put her mind in a whirl

• 214 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:59 pm

  with Pedo in midst
  I will in fact run away
  with children in hand

• 215 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:02 pm

  LG,

  What you’re missing here is that you don’t know why the Judicial Committee overturned the suspension.

  You can wail about them “defending a pedophile” all you want, but they’ve done no such thing, at least publicly. To the extent that they’ve publicly talked about what they did at all, they’ve simply said that a burden of proof was not met.

  It’s not the Judicial Committee’s job to decide whether or not M*t!h@w B^r&es is or is not a pedophile, or if he is whether that represents an actionable cause for suspension.

  It’s the Judicial Committee’s job to hear the arguments ACTUALLY GIVEN AT THEIR HEARING and weigh those arguments against an objective standard.

• 216 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:02 pm

  Hey, Debra, are you really against “defending a child molester”, no matter what the circumstances or context? Are you saying that someone with MB’s criminal record has zero rights that a Libertarian should defend?

  Matt Harris, Chair of the LPWV, publicly wrote on IPR two days ago: “if a pedophile were to join the LPWV, I would haul them out into the street and beat them to death just as I would should I come across such a person in any other venue.”

  It’s easy to be a principled Libertarian when defending the rights of people we can all identify/sympathize with. The true test of your Libertarian courage is when you have to decide whether to defend the due-process rights of the accused, or of the convicted who have already paid the price for their crimes.

  I’m not just a fair-weather Libertarian, Debra. Are you?

• 217 Lady Gaura // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:08 pm

  Upon tatami
  I munch some edamame
  and amazake

• 218 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:09 pm

  Kimochi deska?

  So, Desune!

• 219 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:11 pm

  see brian , I asked you specific questions and you ignored them and went back to turning the argument against me> please answer the questions I asked above.

  TK_ you are right I do not know the reasons they overturned it and maybe I have jumped the gun on chastizing them. I will wait to hear more on that but I do trust the people that do know more like Ms Mabry and Ms Pyette , I find them both to be honorable . Plus I believe the deal Zander and Kevin cut with him to be in good faith which he ignored.

• 220 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:12 pm

  @182

  I think Eric has a hard-on for me. I kinda suspected it for a while. Not a surprise…

  Dondero, you lost credibility in the movement ever since you started with this Islamo-Fascist, pro-corporate, pro-Israeli government bullshit. You’re a sad sack of shit with no credibility whatsoever.

  Of course Dondero allies himself with a political party (the Republicans) who hate his ethnicity. W.’s granddaddy had ties to the Hitler regime, so if there are any claims to the contrary, I call bullshit on it.

  As for me having an alleged deep-seated hatred for Jews and the Israeli people, prove it. You want to claim that I said that crap? Go for it.

  As for me making derogatory references, if I made some against you, it’s only reserved for you and Bruce. Anyone who is a Republican and who is of that statist mindset deserves the wrath of my derogatory mindset.

  Of course, Eric has made derogatory references to my sexuality. He’s a homophobe who believes that gays should be exterminated, die of AIDS, and should be strung up the way Matthew Shepherd was in Wyoming. He loves his corporate welfare, he’s intolerant, and despises anyone who disagrees with him.

  And, worst of all, he’s known for sleeping with underage Mexican prostitutes. How’s that for an encore?

  If anyone’s a “slimeball piece of shit” in the Liberty movement, it’s Dondero. His minions happen to share the Honorary Slimeball Piece of Shit Award with Eric.

• 221 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:14 pm

  Cutting a verbal deal with a serial liar is probably not the best way to do business.

  Moving slowly and secretly and refusing to answer questions or make a public statement about an issue concerning folks who care, might just raise some eyebrows, much less concerns.

  Interesting how the chomo gets a lot of chitty chat and coaching and discussion and warnings by the LPCA, but others get summarily suspension/expulsion action for being mean.

  Mister Rogers wants to know:
  “can you say ‘double-standard’ “?

  Of course you can!

  DOUBLE STANDARD!

  I LIKE the way you say that, boys and girls.

• 222 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:20 pm

  B likes to ignore questions directed at him but I always try and answer ones at me so…

  Hey, Debra, are you really against “defending a child molester”, no matter what the circumstances or context?

  no , most sex laws are ludicrous , a Genarlow Wilson case Id defend to the fullest , cases of young adults and older teens or two teens or countless other examples Id also defend the person . There is no uniform criteria for sex offenders and whether its acceptable or not , you gotta take it case by case . I read Matts case and he is a stereotypical child molester .

  so the short answer to your question is the circumstances and context are everything and must be evaluated case by case as to whther Id defend them.

  BH_ Are you saying that someone with MB’s criminal record has zero rights that a Libertarian should defend?

  Straw Man to the rescue… LOL you know damn well Im not saying that . Id still defend his right to free speech , his 2nd amendment rights , i think he should be allowed to vote . I would not defend his right to be around kids and would not defend his right to serve in an official capacity in the LP that can cause harm to our image . and the thing is , if he really cared he’d have stepped down , its all too obvious this man has an ego so big it’s blinding him as to what is really in the best interest of everyone else.

  IMO…

• 223 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:21 pm

  @183 Eric,

  Of course you meant to say “fat.” What are you? A fattist?* (*Note: A bigot who is prejudiced against obese/overweight people.)

  As for what you said @179 about me being a Left-Libertarian, you got that right. I am of the Libertarian Left. I’m also an agorist and a voluntaryist. I don’t use the traditional libertarian term anymore, mainly because you and your fuckwit conservatoids stole the label.

  You know you’re not a libertarian, Eric. You hate gays, blacks, even college students. While I have no love for Obama and have spoken out against that tyrant, you hate his color.

  That’s Eric Dondero, folks: defender of the Party of Theocrats, Racists, In-The-Closet Pedophiles, Corporate Welfarists, and Brown-hating Bigots.

  At least Eric is consistent: he’s an equal opportunity liar and hater.

  BUT that’s the Republican Party for ya.

• 224 The deal // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:23 pm

  Was the deal in writing or verbally. In writing would be more concrete evidence to do what is necessary.

• 225 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:27 pm

  Eric and I share no love and break no bread together.

  But Knight Toad of the Boar has spoken incorrectly towards fellow Knight Dondero.

  Mister Dondero does not have any racist tendencies that I know of, and my only beef with this Knight is he is not of the proper manners to share lodging with.

  Mister Dondero does not care if someone is of different color, ethnicity or genderized affiliation or predisposition.

  He is only interested in their positions and behaviors, and judges people based on the content of their character.

  (A commodity I might add, the Toadenator has none of.)

• 226 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:30 pm

  and so my stance is clear I only wanted Matthew not to be an officer , back when Zander and Kevin cut a deal with him and he agreed to not seek anymore office I was very cool with that.Then I NEVER said his membership should be suspended or expelled , I understand he is an excellent activist and would have been content with him continuing to do so.

  then he ran for office again and because of that I feel like he broke a promise and does not care if he hurts the image of the LP , because of THAT , I feel like suspension-expulsion proceedings should take place unless of course he resigns again .

  what the jud com evaluated I dont know , the above is ONLY MY OPINION.

• 227 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:31 pm

  also Id like the threats of violence more closely investigated and looked at

• 228 stone soup's vhem // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:34 pm

  222 it dont matter if there be witnesses, and there be witnesses.

  that there be some funny poems, too.

• 229 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:34 pm

  “The deal” is the most harmful part of this whole thing.

  If there was a real, true, relevant actionable cause for suspension/expulsion from the LPCA, then making that deal was a failure of fiduciary duty on the part of the party officers who made it.

  If there WASN’T a real, true, relevant actionable cause for suspension/expulsion from the LPCA, then the whole thing was just bullying and extortion from the git-go.

  If the executive committee’s argument to the Judicial Committee for the suspension was “he didn’t keep his end of a deal that we had no legitimate authority to make on the LPCA’s behalf in the first place,” then the Judicial Committee did exactly the right thing by overturning the suspension.

• 230 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:36 pm

  @223 Blowhen,

  You “have no love” for Spindero, yet you’re going to defend him even after the way you two treat each other? lol Too funny.

  What I said is virtually correct. Dondero is a lying sack of shit who exhibits racism towards people of different color, bigotry towards people of different sexual orientations, and sexism towards the opposite sex.

  Spindero is a racist, homophobe, and a sexist. He’s a wife beater (and I have that on good authority) and treats women like dog shit. He hates poor people and loves his corporate welfare and loves being in bed with the state.

  Blowhen has no business defending this shitwit because he has the same beliefs. Should we be surprised?

  Blowhen and Spindero should date each other. No wait, that would be against the Republican Creed of Hate against Gays….unless they don’t play by the rules themselves.

  Blowhen and Spindero are already beginning to bore me. *yawn*

• 231 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:37 pm

  Debra, thanks for once again demonstrating that you don’t always know what you think you know.

  Please quote the words you think I wrote saying you and Gene Trosper are an “embarrassment”. As I wrote on that thread, as LPCA Fact-Checker: you cannot quote [me] saying previously either that you are an embarrassment or that Barnes isn’t an embarrasment. However, Fact-Checker will say that he is ashamed of much of the venom and unsubstantiated mud-slinging employed by Libertarians above to justify purging a member — especially when so much of the mud isn’t even part of the cause which allegedly justified the purge.

  And it’s utterly false that I “accused [Dedmon and Trosper] both of having done nothing for the Liberty movement.” That was somebody else — but don’t let pesky little things like truth and evidence get in the way of a juicy accusation against a fellow Libertarian.

  I’ll keep saying it until you actually read it: you don’t know that Barnes “broke an agreement in good faith not to run for any office”. What Zander told us here was:

  We told Matthew that we would not proceed with a suspension of membership against him if he were to agree to not run for any further office in the LPCA. As no local/state discussion occured the implication was that Barnes would remain a member and activist and would not seek any further office. In doing so it was understood that he would not create any further embarrassment and PR liability.

  So Zander claims that there was an “understanding” floating in the air of that conversation, carrying the “implication” that resigning from LPCA’s ExCom means never accepting county office even if his record is disclosed. Bzzzzzt. Sorry, but that’s waaaaay too flimsy a basis to purge somebody.

  A less-flimsy basis would be to say that it’s a purge-worthy offense to put anybody with Barnes’s record into any LPCA office. But none of you have the guts to say that, because Barnes didn’t elect himself, and you would then have to purge dozens of people from the LPSBD.

  I’ve already said that I don’t think his 52-page court record warrants expulsion from the LPCA. I thought I heard you say that too, and I asked if that’s still your position. Are you ever going to answer?

  Regarding threats, you’re not paying attention. I wrote @64 above: if there is specific credible evidence that Barnes has threatened anybody in connection with this case, that would be extremely disturbing and would be a far stronger cause for suspension than anything that’s been made public so far. Now, Debra, either give us some evidence that he’s threatened anybody, or stop spreading unsubstantiated rumors to that effect. Is that too much to ask?

  I write my postings here with care, and it’s not an instanenous process. Your previous comment was posted while I was still composing mine, but you jumped to the false conclusion that I deliberately ignored your questions. This is yet another example of you not knowing something that you thought you knew. How many times do you have to be wrong in saying something defamatory about a fellow Libertarian, before you start to see the pattern and become more careful and charitable in what you say?

  I did not invoke a straw man. You make a blanket statement about “defending a child molester” that made it sound like you think such defense is always wrong. I asked you if that’s what you thought. Now you admit that “defending a child molester” with Barnes’s record isn’t always wrong — which pretty much undercuts your earlier blanket statement. QED.

  P.S. Some of the poems above are clever, but none of Cohen’s tiresome stories are. However, it’s always amusing/instructional to see such an extreme example of someone with so little understanding of how people are perceiving them and their actions.

• 232 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:37 pm

  perhaps , but I believe they we’re trying to quietly handle a situation which involved a man they considered a friend at the time and do it as quietly with as little embarrassment as possible . perhaps they should have followed protocol , and maybe the JudCom is right but I believe at the time they did what they thought was best .

• 233 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:39 pm

  Mister Matthew Barnes is obviously a VERY smart man and a formidable manipulator , that is very evident.

• 234 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:45 pm

  Tom, it would not be unreasonable for ExCom to take the position that they will summarily suspend any [victimful] Megan’s Law registrant who accepts LPCA office at any level. But that’s not what they accused MB of. Instead, they accused him of violating an “understanding” floating in the air of a 3-person conversation, carrying the “implication” that resigning from LPCA’s ExCom means never accepting county office even if his record is disclosed.

  They should have just told him in writing that they would summarily suspend him if they ever again noticed him holding LPCA office at any level.

  Indeed, they could still do that now. And if he didn’t resign, I bet the JudCom would uphold the suspension.

• 235 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:47 pm

  @227 Tom,

  Aside from the legalese nonsense (which really doesn’t mean anything), the LPCA Judicial Committee’s actions on this deal appear, at least to me, pretty faulty. The reasoning for overturning the suspension has NOT been made clear.

  Even if the reasoning was valid and just (and I have to say, in this context, not just), it creates the appearance that the Libertarian Party is a hotbed of pedophilia and child rape. That’s a scathing PR mess that I don’t think any political organization wants on its hands. If the LPCA wants to take that position, then they are going to bleed members to the point…where there is NO membership left at all.

  But even if all the members hadn’t left, the Party would be barely functioning as it is.

  Think about it, Tom: do you really want an officer of the Committee (who’s also a Bob Barr crony and had his ties to those who persecuted Mary Ruwart in ‘08) to represent that organization, especially with a criminal record and a history of committing six felony child rapes (although he plea bargained for three of them and served some time in prison)? Is that what you want the LP to have?

  Sorry, but I don’t feel sorry for this guy for being booted…

• 236 Lady Gaura // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:48 pm

  Dispassionate gaze
  aloof is the kitsune
  not the kimochi

• 237 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:53 pm

  Barnett, I ask again: how and when was MB ever “involved in persecuting Mary Ruwart”? I pay attention to our LPCA ExCom, and followed the Ruwart campaign closely, but I don’t recall MB ever getting involved in the controversies around it.

  The more an unsubstantiated charge is repeated against a Libertarian, the less I believe it.

  The problem with Libertarians isn’t that they do too much infighting. The problem is that they’re so incompetent at it.

• 238 North American Boy-Boy Love/Hate Association // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:55 pm

  Eric, Todd and Bruce
  a public “three-way”
  I wish was behind closed doors

• 239 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 1:58 pm

  @235 Holtz,

  I got my facts wrong on MB regarding the Ruwart mess. It was Hinkle who was part of the “Starr Chamber” mess, not Barnes. Sorry. I stand corrected.

• 240 Eric Dondero // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:03 pm

  You all, not to abruptly change subjects on you, but there’s a huge story just now breaking about the New York Libertarian Party.

  It’s absolutely hilarious, and IMHO good news for the Libertarian Party.

  I just broke the story wide open over at Libertarian Republican (h/t The NY Libertarian Examiner.)

  (link above.)

• 241 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:06 pm

  Hmm, I don’t know that Hinkle ever criticized Ruwart over child sex issues, but he’s not currently subject to purge efforts, so I’ll just thank you for the correction, and leave it at that.

