Libertarian History

Libertarian Rituals and Notes

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Libertarian Ritual: Republicans have prayer breakfasts – Libertarians have the Statement of Principles, Nolan Chart, None of the Above, the Pledge, and the Dallas Accords.

There is no ritual more important to Libertarians than the Statement of Principles. Written by a small clutch of people, including Dr. John Hospers and Sarah O'Connor Foster in a hotel room during the course of the national Convention in the Statement is mortared into the platform of the LP and cannot be excised with less than a 7 / 8^th vote of all of the delegates attending the convention. The wording reflects the verbiage of Ayn Rand, sacred to so many early Libertarians.

The Statement of Principles

We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.

We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.

Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle, that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.

We, on the contrary, deny the right of any government to do these things, and hold that where governments exist, they must not violate the rights of any individual: namely, (1) the right to life -- accordingly we support the prohibition of the initiation of physical force against others; (2) the right to liberty of speech and action -- accordingly we oppose all attempts by government to abridge the freedom of speech and press, as well as government censorship in any form; and (3) the right to property -- accordingly we oppose all government interference with private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminent domain, and support the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud, and misrepresentation.

Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals. People should not be forced to sacrifice their lives and property for the benefit of others. They should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, is the free market.

The Nolan Chart

If you go on line to most Libertarian groups, including the Libertarian Party, you will find an announcement about the World's Smallest Political Quiz. It is very handy and useful as a tool for ascertaining your political viewpoint. David Nolan designed it many years ago when tech was not so high and we relied on things like vacuum tubes, wires and switches.

When I was Southern Vice Chairman for the California LP from 1979 – 1984 we used much the same quiz, minus the computer references, naturally. The Quiz was housed in a big, clumsy metal box filled with wires and little lights that lit up to tell you the same thing. It was built by Ed Ogawa, a long time Libertarian from Pasadena, and burned up in a barn fire at my then home in North Hills in 1989.

You can find the test at several Libertarian sites on the Internet. No matter what they call it, Diamond or whatever, it is the Nolan Chart Quiz.

The test became one of the main Libertarian ritual and you will come across people tabling with it at all sorts of places across the United States. Sometimes they have a computer sitting there and sometimes the test is on paper. Tabling a means used by many groups to spread their ideas; Libertarians now often share tabling with Greens, who are curiously enough, frequently working in coalition with Libertarians in parts of the country.

Personal Issues

(Choose A if you agree, M for Maybe, D if you disagree.)

Government should not censor speech, press, media or Internet

There should be no laws regarding sex for consenting adults

Military service should be voluntary. There should be no draft

(Choose A if you agree, M for Maybe, D if you disagree.)

Repeal laws prohibiting adult possession and use of drugs

There should be no National ID card

Economic Issues

(Choose A if you agree, M for Maybe, D if you disagree.)

End "corporate welfare." No government handouts to business

End government barriers to international free trade

Let people control their own retirement; privatize Social Security

Replace government welfare with private charity

Cut taxes and government spending by 50% or more

None of the Above

In all Libertarian elections None of the Above is always a candidate. Libertarians recognized that sometimes all of the choices are so bad that you need a way to register that disapproval without having to vote for the lesser of two or more evils.

Over the past decades occasions have arisen when None of the Above filled the office. When this happens it means that none of those flesh and blood candidates who presented themselves for consideration are eligible to be considered in the subsequent election for the same office.

This took place in California when I was active when a candidate named William Wagner presented himself as a candidate for party office and was soundly defeated by None of the Above. B. J. was certainly disappointed but remained a Libertarian to the chagrin of many.

Since 1996 the champion for None of the Above has been unofficially Dean Ahmad. Dean is an astrophysicist who is also the President and Founder of the Minaret of Freedom located in Bethesda, Maryland. Dean Ahmad has become Mr. None of the Above for all those occasions when it is clear that the power-maddened have again grabbed the steering wheel.

Rituals tell us a lot about organizations and their histories if we know what to look for. Rituals always focus attention either towards something or away from something. American rituals, such as the Pledge of Allegiance, familiar to all Americans, was adopted to displace a previous focus on the founding documents of our nation, for instance the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution which were at that point in time routinely studied in schools along with the Federalist Papers so that all Americans would be aware of their rights and history. Ironically enough, today it is the Liberals and Progressives who oppose the Pledge to the Flag without realizing that it was originally their idea while those opposed to its adoption, Conservatives, defend the Pledge with fervor.

Life is filled with strange reversals.

The Libertarian Pledge was dreamed up by David Nolan, a very busy guy back then, and used the emotionally powerful language familiar to the two groups who made up the majority of those who then considered themselves to be Libertarians, the Randians and the Miseans. Randians followed the ideas of Ayn Rand and Heinlein and Miseans followed the ideas of Ludwig von Mises, one of the economists who most influenced the work of Murray Rothbard. To join the LP you have to sign the Pledge which is as follows:

“I certify that I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals.”

Today, David Nolan says he only inserted the Pledge to ensure that Libertarians would not be accused of being engaged in attempts to violently overthrow the government. But that is not how most Libertarians view the Pledge. The idea of asserting standards and values for behavior has been an issue within the Libertarian Party for as long as it has been around and many believe firmly that the Pledge should be broader and read more like,

“I certify that I will initiate deceit, manipulation, or violence to achieve any of my goals, personal, social, or political.”

The idea of a pledge would give those involved in political action the security of knowing that the organizations had objective standards for what is acceptable and what is not tolerated. This is a blind spot for many Libertarians who, like the stereotype referred to at the beginning of this chapter and others now still sleeping on those Star Wars sheets, that a political party can be an excellent way to redirect funds, power, and sexual favors into your own use. Libertarians and their movement brought with them the seeds of their own destruction and those we will be examining a little later.

All organizations that survive past the first beer bust develop ritual that knits its members together. If organizations persist long enough they develop a working mythology that functions to set the limits and expectations for behavior within the group. The Pledge is effectively a piece of Libertarian Ritual that could have grown from its original form to the foundations for an internal justice system. This did not happen. The LP is a State sanctioned political party that has no consistent and reliable means for conflict resolution. It could have adopted one, as did the Green Party. It did not so choose.

