—Michigan Libertarian
June 2015, Volume 44:06
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Online newsletter for the Libertarian Party of Michigan

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In This Issue

 

Greeting
From the Chair




From the Chair 2: Plans
Memorial Day Thoughts
History of Policing



Image of the Month
Quote of the Month
Past Blast

Contacts
Calendar

 


 

 

Welcome

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Welcome to the June 2015 issue of the online newsletter of the Libertarian Party of Michigan, the Michigan Libertarian. The newsletter is our main vehicle for sharing what's happening for Libertarians in Michigan. You may manage your subscription by going here or visiting our Website www.michiganlp.org).

 


 

From the Chair

From Kimberly Moore
chair@michiganlp.org

 

“It is an old adage that honesty is the best policy. This applies to public as well as private life, to states as well as individuals.” – George Washington, 1785

 

Looking Forward to Making Great Progress

 

Thank you to those who attended the Libertarian Party of Michigan 2015 Convention in Kalamazoo hosted by the South West Michigan Libertarian Party.

 

The Convention began with a blast by having a social mixer pub crawl, which many of the attendees suggested the members do more often! We were able to spark up conversations and mini-debates by those asking us about our organization because of the t-shirts we wore. The following day, we opened with the information on yearly business, after which we heard from our Keynote Speaker: C Michael Pickens of Washington. He lead us into a description of learning to be Lions of Liberty which inspired many to learn more about how to do this. Over the next year we’re hoping to bring him back for a longer training session.

 

As the day progressed, we updated Platforms to more properly fit with goals and made our Bylaws more member-friendly. We had a wonderful speaker at lunch discussing a lawsuit that is in process which would eliminate government involvement in marriage altogether. We had a very dynamic Officers election! Every Officer is very motivated to work to grow the Party and spread the message of liberty. The results were as follows:

 

Chair: Kimberly Moore

Vice Chair: Karl Jackson

Secretary: Mary Buzuma

Treasurer: Jonathan Osment

At Large Directors: Jason Brandenburg, Justin Burns, Arnis Davidsons, Jeff Wood, & James Weeks II

 

We had a very productive final meeting of the last Libertarian Executive Committee (LEC)/first meeting of the new LEC. We discussed the Webmaster position and decided to create a committee to work together on what we need in a new webmaster and to preview the resumes we have. For the time being. Jonathan Osment will be acting webmaster with the support of our prior webmaster, Brian Wright.

 

While the old and new members of the LEC were meeting, other members and guests enjoyed a nice cocktail hour before our banquet. At the banquet we enjoyed conversations of sports, life, and - well of course - politics. We enjoyed the inspirational speech of how to grow liberty as individuals and as a group by Darryl Perry of New Hampshire. Not only did he have encouraging words, but he’s also seeking the Libertarian Party nomination for the Presidential race in 2016. Marc Feldman of Ohio, who is also seeking the nomination, joined us as well bringing news from the National Party as he is the Regional representative to the National Party for the Michigan area.

 

As the new Chair, I hope to bring more action to the party through the plan I introduced at the convention (attached to this e-mail). Working with the team leaders to bring organization and communication between the party's affiliates, members, and our liberty minded friends, I hope to realize the vision of all of us working together to create a strong third option.

 

Thank you for the confidence you’ve placed in me for the next year!

 

Kimberly Moore, Chair

Libertarian Party of Michigan

 


 

8From the Chair 2: Plans

 

Happy June Everyone:

 

I'm sure that most of you are glad that summer activities have begun with the interesting on and off showers… with hail!

 

Just a note before I dive in to business: It’s very important we realize that the number of people who have laid down their lives for this country, believing it was the right thing to do, deserve respect and recognition. They followed their hearts and gave the ultimate sacrifice, leaving behind many loved ones. This past Memorial Day, the country held ceremonies in states, counties, and cities honoring our fallen. May they rest in the peace they did not know while they were here.