• 242 Eric Dondero // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:06 pm

  Umm, Toady, I was one of the earliest, and most enthusiastic supporters of Michael Steele for Republican Party Chairman. And last time I checked Chairman Steele was an American of African descent.

  Tom Knapp here can confirm that.

• 243 Gene Trosper // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:07 pm

  @209 Actually, LG, I have a pretty good idea of who attempted to criticize me on that one post because of a few things that were said. The person who made that posting wasn’t very intelligent and clearly he doesn’t have much of a memory. I have a huge scrapbook of articles regarding the things I have done and successfully accomplished, so I welcome any idiots to make the same accusations again. In fact, I would welcome them to a public debate.

• 244 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:11 pm

  Mister Hinkle and Mister Starr do not work together or in any type of coordinated fashion.

  Mister Hinkle was not associated with the Barr or the Root Campaign that I know of.

  Mister Hinkle is, as I understand, a fan of Ms. Ruwart, and certainly not part of any imaginary ‘Starr Chamber’.

  As far as the allegation of me personally persecuting her or whatever words Knight Boar used, here is the link to the audio of what was said.

  Uncensored.
  Here it is:
  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/stevekubbyshow/2008/04/29/ruwart-challenges-root-phillies-and-cory

  From the: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/stevekubbyshow

• 245 Gene Trosper // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:14 pm

  @214

  “It’s easy to be a principled Libertarian when defending the rights of people we can all identify/sympathize with. The true test of your Libertarian courage is when you have to decide whether to defend the due-process rights of the accused, or of the convicted who have already paid the price for their crimes.”

  Right cut both ways, Mr. Holtz. He may have paid for his crime, but what about the victims? Seems to me they have a lifetime of memories being sexually molested. When will their sentence be over for the crimes of Matthew Barnes? One of the sadder aspects of the LP is a definite lack of sympathy for those who were victimized by people other than government agents.

• 246 George Phillies // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:15 pm

  @240

  To give credit where credit is due, your plot to destroy the Republican Party by giving them a National Chair of that quality is bearing fruit, as will be obvious as soon as the Obamacane at Republican sails, blowing them forward at enormous speed, subsides.

  And if elected National Chair I will not emulate Michael Steele: I will not charge speaking fees. I will not have a book ghostwritten where I can collect the profits shilling it. Oh, yes. I will not try to revive the de facto bankrupt business I do not have by shilling for it, either.

• 247 Gene Trosper // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:16 pm

  “Rights cut both ways”, rather. The silence I hear regarding the rights of people to be left alone by predators such as Matthew Barnes is quite curious.

• 248 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:24 pm

  @242 Blowhen:

  You did criticize her on Third Party Watch, which no longer exists by the way. (Gee, has anyone forgotten that site by now?) You were only acting nice to Ruwart on Kubby’s old show just to cover up the fact that you personally hated her. Don’t act like you’re an angel, dude. You hated it, and you know it.

  Thus, your claims have no merit and lack validity whatsoever.

  As for Hinkle’s involvement with the “Starr Chamber,” that’s public knowledge within the LPCA circles. I have it on good authority that Hinkle was involved in that mess.

  Nice deflection, Blowhen. It only gives you a fortune cookie, but not a gold star. Keep shooting for it.

  You’re a shoe-in for the Best Renowned Liar of the Year Award.

  Ha!

• 249 LP pragmatist // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:26 pm

  frankly, all of this makes me take a step back and wonder if you are all losers. So where are the winners in the LP? Anyone give a damn about electing candidates or just comparing the size of their “johnson”.

• 250 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:29 pm

  That would be ’shoo’ in. As in to brush, wave or influence things in a certain direction.

  And I don’t hate Mary, I only disagree with her on some issues.

  She and I are in occassional and cordial contact and I have nothing bad to say about her.

• 251 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:30 pm

  @240 Umm, Spinny,

  The only reason you probably supported Steele was only for political reasons. Personally you despised him because of his blackness, although I’m convinced you felt that way as much as he probably despised you. Just because you support a chair candidate while you’re in the same party doesn’t mean you have to personally like him at the same time.

  It’s all politics, dude. Own it.

  @244 George,

  You got that right. Spindero supported a Republican warmonger because, along with that fellow warmonger, they’re racists, homophobes, Theocrats, and foreign child murderers. They love the art of deflection, don’t they George?

  If Hitler were alive, the Republican Party would be praising him and extoling him. I know Eric (and maybe Bruce) would.

• 252 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:35 pm

  Brian,

  I think that it would be unreasonable to adopt a policy of automatic suspension of Megan’s Law registrants, because Megan’s Law has caught many “victimless criminals” in its net, including some who might be very useful activists not in spite of, but BECAUSE of, their experience in that area.

  Right offhand, I’m thinking of a 17-year-old in Arizona who was prosecuted as a “sex offender” for “contributing to the deliquency of a minor” by showing that minor pornography. The minor involved was HIMSELF.

  Or any random teen busted down for “child pornography” because he or she sent a nude cell phone photo to a boyfriend/girlfriend.

  That aside, if there’s cause for suspension, the duty of party officers is to move for suspension, not run around cutting deals to avoid doing so.

  Todd@233,

  You write:

  “Aside from the legalese nonsense (which really doesn’t mean anything), the LPCA Judicial Committee’s actions on this deal appear, at least to me, pretty faulty. The reasoning for overturning the suspension has NOT been made clear.”

  If the Judicial Committee’s reasoning hasn’t been made clear to you, how do you know it’s faulty?

  I agree wholeheartedly that there should be more information available about the whole matter.

  In the absence of such information, we have to make educated guesses based on the information we have.

  Here are two pieces of information we have:

  - The Judicial Committee’s verdict was unanimous, 5-0. Not 4-1 or 3-2. Every member of the Judicial Committee agreed that the suspension should be overturned.

  To me, that says there was at least one fact that they all found compelling and upon which the verdict turned. If they were voting their personal biases, presumably there would be DIFFERENT biases at play, meaning different votes.

  - The release on the action, while not highly specific, says that “The Executive Committee not having met the burden of proof on the causes as stated, and the Judicial Committee not being empowered nor inclined to extend or substitute for the stated causes …”

  That’s not specific, but it is clear. The Executive Committee told the Judicial Committee “we suspended on the basis of X,” and then failed to prove X to the Judicial Committee’s satisfaction.

  It may be that one or more members of the Judicial Committee believed that suspension was warranted on the basis of Y or Z, or that X was provable, but the Judicial Committee’s job is not to substitute unstated cases for the stated ones, or to prove the stated cases for the parties arguing them. Its job is to rule on whether X is valid or not, and whether X was proven or not.

  “Even if the reasoning was valid and just (and I have to say, in this context, not just), it creates the appearance that the Libertarian Party is a hotbed of pedophilia and child rape.”

  The Judicial Committee’s job isn’t to steward the creation or non-creation of appearances. It’s to apply the bylaws to cases on appeal.

• 253 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:36 pm

  Yes, the Toad now joins Mister Mark Selzer as comparing me to Hitler.

  Perhaps he wants to call me a “Nazi” also.

  Both Mister Selzer and Mister Dondero have a bad habit of calling people that, so they are all buddies in this misuse of the word.

  It’s so fun to make enemies by pointing out their lack of social graces.

  And I’m the bad one.

  We have:
  1. Chomo Guy*
  2. Embezzler Guy*
  3. Hijack Guy
  4. Cheater Guy
  5. Liar Guy
  Only recently on the LPCA Board with everyone looking the other way.

  The coverups and excuse making should end.

  * Already resigned.

• 254 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:41 pm

  @243 Gene,

  I totally agree with you 1000 percent.

  The LP has been, is, and will always be a joke for not being sympathetic to the plight of victims who have been victimized by predators like MB. While its old platform, just before its gutting in 2006, vehemently excoriated and criticized the judicial system that defended the rights of the accused, and I’m partly-quoting/partly-paraphrasing here, “having little to no concern for the victims and their families,” the Party has been advocating that nonsense for years in practice….DESPITE what its platform has said.

  It’s one reason I’m of the Libertarian Left and not of the Conservatoid “Libertarian Right” that includes Spindero and Blowhen.

  Hey, why have enemies when you have the now-pro-pedophile LPCA as a friend?

• 255 Alan Pyeatt // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:44 pm

  Zander and Ted have made the case for confidentiality, and since I have not resigned my position on the Exec Comm, my ability to comment on this case directly id very limited. However, I would like to point out that in general, neither the ExComm nor the JC has the authority to put anybody in jail, or impose criminal penalties of any kind. Under our present system of jurisprudence, that is the responsibility of law enforcement and the judicial system, not of any branch of the Libertarian Party at any level.

  Also generally speaking, voluntary associations are two-way streets. Since there is no public funding involved, I know of no legal statute or law that requires the Libertarian Party of California to associate with anyone with whom it chooses not to associate. Of course, any decision to terminate association with anyone should conform to the group’s governing rules, and those individuals involved in the decision can (and should) be held accountable to the members of the group no matter which course of action they choose.

  Now zoom out and take a look at the big picture: The Libertarian Party in California is standing at a crossroads. As Chairman Kevin Takenaga continually points out, in the current political climate, we have an opportunity to move forward and become the political force for freedom that we all (correction, MOST of us) have been working hard to become. Or we can become a nice little social club, endlessly debating trivia but irrelevant in this country’s headlong flight into fascism.

  I hope I can get a consensus on the ExComm to issue some kind of statement, in light of the fact that isolated factoids, half-truths and sheer misunderstandings are being discussed in public forums. Such a statement, of course, will conform to Robert’s Rules of Order and common-sense standards of decorum.

  In the meantime, I hope that everyone will take a look at where we stand in the tide of history, what personal traits, attitudes, and good judgment we expect of our leadership, and how (for that matter, WHETHER) we can convince the American public to support us in our fight to preserve our remaining freedoms, and recover those we have lost over the past several years.

  I hope everyone will take a look at LP Pragmatist’s post @ 171 again, and ask themselves whether their actions are contributing to the fight against tyranny, or the descent into it. that really is the bottom line.

• 256 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:52 pm

  I applaud Mister Pyatt’s thoughtful statement.

  And I am surprised to hear he has not resigned.
  Many people are saying he has done so as fact, and I have repeated this.

  I am pleased to stand corrected, Mister Pyatt has not resigned.

• 257 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 3:06 pm

  LP Pragmatist, if you want to know about the winners in the LPCA, then spend more time reading http://Calfreedom.Net/, and less time generating traffic on IPR threads like this.

  Mr. Pyeatt, if you agree with Pragmatist, then why doen’t you work with your remaining fellow ExCom members to get more of CalFreedom’s positive stories about the LPCA posted on the LPCA web site? The most recent news on the LPCA site about Libertarians moving public policy in a libertarian direction is from 2006 — almost four years ago! CalFreedom has half a dozen such stories from the last six months alone, including a landmark victory that is not mentioned anywhere on the LPCA site:

  http://www.calfreedom.net/2009/10/san-diego-libertarians-defeat-citys.html

  This ExCom needs to spend less time purging members, and more time moving public policy in a libertarian direction.

  Mr. Trosper, please don’t presume I don’t defend one person’s rights just because I defend another’s. On the contrary, I was very vocal — but ultimately unsuccessful — in imploring Dr. Ruwart to explain how children would be protected from predators in Ruwarchistan: http://libertarianintelligence.com/search/label/Ruwart

  Tom, I of course meant any victimful Megan’s Law registrant. I’ve updated my comment above with “[victimful]“.

• 258 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 3:10 pm

  @250 Tom,

  You know perfectly damn well, and I remember this from my old LP activism in those days, that the LP doesn’t give a flying hoot about adhering to bylaws and procedures, at least not on a consistent level. The Party has always violated its own bylaws on a consistent basis.

  In the case of the LPCA Judicial Committee (even on the national level), it has always been a useless committee, not even doing much for the benefit of the Party on the grand scheme of things. Not that I can personally vouch for the LPCA Jud Comm (because I don’t live in California and have never been a member of that affiliate), but I’m speaking in generalities, of course.

  How do you know Jud Comm’s reasoning is not faulty? How do you know that they are not being personally biased on that? Not that I really care what happens to the LPCA and/or the entire Party (as I find this controversy humorous), but are you telling me that Jud Comm members have NEVER, to the best of your knowledge, allowed their personal biases to creep into their findings?

  I find that truly difficult to swallow. Not only that, that argument you’re presenting doesn’t really fly, AFAIC.

  Do you know for a fact that the Exec Comm didn’t supply the Jud Comm with the evidence in question? On what basis have you made that determination? Have you looked at the court files yourself? I know I haven’t, but I’ve been told some really horrible stuff happened to these kids.

  This is one of the reasons why politics, even in the LP, is hopeless. Factions will continue to fight, and there’s no hope in rescuing or “saving” the Party.

• 259 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 3:11 pm

  I too, am painfully aware of times when Megan’s Law registrants are unfairly labeled and persecuted.

  Some time ago, I hired a staff member who ended up working for me for many years, who did have a sex crime conviction and is listed on Megan’s List.

  I felt, after discussing the situation with him and reading the court file that he was not only not a threat to myself or others, but the whole conviction was a farce and a non-issue.

  I do not summarily believe in every label our courts put on people.

• 260 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 3:14 pm

  Boar@ 256
  If you don’t care, why do you keep making a fuss about it and keep wanting to play in this sandbox?

• 261 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 3:24 pm

  @256 Blowhen:

  Because I have wet, magickal dreams about you, baby. *kisses*

  ROTFLMFAO!

• 262 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 3:24 pm

  @258 I mean

• 263 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 31, 2010 at 3:32 pm

  Todd @256,

  You write:

  “Do you know for a fact that the Exec Comm didn’t supply the Jud Comm with the evidence in question? On what basis have you made that determination? Have you looked at the court files yourself? ”

  No, I do not know for a fact that the Executive Committee didn’t supply the Judicial Committee with the evidence in question.

  For one, thing, since I don’t know what the CHARGE was (and neither do you), I can’t possibly know what the evidence for it would consist of.

  You refer to “court files” — and I have in fact carefully read the M!tt@w B*rnes file — but since I don’t know what the charge was I’m not going to assume that the charge involved that file, and since we have no account of the Judicial Committee hearing, I’m not going to assume that if the charge DID involve that file, that the file was in fact introduced as evidence.

  What I’ve said is simple: That given the 5-0 result, it seems reasonable to assume that there was some serious defect in the case rather than merely a unanimous set of biases. Biases tend to vary from person to person.

  @253, you write:

  “The LP has been, is, and will always be a joke for not being sympathetic to the plight of victims who have been victimized by predators like MB.”

  Apparently that’s one thing it has in common with the BTP’s national commitee circa 2008.

• 264 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 3:32 pm

  @258 Blowharder:

  Why do you care about the fact that I don’t care? You keep making more of a fuss about it than I have been. And you’ve been doing that for days on end.

  I just make a few comments on the matter, and you have the cajones to ask me why I “make a fuss about it”?

