Dear Friends:

What an exciting Libertarian spring we had in San Francisco! After our summer break, we are ready to start up again. Here’s what’s in store for us this fall:

The Libertarian Party of San Francisco proudly presents "Silenced: Flight 800 and the Subversion of Justice" Saturday, October 20, 2001, 6 p.m. and 8 p.m., at UCSF Laurel Heights Conference Center Auditorium, 3333 California Street (parking available!). Be there or be SQUARE. There will be refreshments served prior to the show, and a Q & A with producer/director Jack Cashill after the documentary. He is an Emmy-award-winning independent writer and producer with a Ph.D. in American Studies from Purdue.

This will be the Libertarian event of the season. Libertarians will attend from all over the Bay. We urge you to call now (415-775-LPSF) and buy your ticket–we expect a sell-out crowd. Please see the article elsewhere in this publication for more information, or visit our website at www.lpsf.org.

One of our major goals is to have a full slate of Libertarian candidates for Election 2002. I believe the Libertarian Party of San Francisco has grown enough over the last several years so that we can have a candidate for every partisan and non-partisan office in San Francisco this year. It is our aim to find a Libertarian candidate for every office by December 2001.

If we meet this goal, it will be a San Francisco Libertarian first. Indeed, we have already found candidates for every single partisan office, and two supervisor seats. We are well on our way. If you are TIRED of the same old, same old … now is YOUR chance to make a difference. Please call Election Chair Mr. Jerry Cullen NOW (not next week, or next month) and let him know you are interested in helping the cause of Liberty by becoming a candidate. You can reach Mr. Cullen at 415-567-9642.

A campaign does not have to be an 80 hour per week affair. You can spend as much, or as little, time as you wish. Will you help?

This will be my last term (ending December 2001) as Chair of the Libertarian Party of San Francisco. Due to the great works we accomplished as a group, I have been asked to be the Executive Director of the Libertarian Party of California. I started this job on August 20, 2001. As Executive Director, my job will be to coordinate all the regions in California, increase participation, direct and execute the policies set by the State ExComm, and promote the Libertarian Party.

Sincerely,

David Molony

Chair, Libertarian Party of San Francisco

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Libertarian Party of San Francisco is proud to present the video-documentary Silenced: Flight 800 and the Subversion of Justice. Come to the "Event of the Season" and join with other Libertarians from around the Bay.

On July 17, 1996, at 8:19 p.m., TWA Flight 800 (a Boeing 747), destination Paris, flew out of Kennedy Airport. At 8:31 p.m., over 730 witnesses watched Flight 800 explode, killing all 230 people aboard. What happened? Was it an accident, or something more sinister?

Are the following witnesses credible? The FBI, CIA, and NTSB did not interview any of them:

• Dwight Brumley, a senior Navy NCO on board US Air Flight 217, watched a streak of light rise up towards his plane before leveling off and heading north.

• Mike Wire, a millwright from Philadelphia, saw a streak of light rise up from behind a Westhampton house and head south.

• Major Fritz Meyer, an Air National Guard pilot who stared the explosion in its face from his helicopter above Long Island.
• FAA radar operators out of Islip (on Long Island) saw an unknown object rise up and merge with Flight 800. This they reported to the highest authorities. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Jim Hall acknowledged as much in a November 1996, memo. He wrote: "Top intelligence and security officials were told in a video conference from the White House Situation Room that radar tapes showed an object headed at the plane before it exploded. "

The government’s final conclusion: a fuel tank exploded.

The major media accept the government’s case. Few reporters investigated the eyewitness stories, radar records, and physical evidence. Those who did question the government were ridiculed or prosecuted as criminals. The fourth estate? Right.

Is the government’s explanation correct? What does Jack Cashill, Emmy™ Award-winning director and Ph.D., have to say about it? Come to this unique event, watch the documentary, hear what Mr. Cashill has to say, and make your own decision. There will be a Q&A with Mr. Cashill after the showing. This will be the only public viewing in California.

David Molony

Chair, Libertarian Party of San Francisco

Libertarian members and friends: $25

Non-Libertarians: $30

Reservations before September 30: $20

Non-Libertarians: $25

Parking! ($1)

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

We expect guests from around the state for this exciting event, and the chance to raise a lot of money for the party. We’ve staked a lot on this, and we will need volunteers to help staff ticket tables, make sales calls, help with publicity, and otherwise make this go.

