Chuck, > It would have been very helpful if you two had been at the > convention.
Helpful to whom? ;-) I considered attending right up to the last minute, but I just wasn't up for it for several reasons -- some political, some personal. The only one I'll bring up here is: Location. I don't have anything against Portland. As a matter of fact, I've always wanted to visit it. However, it's expensive to get to. I know that it would be selfish (in the unduly, rather than acceptable, kind of way) to expect the LP to always hold its conventions within a long days' drive of where I live, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect them to at hold them in cities that are cheap to fly into for those who live too far away to drive. Please keep in mind that I am NOT slamming Portland, Oregon, the Oregon LP or even the LNC for its choice. It's just a simple fact that every hundred dollars added to flight prices is going to result in some fractional attendance reduction (especially for a family including two delegates plus kids). I'm really, really hoping that the LP will choose St. Louis for its 2008 convention -- not because I live here, but because 2008 will be the 40th anniversary of the separation of the modern libertarian political movement from conservatism/Republicanism, which occurred here (when Don Meinshausen burned his draft card on the floor of the YAF convention at the Stouffer Hotel and the libertarians walked out). > 55% of the delegates voted to eliminate the pledge. That bylaws > change failed because 67% (2/3) was required to pass. I spoke to many > people who voted to keep the pledge because they thought it referred > only to a prohibition of a violent overthrow of the government and not > to requiring that the entire platform reject incremental solutions. > > I'm confident that if you two had been there to explain the "true" > meaning of the pledge to the delegates, the pledge would have been > successfully eliminated. I don't think that's the case. There's been a movement to delete the pledge for years. A motion to do so also got a majority, but not a victory, in 1993. I don't regard my own persuasive capabilities as necessarily superior to those who have been working on the issue for much longer. > I look forward to seeing you in 2008. Ditto! > P.S. I voted for the minority report on the immigration plank. But > even the majority report was not unlibertarian. It simply did not > reject all government. It placed the burden of proof for exercising the right to walk across an imaginary line on those wanting to walk across the line, rather than on the government proposing to limit their ability to do so. If I'm entering private property, the burden of proof is on me to meet the owner's demands. If I'm walking in "common space" -- regardless of whether I think such should exist or not -- then it's the government's job to demonstrate why who I am and what I'm doing is anybody's business but mine, not my job to prove to the government's satisfaction that it approves of me or my activities. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> See what's inside the new Yahoo! Groups email. http://us.click.yahoo.com/2pRQfA/bOaOAA/yQLSAA/KlSolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ForumWebSiteAt http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