  You must have a large pair of them. I wonder if they’re infected with every single of STD that you contracted for every chick you slept with.

• 265 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 3:42 pm

  Barnett @246: As for Hinkle’s involvement with the “Starr Chamber,” that’s public knowledge within the LPCA circles. I have it on good authority that Hinkle was involved in that mess.

  I’m a pretty well-connected LPCA insider, and I have no idea what “involvement” you think Hinkle has had in any of the things for which people like to complain about Starr.

• 266 Gene Trosper // Jan 31, 2010 at 3:56 pm

  @255 I’ll take you on your word, Brian.

• 267 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 3:59 pm

  I don’t like people taking me on my word. I instead like people taking me on my quotes, hyperlinks, etc. — i.e. evidence.

• 268 Ralph // Jan 31, 2010 at 4:08 pm

  I’m amazed at how this thread has blossomed. Looks like the discussion needed its own thread.

• 269 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 5:03 pm

  @261 Tom,

  “No, I do not know for a fact that the Executive Committee didn’t supply the Judicial Committee with the evidence in question.”

  Then why are you siding with the Jud Comm if you “do not know for a fact” that the Exec Comm failed to furnish the Jud Comm with that evidence in question? You’re taking a position without — and I mean, without – the facts of the case as well. True, I am too, and I’m guilty of it; in fact, I should be on the fence in reference to that standpoint, but the Exec Comm clearly found a reason to suspend MB.

  Why else would they suspend him if the Committee didn’t have legitimate grounds to do such a thing? Are we talking about a political axe to grind here?

  Obviously, that’s been made unclear as well….assuming that’s possibly the case.

  “For one, thing, since I don’t know what the CHARGE was (and neither do you), I can’t possibly know what the evidence for it would consist of.”

  I don’t know what the evidence consists of as well, and I never CLAIMED to know what the evidence says. I do know that there is a court file (correction on the previous use of the word “files”) stating specific charges against him, and a number of California Libertarians are privy to the details of that information. What that information entails exactly, I don’t know. But I do know that incriminating evidence against MB exists, and he has been convicted of and served time for three of the six charge rape charges of which he stood accused.

  If you don’t possibly know what the evidence in relation to the charges consist of, then why are you defending the decision of the Jud Comm due to the lack of information? You should be on the fence, not taking sides on this matter.

  “You refer to ‘court files’ — and I have in fact carefully read the M!tt@w B*rnes file — but since I don’t know what the charge was I’m not going to assume that the charge involved that file, and since we have no account of the Judicial Committee hearing, I’m not going to assume that if the charge DID involve that file, that the file was in fact introduced as evidence.”

  Ok, since you admit you read the file (assuming it is available to the public), what did the file say? Charges had to have been specified in the file. What charge had been made against Barnes?

  If we have no account of the Jud Comm hearing, then how can you properly conclude that their reasoning is valid and just in the absence of any pertinent evidence against Barnes? How do you know that the file was not introduced as evidence? Are you implying that the Exec Comm just had an axe to grind and made up a bogus charge against Barnes in an effort to purge him from the Committee? Do you have any proof of that? Does the Jud Comm have any proof of that?

  More and more questions are popping up as this entire circus continues.

  “What I’ve said is simple: That given the 5-0 result, it seems reasonable to assume that there was some serious defect in the case rather than merely a unanimous set of biases. Biases tend to vary from person to person.”

  Even if that’s true, there is nothing to substantiate and vouch for the theory that you just posited. Until the facts bear themselves entirely and all we can do is theorize and assume a lot of things that happened between now and the Jud Comm’s hearing, it’s irrational to make these kinds of judgments. I will remain on the fence on this matter until the facts present themselves.

  “Apparently that’s one thing it has in common with the BTP’s national commitee circa 2008.”

  That’s completely unfair, and you know it, Tom.

  For those of you who want to know what happened in the BTP, what happened at that time was that a woman who went by the name of Dagny Kira Smith went public, contacted me personally on Facebook about the charge, and I sent her claim to then-Chair Jim Davidson. He told me to contact John Wayne Smith, which is what I did.

  I asked Smith if the molestation charge was true, and he emphatically denied it. Taking his word for it and instead of siding against him with her and thinking that he was lying, I publicly told Smith that she was lying. I stood by my decision at the time.

  I came off as rude to her, and Tom called me out on it. Perhaps I could have handled it differently, and I wasn’t looking to have an ego over it. My reasons for doing so are at the BTP website @ http://www.bostontea.us.

  But that’s in the past. Why did you attempt to re-hash it?

• 270 Look at the shiney monkey // Jan 31, 2010 at 5:06 pm

  While our attention has been diverted, has anyone noticed that the California ExCom is quietly getting filled with appointees with only days before those seats would have been voted on by the membership?

• 271 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 5:15 pm

  @263 Holtz,

  Oops. I stand corrected. My apologies. I went ahead without thinking and haven’t verified that yet.

  Once again, my apologies.

• 272 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 5:46 pm

  ELVIS COSTELLO – Blame It On Cain

  Once upon a time, I had a little money.
  Government burglars took it long
  before I could mail it to you.
  Still, you are the only one.
  Now I can’t let it slip away.
  So if the man with the ticker tape,
  he tries to take it,
  well this is what I’m gonna say.

  [Chorus:]
  Blame it on Cain.
  Don’t blame it on me.
  Oh, oh, it’s nobody’s fault,
  but we need somebody to burn.

  Well if I was a saint with
  a silver cup
  and the money got low
  we could always heat it up
  or trade it in.
  But then the radio that heaven will be wired to your purse.
  And then you can run down the wave band,
  coast to coast, hand in hand.
  Bad to worse, curse for curse,
  don’t be dissatisfied.
  So you’re not satisfied.

  [Chorus]

  I think I’ve lived a little too long
  on the outskirts of town
  I think I’m going insane
  from talking to myself for so long.
  Oh but I’ve never been accused.
  When they step on your face,
  you wear that good look grin.
  I gotta break out one weekend
  if I do somebody in.
  But every single time
  I feel a little stronger,
  they tell me it’s a crime.
  Well how much longer?

  [Chorus]

• 273 VTV // Jan 31, 2010 at 5:57 pm

  Wow…

  I am so glad I left all this behind me. I forgot just how utterly juvenile some of the elements in the LP could get. At least the LP in Michigan was awesome.

  I am surprised anyone is trying to blame Barr on anyone. It’s obvious from being someone who was there at the convention that the LP nomination just has to do with who’s delegates have travel expenses. I heard Barr’s people got together and bussed in. By the time of the convention most of the delegates already knew who they were voting for.

• 274 Gene Trosper // Jan 31, 2010 at 5:59 pm

  This thread reminds me of a song I used to hear on the Dr. Demento Show many years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJNV4FMpGh8
  

• 275 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 31, 2010 at 6:06 pm

  Todd,

  I have not “defended” the Judicial Committee’s ruling.

  I’ve simply pointed out that the Judicial Committee’s statement offers reason to consider that perhaps there might be some basis for that ruling other than a desire to defend the actions of M!tt#w B@rn^s.

  The Judicial Committee says it overturned the suspension because the Executive Committee didn’t prove its case.

  We don’t know what the executive committee’s case WAS, nor do we know what evidence for that case the executive committee presented.

  All we know is that the Judicial Committee unanimously found that case and that evidence unpersuasive.

  It is a gi-fucking-normous leap from what we KNOW to the conclusion that all five members of the LPCA’s Judicial Committee are secretly NAMBLA activists who found against the suspension because they think pedophilia is hunky-dory.

• 276 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 6:10 pm

  @268 , any idea who those appointees are?

• 277 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 31, 2010 at 6:17 pm

  VTV,

  You write:

  “I heard Barr’s people got together and bussed in.”

  You heard wrong.

  That was a rumor, but the alleged buses never showed up.

  There was no last-minute flood of delegates filling empty seats in pro-Barr delegations.

  I was one of a number of people from other campaigns watching for such developments and preparing for a challenge to any attempts at mass delegation-packing. Those attempts never came.

• 278 Average American // Jan 31, 2010 at 6:23 pm

  Will this thread finally break the record of the legendary Angela Keaton thread last year, which had 700 messages?

  In order for that to happen, the Greens and Constitution Party people should join this thread and start their own inteal rnbickering. We also need for Robert Milnes, Don Lake, Catholic Trotskyist and The Last Conservative to crawl out from under their rocks and start posting their amazingly thoughtful comments here.

  Is it possible that “91%” and his other pseudonyms are actually the same person as Catholic Trotskyist or The Last Conservative? I doubt it, but is it possible?

• 279 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 6:35 pm

  TK__A certain young lady called “Girl”
  Was accustomed base charges to hurl
  No evidence needed
  For a rumor well-seeded
  Certain words put her mind in a whirl

  me_ very clever…

  there once was a man named TK
  who hurled rumors at the Root everyday
  no evidence needed
  for a rumor well seeded
  he just says anything that he may

• 280 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 31, 2010 at 7:25 pm

  LibertarianGirl,

  Nice try.

  Now — name a single “rumor” I’ve ever “hurled” at Root.

  You can’t, because I don’t hurl rumors, I make factual claims — and then I prove them.

• 281 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 7:47 pm

  not to my standards , and can you please answer in poem I was having fun.

• 282 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 7:52 pm

  So , I need to apologize to Brian Holtz, I mistakenly thought he was sinner and saint on another thread . I thought this because he was at least 2 other pseudonyms on that thread that we’re defending Barnes and because when I suggested that S&S was Barnes himself , one of B’s pseudo’s said he knew FOR SURE it wasnt . I jumped to a conclusion and it was wrong , hasnt been my first , wont be my last but Im big enuf to admit when Im wrong so …
  I apologize Brian , while it appears we strongly disagree on this matter , I do respect you and on further analysis of that comment I can see it totally wasnt your style. sorry.

• 283 David F. Nolan // Jan 31, 2010 at 7:52 pm

  For what it’s worth, I’ve never known Tom Knapp to hurl unsubstantiated rumors about anyone. I don’t always agree with him, but Tom is a good writer and the closest thing to a legitimate investigative journalist we’ve got around here.

• 284 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 8:04 pm

  I could go way way back and dig up the threads but i friggin hit a Mercedes Benz on the freeway yesterday and Im tired , achy and dont feel like it, but Im sure Tom will remember the banter he and I did , it was long ago and there was a lot of it.

  at the time I thought I won those arguments and I still do . But out of respect to WAR I will not mention his name even one more time on this thread.

• 285 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 8:05 pm

  and I LOVE Toms RRND , been a subscriber for a long long time. Can we go back to poetry , it was fun and taking my mind off things:)

• 286 David F. Nolan // Jan 31, 2010 at 8:08 pm

  L-girl and a fellow named Tom
  Exchanged words while defusing a bomb
  They got quite engaged
  While the rest were enraged
  And everything then went ka-boom!

  (OK, so “bomb” and “ka-boom” don’t quite rhyme. Sue me.)

• 287 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 8:15 pm

  Nice , thanks:)

• 288 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 8:20 pm

  Knapp is indeed generally very good on substantiation, but there is one occasion that still sticks in my craw. He has been known to say without any context that the 2008 LP nominee “publicly advocated government distribution of child porn on demand”.

  The actual fact of the matter is that Bob Barr merely called for Georgia state law to be followed in the case of a 17-year-old male convicted of child molestation for receiving video-recorded consensual oral sex from a 15-year-old girl. Here was Barr’s so-called “advocacy”:

  The [federal Justice] department’s statement noted — correctly — that federal laws dealing with child pornography make the distribution thereof a crime. The federal government’s statement also correctly recognized, albeit implicitly, that Georgia law requires that “public records” (a term very broadly defined under state law) generally must be made available to the public.

  Insofar as both the U.S. and Georgia constitutions provide for trials in criminal cases to be open to the public, clearly it makes sense for the evidence in such cases to be similarly open to inspection by the public. Only if there is evidence that a court explicitly orders be kept under seal, such as might otherwise endanger life or an ongoing investigation, is it proper for a public official, such as a district attorney, to refuse to make records of a trial available publicly, following conclusion of the case.

  The Georgia Open Records Act is even more explicit. If the judge with jurisdiction over a case does not approve public inspection of the evidence, the person responsible for the maintenance of the evidence, including a district attorney, is then required by the law to make available a reproduction or copy.

  I don’t recall Tom ever admitting that his characterization was misleading. I now keep this example firmly in mind when I hear Tom make an inflammatory accusation against another Libertarian.

• 289 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 31, 2010 at 8:37 pm

  Brian,

  I’m glad that sticks in your craw.

  The statement I made regarding Barr was strictly accurate — he advocated following the law, and the law required distribution of child pornography on demand by the state of Georgia.

  You may or may not have noticed, but usually when I pull that characterization out, it’s in retort to someone else’s observation that, while possibly strictly accurate, doesn’t reach the essential truth of the matter under discussion.

  Do I believe that Bob Barr likes the idea of government distribution of child pornography on demand? No, not any more than I believe that Mary Ruwart thinks that it’s okay to diddle kids. The attacks on her were just as silly — but sometimes not quite as strictly accurate — as my attack on Barr.

• 290 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 31, 2010 at 8:44 pm

  There’s a person who goes by LG
  Though I’m told that her name starts with D
  And I don’t give a hoot
  If she stands up for Root
  Cause what happens there stays in LV.

• 291 Ralph // Jan 31, 2010 at 8:50 pm

  A clock one minute ahead is never accurate.

  A broken clock is accurate twice a day.

  Is that accurate?

• 292 Ralph // Jan 31, 2010 at 8:55 pm

  @284

  David, are you going to take any leadership beyond your occasional editorials in what many perceive as the growing if not soon fatal problems in the LP? Or is the good word to just muddle on as before ? A lot of people are wondering.

• 293 George Phillies // Jan 31, 2010 at 8:59 pm

  Meanwhile, for those of you not so discouraged by this that you are going to fade from doing real politics, I have posted at

  http://libertyforamerica.com/downloadabletrifolds.htm

  two trifolds thet are entirely downloadable and usable. They are presented as: trifolds with blank sides for local or state group information, MS-PUB files for people needing further editing, and full trifolds as examples of things that can be done.

  They match several major outreach events here in Massachusetts on ending the war on pot and on GLBT rights.

  Readers are welcome to them.

  These trifolds are an example of what our party should be doing at the national level, rather than perpetually bogging down in the sort of issues seen here.

• 294 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:01 pm

  Tom, on 2008-10-24, you made that allegation about Barr simply to make a ludicrously strained analogy with Ruwart: The mainstream media has given precisely zero attention to Bob Barr’s 2007 public advocacy of government distribution of child porn on demand. Why would anyone believe that they’d have been any more hyperbolic about Mary Ruwart’s 1998 non-advocacy of child porn?