 

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been finishing school (finally done - again), moving a few things into the new house, I had an interview on the Greg Marshall Show out of the Traverse City area and I’ve met with several people in the team leadership scheme as well as some interested in team leadership.

 

The meetings that were held were primarily to discuss what I'd like to see out of each team and to hear what their goals were. Of course, this is only part of the equation. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be working on meeting with the teams as a whole so we can have cohesiveness within them. I feel this will help us all advance more quickly with group and individual goals. I’ve even made it to my first affiliate meeting as Chair. (Thank you, Oakland County, for your hospitality!)

 

Another goal I have is to begin reaching out to other organizations that have the same goals in particular areas. Even if we don't agree in every area, perhaps we can further the items they are particularly working on, IE: groups in Flint and Detroit. Moving toward that goal, I’ll be attending the Introduction to Non-Violent Communication on Monday, June 1 in Detroit. (Don't forget to check the "Others Posts" to the Facebook page as several people share events you may be interested in. Many of them are promoted by fellow Libertarians.)

 

On May 22, I had my first radio interview ever on the Greg Marshall Show. We discussed the libertarian and the Libertarian, why some people won't join and why if they would, they shouldn't be worried to do so. Over the next year, I will be on once a month following the LEC meetings. I also hope to reach out to other radio shows and possibly do the same thing across the state so they know our voice is out there.

 

Speaking of media, we’re still seeking contributions for a few Public Service Announcement videos; specifically, things that can resonate with people and make them see things from a different perspective. Non-Violence (how stealing, abuse, murder is not the correct course of action), Drug War (perhaps a comparison of what it would be like if someone received help instead of going to prison), Your Rights if you’re pulled over (IE: driving to a safe spot and how you do that). These are just examples. Please keep videos PG, no vulgar language. The programs we have access to tend to hit demographics of people from their 40's to 60's that lean to the fiscally.. and a little socially… conservative side. We’d (obviously) like to see things that have Libertarian context to them.

 

In closing, if you’re interested in volunteering, we have lots of way you can do that! Just go to the volunteer section on our website: http://michiganlp.org/?page_id=92.

 

Thank you for your time and have a great June,

 

Kimberly Moore

LPM, Chair

 


 

8Memorial Day Thoughts

By Mary Buzuma, Retiring Chair

 

Celebrating Memorial Day is Libertarian

 

Memorial Day is now behind us. Most Americans have gone back to their daily grind until Veteran’s Day reminds them to wave flags and post thank-yous on social media. For some libertarians, it’s downright antithetical to celebrate a day like Memorial Day, so it’s a relief when the day passes. The idea of memorializing soldiers, those who kill enemy and innocents alike without question on orders from men who view the battlefield as a chess board and soldiers as pawns, seems repugnant.

 

Back in 2013, Lucy Steigerwald at AntiWar.com wrote, “It is not morally neutral to join the military, and so it’s not morally neutral to mourn war dead.” However, in her blog post she ignores the thousands who were drafted in the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. They didn’t choose to join; they were coerced. But by all means parse them out. What percentage are worthy of your homage? 40%? 50%? You don’t have to believe in the morality of war to honor those who have died.

 

We can’t hope to put an end to war by blaming the men and women of military – especially the dead ones. It’s counterproductive and angers citizens. Place the blame where the blame belongs – at the feet of government. With drone strikes replacing frontline soldiers, war has taken on the aspect of a video game and it’s become far too easy to engage in military intervention. And with every intervention, the power of government grows exponentially.

 

Memorial Day is a day to honor American soldiers, sailors and airmen who have died in battle. It’s that simple. It’s not pro-war or pro-government or pro anything. Remembering the hundreds of thousands of war dead is anti-war. If more of us remember the cost of war in human terms, it becomes harder for the government to abuse its powers.

 


 

8 History of Policing

by Erwin Haas (Kentwood City Council Member)

Libertarians generally believe in individual responsibility, relegating to the state only that which they cannot easily do for themselves. One such delegation is a monopoly on the use of violence to protect property and lives.  We have become comfortable having police answering 911 calls when some of our rights have been violated.  