Come to the business meeting this month to learn more, or if you cannot attend, please call me at 504.8677 or e-mail me at contributions@lpsf.org.

You can learn more about the documentary and Dr. Cashill's experiences making it at WorldNet Daily, Silenced .

Robert Planthold and Donna Hall discussed the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force at the Direct Action Forum on August 15. Planthold is a member of the Task Force, and Hall is its administrative assistant. The Task Force, created by the Board of Supervisors in 1993, is the local counterpart to the Brown Act and the California Public Records Act, which require open meetings and open public records in the state of California. Task Force member Bruce Brugmann, published of the Bay Guardian, helped to get the Sunshine Ordinance passed, and his newspaper publicizes violations. In 1998, Sunshine requirements were extended to nonprofits receiving at least $250,000 a year in funding from the City.

Closed sessions may be held regarding real estate negotiations, pending or threatened litigation, and personnel matters. Records, however, relating to confirmed employee misconduct involving dishonesty, misappropriation, and discrimination (including discipline imposed) are public.

The chief business of the Task Force is to receive complaints, and to educate public officials about their responsibilities under the Ordinance. It has no power to overturn anything. If City officials violate the Ordinance, the District Attorney can prosecute. Because it has no power of its own, the Task Force doesn’t appear to be perceived as much of a threat by City officials. Planthold is the sort of person who believes in playing strictly by the rules, and it clearly frustrates him (though challenges was his word) to see so many loopholes in enforcement–though his Libertarian audience evinced little surprise that the Sunshine Ordinance was not a sufficient check on government power. Mayor Brown, for instance, has announced the formation of commissions in press releases, without having allowed public comment in advance, and the City Attorney ruled that he was not in violation of the Sunshine Ordinance. Also, if there is any one moment during a meeting when a quorum is not present, the Ordinance does not apply. Planthold was particularly exercised by areas with overlapping jurisdictions, like the Redevelopment Authority. Federal authorities don’t have to be bound by local restrictions, like earthquake regulations.

The Task Force can be reached at 554-7724, or by e-mail to Donna_Hall@ci.sf.ca.us. The text of the Sunshine Ordinance is at http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/bdsupvrs/sunshine.

In some ways, the most interesting events of the evening were taking place just outside the restaurant. Planthold is disabled (the Task Force is required to have at least one member who is physically handicapped), and when Donna Hall drove up to the Thai House with him, they found the handicapped space in front of the restaurant occupied by a car without a handicapped sign. Planthold promptly called the police and had it towed away. The car happened to belong to Kitty Meeriyakert, the owner of the Thai House. She received a $200 ticket, and refused to let us meet there again. When DAF organizer Starchild announced these developments by e-mail the next morning, several LPSFers immediately volunteered to contribute toward compensating Merriyakert for the ticket: Sarosh Kumana, Mike Acree, Vince Grubbs, FranH oise Fielding, and Mike Denny. Their action tended to confirm the contention of Michael Edelstein (GGL March 2001) that Libertarians are generous folks. Several other Libertarians were strongly against reimbursing Meeriyakert, however–or at least against using Party funds for that purpose. They argued that the responsibility was in no way ours; that Planthold alone should have been the object of her ire; that there was little risk to the reputation of the Libertarian Party, since the staff at the restaurant probably didn’t even know who we were; and that the service at the restaurant had been lousy, anyway. Their arguments (and lack of action) thus tended to confirm Mike Acree’s claim (GGL February 2001) that Libertarians are notably stingy. But there was little they could do to thwart the generosity of the first group since no Party funds were involved. At press time, no acknowledgment had been received from Meeriyakert, and it was not clear whether that site would be available for future Direct Action Forums.

Joe Fuhrig, Professor of Economics at USF and "probably the world’s best anarchist golfer," is a familiar and beloved (though still single) figure to libertarians, having run on the Libertarian ticket for U.S. Senate in 1982 and for Governor in 1986. His address on August 18 was his third to Free Exchange, and his title sounded as though it might offer little that was new. Fuhrig can be relied upon, however, to bring fresh insights and humor to any topic. (How can you not like someone who accuses Greenspan of "shoving cocaine up the nose of the economy and then complaining about ‘irrational exuberance’"?)