  But in fact, Ruwart had reiterated in May 2008: Bans on child p0rn0graphy are like bans on drugs and prostitution. They don’t work. They only make a bad situation worse. We’ve driven the child p0rn0graphy market underground, where profits soar and criminals abound. [...] We can limit abuse of children in the child p0rn0graphy trade by ending its prohibition. [...] Courts are likely to consider that pre-pubescent children had been coerced, since desire would be absent. The burden of proof would be on the p0rn0graphy producer or older sex partner to show that coercion, e.g. rape, had not occurred.

  She thus stood by her statement in her book: Children who willingly participate in sexual acts have the right to make that decision as well, even if it’s distasteful to us personally. Some children will make for choice is just as some adults do in smoking and drinking to excess; this is part of life. When we outlaw child p0rn0graphy, if the prices paid for child performers rise, increasing the incentives for parents to use children against their will.

  Readers here can judge for themselves whether they can in the future trust Tom when he makes analogies between Libertarians he likes and Libertarians he doesn’t like.

• 295 Sara // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:17 pm

  I wonder if Bruce did have a thing with Todd? Considering everything that went on here. LOL.

• 296 Todd Andrew Barnett // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:20 pm

  There’s sadly a man named Brian
  Who has a penchant for lyin’
  He says bullshit for kicks
  Dangling carrots with sticks
  And then he comes back a-cryin’

  This isn’t my best limerick, but hey, it works!

• 297 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:23 pm

  Brian,

  I don’t consider the analogy “ludicrously strained” at all.

  Both were making sound arguments from particular principles.

  Barr’s argument was largely ignored even a year later, but taken correctly when it was noticed.

  Ruwart’s argument was dredged up a decade later and used to smear her as approving of child sex/child porn.

  The statement I made regarding Barr was strictly accurate. More accurate, indeed, than some of the statements made about Ruwart.

  As far as whom I “like” and “don’t like,” I happen to like both Bob Barr and Mary Ruwart.

• 298 Thomas L. Knapp // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:25 pm

  Apropos of the madness of the situation in California …

• 299 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:27 pm

  Nice trifolds, George — good work.

  As long as we’re on a practical-politics interlude in the thread you asked to be created, I just set up my latest free Libertarian campaign site: http://www.rodriguezgoestowashington.com/. My queue for creating these is currently empty, so any LP candidate who wants one can have one on a first-come-first-served basis.

• 300 Not-So-Average American // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:30 pm

  Average American at 276, this person is a libertarian, and all libertarians are a bunch of commies. Fuck off.

• 301 Gene Trosper // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:31 pm

  Earlier today, I was made aware of an online discussion of Barnes at –of all places– a Craigslist political discussion forum. I have debated for hours whether to post the link here or not, but I have decided to go ahead and do it. The LPCA needs to know that Matthew Barnes’ continuing refusal to walk away and fade into the background is HARMING the party.

  Everyone can argue about technicalities all they wish (that seems to be the forte of Libertarians anyway), but the fact remains: Matthew Barnes is not an asset to the LPCA and is instead a millstone around the organization’s neck.

  Here is the link. It appears discussion started yesterday.
  http://inlandempire.craigslist.org/pol/

• 302 William Shakespeare // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:33 pm

  Catholic Trotskyist and Robert Milnes started a party with Lindsey Lohen
  they ran a presidential ticket of Todd Barnett and Bruce Cohen
  Ralph Nader was enraged
  Alan Keyes tore off a page
  And now they’re all fighting for Chuck Baldwin.

• 303 Gene Trosper // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:34 pm

  @291 Good work, George. Those are nice brochures.

• 304 Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:34 pm

  Huh?

• 305 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:37 pm

  Tom, you have a reputation/image as a hard-nosed realist when it comes to practical politics. If you want to claim that the statements quoted above from Barr and Ruwart were roughly equivalent in terms of the risk of controversy/blowback to the LP over child pornography, well, then just digging yourself deeper into the lack-of-credibility hole.

  For example, you try now to dispute my characterization about your differential opinion of Barr and Ruwart, saying blandly that you like them both. Readers thus are conveniently not told that you call one of them “a dixiecrat rather than a libertarian”, and refused to vote for him.

  Again, readers can decide for themselves whether Tom feels free to mislead readers when it suits him.

• 306 Another Cowardly Anonymous Poster // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:39 pm

  #268 Please stop making stuff up. The CaExCom is not quietly filling seats.

  Stone Soup is Matthew Barnes.

• 307 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:41 pm

  Sara@293 That’s really revolting.

  You Virginia Libertarians have nothing better to say? Ewwwww..

  Knight Bruce of the Jewboys is feeling nauseous.

• 308 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:42 pm

  @288 , very clever , and thanks:) at least the poetry is entertaining

• 309 Gene Trosper // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:44 pm

  @304 — More like a shuffling of seats.

• 310 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:48 pm

  Holy cow the Craig’s List discussion is wild, folks. People are saying some amazing things, for example:
  http://inlandempire.craigslist.org/pol/1579516715.html
  “San Bernardino Libertarian Party is a cult really. I went to one of their meetings and they are way way out there. Even the California state party hates them. Children and adults should all stay away from them.”

  I can’t make this stuff up.
  My imagination isn’t good enough.

  I’ve been saying for a long time that Mister B*rn*s was bad news.

  I don’t have an enemies list like he and King Naga do, but I do have a big, loud mouth.

• 311 Jill Pyeatt // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:49 pm

  Thanks for posting the Craigslist link, Gene. As I said earlier, I do believe most people get what we were trying to do, although obviously it was not executed properly. If Matthew Barnes remains visibly active in the Libertarian party, it will harm us. Argue all you want, but that’s not solving things. The fact that I posted a long piece last night, and my husband posted this morning and hardly anyone noticed proves that nobody except Gene and LG really cares about what really happened. We were both on the Ca Ex Com and we both knew what went on, but yet you’re too busy arguing to take notice.

  This entire thread is unbelievable.

• 312 Don Lake .......... Jim Lesczynski, 2008 // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:58 pm

  He categorically repudiates the content of the newsletters. But at best, the scandal shows stupendously poor judgment on Dr. Paul’s part.

  How do you let a newsletter go out in your name–a politician’s most valuable asset–without being aware of the content?

  As a long-time libertarian activist, I entirely understand that our movement has more than its fair share of nut jobs. The “mainstream” political movements and parties have their nutters too [almost certainly more than we do in absolute terms] but our numbers are so small to begin with that ours are more vocal and visible.

  When you’re working with a really tiny talent pool, you sometimes can’t be too choosy about your allies. But that’s all the more reason to exercise due diligence when it’s your name that’s on the line.

• 313 Lady Gaura // Jan 31, 2010 at 9:59 pm

  *Silently gazing
  upon the words of sages,
  unmoved by fool’s games*

• 314 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 10:07 pm

  Ms. Pyeatt, I replied to both your posting and your husband’s. Neither of you have answered me. To say that “nobody except Gene and LG really cares about what really happened” is simply unfair.

  I followed a link from the uninteresting CraigsList discussion to the far more interesting San Bernardino County Sun discussion. There I read that on Dec. 28 a Bruce Cohen wrote: “Matt raped multiple young boys. Three of them, serially. When he was their Scoutmaster. He raped his younger relatives, too.”

  California law defines rape as involving “sexual intercourse”. There is no such allegation anywhere in MB’s court file.

  If Cohen really posted that, then he should be suspended from the LPCA until he either substantiates it or apologizes for it.

• 315 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 10:11 pm

  Jill , if you ever decide to move to NV , the LPNevada would be honored to have you run and most certainly win a seat on our excom .

  you hold your head high , you did what was right.

• 316 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 10:23 pm

  BH_Ms. Pyeatt, I replied to both your posting and your husband’s. Neither of you have answered me. To say that “nobody except Gene and LG really cares about what really happened” is simply unfair.

  me_ i think it’s a fair assessment youve bee working overtime defending Matt to the point of , on another thread minimizing his actions to the point of ridiculousness .

  you said under the pseudonym Phrenologist:

  “If you as a 19-year-old troubled alcoholic fondled a young teenager, then by definition you as a 41-year-old with a subsequently clean record are nevertheless a permanent threat to all children and must be jailed for life for the good of society.”

  me_ almost every word of that statement is a gross minimization. “troubled alcoholic” — the excuse minimization ; “fondled a teenager” — another mischaracterization , im gonna get gross but he jacked off little boys , not fondled , and since when are 11 yr olds teenagers Brian??

• 317 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 10:33 pm

  I already corrected the part about substance abuse. “Fondled” is the word from his court file; your gross words aren’t in there. In subsequent characterizations I just gave the age ranges: 11 to 13 years old. As I told you four days ago:

  LG, the facts of the case remain as follows. Barnes served his time for these three acts (fondling 11- to 13- year-old boys) that he committed two decades ago when he was their 19-year-old scout leader. He presumably paid into the victim’s restitution fund that his case file quotes the judge saying he would have to pay. His expressed deep regret for his crimes, which he aptly called “heinous”. There is still apparently no evidence that he ever offended again in the subsequent two decades, despite claims here that he has had ample opportunity. He quietly resigned his state ExCom seat when his court file first circulated. His county knew of his record when they subsequently elected him. You can shout all you want, but the facts remain what they are. No less, and no more.

  Meanwhile, at the same time and place as Cohen above, you wrote: “there is a huge difference between legalizing prostitution and thinking its ok for an adult to rape a 12 yr old”.

  So please don’t lecture me about mischaracterizing MB’s crimes, Debra.

• 318 Don Lake .......... Lib Grrl and other critics // Jan 31, 2010 at 10:49 pm

  “His county knew of his record when they subsequently elected him. You can shout all you want, but the facts remain what they are. No less, and no more.”

  Lot’s more, don’t worry ’bout the shouting, but what will the public whisper ???????

  Ron Paul and the 1988 newsletter, the road to ruin ………..

• 319 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:03 pm

  ok , I accept that , technically rape means penetration , and I never meant to imply he penetrated those boys .
  to me i use it generally to mean a gross offense against another like:

  the gov rapes us with taxes

  I felt raped when i found out my home got robbed

  etc

• 320 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:04 pm

  however , you have been working overtime defending him Brian . and Id just like to point out that I personally dont believe that all the cases he was caught and charged with are the only offenses he committed , do you?

• 321 Alan Pyeatt // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:07 pm

  Brian @ 314 – to reply to your post @ 257, we certainly DO need to improve our communication. Unfortunately, we are having some problems with CalFreedom due to our budget, so we will be going to an electronic format in the near future (I expected that we would already be there). Not only the LP, but the libertarian movement in general needs more/better media outlets. I have done some minor work in this area, and hope to help better fill this void in the future.

  BTW, Jill is off-line at the moment and probably won’t be back until later this evening.

  IMHO, it is not accurate to refer to this incident as a “purge.” Speaking only for myself, my goal has been to protect the party’s brand name, and our ability to fulfill our mission. Therefore, I think Gene’s post @ 301 is helpful in that it refocuses our attention on the implications of certain baggage that some individuals regrettably bring with them. We need to step outside the dynamics of our own organization, and look at how we are perceived by the American electorate.

  While I don’t agree with everything Jill says or thinks, my take on this whole issue is that libertarians have a tendency to get so bogged down in details and sparring with individuals that we are missing the big picture. So even if you want to quibble with details of her post @ 311, its spirit is entirely accurate. We need to focus on solutions and saving our democratic republic from real dangers, instead of quibbling among ourselves.

  Also, if we don’t reply to you, please don’t read too much into it. We have lives beyond the internet. Same for you Bruce; although I still have my suspicions or concerns as expressed on the Jim Duensing thread, I’m not trying to be rude by not replying, I’m just trying to conduct my life in the analog realm. BTW, I do appreciate your comments @ 256. Even though I am The Angry Ostrich. : )

• 322 Mentally raped // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:07 pm

  Actually mentally raped them if you want to put it that way.

• 323 LibertarianGirl // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:08 pm

  he stole their innocence Brian and that is a crime with permanent consequences , you say he has paid his debt but all I can ponder is how is actions fucked up those boys lives after the fact . I wonder if any of them became substance abusers because of it , I wonder if any of them became offenders to reclaim their powerlessness , I just wonder if they’re ok today.

• 324 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:12 pm

  When his record first circulated, I worked overtime to defend the LPCA from having someone with his record as a party officer. Now I’m working overtime to defend the LPCA from a precedent of purges based on flimsy charges, and to defend LPCA members from inaccurate or unsubstantiated allegations.

  If you don’t like to see me working overtime on that, then you and your allies should stop putting out so much stuff that cries out for correcting or substantiating.

  If you guys were doing it right, I wouldn’t have a thing to do here. Not one thing to do.

  Think about that, Debra.

• 325 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:15 pm

  Debra, your @323 is an argument that the ExCom (and you!) failed morally by not advocating immediate expulsion as soon as you folks learned of his criminal record.

  You need to make up your mind on that question once and for all, and quit waffling on it.

• 326 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:22 pm

  Mr. Pyeatt, being sincere and well-intentioned is not a guarantee that one is being fair, and isn’t making any serious mistakes.

  The answer here is very simple. ExCom should notify Barnes in writing that anyone with his record is subject to suspension whenever he is holding any LPCA office at any level.

  I would have no problem with that, and I bet JudCom wouldn’t either.

• 327 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:26 pm

  Brian has decided to revive a near dormat discussion thread about the same matter.

  So, in the spirit of openness and transparency of the Libertarian tradition, I want to share said link with everyone:
  http://www.topix.net/forum/source/san-bernardino-county-sun/TVBUHKGFNPI9PNS5V

  Also, my correction about the colluquial use of the word ‘rape’ is addressed there in comment #78

  Originally four newspapers carried the story at least in their online editions, and they all sent the discussion to that ‘topix’ spot.

  So great, let’s get that one started again.

  How many internet discussion forums can we get going at once about this?

• 328 David F. Nolan // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:28 pm

  Ralph@292 – I plan to run for the LNC, and will be speaking out on the issues of the day.

• 329 Attention Seeker // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:42 pm

  All of the most interesting posts are getting no response. Why?

• 330 Chairman Mao // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:43 pm

  I love Stalin. God bless socialism.

• 331 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:48 pm

  Harkening back to Gene Trosper’s research about the online discussion at Craig’s List, interestingly enough, if one goes to Craig’s List Politics, and searches under [Libertarian] the words “child molester” pop up five times, even in Los Angeles and not just Inland Empire.

• 332 Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:54 pm

  Cohen didn’t apologize, but I guess that would be asking too much from someone of his character.

  However, he did (mostly) correct his false accusation of “rape” — even while repeating yet again his malicious and unsubstantiated insinuation that MB has violated the law against his “working directly and in an unaccompanied setting with minor children on more than an incidental and occasional basis or have supervision or disciplinary power over minor children”.

  Sigh.

• 333 Bruce Cohen // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:59 pm

  I’m not so sure how malicious or unsubstantiated that is, but it is a concern of mine, certainly. In this recent post on topix, I wasn’t ‘insinuating’ anything about the law, I was discussing the matter of him being around unnotified children and parents.

  That’s a concern for me, and I bet they would say it is a concern for them.

  No insinuations.