 

It’s not well known that the history and rationale of policing is a comparatively recent innovation. Until around 1800, cities were small, and protection of lives and property was up to the individual and his neighbors. Households had heavy doors, sturdy locks and weapons.  A night watchman patrolled after dark, called out the hours and raised the hue and cry when he witnessed crime. Sheriffs who investigated crime and arrested miscreants worked with the county justice system. 

 

The Industrial Revolution made cities large, wealthy and crime more apparent.  A theory based on a few anecdotes emerged that it was better to prevent crime than it was to merely find and punish criminals. Cities would hire men who would walk the streets reminding citizens constantly of the law, watching for suspicious activity. It was thought that this surveillance would forestall crime. 

 

London instituted a police (“polis” is Greek for “city”) force in 1829 and continued it despite evidence that it did not reduce serious crime.  New York City had the first police force in the USA in 1840. 

 

The image of the cops that most of us have is of a mildly obese, garrulous, red-faced, politically connected Irishman who occasionally used his nightstick on errant youngsters to steer them away from a life of crime, and who was occasionally “bent.” (Testimonial: I grew up in a neighborhood where bootlegging had been a way of life. All of the distillers’ sons became township policemen; one needed to protect the family business.) 

 

In the last 75 years or more, cops became expensive and they retreated to cars that cruised larger areas than neighborhoods and became faceless bureaucrats for most residents. I don’t know if this retreat into bureaucracy was responsible for the crime wave after WWII with violent crime peaking in the mid-1970s.  (The numbers are really synthetic since about 50% of crime goes unreported.)

 

Despite the intrusion of violence and theft into individual lives, governments did nothing until the mid-1990s when President Clinton arranged to hire an additional 100,000 policemen nationwide. The “three strikes” laws were passed in about half of the states. The “broken window” theory was enacted by NYC Mayor Giuliani in 1993 with the controversial ‘stop and frisk’ gambit directed at male minorities. These unconstitutional searches often uncovered “illegal” weapons and chemicals deemed to be “drugs” leading to arrests. Prisons filled up and men disappeared from African American neighborhoods.

 

The US Army donated M16 rifles to domestic police forces after a “terrorist” attack in 1997, and police started acting like an occupying army. And, of course, the crime wave was disappearing on its own the whole time, but that didn’t stop politicians, cops, and social scientists from taking credit for the improvement. 

 

As ‘stop and frisk’ became unpalatable, another subterfuge needed to be deployed. In Kentwood (and in many other cities), our police chief is very proud of his DDACTS program. The following is from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration web site: 

 

“Data-Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety (DDACTS) is a law enforcement operational model supported by a partnership among the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and two agencies of the Department of Justice: the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the National Institute of Justice.

 

"DDACTS integrates location-based crime and traffic data to establish effective and efficient methods for deploying law enforcement and other resources. Using geo-mapping to identify areas that have high incidences of crime and crashes, DDACTS uses traffic enforcement strategies that play a dual role in fighting crime and reducing crashes and traffic violations. Drawing on the deterrent of highly visible traffic enforcement and the knowledge that crime often involves the use of motor vehicles, the goal of DDACTS is to reduce the incidence of crime, crashes, and traffic violations across the country.”

 

Our Chief identifies about the 4 or 5 high crime areas of Kentwood (understand: our public housing) where he concentrates his patrols. The cops stop cars for minor infractions on the ten to fifteen year old beaters that impoverished young black men drive, and surprisingly, they “usually find drugs.” Looking for crime vastly increases the likelihood of finding crime which in turn validates the initial premise that the DDACTS areas are high crime areas. The youthful minorities feel themselves to be under constant surveillance and are justifiably enraged. In a real sense, modern policing leads to crime.