David Nolan, the LP founder, claims that the Pledge was just a PR gesture to ensure that whatever administration did not stamp down on LPers as potential terrorists. For the record, that is not the understanding of most long time LP members, who believe it is supposed to mean something. What that is they are not sure. Attempting to excise or change the Pledge could result in blood being spilled along with a lot of yelling. Messing around with theology is likely to make people testy.

The National Pledge has been around since before I was first a member, meaning at least since 1973.

The New York Convention and the exit of Crane

The Heady Rise of the Rhetoric of Freedom

Ronald Reagan Administration: the ideas are rhetorically adopted while the mission shifts through misapplication.

You can's eat a description of an apple pie.

How the rhetoric was misused.

The lying lips of Liberty

While the rhetoric is in use by Republicans the Libertarian Party heads South to its own brand of burn out.

Michael Emerling Cloud and the LPs culture of deceit. Perry Willis, the Berglandista,

Running Campaigns for Profit

1972 – Denver, Colorado

1973 – Strongsville, Ohio

1974 – Dallas, Texas

1975 – New York City

Roger Mac Bride, David Bergland

1977 – Palace Hotel, San Francisco, California

1979 – Bonaventure Hotel, Los Angeles, California

Ed Clark, David Koch

1980 – Alternative '80, Century City Hotel, Los Angeles, California

1981 – Denver, Colorado

Alicia Clark, elected Chair

1983 – New York, New York

David Bergland, John Lewis

1985 - Phoenix, Arizona

1987 – Seattle, Washington

Ron Paul, Andre Marrou

1989 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

1991 – September, Chicago, Illinois

Andre Marrou, Nancy Lord

Hiatus on Conventions due to change on nominating protocol

1996 – July 4-7 - Hyatt Regency-Capitol Hill Hotel, Washington D. C.

Harry Browne, Jo Jorgensen

Dean Ahmad nominates None of the Above

Nearly 1,000 Libertarians gathered

1998 - Washington D. C.

2000 – Anaheim, California

Harry Browne, Art Olivier

2002 – July 2-7 Indianapolis, Indiana

George Phillies and jousting with windmills

2004 - May 27 to May 31.- Marriott Marquis Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia Memorial Day weekend, Michael Badnarik, Richard Campagna

The theme of the convention was "LIBERTY Works!"

2006 – Hilton Hotel Portland, Oregon

Sources:

Nixon: Wage and Price controls

http://www.econreview.com/events/wageprice1971b.htm

The Harry Browne – Emerling (Cloud) – Willis Campaign 1996 and 2000

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A meeting of need and opportunity

"Why did you decide to run for President?" "It was my wife's idea." -- Harry Browne

"I have no temptation to vote, to campaign, to try and stop a candidate who promises new follies." -- Harry Browne, "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World", 1973

Harry Browne wrote, “How You Can Profit from the Coming Devaluation,” in 1970. The book sold well because of the instability of the market and was soon followed by, “How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World.” The two books were self-help books that appealed directly to those who were concerned about the state of their finances and about ways to detach themselves from the control of both government and the constraints of society. While “How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World,” purports to be about freedom this is not really true. It is actually about avoiding the constraints that human culture devised to protect those who are vulnerable from manipulation. For example, marriage by contract or agreement is an institution that precedes government but today has become an instrument of government, asserting control into the personal lives and relationships of men and women. Freedom as envisioned by the Founders mandates informed consent and mutual benefit, each acting without constraints imposed by the State.

Harry Browne was well known throughout the Libertarian Party and Movement as an adherent of the “non party' faction, meaning he did not approve of political process. Other long time adherents of that viewpoint, including Kenneth R. Gregg, expressed shock when they learned he was seeking the Libertarian nomination for President. Browne had been influenced by the work of Andrew J. Galambos, an astrophysicist living in Los Angeles who began giving workshops in the ideas of freedom around 1960.

Galambos is one of the few prominent Libertarians who died without having written at least one book. Students taking his workshops had to sign a contract guaranteeing they would not use his ideas. His structural understanding of freedom was based on the idea of private property, and whether Browne had already accepted this as a basis for his own ideas or borrowed it from Galambos it became central to his own work. Those thinkers who came through the Galambos workshops in large part were nonpolitical. Browne remained nonpolitical up until the time he decided to run for President.

Running for office was Browne's own idea. Harry Browne contacted John Hix, the respected expert in internal political events, and paid $1000.00 for a days advice in how to secure the nomination.

The reason for this change is clear. Browne's book sales were falling, each one selling less than the one before and he had accustomed himself to a lavish life style.

Soon after he announced Browne had acquired a supporter who was very enthusiastic about a possible Browne candidacy. That was Michael Emerling Cloud who would have the help of those then in control of the Libertarian Party, the Berglandista.

The Long Tour of the Book was about to begin. It would prove to be lucrative for all involved. Browne's venture into politics yielded $100,000.00 a year from his campaign or the LP from 1995 – 2001 just for him personally.

Securing the nomination for Harry Browne began in August of 1994. To secure the nomination the Berglandista were prepared to do anything necessary. Perry Willis, then National Director but covertly working for the Browne Campaign, did all within his power to ensure that other candidates had no access to mailing lists or other Libertarian resources.

Crane would have admired the means and the outcome. Browne secured the nomination handily and those who had helped him were set to profit. Later, Perry Willis would write a 30 page letter, “confessing” to but justifying his actions. The hope of a campaign and LP that would support and empower local organizing again fizzled.

Both Browne campaigns and those in control of the LP during what became known as the Brown Cloud Years, were actively hostile to local organizing. Perry Willis, in particular, discouraged serious local campaigns.

Perry Willis had begun his career as an activist in San Diego in the wake of a highly profitable state convention run there by the local LP. He approached the San Diego leadership with the proposition that they hire him as their paid executive director. They did so. A year later he moved on, having exhausted the money in their treasury. The pattern would repeat.

Eventually, having worked his way up the food chain and building heavily on personal charm, Perry met Michael Emerling Cloud. The synergy developed in the wake of the Marrou for President campaign. The two men clicked. During his early years as a Libertarian Emerling had openly admitted that he was a con artist with activists such as Gail Lightfoot of California. This only stopped when he became involved with a woman in Massachusetts named Carla Howell. Carla, a professional women who owned her own home, became Emerling's significant other. For her he needed to be respectable. Howell was connected to a moderately old New England family and moving towards respectability meant that Emerling had to publicly reform.