He began with three assumptions which he said had passed the "Jeff Hummel test"–they made Hummel, his office mate at Golden Gate University, laugh. (a) Markets take ordinary people and make them appear bright. (b) The political process takes fairly bright people and makes them stupid. (c) Markets make people more moral in their deeds than in their hearts. Though the formulation of these principles was Fuhrig’s, they might have been congenial to Adam Smith, in whose day free markets held the moral high ground. Fuhrig’s concern was to understand how that ground was lost to socialism. Industrialization was not brought about by moral arguments–it was a historical accident–but moral arguments were quickly found to support it. The division of labor, for one: It was noted that people set personal differences aside to cooperate in commerce. The fact that free trade brings peace was another: Name two countries with McDonald’s, Fuhrig challenged, which have ever gone to war with each other. Extensive trade also decentralizes power. Fuhrig offered several illustrations of the degree to which power was decentralized in the early decades of the country. One was the United States was a plural noun; until the Civil War, one said, "The United States are. . . ." About the only contact people had with the federal government was the Post Office. Another example was the remarkable fact that our capital city could have been captured by the British in the War of 1812–without that meaning that we lost the war. Dolly Madison, Fuhrig said, had prepared a lavish dinner in anticipation of victory; when the militia lost, the British ate the dinner that had been left behind, and then torched the White House. But the militia fought on to victory.

Fuhrig pointed to theoreticians as one source of the trouble that was to develop. Early Americans, he contended, learned their classical liberal economics from Jean-Baptiste Say rather than from Adam Smith, and French liberalism was always more compromised than the Scottish. The French model held that, once we get rid of the king, government is okay, because we’re it.

Fuhrig also referred frequently to the role of religion, in particular to the distinction between evangelical and liturgical traditions. This distinction (though he didn’t say so) goes back to the split in early Christianity between homoousianism and homoiousianism–the crucial issue of whether Christ were of the same substance as God or of merely similar substance. (It was this pair that famously prompted Gibbon to remark that there wasn’t an iota of difference between them.) In the former case, Christ was unique, and a priesthood was required to interpret the teachings and show us the way. This was the source of the liturgical tradition, with its emphasis on orthodoxy and the established Church. If Christ were merely of similar substance, on the other hand, then we might all emulate his example and find our own way. On this understanding, in the evangelical tradition, the Church can become a hindrance, as in the Protestant Reformation especially. (There is obviously a large overlap here with the split between Catholics and Protestants. There were once many evangelical Catholics, notably in the south of France, but they were all killed by the liturgicals.) The liturgical tradition, thanks largely to Aquinas, was rather strongly oriented to reason, and at least in that way toward liberalism. In this country–returning to Fuhrig’s presentation–the Democratic Party, substantially Catholic, represented the liturgical tradition and classical liberalism. The evangelicals, on the other hand, were mercantilists, later Republicans.

The Democratic Party split over the issue of slavery. The last classical liberal President was Cleveland; the party became populist under William Jennings Bryan after the Panic of 1893. With the advent of the Progressive era, at the turn of the century, government because intrusive in both the economy and civil affairs. The shift to mercantilism/socialism/social democracy was complete when evangelical Republicans got control of the schools from the liturgicals.

There are three basic arguments today for big government: national security, welfare, and the environment. The last of these is the scariest, Fuhrig says, because it’s a religious issue. People feel virtuous about recycling even though it destroys more resources than it saves. We have no campaign to save the chicken or the pig, he pointed out, because these are privately owned, and therefore not endangered.

The technological revolution today parallels the Industrial Revolution of Smith’s time. Technology lowers transaction costs, making possible a more elaborate division of labor, and hence potentially greater freedom and prosperity. The perversion of justice such as we see today in the tobacco lawsuits has historically led to competing justice systems, as when common law arose in response to dissatisfaction with the king’s law and ecclesiastical justice; so we can expect osee further undermining of government control in that regard. Furthermore, the privacy of cyberspace will make it hard to sustain our current levels of taxation. The transition, however, will be messy; prisoners will be taken. Technology means a freer world, whether we like it or not; our job is to persuade people that this is a good thing.

Dear Libertarians:

San Francisco is the most expensive city in the world. We all have to work all the time in order to make ends meet. Some of you have expressed to me that you don’t have time to participate. I'm going to make it easy for you to help.