• 334 Brian Holtz // Feb 1, 2010 at 12:09 am

  Bruce, you wrote: “I wonder what his Parole Officer would say of him being in a position of influence around minors, especially in his role as an elected official of the Libertarian Party of California.”

  Not only did you insinuate that he was violating the statutory restriction on him, but you also insinuated that the LPCA has placed him in a role that would violate that restriction.

  That’s despicable, Bruce. Why isn’t the truth enough?

• 335 Thomas L. Knapp // Feb 1, 2010 at 12:12 am

  Brian,

  You write:

  “you try now to dispute my characterization about your differential opinion of Barr and Ruwart, saying blandly that you like them both. Readers thus are conveniently not told that you call one of them ‘a dixiecrat rather than a libertarian.’ and refused to vote for him.”

  Nice try at making me responsible for your words.

  Here’s what you wrote:

  “Readers here can judge for themselves whether they can in the future trust Tom when he makes analogies between Libertarians he likes and Libertarians he doesn’t like.”

  Barr and Ruwart are both Libertarians (capital “L,” just like you used, denoting party membership rather than philosophical orientation). That’s a fact which I assume we can agree on.

  I like them both. That’s a factual claim which I’m qualified to make and which you’re not qualified to dispute unless you have access to some kind of probe implanted in my brain.

  I’m quite capable of liking Libertarians with whom I have significant ideological disagreements — even disagreements that I might believe invalidate their claims to being libertarians (small-l, signifying ideological orientation, not partisan affiliation).

  You and I have significant ideological disagreements. I like you.

  Bruce Cohen and I have significant ideological disagreements. I like Bruce.

  I am the friggin’ anti-Dondero ideologically, but I’ve broken bread with him before and I expect that I’ll do so again some time.

  The claim I made about Barr was strictly accurate and I didn’t make it because I “don’t like” him. I made it because I had a point to make, because it made that point, and because it was not only strictly accurate but irrefutably provable.

• 336 LibertarianGirl // Feb 1, 2010 at 12:17 am

  BH_When his record first circulated, I worked overtime to defend the LPCA from having someone with his record as a party officer. Now I’m working overtime to defend the LPCA from a precedent of purges based on flimsy charges, and to defend LPCA members from inaccurate or unsubstantiated allegations.

  me_ really is that all your doing just defending the LPCA from bad precedent from purges??

  so you’re saying you havent defended Matts actions or tried to excuse them at all??

  but what about when you said this::
  If you as a 19-year-old troubled alcoholic fondled a young teenager, then by definition you as a 41-year-old with a subsequently clean record are nevertheless a permanent threat to all children and must be jailed for life for the good of society. If you ever shoplifted, you’re a lifelong klepto. If you ever played with fire, you’re a lifelong pyro. If you ever went streaking, you’re a lifelong exhibitionist. If you ever looked in a neighbor’s window, you’re a lifelong voyeur. None of these conditions can be reformed or controlled.

  me_ are you saying you were not minmizing his actions ?? are you saying you werent comparing his actions to those of a shoplifter??

  the above post is in fact entirely defending Matt and had nothing to do with protecting precedent , so please , quit talking out both sides of your neck.

  BH_Brian Holtz // Jan 31, 2010 at 11:15 pm

  Debra, your @323 is an argument that the ExCom (and you!) failed morally by not advocating immediate expulsion as soon as you folks learned of his criminal record.

  You need to make up your mind on that question once and for all, and quit waffling on it.

  me_ um when I spoke about it at all , I was told by you and many others to mind my own business , my calling for anything where I carry no weight is moot.

  BH_If you don’t like to see me working overtime on that, then you and your allies should stop putting out so much stuff that cries out for correcting or substantiating.

  me _I dont have any allies in the CALP , and Ive said not 1 rumor , what I have said is that I believe the claims of intimidation and lies lodged by others . I mean lets face it – their word against a predators is really a no brainer.

• 337 LibertarianGirl // Feb 1, 2010 at 12:19 am

  David , what position will you be running for ??

• 338 Brian Holtz // Feb 1, 2010 at 12:22 am

  Tom, nowhere in this thread have I claimed that the statements I’ve cited from you aren’t “strictly accurate”. What I’ve instead said is that the statements in question misled your readers, and invited them to believe things that differ significantly from what is actually the case. Namely:

  1) That Bob Barr advocates as a general policy that on-demand distribution of child pornography should be a service of government.

  2) That the statements quoted above from Barr and Ruwart were roughly equivalent in terms of the risk of controversy/blowback to the LP over child pornography.

  3) That you have no differential motivation or agenda in how you characterize the respective views of Barr and Ruwart.

• 339 LibertarianGirl // Feb 1, 2010 at 12:30 am

  BH_What I’ve instead said is that the statements in question misled your readers, and invited them to believe things that differ significantly from what is actually the case.

  me_ Im agreeing with B on this one , for instance you brought up that Wayne had 22 complaints withe BBB misleading people to believe he had a bad business customer satidfaction . you never once mentioned he had all of those complained handled to 100% satisfaction with dispute resolution and in fact had a rating of A with the BBB. your statement wasnt exactly a lie but it was misleading propaganda-ish

• 340 LibertarianGirl // Feb 1, 2010 at 12:31 am

  oops , I said his name and didnt mean to…my bad

• 341 Gene Trosper // Feb 1, 2010 at 12:36 am

  @334 “Not only did you insinuate that he was violating the statutory restriction on him, but you also insinuated that the LPCA has placed him in a role that would violate that restriction.”

  To be fair, the LPCA didn’t put him in a position. However, I would venture to say the San Bernardino folk did so willingly after they knew of his molestation past.

• 342 Thomas L. Knapp // Feb 1, 2010 at 12:47 am

  LG,

  You write:

  “I’m agreeing with B on this one , for instance you brought up that Wayne had 22 complaints withe BBB misleading people to believe he had a bad business customer satidfaction . you never once mentioned he had all of those complained handled to 100% satisfaction with dispute resolution”

  I never once mentioned that because it is a patently false that I would be embarrassed to be caught making and that you should be embarrassed to make yourself.

  At the time I covered Wayne’s BBB record, he had the highest customer complaint rate and the lowest satisfactory resolution rate of any business I compared him to, including every business that he asserted his record would look better than.

  Your problem, LG, is that you’re easy to bullshit. I’m not.

• 343 Brian Holtz // Feb 1, 2010 at 1:18 am

  Debra, I have absolutely “defended” Barnes’s actions — for example, from your inaccurate characterization of “rape”. I have also repeatedly condemned Barnes’s actions as “heinous”, etc.

  Correcting false statements about action X does not mean that I defend the morality of action X.

  That one subsequently-corrected paragraph that you just can’t stop repeating was a hypothetical from me, rebutting the utterly unlibertarian idea from you and others that certain people can be considered effectively guilty of future crimes because of the nature of their past crimes. That sentiment is disgusting, and I will always oppose it. You tell me how many years you think MB should have got for his past crimes, and I probably won’t bother arguing for a lower number. But if you argue that he should be punished for future crimes you presume he will probably commit, then I will argue against that tyrannical idea to my last breath. So tell us now: do you reject prior restraint and all its works and empty promises?

  And yes, arguing against prior restraint has everything to do with protecting the LPCA — against the sick and evil precedent that members can be sanctioned for the mob’s predictions of the accused’s future crimes. My comment was aimed directly at you, after you were asked “Do you have evidence that Mr. Barnes is likely to commit further violent acts?” Your response was to shout: “THERE IS NO REFORMING BEING A PEDOPHILE”. If you think MB should be locked away for life, then have the courage to say so.

  I never told you that you can have no opinion on MB. I just pleaded with you not to do things that would help lead to his criminal record being publicly associated with the LPCA. Admit it: you’ve earlier said you didn’t think he should be suspended. So I don’t want to hear from you that somebody with his criminal record deserves to be suspended, unless you admit that your standards are changing on this case from day to day.

  You say: “I’ve said not 1 rumor , what I have said is that I believe the claims of intimidation and lies lodged by others.” Debra, saying “I believe [rumor X]” counts as spreading rumor X. That could not be any more obvious.

  I’d have to know more details about the crimes he confessed to in order to guess whether he committed more crimes than those. However, I do know that 1) he should be considered innocent until proven guilty, and 2) simply doubling or tripling the exact crimes he committed wouldn’t appreciably change my opinions about this case.

  Mr. Trosper, are you suggesting that the LPSBD has its Vice Chair “working directly and in an unaccompanied setting with minor children on more than an incidental and occasional basis or have supervision or disciplinary power over minor children”? I’ve never heard of any LP affiliate anywhere that offers babysitting by its Vice Chair, and I seriously doubt that the LPSBD is going to offer such a service while MB holds that office.

  343 comments. What is there left to say on this case that hasn’t already been said?

  Well, there’s always room on IPR for more inaccurate or unsubstantiated allegations against one’s fellow Libertarians. Bring ‘em on. I’ve got chunks of ‘em in my stool.

• 344 Thomas L. Knapp // Feb 1, 2010 at 1:42 am

  Brian,

  “Liking” versus “not liking” two people is VERY different from having a “differential motivation or agenda” involving two people.

  If you’re suggesting that I look for ways to talk up candidates I support, and look for weaknesses to exploit versus candidates I oppose, you’re fucking-A right I do. That’s called “politics.”

• 345 David F. Nolan // Feb 1, 2010 at 1:44 am

  @337 – LNC Member At Large. Not aligned with any candidate for Chair … so far.

• 346 paulie // Feb 1, 2010 at 1:48 am

  Is it possible that “91%” and his other pseudonyms are actually the same person as Catholic Trotskyist or The Last Conservative? I doubt it, but is it possible?

  no. posted w/ authorization from “91%”

• 347 Romor Monger // Feb 1, 2010 at 1:49 am

  I allege that Brian Holtz and Matthew Barnes are a pod people from Venus.

  I also allege that Bruce Cohen and LG, in fighting the Venusian pod infiltration, do not have the interests of Earth at heart. They’re actually Martian Fifth Columnists who plan to add Earth to their Red Empire, once the Venusian threat is defeated.

  I know this for a fact. I am right now holding in my hand a 5000 page document of proof, which I can’t show to anyone, because of confidentiality laws. But this document does exist, and anyone who denies it is either a Running Dog Martian or a Venusian Dupe.

• 348 Lidia Seebeck // Feb 1, 2010 at 1:49 am

  David, does that mean you are no longer favoring Mark?

• 349 Brian Holtz // Feb 1, 2010 at 1:57 am

  Tom, what I wrote was: “Readers here can judge for themselves whether they can in the future trust Tom when he makes analogies between Libertarians he likes and Libertarians he doesn’t like.”

  Readers of course know that I’m not simply complaining that you’re an advocate.

  Just like they know that by “likes” I meant “supports” rather than “is congenial toward”.

  Readers of course know that what I’m suggesting is that you too often try to be as misleading as possible within the constraints of “strict accuracy”.

  And thank you for not denying that your “strictly accurate” statements didn’t conveniently tend to guide readers toward the three inaccurate conclusions I enumerated above.

• 350 David F. Nolan // Feb 1, 2010 at 1:59 am

  @348 – I have an order of preference among the candidates, but I have not endorsed anyone, and will not until after the LNC Meeting in Austin. I plan to meet with each of them, and may “come out” after Austin. Mark is a personal friend, but I think this situation with B**** may have made him unelectable. Root-rot will use it to slime him every way he can.

• 351 paulie // Feb 1, 2010 at 2:03 am

  I’ve heard Mark Rutherford may also be a candidate for chair. David or anyone, any thoughts?

• 352 paulie // Feb 1, 2010 at 2:09 am

  David F. Nolan // Feb 1, 2010 at 1:44 am

  @337 – LNC Member At Large. Not aligned with any candidate for Chair … so far.

  Should we post a general announcement, or hold off until you have a formal announcement written up?

• 353 David F. Nolan // Feb 1, 2010 at 2:11 am

  @352 – Hold off, please. I will send you an announcement this week, maybe even later today.

• 354 Lady Gaura // Feb 1, 2010 at 2:21 am

  Fox-tail brushes sand
  under jet kimono silk–
  a statue at night.

• 355 Chairman Mao // Feb 1, 2010 at 2:23 am

  I nominate Eric Dondero for LNC chair.

• 356 Beef don-don-off // Feb 1, 2010 at 2:33 am

  I nominate Dondero for the Judas chair

  http://www.medievality.com/chair.html

• 357 Beef don-don-off // Feb 1, 2010 at 2:36 am

  Not literally, of course.

• 358 Chuck Moulton // Feb 1, 2010 at 2:40 am

  I don’t currently live in California and I don’t have any inside knowledge of this situation going beyond what has been posted in this thread.

  I did live in California for a year though, serve on the LPCA’s Ex-Com, and befriend many of the people posting here. And I know enough about the LPCA’s bylaws and Robert’s Rules to give the judicial committee the benefit of the doubt (following procedure without condoning behavior).

  I just want to say that I appreciate the thoughtful logic of Brian Holtz and Tom Knapp. Keep up the good work, guys.

  I don’t mean to denigrate (by omission in my praise) the contributions of others who have chipped in with relevant comments and maintained decorum, but Brian and Tom are really the gold standard of constructively critical — while still respectful — discussion and this thread would have been much more readable if more had followed their examples.

• 359 Thomas L. Knapp // Feb 1, 2010 at 2:59 am

  Brian,

  You write:

  “And thank you for not denying that your ’strictly accurate’ statements didn’t conveniently tend to guide readers toward the three inaccurate conclusions I enumerated above.”

  I deny that all three of the conclusions you enumerate are inaccurate.

  Here are the conclusions that you claim I “invite” –

  “1) That Bob Barr advocates as a general policy that on-demand distribution of child pornography should be a service of government.”

  Anyone who bothered to read the evidence I presented for my ACCURATE claim could not plausibly reach such a conclusion.

  The reason I made the claim was demonstrative — it was more “strictly accurate” than most of the claims made regarding Ruwart on the same topic. I was inviting Ruwart’s critics to decide if they were willing to be as fuck-silly about Barr as they were willing to be about her. Most of them demurred, thus demonstrating their hypocrisy.

  “2) That the statements quoted above from Barr and Ruwart were roughly equivalent in terms of the risk of controversy/blowback to the LP over child pornography.”

  I wouldn’t say they were “roughly equivalent.” Ruwart has always been known as a radical libertarian, and radical libertarians have always been known as prone to questioning taboo.

  Barr, on the other hand, was a former congressman with a high profile. HIS advocacy of government distribution of child pornography on demand was MUCH more potentially controversial than was Ruwart’s.

  “3) That you have no differential motivation or agenda in how you characterize the respective views of Barr and Ruwart.”

  I’ve never invited anyone to believe that I have no differential motivations with respect to candidates. Why the hell would I attempt to conceal my stock in trade as a campaign operative? Make no mistake about it — I am the bastard child of Richard Jemmons and Libby Holden.

• 360 Brian Holtz // Feb 1, 2010 at 3:27 am

  “Anyone who bothered to read the evidence I presented for my ACCURATE claim could not plausibly reach such a conclusion.”