Therefore Emerling reinvented himself, manufacturing organizations and a presence in the LP that spun him as the Great Communicator of Libertarianism. The two Browne campaigns and those carried out in Massachusetts served to profit him personally while avoiding the possibility that any local organization would arise to challenge his hegemony. The Berglandista planned to run Howell for President in 2004 began even before the 2000 Libertarian Convention in Anaheim. This would whimper to a slow death as activists in Massachusetts began the process of retaking their state party.

In effect, the LP had been converted into the private property of the same clique who had ousted the Crane Machine. The group followed the same patterns of self-dealing, top down management, deceptive practices, and overweening arrogance. Another round of the same behavior would be repeated in the largest State organization of the LP, the Libertarian Party of California. That continues to this day.

The following is just one incident in a reaction against the Berglandista that eventually ousted then entirely from any positions of respect in the LP.

=====LP of Pa. Board of Directors resolution passed 3:01pm 9/23/2001====

"Whereas, certain individuals associated with the Libertarian Party conspired to violate National Libertarian Party policy, libertarian principles, and normal standards of business ethics, and

Whereas, we have in the past supported, promoted and endorsed these individuals by our official actions and in our publications and appeals, and

Whereas, we have an obligation to keep our membership informed;

Therefore, we the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania withdraw any expressed or implied endorsement of any of these individuals or organizations or projects in which they are involved. The individuals are, in alphabetical order:
Sharon Ayres
David Bergland
Harry Browne
Michael (Emerling) Cloud
Jack Harris Dean
Perry Willis

The grip of the Berglandista on the LP was finally wrested away by a determined coalition of activists at the 2002 Convention in Indianapolis. The Berglandista candidate for National Chairman, Eli Israel, went down to defeat, opposed by Jeff Neale from Texas and George Phillies of Massachusetts. George, a professor of physics, would be the central force in excising the Emerling influence from his own state several years later.

Today, four years later, the LP remains disjointed and without a strategic vision that connects to a plan of action. However, it remains an effective meeting point for people seeking personal freedom and political alternatives and, as with all life, there is yet hope. If the LP assembles a strategically sound plan, taking into account the need for governance and began building at the most local level, becoming itself a model for the solution, anything would be possible.

Through its origination of 'idea tools,' the LP changed the direction of politics in America. Those tools include privatization (Bob Poole of Reason Foundation), outsourcing, deregulation, and others intended to make the process more efficient. However, efficiency is neither a substitute or equivalent for freedom though many have confused these things.

Additionally, these ideas were not used as originally anticipated because, as with all ideas, they were sold through such outlets as Cato as tools that actually served to decouple profit and accountability and applied through legislation. These did not, therefore produce the benefits of a free market but rather allowed for the optimization of profit by corporations that also used the legislative process to minimize or even eliminate their potential for liability.

The issues of Global Warming, which is now acknowledged to be supported by overwhelming evidence was evaded for the last 30 years in large part through the actions of Cato, which assumed the role of objective third party while accepting most of its funding from the oil industry. Cato performed similar services on issues related to women, dismissing all issues that go to the foundational, Constitutional difference between the rights of women, which are only supported through legislative action, and of men, which are guaranteed through the Constitution.

Just because you feel like someone is not proof they aren't trying to do so.

This was probably not all by design. The underlying mythology of Objectivism is pointedly pro-business and anti-woman, ironically enough since Rand was herself a woman. Ideas always have consequences, which is one of the reasons we need to be careful about how well the ideas that represent action match the action to be taken. To this day libertarians bemoan the absence of women who are willing to invest time and money in the LP. Never have they thought to question if this decided preference might reflect a real problem internal to the LP itself. If the car doesn't run better check the engine.

On the issue of global warming it is curious that a movement that endorses accountability ignored the need to ensure that if global warming was real when the consequences would impact all uf us while the profit for creating the conditions would be specific to certain industries and individuals.

That doubtless comes from romanticizing business and ignoring the deceptive and unethical practices so prevalent in large corporations today. Bill Hunscher and Roger Mac Bride, both now deceased, would not be surprised.

Life is itself a joke on all of us.

(Author's Note)

I noticed the tendency to turn the Libertarian Party into a hierarchal, for profit, institution in at the time of the Clark Campaign. I also noted the behavioral strategies and the disconnect between rhetoric and reality. Libertarianism was supposed to make us freer. I strongly objected to it instead being used to make a few richer.

Until you give freedom to everyone none of us are free.

The Howie Rich - Crane - Koch Machine is launched.

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The Crane Machine launches a stealth campaign, using initiatives – 1992

After probing around in the Republican Party and working to get visibility for themselves through Cato with Congress for nearly a full decade the cadre of people around Crane, which was pretty much unchanged since their exit from the New York Convention in 1983, acquired a new toy. That was an organization that the Koch Brothers had not been able to use effectively, this was the Citizens for Congressional Reform. Acquiring this not for profit spawned an incredible proliferation of identical not-for-profit organizations, each dedicated to doing pretty much the same thing and many created by the same web designers. That was to use a stealth approach to employing the initiative process to change the laws in states where this was allowed. This fit in exactly with the original game plan of the Crane Machine. Crane had always viewed local activists as an obstacle to action within the LP unless those acting locally were directly under his control.

In employing this growing collection of nonprofits Crane had extended that approach to Americans as a whole. The first of these organization, U. S. Term Limits, focused on limiting the number of terms for any elected legislator. It would be followed by initiatives that promoted an end to eminent domain, school choice, and spending caps by government and eventually measures such as legislation relating to end of life issues raised by the Terry Schrivo Case.

Many individuals in various states had worked for these kinds of measure; the problem was not the use of the initiative process, a tool introduced by the Populists to allow local people to change government, making it responsive to their needs. it was the means that made the Crane – Rich strategy questionable.

The initiatives themselves often caused problems because they did not reflect the needs of those who had to live with the resulting law. Even more egregiously, the initiatives were deceptively run as 'grass roots' efforts to potential donors outside the state when they had not real support within the state and left no body of local expertise or enhanced organization in their wake. It was a reprise of the Crane – Clark Campaign, this time run at a profit. Unused funds were transferred into the accounts of those who Crane and Howie had known and worked with since the 70s.