 

But the battering ram has two ends. Older, settled African American home owners who vote and pay taxes are terrified of these gangs and demand a greater police presence, which they get. (Interestingly, some years ago, the city commission had $300,000 “free government money” to build a park in the historically African American patch in Kentwood. At least 10 individuals showed up at the commission meeting to reject this manna from heaven because they didn’t want to provide a place nearby for gangs to congregate. The park was never built.) Notice that the focus of policing has subtly shifted from preventing crime to selecting out those who are imputed to be criminal for special attention.

 

And of course this whole policy has recently become controversial. Abuses and killings of individual African American men by police can now be documented on cell phones and published widely on social and legacy media.  Race-baiting groups who thrive on controversy use these images to incite resentful minority youth to riot. The political Left indicts poverty and poor public schools in minority communities and the apparent absence of minorities among the politicians and police in the afflicted communities. The Right points to the often cobbled together criminal records of the victims and of the justification of self- defense that police unions advance.  And so it goes. 

 

Various solutions have been propose, none good.  The African Americans who vote demand protection, so driving the continuing need for a police presence. Police wearing body cameras is fraught with other personal privacy and legal complexities. More training for police might shift the focus to even more dysfunctional extremes.  

 

The current state of affairs has no political solution except the libertarian refrain; we ought to diminish the number of human activities deemed to be criminal, especially those relating to the “War on Drugs”, and the notion that it’s the state’s role to turn minor infractions into indictable crimes.  

 

At a more fundamental level, we could question the whole rationale of “policing” as serving the prevention of crime. There is no reliable data that supports the assertion that “Bobbies” patrolling London after 1830 lowered the crime rate. The city of Kennesaw., an Atlanta, GA suburb, in 1980 mandated each household to have an operational firearm with sufficient rounds of ammunition. Famously, it has about half of Kentwood’s police costs per citizen and also less than half of our crime rate.  The Medieval notion that sturdy doors and locks along with an armed citizenry can deter crime at least has the beginning of empirical support.  

 


 

Image of the Month

 


(Lifted from Lou Feen's Facebook Photos)

 


 

Quote of the Month

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"The world today has 6.8 billion people. That's heading up to about nine billion. Now if we do a really great job on new VACCINES, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that [number of 9 billion] by perhaps 10 or 15 percent." -- Bill Gates, TED presentation 2010

 


Michigan Libertarian Blast from the Past
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Take a stroll down memory lane with this excerpt from one of the longest-running state Libertarian newsletters. Click on this link for the full online version of this newsletter.

 

 

Former editor and LPM archivist Greg Stempfle has compiled the entire body of available Michigan Libertarian newsletters up on this page of the LPM Website (most if not all of the newsletters have been transferred over to the new site if you have a particular issue you're interested in and it doesn't show up on the page, please contact Webmaster@michiganlp.org).

 



Calendar

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More... For all events, see the full online calendar on the Website:
http://michiganlp.org/?page_id=61. Note for those who do not have online access, please contact your local affiliate representative or call the office at 1-888-FREENOW (373-3669) to get a description of events in your area. The Michigan Libertarian ONLINE is distributed on the first of each month. Send calendar events and news articles by the 25th of the prior month to: e-newsletter@michiganlp.org

 

Note: The final print edition of the Michigan Libertarian is available online at http://www.michiganlp.org/Past%20Newsletters/
Michigan%20Libertarian%2038.2%20summer%202009.pdf

 


 

About the Michigan Libertarian
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The Michigan Libertarian is published/posted on the first of each month. Send calendar events and news/articles to e-newsletter@michiganlp.org by the 25th of the prior month. The Michigan Libertarian is one of the longest-running Libertarian newsletters in the country, debuting in 1973 shortly after the founding of the Libertarian Party of Michigan. The "new" Michigan Libertarian (a predominantly online version) debuted on August 1, 2009 and replaced the weekly LPMOnline and the printed-and-mailed ML.  We will post the newsletter on the Website and deliver via email on the first of every month. A printed version of the new Michigan Libertarian will be sent free to anyone who signs up, which you may do at the LPM web site www.michiganlp.org (or www.mi.lp.org).

 

LPM members who need a hard copy may request one be mailed to them by contacting
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