Month: May 2024

Follow-up to last.

I spent a lot of the day yesterday watching the shitshow that was the LP Convention.

I’m happy the NeoHippies’ preferred candidates lost.

Chase Oliver ended up eking the nomination by the skin of his teeth. I was blocked in TwiX by the Mises Caucus party chair for saying that she’d embraced the Edgelords who “took over” the party.

There are some absolutely miserable people there. Monarchists, Anti-Smitties, Fundamentalist Catholics, etc..

Maybe this hit a little too close to home. Who knows?

The loss of control of the party’s TwiX account. The misguided Rage Against The War Machine rally in DC. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The dissolution of LPVA. the excision of certain planks in the Party’s platform that some find very important. What happened with the Arizona Senate race in 2022. The collapse of the almighty Petrodollar.

There’s been so many places where they’ve been completely wrong.

So, they go to have their first convention to nominate a Presidential candidate since the “Take Over.” The Edgelords’ preferred candidate won a small plurality in early rounds of voting, but could never reach a majority of the delegates to actually win the nomination.

In the sixth round, where Dr. Jorgenson won in 2020, Rectenwald was eliminated, but Oliver didn’t garner the required majority to win.

So. On to Round Seven. Oliver finally collected the required majority over “None of the Above.”

Is it because he’s a “left-Libertarian?” This is the guy who saw Raphael Warnock be re-elected over the Trump-backed Herschel Walker.

Oliver was a Democrat in his early political life. But he’s full-on NeoHippie at this point when it comes to war. But, being stupidly-AntiWar, he had trouble wrapping up a majority of the delegates. Could it be because the Misessians embraced the homophobes? Unpossible.

He’s right on some issues, of course, but completely wrong on several others. That he’s okay with Palestine and Russia confuses the hell out of me.

You’re not supposed to notice any contradictions. (Disclosure, of course, I give a not-insignificant amount of money to Reason…)

While I’m happy the Edgelords lost, I’m not sure what I’d vote for Oliver. I also don’t know if he’ll be on the ballot in Virginia. Trump and RFK Jr. didn’t do themselves any favors by appearing at the convention; they probably sealed me as a vote against.

I don’t know what else to say.

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With all that in mind, I’m debating about whether reconvene with some of the things I cut off recently. My level of support will likely be less, but I do have some fondness for some of the people. Even if there’ve been amazingly wrong.

Watching bits and pieces of the Libertarian National Convention on C-SPAN.

RFK Jr. and Vivek spoke yesterday. President Trump is going to speak today.

Congratulations. You might have successfully submitted me as a non-voter for each of them.

Not that it’s going to really matter in Virginia where the party dissolved after the Edgelords took over the Party.

I live in the same ZIP code as the national party, and I kind expect whoever they nominate won’t be on the ballot.

It’s dead, Jim. Just like the 1970s and 1980s AntiWar screeds that inspire the assemblage.

Speaking to my wife some over the past few days, though, I continue to come back to the fact that I really do have some radical views.

But they’re not the stupid stuff what keeps betting thrown around by the conventioneers.

I also keep thinking about different ways to accomplish the same things I would like to say, but do it in a different way.

I still consume a lot of CATO content. The Jone Act isn’t needed anymore. So don’t just repeal that. Repeal every single law. Amazingly, all hte regulations that tie to those laws go away, oto.

This sort of thinking really discombobulates the Libertarians, too. Instead of starting with a clean sheet of paper, they just repeal portions they’ve decided they no lon ger like.

Just nothing there.

Background music that came to mind as I barfed out a title. Wow the guitar arrangements on that are incredible. Things you miss when you listen with kinda shitty audio.

One of my doctors does video appointments wearing EarPods. There’s background noises I notice that the buds filter out, but are captured by the compute mic that goes along with the video.

I don’t know how I’d operate. I do multitask with audio. I can pay attention to more than one sound source at once. I don’t know. I’m just so accustomed to really training my focus on things like lyrics.

Years of driving around in a soft top Jeep with only 4×6 dash speakers will do that to you.

What sort of sound would Rat have been cranking in his sister’s ride?

(Random aside: I recommend Video Killed The Radio Star for resting earphones/speakers…)

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I also seem to have lost a bunch of my comments. Not that I get many anymore, but…

Back to what I was talking about

I did get notice of my absence somewhere. I could say that I appreciate it, but whatever. Things get weird, and I GTFO. It’s how I operate.

But I guess me leaving on my own accord is better than getting bounced because you don’t perfectly fit a particular line of thinking.

The stories about the Randroids’ slavish adherence is fascinating.

I have agreed with him on many of his economic take. I disagree with him on the NeoHippie take about NATO expansion.

But he’s cancelled because he doesn’t take kindly to what Hamas did to Israel.

Um. Okay. Whatever. You’ve found your way back to the small part of my attention that you so well occupied for about fifteen years.

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And I seem to have lost a bunch of my comments. Hmph.

Still fumbling around today with the cost of the President’s student loan forgiveness.

The NeoHippie contingent really, truly believe that the spending is there to because of American Imperialism, and the dangerous MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX that Eisenhower warned about.

I graduated college in 2002. I think my per-semester cost, even at its highest point, was something like $3000/semester.

I worked through college, and took out loans to allow my parents to shove more money into their retirement accounts.

My wife went to school via the Virginia Community College system. We did take out a loan for something like two semesters, as I was making basically no money. We repaid that quickly after she was working, and I once again started earning more than a pittance.

But, back to the story. ALL of the almost twenty years of military operations in Afghanistan cost about twice what Biden is doing with a pen stroke.

But, see, like, we’ve got this convicted pedophile who’s gonna learn the world that everything bad that’s happened since 1945 is because of something the US did.

Whatever.

There’s nobody who has an answer.

There was a projected budget surplus in 2001. How much more are governments spending today than they were in 2001?

It’s not the WAR MACHINE.

It’s your college professors. It’s all the blessed infrastructure that’s been built.

Interest rates have been held artificially-low since about 1993.

Tax revenues don’t even sniff spending levels.

But have you seen the price of real estate, and equities?

Well, that'd even more cement my vote for somebody else https://t.co/qOtUvZUY16

— Sean ^H (@757sean) May 1, 2024

Well, if they endorse him, and he accepts it, I’ll definitely be voting for someone else.

Maybe less shitposting aimed at @LPNational members and more attention to your job, and your boss won’t have to use you as an excuse for multiple fuckups associated with this ‘W’. pic.twitter.com/bXbVpOhQfT

— susanhogarth (@susanhogarth) May 3, 2024

Just nothing worthwhile there. First potential prom date decided to go with someone else (RFK Jr.), so see if you can get the most well-known kid on campus ask.

Trying to figure out how “The Party of Principle” zOMGANTIWAR!!1!RON PAUL people could ever be okay with the guy who was behind the Abraham Accords, and killed Solemani.

There’s just nothing there. Nothing.

So turn it off. David Bergland’s quiz was awesome. Campaigning for Harry Browne in college was important. How many of them have read How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World?

Jersey Dave Smith points to the 9/12/2001 essay by Browne as one of his starts into Libertarianism. It’s what prompted me to divert my attention around 2002. The US was absolutely right to respond to 9/11. And to the USS Cole, which so many people seem to forget.

Just nothing worth supporting. No intellectual arguments at this point, even.

Oh well.