But worse than this pilfering of funds was the lack of goals and a consistent strategy to achieve goals that advanced the cause of freedom and local control.

In the original vision of American government the Founders had assumed that local towns and the people who lived in them would make their own rules in how they structures their lives. This could be seen as a multitude of small experiments in living that would allow for a learning curve, helping a free people develop the means of reducing conflict as they learned to live outside of a traditional hierarchy imposed from the outside. The model for local government had fallen victim to the centralization of power both by states and by the Federalizing of power. Presumably, returning to this original model should have been on the agenda for all libertarians, both those within the Party, those in think tanks like Cato, and those who were in the non-party movement. It was not. Instead these variously followed strategies of conquest, disinformation, and withdrawal into insulated groups that ignored the mainstream entirely. Only a few individuals within the movement as a whole followed strategies that served to focus their activism on local organizing on issues that then could serve to develop the skills of small governance using persuasion and consent.

Sometimes things are just too obvious to grasp, especially, perhaps, when those making the decisions have a very different conception of what freedom means.

Through the next 15 years the Crane Machine would produce cookie cutter nonprofits by the dozens hat only served to develop local organization when their activities antagonized local people so much they organized to oppose the initiatives that the Crane Machine fielded, using out of state contractors, signature gatherers, and outside millions. In some cases the Crane – Howie Machine would outspend local activists six to one to get their measures passed into law. Those who provided the funding would be, ironically enough, the same corporations who had become of entrenched subsidizers of big government who demonstrably had strong economic incentives in this serial campaign that changed law without educating or empowering local people and grass roots democracy.

This leaves the question of whether or not the Crane Machine intended to sell its services to Big Government to the judgment of the reader. It is possible they were blinded by their own ideology, which was founded in the naïve, bodice ripping unreality of Rand. The Richs especially had come to the movement through the NBI in New York and through wealth and age had become elder statesmen in this micro cult.

Michael Emerling-Cloud

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Emerling's financial habits caused problems both within his marriage, which ended in 1990, and for the LP, though this never became known at the time.

Over the years Emerling-Cloud had borrowed money from friends and supporters. He declared bankruptcy, including in this a debt to a woman who had loaned him her life savings believing that they were about to start their lives together. When Marrou began his campaign for vice-president he was called and warned by Ed Clark that having Emerling-Cloud as his campaign manager was a mistake. Clark was clear about the personal habits and questionable ethics Emerling-Cloud had demonstrated over the years. Marrou chose to ignore this advice – but most probably knew Marrou did not know perfectly well what Emerling-Cloud was about.

The irregularities in accounting for funds began immediately along with slip shod campaign scheduling. According to Emerling's then wife, Vickie Emerling, Michael's attempts to cut corners on their IRS return in 1987 caused them to be confronted with an obligation and penalties of around $40,000.00. Michael negotiated this down to $15,000.00 of which he forced Vickie to pay $500.00. The rest most likely was taken from the money then coming in as funds raised for the campaign because while no money went out of their joint income when Vickie asked she was told that the obligation had been handled.

The campaign was run out of a house in Las Vegas and later moved to Marrou's own home. During the campaign period Marrou fired Emerling-Cloud. Andre said this was because Emerling-Cloud insisted on putting out fundraising letters that made promises of which he, the candidate, was unaware.

Money from the campaign was routinely used for personal purposes by both Marrou and Emerling-Cloud, according to their wives. The Marrou Campaign became the means for Emerling-Cloud relaunched himself into a career his own behavior had destroyed. His campaign to remove Marrou from the ticket caused some in the LP to characterize him as, “an enemy of freedom.” But with the facility of the cat with nine lives Emerling would be back. For Marrou the ride ended with election day, 1992. For Emerling-Cloud the ride continued for another ten years.

Selling Liberty for a Profit

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Marshall Fritz, a computer salesman from Fresno, California, first learned about the Libertarian Party while living in Torrance, California from a bumper sticker. He commented to the driver that the only place the Liberal Party was on the ballot was New York. He then learned that the LP was not the Liberal Party and received literature, including the State Newsletter, CalLiber, the newsletter for Los Angeles County, then edited by Sandy Webb, and a brochure titled, Uninflation, by Murray Rothbard. He went on to read Rothbard's, “For a New Liberty,” and was hooked. 1980 found him living with his wife and many children in Fresno, where he began becoming active for the Clark Campaign, making calls to registered Libertarians, an innovation in Fresno, and passing out literature. In 1982 Marshall ran for office and after election night he knew that he wanted to sell Libertarianism for a living.

Encouraged by such figures as Murray Rothbard, Sharon Ayres, David Bergland and others he decided to apply for the post of Executive Director for the LP of California. His long time friend and mentor in politics, John Hix, the man whose ability to win floor elections were unparalleled, helped him put together a proposal which was accepted in February of 1983. Marshall's tenure in the position lasted until June, 1984. The separation had come about because his position depended on raising the money to fund his position and this had never happened and because his work failed to result in any growth for the Libertarian Party in California and loss of productivity by the existing LPC.

In the immediate wake of his resignation Fritz received a call from Paul Grant, then National Chairman of the LP, asking him to come to work as a ballot drive consultant. After a consultation with John Hix, Marshall accepted, service to start when his first month's salary was in the bank. Over the next three months Marshall learned the business of signature collection on the ground, from Georgia, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, and Missouri.

After a brief consideration of the position of National Director, Marshall founded The Advocates for Self Government in January of 1985. Its mission was to take the educational functions of the LP and focus on these, thus supporting the LP. Unfortunately, as was the case in the earlier incarnations of Marshall's activism, the wishful motive of making a living selling Libertarianism, became the goal. Others, including Students for Individual Liberty were already selling educational materials and programs.

Eventually, Advocates would recycle the Nolan Chart idea, originated by founder David Nolan, into the World's Smallest Political Quiz, which made the transition onto the internet and is now used in many forms. Previously, the best known use of the Nolan Chart had been, perhaps, when it was rendered into an electronically switched machine for use in Los Angeles County. That small, trusty, device, built by activist Ed Ogawa, was used at the LA County Fair from the late 70s until the late 80s. Fritz's use of the Nolan Chart concept sent it into the Computer age.