  Duh — my entire point is that the evidence underlying your statement did not support the belief you were trying to create in people who did not bother to fact-check your statement.

  It’s beside the point that people were making inaccurate statements about Ruwart. You tossed your own credibility into the same hole when you did the same thing about Barr. You may think the ends somehow justified the misleading means, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t mislead.

  And you didn’t make this misleading claim in just this one context about Ruwart. You also used it in a completely different context, as part of an effort to — wait for it — demonstrate that Barr had a campaign strategy of appealing to racism.

  Come to think of it, this is sort of a signature Knapp polemical move: make an outrageously inflammatory and misleading statement, for which you have in your back pocket a little factoid that if necessary you will claim somehow makes your misleading statement “strictly accurate”. I’ve seen it often enough now that I read between your lines for the mental smirk that usually accompanies it, and usually don’t bother with the exercise of fact-checking it, because it never seems to pay off in me finding out to be true what you wanted me to believe.

  Coincidentally, M Carling likes to do a similar thing, but only in in-person social settings. He does it as kind of a parlor trick, to goad people into asking about his preposterous or inflammatory assertion, and then he’ll smile as he reveals the factoid or interpretation that makes his assertion true in some strained sense. If it’s just him and me, I sometimes turn the tables by not asking what he’s talking about, just to see him almost physically wrestle with the urge to volunteer an explanation. It’s all good clean fun.

• 361 Chairman Mao // Feb 1, 2010 at 3:39 am

  Beef-don, you are a Trotskyist deviationist pig.
  God bless the pope.

• 362 Mike Blessing // Feb 1, 2010 at 3:54 am

  Recently I’ve been getting emails about this Barnes character and how his being in a leadership position in the LPCA is going to destroy the credibility of LP state affiliates all over the country. I’m still wondering how this directly affects the LP of New Mexico, which is the one I’m currently affiliated with.

• 363 Brian Holtz // Feb 1, 2010 at 4:13 am

  Chuck, I appreciate your generous comment — probably a lot more than you might think. I too also appreciate how Tom has spoken up on this topic, and your compliment to us both makes me realize this just wasn’t the time and place to gripe about Tom’s shot at Barr. Tom’s level of intellectual honesty is truly exemplary, and in fact downright inspirational. He makes one proud to be a Libertarian, and at a time like this we could sure use more Party members who can do that.

• 364 Thomas L. Knapp // Feb 1, 2010 at 4:31 am

  Brian,

  You write:

  “Duh — my entire point is that the evidence underlying your statement did not support the belief you were trying to create in people who did not bother to fact-check your statement.”

  And your point misses the point. With respect to Barr v. Ruwart (I don’t recall the other reference you mention, but I’ll go find it after this) I wasn’t trying to create the belief that you assert I was trying to create.

  Precisely the opposite, in fact — I was attempting to demonstrate the absurdity of the Ruwart smear by showing that a strictly accurate claim along the same lines could be offered about Barr.

  That said, I’m comfortable with the reality of politics, which is that if you want to run for president, you’d better be good and ready to plausibly defend anything and everything you’ve ever said or done.

  Ruwart’s passage on child sexual issues was fair game — and so was Barr’s passage on child pornography.

  I was surprised as hell that Kubby didn’t get asked tougher questions. Hell, I was almost disappointed that he didn’t — he was prepared for those questions, because he got a through Knapp Oppo Research Colonoscopy.

  It is my considered opinion that LP members in general should play the part of House, and its presidential aspirations the part of the job applicants, in this clip (you just KNEW I would work a video in, didn’t you?):

• 365 Thomas L. Knapp // Feb 1, 2010 at 4:40 am

  Brian,

  Flattery will get you nowhere. Or not very far, anyway

  To me, it’s fairly simple:

  I carry no brief for or against Mr. B@rn!s per se.

  I’m interested in the storm surrounding his suspension and reinstatement because that storm is revealing some institutional flaws and weaknesses that are almost certainly not unique to LPCA.

  The only thing that could be worse than the damage this whole thing is doing to LPCA would be for us not to learn the right lessons from it.

• 366 Ralph // Feb 1, 2010 at 6:02 am

  David @328 You sure have my blessing.

• 367 Starchild // Feb 1, 2010 at 7:11 am

  Bravo, Brian Holtz @28:

  “My position is that none of the evidence used to purge a member should be withheld from the rest of the membership. If people attempting to purge a member fail to make their case to the JudCom, it’s up to them to make their case to the membership. It’s not the JudCom’s job to explain why any particular member should be allowed to continue to be a member. Nor is it the JudCom’s job to decide what member(s) should be thrown under a bus for the sake of our overall membership numbers or contribution levels or whatever. Expulsion should only be based on public evidence of the cause for expulsion. Period.”

  I feel the same. The danger inherent in allowing members to be expelled on the basis of secret evidence should be obvious.

• 368 Starchild // Feb 1, 2010 at 8:40 am

  Also well said, Tom Knapp @229:

  “If the executive committee’s argument to the Judicial Committee for the suspension was ‘he didn’t keep his end of a deal that we had no legitimate authority to make on the LPCA’s behalf in the first place,’ then the Judicial Committee did exactly the right thing by overturning the suspension.”

• 369 Gene Trosper // Feb 1, 2010 at 8:58 am

  #362 In the age of The Internet, People from all over the United States can readily see that a Libertarian was convicted of child molestation. All it takes is a few small leaps for the uninitiated to think “gee, those Libertarians seem like a bunch of child predators”.

  That’s now states like NM could be affected.

• 370 Bruce Cohen // Feb 1, 2010 at 9:24 am

  Secret Evidence?
  Secret Charges?
  Secret Proceedings?
  Nooo…

  Who woulda thunk it?

  Gee, nobody, not even me.

  Friday my trial in front of the Judges of King Naga will take place.

  In fact, all those things are SO secret, even I, the Defendant don’t know them.

  But the King fears my mighty electrons might swoop across the Internet and if I knew these things maybe he can’t defeat the Bruce the Evil Jewboy.

  Expel Bruce!
  For the sage oracle embezzler Knight Selzer of the Turner Diaries has said Bruce is a Republican Plant and must be expelled from the Kingdom of Naga.

• 371 Gene Trosper // Feb 1, 2010 at 9:28 am

  @343 “Mr. Trosper, are you suggesting that the LPSBD has its Vice Chair “working directly and in an unaccompanied setting with minor children on more than an incidental and occasional basis or have supervision or disciplinary power over minor children”? I’ve never heard of any LP affiliate anywhere that offers babysitting by its Vice Chair, and I seriously doubt that the LPSBD is going to offer such a service while MB holds that office.”

  Brian, you’re obviously great at analyzing LP bylaws and counting now many angels dance on the head of a pin, but it’s becoming apparent that you do lack street smarts when it comes to things like, oh, putting children in harm’s way when it comes to convicted child molesters. I mean really: the LPSBD doesn’t have to offer babysitting. All it takes is a summer picnic attended by Libertarian families and their children. All it takes is a house party and BBQ where people may bring their children. Need I draw a picture for you?

  It’s one thing if Matthew Barnes is a member. It’s a whole other ballgame if he is willingly elected by the LPSBD as an officer where the opportunities to victimize children increase (we all know it’s generally the party officers which do things like organize events and act as speakers and cat-herders — which increase the chances of dealing with children).

  Let’s not play stupid and not play some sort of ongoing analytical game of “gotcha”: Matthew Barnes is an ongoing risk. has he committed any molestations since serving his sentence? No one except for Matthew Barnes can say. However, there is no “cure” for pedophilia. Therefore, the potential for relapse is always there.

  I’ll admit it: I want Matthew Barnes OUT of the LP. I’ll also admit that when the ExCom voted to suspend his membership, I was relieved. If it took a formal suspension to prevent him for holding any sort of leadership position, then great because Clearly Matthew Barnes is obstinate and is aggressively attempting to hold on to power within the LPCA. If he cared about the LPCA, he would cease and walk away. However, he continues making an issue, bringing harm to an organization he supposedly cares for.

  I do not care about Matthew Barnes. I care about his pre-pubecent victims who will always have to live with the crimes he perpetrated upon them.

• 372 paulie // Feb 1, 2010 at 9:31 am

  Bravo, Brian Holtz @28:

  “My position is that none of the evidence used to purge a member should be withheld from the rest of the membership. If people attempting to purge a member fail to make their case to the JudCom, it’s up to them to make their case to the membership. It’s not the JudCom’s job to explain why any particular member should be allowed to continue to be a member. Nor is it the JudCom’s job to decide what member(s) should be thrown under a bus for the sake of our overall membership numbers or contribution levels or whatever. Expulsion should only be based on public evidence of the cause for expulsion. Period.”

  I feel the same. The danger inherent in allowing members to be expelled on the basis of secret evidence should be obvious.

  I missed that earlier, but let me add my voice to that. Secret trials are wrong, whether for accused terrorists or for accused…well, we can only speculate, not that it’s ever stopped anyone here.

• 373 Starchild // Feb 1, 2010 at 9:57 am

  An anonymous contributor writes @270:

  “While our attention has been diverted, has anyone noticed that the California ExCom is quietly getting filled with appointees with only days before those seats would have been voted on by the membership?”

  Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I was not aware of it, but it doesn’t surprise me. I’ve long observed a gradual trend in the Libertarian Party toward centralizing power in the hands of bodies such as the California LP Executive Committee, at the expense of ordinary members.

  This observation led to Key Value #1 of the Grassroots Libertarians Caucus (see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/grassrootslibertarians/).

  I agree with Brian Holtz @157 that “How we govern ourselves should set an example for how we’d govern in office.” I would put it even a bit more broadly — the way we organize ourselves should reflect the kind of society we want to create.

  We want a society where ordinary individuals are empowered participants, not a society where governance is largely in the hands of a few — therefore, our Bylaws should be designed to keep power in the LP firmly in the hands of ordinary members.

  Instead, we see changes and practices occurring that concentrate power at the top. Secrecy by decision-making bodies, including private email lists. Delegates being required to pay floor fees. The elimination of direct county representation on the California state Executive Committee. Smaller committees. The elimination of the ability for non-staffers to post comments on LP.org. Rule changes that make it more difficult for delegates in convention to affect the proceedings (e.g. requiring motions to be submitted to the Secretary in writing before being made). Limiting the ability of non-committee members to participate in a non-voting capacity at committee meetings. Et cetera.

  It is not a coincidence that this trend has been accompanied by a parallel trend of the party becoming less radical, less ideological, less libertarian. In the 15-plus years I’ve been involved with the LP, the party’s state and national leadership has always appeared to be less focused on libertarianism than the activists I’ve worked with at the grassroots level.

  I urge California LP members to speak out and stand up against this top-down trend, and demand changes which put more power back in the hands of ordinary party members. Including that any appointments to the Libertarian Party of California Executive Committee made in the past 30 days be vacated, and the seats instead filled by election at the upcoming convention.

• 374 Bruce Cohen's Guilty Conscience // Feb 1, 2010 at 10:25 am

  Bruce Cohen: For the sage oracle embezzler Knight Selzer of the Turner Diaries has said Bruce is a Republican Plant and must be expelled from the Kingdom of Naga.

  You’re equating Mark Selzer with the neo-Nazi Turner Diaries?

  I’ve seen Mark defend Israel on some listservs, years ago.

  For you, Bruce, to equate Mark with the Turner Diaries is a baseless, even recklessly baseless, and ugly charge.

  You are stooping very low in your attacks.

  I hope the “Kingdom of Naga” (aka, LPC Chair Kevin Takenaga) will note Bruce’s ugly and baseless smears.

• 375 Not a Bruce or Todd Troll // Feb 1, 2010 at 10:33 am

  CA Executive Committee: Don’t kick Bruce out of the Party, just censure him and set him on FIRE!

• 376 Brian Holtz // Feb 1, 2010 at 10:37 am

  Tom, I thought you get it, but maybe you don’t. While I had always respected MB, I’m not a particular friend of his, and I’ve never spent any time with him outside of LPCA ExCom meetings and convention floor proceedings. I’m not standing up for him per se, but rather for the ideas that 1) the charges and evidence used to purge a member should not be secret from other members, and 2) public accusations against members should not be made without substantiation.

  I’d do the same thing for a member who I don’t respect, or who I’ve documented lying about me. It’s about process, not people.

  Mr. Trosper, let me explain my point for the sarcasm-impaired: I’ve never heard of an LPCA function where being an LPCA officer meant you would have so much as five seconds alone with some member’s child.

  As for me not having “street smarts about putting children in harm’s way”, you have no idea what you’re talking about. As far as my three daughters are concerned, you Gene Trosper are a child molester until proven otherwise. Nobody at puberty or older gets to be alone with my daughters, at any time or for any reason, unless positive controls or positive knowledge is in place to ensure/vouch that the person can be trusted not to be a risk. This is Parenting 101.

  Any risk to children here has vanishingly little to do with whether MB is an LPCA officer, and has zero to do with whether MB has an LPCA membership card in his wallet. That risk is entirely up to MB’s social circle within the LPSBD.

  I too of course care about MB’s victims. If there’s something that you think the LPCA can do to actually help them, I’m waiting to hear it.

  Starchild, I’m glad you’re here to speak up for the principles of transparency and due process. However, we shouldn’t spread hysteria about ExCom conspiracies, any more than we should spread hysteria about MB. Our Bylaws clearly state: “Such appointments [for ExCom vacancies] shall be to complete the term of office vacated unless a convention meets sooner, in which case a new election shall be held for any position so filled.” The next convention is in two weeks. Chillax.

• 377 Bruce Cohen // Feb 1, 2010 at 11:04 am

  BCGC@374
  Mark has defended Israel when it suited his purposes. Mark has even told people he was Jewish, when he was not.

  Mister Selzer has resigned from King Naga’s Knights of the Wobbly Table anyway.

  As far as me making claims about Mark?
  Sorry, but I have long publicly and openly stated that Mister Selzer not only has very bad manners and ethics but that he is an anti-semite.

  My opinions and assertions about this matter have been made on the record for years, even in front of Mister Selzer.

  Mark will rue the day when the whole sordid story does come out.

• 378 Save the activists // Feb 1, 2010 at 11:09 am

  Isn’t it really the activists that are under attack?

  Is the precedent that we want set that you cannot carpool, arrange speakers, call a venue about pricing for an upcoming county activity, recruit your friends or engage in debate without becoming the target of public scrutiny in this party?

  Activists are not candidates.

  Not all internal representatives are public figures.

  Where is that line?

  If the line is not well defined, and someone wants to draw one ex post facto around someone, should that someone be immediately flushed into public scrutiny and coercion to obey the new line?

  RR outlines steps of investigation and trial and at what point what parts of those things become public.

  Those rules are completely overridden by the bylaws under some interpretations. That all of the things that the ExCom should do to lead up removing a membership are of no importance.

  Those rules make sure that if there is an accusation that the ExCom investigates it thoroughly for truth. They are strongly told that they should research both sides not just prosecute with prejudice.

  RR says that if there is a finding from the investigation that indicates that a member should have disciplinary action, then the ExCom should then go though a private trial with DUE PROCESS. That includes the notification of the accused of the charges and evidence included.