We need your help. We need candidates for the upcoming elections next year. We want to have Libertarian candidates for every single partisan and nonpartisan office in San Francisco. You may say, "I don't have time to run a campaign, no way." Well, no worries. You can put in as much or as little time as you want. We will file the papers, we will do everything. But we need you to call us as a candidate.

You may ask "Why bother to be a candidate if I'm not running to win?" Well, lots and lots of reasons:

1. We will all FEEL better when have a full slate of Libertarian candidates.

2. It will set a San Francisco precedent. A benchmark.

3. It is a Statewide party priority to have a Libertarian candidate for every office–Win, Lose, or Draw.

4. More candidates will run the next time.

It is imperative for you to call. So I want you to pick up the phone NOW. Don't finish reading this newsletter. Just pick up the phone and call our Elections Chair, Jerry Cullen at (415) 567-9642. He will be glad to receive 40 or 50 phone calls from Libertarians seeking office (right, Jerry?). He will let you know what offices are open in your area.

The Libertarian Party of California has a project called Operation Breakthrough. It has been a huge success. Libertarians are filing for office in record numbers. Last year, we had 314 candidates file for office and a bunch won. This year, we have had 86 total candidates file for office. The most we have had file in the past is 6 or 10 in an off-election year. The amazing thing is that 6 candidates have already won! (No one ran against them.) How cool is that? So call us up now and file.

Remember, this is something you can do that will have a huge impact on liberty, without a huge investment of your time.

Again, please call Jerry Cullen at (415) 567-9642. Thank you for your help.

Sincerely,

David Molony

Chair, Libertarian Party of San Francisco

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Welcome to new members James Byrnes and David Rhodes.

r Basic ($25) r Sustaining ($100) r Sponsor ($250) r Patron ($500) r Life Member ($1,000)

(Note: Joining the LP does not automatically make your voter registration Libertarian.) The Libertarian Party is the party of principle. To publicly affirm what we believe–and to ensure that our party never strays from our principles–we ask our members to proudly sign this statement:

Signature (required only for membership): _________________________________________________________________

r I wish to make a separate donation of $__________ to the Libertarian Party of San Francisco. (Membership dues go primarily to the national and state organizations.) Nonmembers who donate at least $15 will receive a one-year subscription to the Golden Gate Libertarian.

r I wish to volunteer to help with ______________________________________________________________________________________. (Please specify if you prefer to help with campaigns, computers, event plans, information tables, mailings, newsletters, phone calls, speeches, etc.)

Name:

Address:

Phone(s):

E-mail:

Total enclosed: $______________

Please make your check payable to the Libertarian Party and mail it with this form to 2215-R Market Street, PMB 170, San Francisco, CA 94114.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Saturday, September 8: Richmond District meeting, 3-6 p.m., Round Table Pizza, 5160 Geary. Selection of Interim Vice Chair to replace Leilani Wright, who has resigned.

Sunday, October 7: Semiannual LPSF dinner to honor Michael Denny. Maharani Restaurant, Banquet Room, 1122 Post @ Polk, 6 p.m. RSVP: If you may be attending, please email Michael Edelstein, DrEdelstein@ThreeMinuteTherapy.com, or phone 673-2848 (24 hrs).

Saturday, October 20: "Silenced: Flight 800 and the Subversion of Justice," video screening and Q&A with Director/Producer Jack Cashill, 6 and 8 p.m., UCSF Conference Center Auditorium, 3333 California Street.

David Molony

chair@lpsf.org

(415) 820-3923

Chris Maden

vice-chair@lpsf.org

(415) 504-8677

Vince Grubbs

secretary@lpsf.org

(415) 682-9482

Mike Acree

treasurer@lpsf.org

(415) 668-5794

Jerry Cullen

elections@lpsf.org

(415) 567-9642

Mike Denny

membership@lpsf.org

(415) 750-9340

Starchild

outreach@lpsf.org

(415) 626-3036

Bryce Bigwood

webmaster@lpsf.org

(415) 824-0327

Chris Maden

contributions@lpsf.org

(415) 504-8677

Opinions expressed in unsigned columns of the Golden Gate Libertarian do not necessarily represent those of anyone but the Editor. Submissions are encouraged. The deadline (including agenda and calendar items) is the penultimate Friday of the month.