The lack of strategic planning, connecting the ultimate goal to the means through well thought out, rational steps, again took the LP and its Movement in directions that failed to advance the cause. Political action is undertaken by a group to accomplish specific ends and these were not taken into account by those who were then running the Libertarian Party.

It had been their overlooked duty of the LP to oversee the management of the Libertarian Party of California and should have foreseen the consequences of hiring someone whose salary needs outstripped the resources of their organization.

The lack of any cohesive strategic vision on how a political party could be used to achieve the goal of local governance and individual rights went unconsidered, as it had been for twenty years.

The parallel lack of professional standards for hiring, the lack of a strategic vision and intermediate goals, and the influence of those who were profiting by the use of the rhetoric in ways that did not advance the reality of freedom acted to further skew the course of events.

This oversight made the Party and Movement vulnerable to become a means for manipulating opinion. This opportunity was not overlooked.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and the lines are painted on later by the greedy. ://www.theadvocates.org/celebrities.html

The Ron Paul Campaign - 1988

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The Family Doctor, and Congressman, from Texas

Ron Paul made the ballot in 46 states, which is not at all bad for a campaign that is, as always, underfunded and without its own personal billionaire. The Paul Campaign, coming as it did, in the immediate wake of the defection of Dick Randolph in Alaska provided a shot in the arm – but again failed to focus on strengthening local organizations. This time the problems with top down management came from the State Parties, however.

It had become a fact of life for the LP that those willing to run normally did so because there was some other motive that could be served by the monumental investment of time and energy necessitated by a campaign that could take most of two years. With Hospers this had not been an issue because he was not asked to invest the time. For Mac Bride his independent wealth made this possible and justifiable. Clark had promised and delivered a very limited period of time to the active campaign and returned to work. Bergland's campaign marked an alteration on how presidential campaigns were run. The potential for such campaigns to serve secondary agendas was a natural development and potentially allowed candidates to run who would not otherwise have been willing to make the necessary investment possible candidates. This alteration came with hazards that were never openly discussed.

In the case of Ron Paul running for President also allowed him to augment the mailing list for his gold investment business, according to various gold bugs. There was no essential conflict between the two goals but this sea change, carefully watched by those who had run the Bergland campaign and working with Marrou, enabled future use of the ticket that would prove to be hazardous to the integrity of the Libertarian Party as a whole. Andre Marrou, first running for the nomination, accepted the nomination for vice president.

Again, the lack of a clear vision for goals and a well thought out plan for achieving those goals impacted the course of action; the LP was off course without even realizing it. It was about to get worse.

The Burns/Bergland/Ravenal Campaign - 1984

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The Crane Machine leaves, the Berglandista fills the niche

At the beginning of 1983 all was quiet in Libertarian Land. A popular talk show host had declared to run for the Libertarian nomination and all sides expressed satisfaction with the candidacy of Gene Burns. It was the unexpected announcement by Gene Burns that he would not be seeking the presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party in the summer of 1983 that eventually resulted in the exit of the Crane Machine from the battle for control of the LP. Burns, a popular radio personality who had come out publicly as a Libertarian, had been up for the idea if there was enough money to run a creditable campaign. Unlike Mac Bride, Hunscher, and Koch, he was not independently wealthy. Also, taking the nomination would have had an impact on his ability to work as a radio talk show host, something of which the station management made him very aware.

Told over and over again by David Bergland that money would not be a problem, he discovered that this was not the case. The money was an issue because those who had persuaded him to seek the nomination were unable to raise any for him. Therefore just a scant month before the nominating convention he dropped out. This caused shock waves through the LP, naturally. The waves resulted in two candidacies, that of David Bergland from California and Earl Ravenal, a professor at Georgetown solicited to run by Edward H. Crane, III.

The Bergland candidacy began the day the Burns announcement was made when a friend of Bergland's answered the phone with, “Bergland for President Headquarters.”

At that time a group of individuals were meeting for leisure and dialog at the seashore home of Roger Mac Bride in Biddeford Poole, Maine. The vacation turned into a strategy meeting. Various members of the cadre associated with Crane met and discussed the nomination.

To the surprise of many Mac Bride and Bill Hunscher supported Earl Ravenal while Ed Clark supported David Bergland. There had been a gentleman's agreement that no matter who won the sides would shake hands and work on the campaign. That ended the moment David Bergland achieved nomination.

The Crane machine walked out, in mass, leaving only Howie Rich to report back on further developments. But was not to be the last word from Crane and Company.

Bergland's vice presidential nominee was Jim Lewis, a tax protester who had spent time in prison in support of his beliefs. The campaign would be run by Williamson Evers, a long time Libertarian from California, his wife, Mary Gingell, a former Chairman of the California LP and Perry Willis. The campaign for the nomination had been run not out of enthusiasm for Bergland as a candidate; David was generally acknowledged to be a lackluster public speaker. It had been run because no one who had experienced the Clark - Crane Campaign could tolerate the idea of what was bound to be another Crane candidacy.

Therefore from the beginning actually running a campaign was an after thought and the realities of raising money, planning a national strategy, and ballot access were slipshod. The Bergland/Lewis ticket were on the ballot in only 39 states. The Crane Machine had run the ballot drives previously; Howie Rich, acting as commissar. The expertise had not been shared.

The personnel had changed but the world view had remained the same. The next two decades would be controlled by the Berglanista as the past had been by the Crane Machine.

Dave Bergland's campaign was hampered by his insistence that fundraising be handled by someone flown in for each event. Since the designated pitch man, Dick Boddie, was teaching twice a week at a college in Southern California, this meant that the cost of airline tickets was increased dramatically with Dick flying to and fro and costing more in transportation than the candidate himself. Dick was an excellent pitchman. It was an unnecessary cost. Bergland's personality and eccentricities drove decisions that should have been made of a more professional basis. Campaign staff was drawn from a small circle of personal friends and competence was ignored.

During the Clark campaign there had been a flawed campaign strategy. During the Bergland campaign there was no strategy. The campaign failed to take advantage of issues then receiving national prominence. The campaign book was not as good as either previous book and available only late in the campaign period. The campaign staff insisted on running the campaign from the top down. Little local grown was achieved.