  If the ExCom fails to investigate without prejudice, they have failed their trust.

  If the ExCom refers a membership suspension having voted with their emotions;

  … if they ignore the sovereignty of each member and each affiliate and act as though they have a natural right to be judge, jury and executioner in one sitting;

  … if they vote on spurious charges and embrace an investigation that was prejudiced and a report of cause sight unseen

  …then they have failed their trust.

  If the JudCom get stuck with a moron prosecutor flinging feces in narcissistic glee, backed up with a team of clearly prejudiced and corrupt investigators offering evidence, and they do not return the suspension back to the ExCom, they have failed their trust.

  If all of us get to watch all that unfold, then nobody will be safe from any accusation.

  Right now, the process allows a rogue on the ExCom to push the most irresponsible accusations through in several days time and foist them onto the JudCom and then onto the membership for public viewing.

  The accused is presented with two choices:

  “Leave the party in public disgrace followed by the rumor mill”

  …or “Do as your told by your masters and we will let you lick our boots.”

  Parts of the process are supposed to be confidential to protect everyone, but you don’t get that if you ignore 95% of the rules. What you get is a total mess.

• 379 BCGC // Feb 1, 2010 at 11:11 am

  As I recall, Mark Selzer was the Libertarian who invited Irv Rubin of the Jewish Defense League into the LPC.

  Mark defended and praised Irv Rubin and the JDL. And Rubin publicly praised Mark, calling him his friend.

  I don’t know what secret information you, Bruce Cohen, think you have. But it would be a very strange anti-Semite who promotes the JDL.

• 380 Bruce Cohen // Feb 1, 2010 at 11:17 am

  ***FAIR WARNING***

  Any time anyone posts a lie about me here, for example: ‘Bruce Cohen pushed Richard Boddie out of the LP’, I will respond in kind with the truth about their charges and something in kind.

  The folks making stories up about me, like I ‘threaten’ people or such silliness, have gone largely ignored and unanswered for a decade.

  On the advice of many friends, I have primarily reserved the ink from my poison pen to discuss policy.

  For example:
  The second largest Libertarian Publication in the USA has stopped publishing six months or so ago.

  Now these very same people who are attacking me now, got hysterical when California Freedom Magazine skipped an issue when I was Editor.

  They called it a “Spectacular Failure” (Norm Westwell broadcast email headline quote) and some called for my ‘firing’ or worse.
  Forget the real reasons why the issue skipped, or that their choice (Brian Holtz says I can’t say ‘hand-picked- anymore) skipped them too.
  Can you say ‘double standard’? Of course you can!

  But now it’s to be swept under the rug, and lets all pretend there is no elephant in the room.

  Privately King Naga and his minions, including the now reinstated Knight Matthew Barnes, spun the news of the Libertarian Party of California shutting down their print publication like it was a good thing.

  I said it was a bad thing.

  Yeah and a restaurant could turn off their lights and not buy food to save money, too.
  That’s my opinion. I’m just sayin’.

  I oppose their policies and point out ethical lapses.

  Since when is speaking your mind a ‘crime’ so horrible it deserves a secret show/sham trial?

  I waive confidentiality, folks.
  Let anyone and everyone see whatever ‘evidence’ they have and hear their witnesses speak.

  Not counting today, there are only three working days before the ‘trial’.

  Let’s have it all out in the open.

  Let Kevin Takenaga and his close personal friend, adviser and confidant for over three years, Mister Matthew Barnes, explain to the world why I am so bad and dishonest and dangerous and point out with specificity all the bylaws and RONR rules I have broken.

  Let them.

  Bring it on.

• 381 Bruce Cohen // Feb 1, 2010 at 11:20 am

  Matthew Barnes at 378? I’m guessing that’s him.

  What’s worse is he just out-argued Kevin Takenaga, his past King, on the facts of the case.

  And, in large part, is correct.

• 382 Save the activists // Feb 1, 2010 at 11:27 am

  Justice is as justice does I always say.

• 383 Starchild // Feb 1, 2010 at 11:35 am

  On the main subject of this thread, I want to say that I am saddened by the extent to which some Libertarians appear to have bought into the irrational hysteria with which the society we live in tends to regard anything having to do with children and sexuality.

  There have been repeated references to the “victims” of M~tth#w B~rn#s. Is there any evidence that Matt’s sexual interactions with boys under the age of 18 were forced? Or are we expected to simply take the government’s arbitrary classification of anyone under 18 as a “child” at face value and assume that such persons are incapable of giving consent on the specific issue of anything to do with sexuality?

  I recently had a conversation with a woman who told me that she was masturbating from around *age 3* and that she was attracted to other girls in first grade and chasing them around trying to kiss them and jump on them (this behavior led to an “intervention” by her parents and a teacher in which she was informed that girls like boys, not other girls). In my own adolescence, I would have welcomed the arrival of a “Mrs. Robinson” in my life from about age 11 or 12 on. Hindsight being 20/20, I believe I was fully capable to have consented to sexual relations at that age, and think it could have done me a world of good. Granted M~tt abused his position of authority as a scout leader, which was wrong, but that isn’t the same thing as a clear-cut initiation of force.

  The backdrop to this whole affair is of course a society in which a witch-hunt mentality prevails. Where people convicted of crimes involving anything remotely associated with sex are forced to register as “sex offenders” and lose many of their basic rights *for life*. In Florida, dozens of “sex offenders” are living in a camp under an overpass due to the extreme restrictiveness of laws mandating where they can live. Other types of violent criminals are not treated this way (nor should they be).

  In one California prison alone (Coalinga State Mental “Hospital”), I am reliably told it was the case a couple years ago that around 700 Registered Sex Offenders (RSO’s) who have served their entire sentences are being held there against their will. You can read more about Coalinga and other information on the persecution of “sex offenders” at the site http://www.SexGulag.org. And indeed the facility in Coalinga, a prison calling itself a hospital, does bring to mind the old Soviet practice of locking dissidents up in mental institutions.

  Government often makes little or no distinction between who is really a threat to others and who is not. Even Bruce Cohen, who has been among M~tt B~rn#s’ accusers and uses a derogatory prison slang term for pedophiles (a troubling usage given that such individuals are often raped or assaulted by other prisoners while in the custody of the State), describes himself as “painfully aware of times when Megan’s Law registrants are unfairly labeled and persecuted.”

  Something as normal as taking photos of your children playing in the bathtub, urinating in public (“indecent exposure”), or even looking at ordinary porn, as Thomas Knapp recounts (@252), can get you criminalized as a “sex offender” and treated as a social pariah or some kind of monster.

  If pedophilia is a mental disorder, it is cruel and inhumane to treat those who suffer from this disorder as criminals. If it is not a mental disorder but simply a choice that anyone might make, then the many comments along the lines of “once a pedophile, always a pedophile” are inaccurate and unjust, and people should not be looked at as criminals for their actions of many years ago for which they have already paid the legal penalty.

  Personally, I think laws which discriminate strictly on the basis of age are irrational and wrong. People are individuals, and should be treated as individuals. If nature has a way of telling us who is an adult and who isn’t, it is puberty, not 18th birthdays.

  But countless stories like that of my acquaintance, of children who played “doctor” as children, et cetera, bear witness to the fact that even pre-pubescent children often do have sexual feelings and urges, and sometimes act on them, whether we find it comfortable and convenient or not. To assume that such children would never, could never, consent to any action categorized as “sexual” (touching, kissing, posing, etc.) when an older person is involved flies in the face of common sense.

  We don’t assume that children are incapable of giving consent when it comes to eating candy and other sweets — even though they are notorious for having bad judgment in this area. I recall many Halloweens and other occasions of gorging myself on candy bars, and by the time I was a teenager I had at least half a dozen cavities.

  Regulating the sexual behavior of dependent children, and by extension those who sexually interact with them, should be up to those who know and love them best — their parents and guardians. Not the State.

  I believe most of the harm experienced by those who have consensual sexual interactions as children comes not as a result of the interactions themselves, but from the guilt, shame, stigmatization, and other baggage foisted on them as a result of society’s f—-d-up attitudes, hangups, and phobias about sexuality.

  It’s interesting that anti-Semitism has come up repeatedly in this thread, while the form of bigotry more relevant to the subject at hand — against people who are sexually attracted to those much younger than themselves — is never mentioned. Whatever the supposed rationale for the attempt to kick M~tt B~rn#s out of the Libertarian Party, it seems clear enough that the *real* root cause is anti-pedophiliac bigotry.

  Because I’m expressing a very socially unpopular and even demonized point of view, let me be very clear. I’m not condoning any manipulative behavior by adults that is “taking advantage” of children. I recognize that age differentials where there is a young person involved often mean differentials in power and knowledge. Those who exploit these differentials to fulfill their own selfish desires without regard for their partners deserve the label “sexual predators” and should be fully made to pay for any harm they cause. Repeat offenders should be incarcerated for the safety of the community.

  I don’t take this stand for personal reasons — personally I am not sexually attracted to children. I simply recognize that the civil liberties of a group of people are being systematically violated as a result of their social marginalization and irrational demonization, in ways that all of us as libertarians should find alarming and appalling.

• 384 Shooting for the Big Four Oh Oh! // Feb 1, 2010 at 11:35 am

  C’mon, gang — we can hit 400 posts if we all pitch in and try!

• 385 Save the Newsletter // Feb 1, 2010 at 11:46 am

  @380 “Privately King Naga and his minions, including the now reinstated Knight Matthew Barnes, spun the news of the Libertarian Party of California shutting down their print publication like it was a good thing.”

  You are not checking your facts. MB defended the newsletter with emphasis.

  “B….. there is value in the paper version of the newsletter. He can easily share it
  with others. It’s easy to get others to read it, instead of asking people to visit a
  website. He suggests keeping some kind of printed form of the newsletter”

  and

  “MOTION: B….. moved to continue business as usual for the next six months, then change to quarterly print publication while continuing monthly online publication, and recommend that if in six months the publication becomes profitable, the ExCom reviews the decision.”

  http://ca.lp.org/artman/uploads/LPCA%20ExCom%20Minutes%20081213.pdf

• 386 Starchild // Feb 1, 2010 at 11:52 am

  Brian Holtz writes @376:

  “Starchild, I’m glad you’re here to speak up for the principles of transparency and due process. However, we shouldn’t spread hysteria about ExCom conspiracies, any more than we should spread hysteria about MB. Our Bylaws clearly state: ‘Such appointments [for ExCom vacancies] shall be to complete the term of office vacated unless a convention meets sooner, in which case a new election shall be held for any position so filled.’ The next convention is in two weeks. Chillax.”

  Thank you for appreciating my comments in defense of transparency and due process. However I was not alleging any “conspiracy” by the ExCom, and I was hardly hysterical. I was simply commenting on a long-term continuing trend in the party.

  My recollection is that the LPC Bylaws did not formerly give the ExCom the power to fill its own vacancies by appointment in this manner. If so, then the Bylaw provision you cite is itself an instance of the trend I was discussing.

  Of course it’s possible that my memory on this is faulty. It would be interesting to see whether that section has been changed in recent years. Anybody have any old copies of the LPC Bylaws sitting around?

• 387 Bruce Cohen // Feb 1, 2010 at 11:53 am

  Well, hey, SURPRISE Brian@345! I see King Kevin Takenaga was not followed over the cliff by Matthew Barnes.

  Since Kevin Takenagas (stated privately) main criteria for people he surrounds himself with is ‘loyalty’, maybe this is the real reason why he and Matthew Barnes broke up?

  Good to know I was wrong.
  Besides, my statement was intended to portray a group spin on why turning the interior restaurant lights off at night would save money.

  Interesting to know what the votes were and who voted how.

• 388 LibertarianGirl // Feb 1, 2010 at 12:26 pm

  Starchild__There have been repeated references to the “victims” of M~tth#w B~rn#s. Is there any evidence that Matt’s sexual interactions with boys under the age of 18 were forced? Or are we expected to simply take the government’s arbitrary classification of anyone under 18 as a “child” at face value and assume that such persons are incapable of giving consent on the specific issue of anything to do with sexuality?

  me_ r u kidding me ?? he was their scoutmaster , in a position of authority and the boys were 11 and 12. yes starchild , it is not ok to fondle an 11 year old when u are 19 and n0 even if the boy”consented” that does not make it ok .

• 389 Save the Activists // Feb 1, 2010 at 12:28 pm

  I cannot imagine MB being vassal to anyone. Have you met the guy?

  Did you notice the amazing amount of shit he is willing to endure?

  As has been insinuated I am willing to bet that there is a lot of ego behind that kind of endurance. Is ego a sin much less a bad sign?

  Have you seen how much work MB’s affiliated county has put into positive and constructive party building activities?

  Did you know that supporting the State Party has been in the SBCLP “Program” for several years?

  Did you know that the SBCLP actually follows their “Program” that their members tried to save the State Program Committee because their model helped them focus as a team?

  Perhaps your interpretation of “loyalty” was really a manifestation of a mandate to “make good things happen for good people,” and that the current state chair was simply a beneficiary of a growing team of “winning” activists bent on strengthening ties between counties, building a anarcho-synergistic team and trying their damnedest to set a good example amongst a political pond heavily clogged with authority mongering sjharks?

  Perhaps there are a lot of assumptions made and misdirections played regarding some enigmatic members’ motivations.

  But yet no-one has pointed to anything that MB has done to hurt them or their good efforts except that he “is” a dirty birdie.

• 390 Thomas L. Knapp // Feb 1, 2010 at 12:35 pm

  Gene @ 371,

  There’s no nice way to say this, so I’m going to let someone else say it for me.

• 391 Bruce Cohen // Feb 1, 2010 at 12:36 pm

  Matthew Barnes (save the activists)@ 389

  Nobody said you aren’t smart and crafty, Matthew. Nobody said you weren’t good at manipulating people.

  You clearly can be all those things at least some of the time.

  The problem is the dishonesty and bad behavior.
  The stuff about the deal you cut or didn’t cut and exactly how it was worded or not with Chairman/King Naga is irrelevant.

  The ‘charges’ you were brought up on were probably irrellevant too.

  Sorry, Matthew, but My ‘Freak’ alarm went off on you years ago, and it’s just taken everyone else a while to catch on.

  Please go away.
  That’s all I ever wanted when this thing started off. For you to get out of the Party forever.

  That’s still all I want.

  Please go.
  I’m sure you can find better places as an outlet for your energy and ‘talents’.

  And when you do, I’ll crawl back in my little hole and let King Naga mostly alone.

  Hey Mister Takenaga, properly expel Mister Barnes and I will put my poison laptop away and shut up about this.

  For now.

• 392 Save the Sociopaths // Feb 1, 2010 at 12:41 pm

  Yes Mr. Takenaga, relent, submit or face my wrath as well!

• 393 Gene Trosper // Feb 1, 2010 at 12:41 pm

  @376 Brian: bravo for coming out swinging like that. I’m *glad* you treat myself and others as potential threats to your family, which you obviously cherish. That is how I treat others as well, *especially* those with a clear history of victimizing others.