However, several libertarians who wanted very much to be employed as professional libertarians got the opportunity to hold jobs that provided national titles. As had been true with the Crane Machine credentials and previous experience were ignored; those hired were close friends of the candidate.

Chief among these was Perry Willis, who would make the LP his career for the next decade.

Meanwhile, in Alaska, a state with a population of only one million and an unusual set of circumstances due to the Alaska Pipe Line things had been developing. They continued to develop, but in very different directions. Several people had been elected to the state legislature as Libertarians. No matter what the size of the legislative body this was a major accomplishment.
It began with a guy named Dick Randolph, who had served two terms as a Republican state legislator in 1974 and 1974. After that he dropped out and did some thinking. Then he ran again, but this time as a Libertarian, in 1980 and then in 1982. This caused an explosion of popularity for Libertarianism in the Far North. Dick was the kind of guy who was well liked and thought of in his community. Dick encouraged another Libertarian, Ken Fanning, to run in his district in 1982 and Fanning squeaked in, too. Then Randolph decided to run for governor as a Libertarian in 1984. He lost, naturally. But Alaskans were happy that Randolph had managed to rescind the state income tax. It looked like anything was possible.

In the wake of the Alicia firing of O'Keefe, Eric O'Keefe and another youngish Libertarian, Duncan Scott, were dispatched to Alaska. Both worked on the gubernatorial campaign there and then Duncan Scott was hired as state Executive Director. Randolph managed the floor campaign for Earl Ravenal and, along with the rest of the Crane Machine, walked out of the LP. Back in Alaska another Libertarian legislator had been elected to serve from 1985 – 1987. That was Andre Marrou, an MIT graduate who had spent several years living in the wilderness. Randolph had committed to another run for governor and then suddenly, in March of 1986, he changed his registration back to Republican and ran and lost in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Duncan Scott resigned as Executive Director and moved to New Mexico, changing his registration to Republican. He also became a Republican activist.

At the same time a long time associate of Crane and company called and urged another long time activist in California to re-register Republican. The man had worked as Crane's political operative in California during the run up to the Clark campaign. His name was John Fund. While John Fund has been sold as a Libertarian he, in fact, was never registered Libertarian even when he was paid staff for California.

The LP in Alaska sputtered and died. At the time no one considered the possibility that a campaign to move activists into the Republican camp had been going on. But this is the case.

Andre Marrou moved down to the lower '48. Although in most cases candidates needed to be coaxed in this case no encouragement was needed.

The Libertarian Party

2007-05-19T12:42:00.000-07:00

Most Americans know now that there is a Libertarian Party and associate it with marijuana legalization, yearly tax protests on April 15^th, and no longer quite young men who live in their mother's basements, sleeping on Star Wars sheets. While it is politically incorrect to engage in stereotypes it is also true that stereotypes exist because they contain a grain of truth.

But the above ignores the real significance of the Libertarian Party and the movement that preceded it Third parties have driven the evolution of political thinking since the calcification of the two party system which effectively reformatted American politics in the aftermath of the Civil War. So third parties, while they do not elect do direct the political dialog and so exercise far more power than is normally ascribed to them. This was how the Socialist Agenda became adopted by the Democratic Party in the first half of the 20^th Century. But the impact of the Libertarian Party and Movement has far more directly impacted politics as we see it today. How that happened shows just how connected those in power really are.

You will see parallels here that will remind you of those who now control the Republican Party. That is not a coincidence. The Libertarian Party, as are all organizations, is a tool people use to carry out action working together. This is equally true for a political party and the Girl Scouts. However, with organizations that fail to agree on their goals or how to achieve those goals more than cookies can be sold. This was the case with the Libertarian Party and, for that matter, with all political parties.

The Libertarian Party, referred to as the LP by much of its membership, started in a living room in Denver, Colorado on December 11^th, 1971. While the LP remains small in numbers that Movement has taken over the Republican Party, displacing the previous ideas with their own through a process of slow but steady adoption.

The tail is wagging the dog and the dog was asking for it. This has been true of the relationship between the Green Party and the Democratic Party, also.

Nixon and his politics must be credited with the surge of popularity that swelled the ranks of the Libertarian Party for the last two years of the Nixon Administration beginning with that auspicious moment in the living room of David Nolan then the LP was founded.

David Nolan, a graduate from M. I. T., had been a member of Young Americans for Freedom and Students for Goldwater and a leader or active in similar groups since the heady days of the Goldwater Campaign. The bubbly bottles of 'Goldwater' were not alcoholic but the ideas were intoxicating, firing their proponents with zeal.

In early 1971 David Nolan was a candidate for Vice Chairman of the National Young Republicans and missed winning that office by one slim vote at their national convention. Emil Franzi, who Nolan would later know well in the Libertarian Party, had suggested that the California Chapter 'Unit Vote' , meaning that the delegation be polled and vote as for a single candidate. If this had happened Nolan would have received at least 10 additional votes and been elected Vice Chairman of the Young Republicans.

So do the accidents of time determine more than we know. Soon, Nolan was working on the article for the Individualist, a libertarian oriented magazine.

Individuals across the country had been debating and making attempts to establish a base of operations since election day, 1964. Their hero, Senator Barry Goldwater, lost but they did not give up.

In August of 1971 the Nolan article appeared in one of then three publications that knit the nascent movement together. "The Case for a Libertarian Political Party," appeared in the Individualist; it had been in process for several months prior. Within a few days of Richard Nixon's television appearance on the 15^th of that month to announce his Wage and Price Controls Republicans all over the country had dropped out, disgusted. Young, intelligent, and activist oriented Republicans signed off on the party of Nixon.

In New York an attorney named Ed Clark called his wife, Alicia Cabo Clark, to vent his rage. Alicia, the daughter of a former Mexican Senator and the CEO of a multinational Corporation, sympathized. One of the things that had brought them together was their shared belief in the ideas of freedom. The Clarks also left the Republican Party. Clark would become the third Libertarian candidate for President and Alicia would eventually serve as National Chairman.

The article written by Nolan had called for the creation of a political party not primarily to elect candidates but to become a voice for the unadulterated ideas of individual freedom. It was aimed at a group of people who shared many of the same ideas about how the world should be, ideas that started with Ayn Rand, Robert Heinlein, and Ludwig von Mises for their generation but which resonated with the ideas of Thomas Jefferson.

Wage and Price Controls would prove to be an absolute failure. The controls did not stem inflation and yet, with the logic of other government programs, continued to be used as a tool until 1980.

Similar scenes played out all over America as young people who had worked feverishly for Goldwater and burned their draft cards as members of the Libertarian Caucus of Young Americans for Freedom, began to coalesce into a group.

As Nixon settled into a grumpy retirement in Yorba Linda, California on August 8, 1974,

the newly fledged Libertarian Party was experiencing a surge of growth and excitement along with internecine warfare.

The LP began as an organization that looked to individuals to take action themselves because the moral structure for individual rights viewed these as existing before any government people might adopt. This was the mission statement of the Declaration of Independence; it was not the structural reality of American politics. As the structure of the organization congealed a conflict of visions began, pitting the top down style of traditional American political parties with the spontaneous, local organizing that had characterized its first several years.

The Libertarian weapons of choice in their war for the soul of America would be ideas; these activists believed in the concept of individual rights; they assumed the battle would be won in their lifetimes but did not account for the need to translate the ideas and words into behavior that sent the same massage. The fact that words mask behavior as well and as often as they match action was a slow lesson to sink in. Thirty years later the lesson would remain yet to be learned.

Even in those early years all was not sweetness and light and unanimity. Libertarians come in several varieties and these fell, roughly, into two categories, limited state or minarchist, (which has nothing to do with Rhode Island but with the eventual size of the government envisioned as necessary to the smooth functioning of American society) and anarchist; anarchists are those who think you can realistically return control to individuals using only cooperation and consent. Note that used in this way 'anarchy' does not mean the lack of order but spontaneous order or dynamic, quantum, ordering for human action.

Disagreement on this issue nearly destroyed the LP at its third convention. A convention had taken place the year before in Strongsville, OH from June 8-10.

At the 1974 Libertarian National Convention, held in Texas, the issue of planks to be added to the platform erupted into vitriolic debate on whether the platform would reflect the minarchist or Anarchist viewpoint. From this threat to the very existence of the LP the Dallas Accord was born. This mutually useful and gentlemanly agreement mandated that planks would all allow for how a state would function if it existed and not assume the existence of a state. Thus peace was restored in Libertarian Land.

It was at the 1974 Convention that a young guy not long out of college was elected National Chairman. That was Edward H. Crane, III. The man who managed Crane's floor campaign would also manage all the significant floor campaigns for the first decade of LP history. That man was John Hix of Fresno. Hix's involvement with the LP was fortuitous for Ed Crane.

Over the next several years more young people left the Republican Party, propelled by the ideas on individual freedom and economics expressed by Libertarianism. Ideas have always been the building blocks of human society and Libertarians believed they were building a new world forged from the unrealized vision of the American Revolution. Those ideas included personal accountability, control of their own lives, and free markets. Libertarians viewed these ideas as their distinct heritage. The existence of the Libertarian Party provided the medium for popularizing those ideas and served as a meeting place for like-minded individuals.

The Ideas of Libertarianism

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Nolan, along with most Libertarians, had cut his teeth on the writings of Robert A. Heinlein and Ayn Rand. He was one of many who followed that same intellectual path to adulthood, surviving the trauma of the break up between Rand and her First Disciple, Nathaniel Brandon, in New York in 1969 with the closing of NBI, the Nathaniel Brandon Institute. NBI, which taught the ideas of Rand as the philosophy of Objectivism, was named not for her but
for her disciple and lover, a man twenty-five years her
junior.

In the mid 70s the Libertarian Party was a hot bed
of activism, excitement, and ideas. The first two

presidential campaigns sent a message of local organizing, educating on the ideas of freedom, and individual cooperation. Volunteers and activists spent their own time and money on projects they devised. It was a spontaneous ordering of energy that would be stifled by the emergence of influences whose attempts to redirect those energies to their own purposes were largely successful.

Political parties are designed to be miniature bureaucracies; the rules and practices imposed by government makes it difficult to avoid the pitfalls of that system and no one really tried because the issue was not raised at the time. There was a vague agreement that freedom was the destination. There was no thought to how freedom for everyone could be achieved in the absence of other, formal means for ordering society. In the early years most activists assumed there was agreement on the mission, never considering how that mission would be accomplished. .

The model for organization adopted within the LP began with local organizing and swiftly moved towards a centralized system of control, enforced by rules and deception. Some few state parties resisted this, for instance Maryland, adopted operating rules that helped keep an internal bureaucracy from developing, but in the 70s this was still far in the future.

The potential for abusing power is the most attractive of nuisances. The egos and personalities who were attracted to the potential for power brought with them assumptions about how organizations must operate that ignored the need to devise real alternatives to those that had been produced by a society that assumed the existence of government at every level.

The Icons of Libertarianism

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The front line issues as seen by libertarians reflected their youth and the fact that most of them were male. This was natural. Each of us sees through the lense of our individual assumptions and experiences.

Therefore the Vietnam War, the illegality of pot, economic issues, and gun rights dominated the minds of most activists who were also living out the sexual revolution. The most emotionally compelling heroes of the movement were the idea spinners who spoke through the images of fiction.

Robert Heinlein's “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress,” Ayn Rand's “Atlas Shrugged,” brought the emotional focus that popularized the ideas considered in such nonfiction works as Rose Wilder Lane's “The Discovery of Freedom,” and Isabel Patterson's “God of the Machine,” and more academic treatments. In much the same way Harriet Beecher Stowe's “Uncle Tom's Cabin” had penetrated the mainstream of American consciousness a century before, Rand and Heinlein achieved in the 20^th Century presenting ideas woven into fiction.

“Shrugged,” and Fountainhead were in effect intellectual bodice rippers that today still sell more books than anything else but the Bible. “Stranger in a Strange Land,” the novel Robert Heinlein wrote to break the stifling contract he had tied himself into for writing juvenile potboilers became one of the influences that supercharged the sexual revolution as groups experimented with alternative forms of marriage and grokked the winds of social freedom.