  @390 I can’t listen to the video, Tom, but being a fan of Stanhope, I think I know what it says. I’ll listen when I get home. For me, it’s not fear, it’s wrong verus right…good versus bad. It’s survival.

• 394 Save the doppelgänger // Feb 1, 2010 at 12:46 pm

  You will respect my authority!

• 395 Starchild // Feb 1, 2010 at 12:52 pm

  @390 – Doug Stanhope… sheer comic brilliance! Thanks Tom!

  If you would like to see Doug seek the LP’s 2012 presidential nomination, go to the link below and sign the petition!

  http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/stanhope2012

• 396 Thomas L. Knapp // Feb 1, 2010 at 12:53 pm

  Brian,

  You write:

  “Tom, I thought you get it, but maybe you don’t.”

  I do.

  “While I had always respected MB, I’m not a particular friend of his, and I’ve never spent any time with him outside of LPCA ExCom meetings and convention floor proceedings. I’m not standing up for him per se”

  OK, so by way of questioning whether or not I get it, you issue the same disclaimer I did …?

  “but rather for the ideas that 1) the charges and evidence used to purge a member should not be secret from other members, and 2) public accusations against members should not be made without substantiation.”

  Agreed on both points. There’s a third one I’d throw in there:

  3) Activities which obviously carry potential risk to the party in terms of liability or reputation should not be ignored “every weekend or every other weekend for a year,” then milked for panic effect later when you’re not getting your way on something.

• 397 LibertarianGirl // Feb 1, 2010 at 1:14 pm

  anti-pedophilia bigotry?? ROFLMAO
  G*D Damn right , I am an anti -pedophilia bigot and may I always remain one.
  for the record , I am also a anti-nazi bigot
  an anti-rapist bigot , an anti warmonger bigot etc etc

• 398 @383 To Starchild // Feb 1, 2010 at 1:26 pm

  If this isn’t another handle for Mr. Barnes. A
  @383. Your very sick. Very disconcerting.

• 399 LibertarianGirl // Feb 1, 2010 at 1:45 pm

  Starchild is not a handle for MB . he is his own person and longtime LP activist. I agree with him most of the time but on this issue we are on very opposite sides of the fence.

• 400 @398 // Feb 1, 2010 at 1:49 pm

  @383 is definitely not MB.

  Nor would MB ever join into such an argument. MB’s stance on children and sex might make even LG look like a moderate.

  Not that she would ever know.

  Obviously, to LG Mr. B is an object made corporeal only by her facebook prattling and imagination. The MB everyone is arguing about bears little resemblance to the figure she has hanged purely on rumor and her limited understanding of a 20 year old uncontested and untried court document.

• 401 wants to know // Feb 1, 2010 at 2:02 pm

  I have some questions for Mr. Holtz.
  1. Do you believe Mr. Barnes is an asset or a liability to the Libertarian Party of California?
  2. If you believe he is a liability, what do you plan on doing about it?
  I want straight answers.

• 402 Lady Gaura // Feb 1, 2010 at 2:04 pm

  dividing lines faint
  people hiding with pseudonyms
  who is whom? No clue.

• 403 LibertarianGirl // Feb 1, 2010 at 2:05 pm

  @398 is Matt Barnes as is Stone Soup

• 404 T. R. Ubble // Feb 1, 2010 at 2:05 pm

  I can’t speak for Mr. Holtz. But didn’t he say above that he would support an across-the-board ban on office-holding by people with violent felony convictions (at least ones like Mr. Barnes’s)? That is, at any rate, quite consistent with insisting that Mr. Barnes, Mr. Cohen, and everyone else is entitled to procedural fairness.

• 405 Gene Trosper // Feb 1, 2010 at 2:40 pm

  @397 how about “anti-initiation of force bigot”? That pretty much covers all the bases.

  I oppose war, taxation and drug prohibition as much as I oppose secluding little boys in the hope of playing with their penises. Government doesn’t hold a monopoly on initiating force and victimizing people.

  I think with that, the discussion is pretty much over for me.

• 406 LibertarianGirl // Feb 1, 2010 at 2:58 pm

  well said Gene and I ditto your sentiments.

• 407 Bylaws Answer // Feb 1, 2010 at 3:13 pm

  @386 Starchild:
  My recollection is that the LPC Bylaws did not formerly give the ExCom the power to fill its own vacancies by appointment in this manner. If so, then the Bylaw provision you cite is itself an instance of the trend I was discussing.

  Of course it’s possible that my memory on this is faulty. It would be interesting to see whether that section has been changed in recent years. Anybody have any old copies of the LPC Bylaws sitting around?

  –

  I believe the appointment was made by the operations committee.

  Bylaw 12. Section 3.
  The Operations Committee may, by unanimous vote, fill any vacant Party officer or Operations Committee position on an interim basis until a meeting of the Executive Committee is held.

  Which allows Mr. Seebeck to act as the Interim Southern Vice Chair and would require an election at the convention to fill the position for the remainder of the term per the Bylaws.

  http://www.ca.lp.org/references/bylaws/Bylaws2009-2010.pdf

• 408 Bruce Cohen // Feb 1, 2010 at 3:25 pm

  Matthew Barnes/Bylaws Answer @407 uses the San Bernardino Libertarian Party’s web link: ww.SBCLP.Org

  So, why doesn’t the LPCA’s Website link to the County Affilliate’s again?

  Broken Link Excuse?

  Child Molester or not, Mister Barnes has been reinstated and his County Party is in good standing, is it not?

  So can’t Webmaster Flash, King Naga just update the website so we can sent traffic to the County of Matthew Barnes?

  The Alive, Free, Happy folks deserve fair and equal treatment from the ‘open and transparent’ administration of King Naga, right?

• 409 Not MB // Feb 1, 2010 at 3:41 pm

  Bruce way off not MB here but keep guessing.

  I just checked the link off of the website and it worked for me so I am unsure to what you are referencing.

• 410 Bruce Cohen // Feb 1, 2010 at 3:45 pm

  Oh good, it’s been fixed.

  Holtz verfied, I think, correct me if I am wrong Brian the phrenologist, that the San Berdoo LP’s web link didn’t launch from the LPCAs website.

  I think, correct me if I’m wrong, Brian, that’s referred to as a ‘broken link’ in the GrandWebMasterFlash IT world he and Kevin live in.

  So good.

  Now it’s a ‘fixed link’.

  We like to see results.

  I asked and it got fixed.

  Nice work.

• 411 Your Wish // Feb 1, 2010 at 3:46 pm

  …is Takenaga’s command

• 412 Chairman Mao // Feb 1, 2010 at 4:17 pm

  The thread is slowing down. We are getting close to being a record-breaking thread on IPR; we are probably in second place now, but we need to keep posting and insulting each other in order to make that happen.

• 413 Record? // Feb 1, 2010 at 4:26 pm

  Almost a record at 412 posts?

  This place must not see much traffic.

• 414 Haiku is fun // Feb 1, 2010 at 4:32 pm

  LPC is dying
  Kiddie perv apologists
  Nail the coffin shut
  ~~when the media finds out~~

• 415 Zander Collier // Feb 1, 2010 at 4:34 pm

  @370
  Bruce, you are so mendacious in your arguments and logic, it’s a shame I didn’t proceed with your prosecution despite my resignation.

  To whom it may concern:
  Bruce Cohen was told, BY ME, on January 26th that with my resignation there was no one else who was going to be prosecuting him. He was told that in the absence of a prosecution that the JC would be summarily reinstating him.

  Since the LPCA Bylaws require 7-day notice of a hearing and therefore 7-days advance notice with the case file: the charges and the evidence, and since Cohen never received such a file on January 29th, he has been practically reinstated.

  That Bruce Cohen continues engaging in these disgusting smear tactics and character assassination vis-a-vis “Stone-Soup-Save-the-Activists Ba*n*s”, and “I’ve got a secret trial!!!”, that it really demonstrates why he should have been removed. Indeed the message now delivered to Cohen by the LPCA is “Be as bad as you like, make as many irresponsible statements as you like, be as big a tool as you possibly can: there are no repercussions.”

  Again, I resigned my position as Southern Vice Chair on the basis that the JC made an earthshatteringly ridiculous ruling based on the fact that “…or for cause” must somehow be found in the LPCA bylaws or in Robert’s Rules, and not the deliberate and reasoned accumulation of evidence and argument. “…or for cause” is now meaningless with the current makeup of the LPCA JC. They believe themselves akin to Supreme Court justices.

  And unlike Bruce Cohen, who has no visible means of support, Kevin was maintaining the website and is now simply more interested in his job performance where people actually PAY him to work, than in the LP where people insult him for his contributions.

  We tried to make the LP a competitive political machine, but the nuthouse here has so many misplaced priorities and is so much more interested in the social club, that it’s no wonder that the LP hasn’t ever been successful, and now with good, responsible leaders walking out, I don’t see how it ever can be.

• 416 LibertarianGirl // Feb 1, 2010 at 4:49 pm

  Haiku is fun

  LPC is dying is 6 syllables.

• 417 Bruce Cohen // Feb 1, 2010 at 4:51 pm

  Hey I’m not working right now, no doubt, Zander. I’m also not accepting unemployment, food stamps, welfare or any medi-cal or whatever.

  So my visible means of support or not, has nothing to do with the website getting forgotten.

  And I am not ’stone soup’ or ’save the activists’.

  “Bruce Cohen was told, BY ME, on January 26th that with my resignation there was no one else who was going to be prosecuting him. He was told that in the absence of a prosecution that the Judicial Committee [JC] would be summarily reinstating him.” – Zander Collier…

  BS I’m over here on the Group W Bench.
  Right here on the Group W Bench, preparing for a trial, waiting for the Chair of the LPCA JC
  to answer my questions. Waiting for the Secretary to get his instructions from the Chair of the JC for the Defense’s ‘Motions of Discovery’.

  ‘The Matter Has Been Dropped’
  OH REALLY???!!!!
  Since when?

  Your email sounded more like a veiled half-hearted apology to me.

  You said you asked them to or whatever close to that, Brian Holtz can bust me for misquoting you, I really don’t care.

  But you said you wanted them to.
  NOBODY CONFIRMED THAT TO ME!

  As far as I’m concerned, it’s on.
  I’m sittin’ here on the bench
  The Group W Bench.

  And I have no strategy and I have no ideas what your plans are for my hanging, but I’m waiting for Friday.

  Friday, the TRIAL DATE you guys set for me WITHOUT EVEN ASKING if it was ok or if I was busy.

  Just set it and TOLD me I had to go to this TOP SECRET trial.

  Yeah, the trial where nothing is specified, everything is vague and top secret.

  So secret that at first I didn’t know you guys set a date for me.

  THEY HELD MY TRIAL BUT THEY DIDN’T INVITE ME!!!!!

  Isn’t it ironic?

  And now you complain that I’m still picking on you, Zander, and the good King Naga, and his Judicial Committee who FORGOT TO TELL ME THAT I AM REINSTATED!!!

  I can’t hardly stop laughing at the irony.

  Well, guess what?

  Somebody better tell me officially, with the exact name of Mark Hinkle, and not some wishful thinking you had in your resignation, Zander.

  Because as far as I’m concerned, it’s on.

  And if it’s off…

  Then I’m going to spill my guts and it’s going to be a bigger train wreck than it already is.

  This is fun.

  You aren’t changing anything in my world, Zander.

  I’m going to do what I’m going to do.

  And one way or another, within a very short period of time, the truth will come out.

  Hey, anyone have any pictures of Matthew Barnes and all these folks?

  Someone should put them on the wall of the convention all big like.

  If you guys are so weak and thin skinned that you can’t handle me complaining about how you run things, well…

  Maybe you shouldn’t.

  Get it together.

  If you guys were doing a good job, you wouldn’t care a word of what I said.

• 418 Bruce Cohen // Feb 1, 2010 at 4:55 pm

  I thought I would leave us all with a nice bit of musical entertainment from the band ‘LadyTron’.

  They only want you when you’re seventeen
  When you’re twenty-one
  You’re no fun
  They take a polaroid and let you go
  Say they’ll let you know
  So come on

  We only want you when you’re seventeen
  When you’re twenty-one
  You’re no fun

• 419 Brian Holtz // Feb 1, 2010 at 5:06 pm

  Tom @390, that Stanhope video on fear-mongering is pure genius. Everybody should watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Oww4Ap3YZA

  Here goes Cohen again @370: making the unsubstantiated allegation that Mark Selzer is an “embezzler”. If Cohen really posted that, then he should be suspended from the LPCA until he either substantiates it or apologizes for it.

  Starchild, you’re not helping fact-based reason triumph over irrational hysteria when you question whether MB’s 11- to 13-year-old victims had force initiated against them. The case file says “He stated he was severely depressed after having realized he had molested boys in his scout troop. He stated he was appalled by his behavior. [...] He acknowledged the wrongfulness of his actions, and expressed some relief that he had been called to account”.

  Wants To Know asks me:

  1. Do you believe Mr. Barnes is an asset or a liability to the Libertarian Party of California?

  It’s a major liability for MB to be entrusted with any official responsibilities at any level of the LPCA.

  Is his mere membership a liability? There are a few people whose membership in the LPCA I consider a net liability to it, but so far I only advocate expelling them if they are prima facie guilty of unrectified or unrepentant force initiation. Like Cohen apparently libeling MB as a “rapist” or Mark Selzer as an “embezzler”. (I’m assuming for our purposes here that libel counts as aggression, but there are interesting libertarian arguments each way.)

  2. If you believe he is a liability, what do you plan on doing about it?

  What I’ve been doing since his record first surfaced: creating the circumstances to induce him to renounce all official LPCA responsibilities with the minimum amount of bad publicity for the LPCA that is consistent with due process, intra-party transparency, and human decency. Every LPCA member concerned about this matter should be trying to do the same thing, and while we won’t all agree on exactly how to do it, it’s clear that some people here aren’t trying to do anything remotely like this.

  We can talk about the exact meaning of “all official LPCA responsibilities”, but my basic idea is that I don’t want anybody to be able to truthfully say that the LPCA knowingly has a victimful child-molestation convict in charge of anything.

  Mr. Ubble, thanks again for providing a voice of reason here. We need all of those we can get.

  Zander, it’s more effective to prosecute somebody on airtight narrow grounds than on a broad but thin indictment that specifies everything you don’t like about the person. Remember, Saddam was hanged for just the 1982 Dujail Massacre, and Al Capone was sent away only for tax evasion. If you picked the wrong grounds and lost, there’s nothing in our rules against trying again with the right grounds.

  I don’t know what rules JudCom has adopted for the hearings that our Bylaws vaguely say they must hold, but RRONR Ch. 20 is very clear that the charges and evidence for at least a successful expulsion have to be revealed to the society while being withheld from the public. I would oppose any JudCom rule that contradicts that RRONR principle.

  I would also have a problem with any JudCom rules that allowed a rogue JudCom to muzzle all possible prosecution complaints that the JudCom got a decision wrong. I guess this is why a gran