Robert Heinlein's many science fiction novels continue to be read by new generations despite the fact they have been outdated in many cases. Written as juvenile potboilers they became classics, reframing the ideas of human organization through stories that allowed young readers to think about alternative forms for human society.

The willingness to think outside the box characterized the libertarian movement in these early years.

While no one much thought about it at the time a wrestling match was taking place between two men who would be acknowledged as the greatest writers of science fiction in their time, Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. The battle between centralized power and cooperative action took place simultaneously to the beginning of the libertarian movement. This theme repeated itself in science fiction and also, some years later, in the Libertarian Party itself.

The early years of libertarianism were filled with battles over ideas, and egos were very present in those ongoing wars for a share of the intellectual market.

The Market in Markets

Always present in economics were the many works of Murray Rothbard. Rothbard, growing to intellectual maturity in New York in the years that preceded and included the Second World War, was a diligent student of economics, history, and politics. An economist of rare insight, Rothbard prodigiously produced books and papers that included incisive points on the cause and effect of Austrian Economics. However, Rothbard liked internecine warfare the way some men like football and beer; through the late 60s and 70s Rothbard engaged in political maneuvers using ideas like Conan the Barbarian used his trusty club, ripping his way through the developing libertarian movement leaving a reputation for dissension in his wake.

Murray delighted in the blustering idea battles of politics that took place as he attacked what he characterized as the 'libertarian right,' digging his own divide between the admirers of Goldwater and the 'libertarian left.' He had initiated this avenue for activism when he lead a group of Libertarians into the convention of the Peace and Freedom Party in 1968 in an attempt to create solidarity with the new left that was less than successful. This approach was a product of his upbringing and the cultural icons of his youth, which were populist and socialist; Rothbard celebrated the success of the 'common people' without really understanding that viewing people through the lens of labels limited his understanding of the very human action he was trying to change.

Rothbard, who was too young to serve in WWII and too old for Vietnam, never faced the violence of war and sublimated a male hankering for war in his approach to political action. He was short, plump and academically brilliant. His oversights were few but significant and replicated the mistakes of the previous century, setting the stage for yet another round of idea manipulation to be played out through the 80s and 90s.

Not himself inclined to take such conflict personally, he did not realize that he was accumulating a reputation that would eventually exact unexpected costs. Rothbard and his cadre of 'left libertarians' had left the Peace and Freedom Convention far less peaceful that it had been, although Eric Garris, an early Libertarian and founding member of the Radical Caucus, would work as an organizer for the Peace and Freedom Party's efforts for ballot access.

Unaware of the dynamics in play he set himself, and the Libertarian Party, up for as successful a take over as any in history. Actions as well as ideas have consequences and the personae who present those ideas become part of the message conveyed to those whose ears – and eyes, who are taking it all in.

The Clark Campaign: Winning the battle, losing the first round of the war. - 1980

2007-05-19T12:26:00.000-07:00

The Crane Machine's Presidential Campaign

At the close of the '76 presidential campaign most Libertarian activists believed that the future was going to be about fighting for individual freedom. But behind the scenes personalities were beginning to grate on each other and the divergence of goals, personal, social, and political, were getting ready to unleash a tsunami of conflict.

Roger Mac Bride had a good friend named William Hunscher. Hunscher was a former Army Col. who had the unusual background in the LP of military training. Bill joined the military serving in Germany with the First Airborne Brigade. He found himself jumping out of airplanes - and also being trained to command and accept responsibility for a full range of needs related to his position. He had always been chosen as a leader in school, and so military life continued his life training in this regard. His military service lasted from 1960 - 1964.

He told friends he would not trade the years for anything because of what it taught him. Bill had four much older brothers who all served in World War II with distinction. He said also that he would not want to do it again. He was a strong, forceful man who was used to being in charge. His career after leaving the military would take him into the application of technology to business.

After leaving the military Bill’s first entrepreneurial start-up was Terminal Systems. This company became a success, first being listed on the the New York Stock Exchange, and then being bought out. After that success Bill started FasFax, producing point of sale terminals for fast food restaurants.

Hunscher, a model for American success, had been committed to the ideas of freedom his entire life, having encountered Ayn Rand while building his own career in business. In 1974 Bill met Roger Mac Bride. Over the next several years the two would become good friends. Both were committed to building a viable alternative to the political system that had brought the LP into existence. The Mac Bride campaign had accomplished much and Roger briefly considered running again to be told that there were factions within the LP who would actively oppose him. Instead, Hunscher agreed to seek the nomination.

While both Roger and Bill were very well off their money had come from the entrepreneurial efforts of Rose Wilder Lane, in Roger's case, and from his own business savvy in the case of Bill Hunscher. These sources for wealth, derived from books that carry a subtext for individuals living and caring for themselves, and wealth created from providing products to the market that would reduce the cost of doing business, epitomized everything that Libertarianism actually said. They would be opposed by even bigger money derived from big oil and government contracts.

Hunscher's model for a presidential campaign was for local organizing and a full time presidential candidate; this followed the Mac Bride model that had worked to empower local organizations in 1975 – 1976. Hunscher started his campaign for the nomination in 1978. He committed to a full 18 months of campaigning, self-funding part of the campaign, and to leaving the local organizations stronger and more autonomous.

In the period between the end of the Mac Bride Campaign and the nominating convention for the 1980 presidential ticket several things had happened in the Libertarian Movement that would impact the future direction of the LP and the action that would take place in the constellation of think tanks that spun off from that explosive energy.

The largest Libertarian National Convention ever held took place at the Bonaventure Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles in 1979. As had been the case four years before the need to qualify the ticket for the ballot made it essential that the ticket be known beyond doubt far in advance. When the first attendees started to trickle into the hotel that September 4^th Roger Mac Bride and Bill Hunscher had been in town for several days meeting with delegates. The Hunscher Campaign had run into some problems early on due to needed changes in the head quarters, back on the East Coast. One of these changes had been the firing of Michael Emerling, later Michael Cloud, as Hunscher Campaign Manager for incompetence. Emerling – Cloud would play a pivotal part in later chapters of LP history that recycled the pattern for power conversion first seen with Ed Crane.

Hunscher had spent months traveling across the country, attending state conventions and meeting delegates. He had pledged to give the LP a full time candidacy and along with traditional fundraising put his hand in his own pocket.