Kelly Russell Simpson’s report last month on a rally for peace and justice, where she urged us to ally with leftists against war in Afghanistan, was by far the most controversial piece in GGL under my editorship. One member immediately canceled his subscription, and many others shared his "shock and outrage," especially at the front-page placement of the article, which could give superficial readers the impression that libertarians stood for peace and justice. We present this month some views from the other side, a response from Kelly Simpson, and finally a call from Samantha Spivack for uniting LPSF hawks and doves.

We begin, appropriately enough, with a report on the October 20 "Stop the War in Afghanistan" rally by one of those who objected to Kelly’s article. Ira Spivack, LP Congressional candidate from the 8^th District, was interviewed at the rally by a reporter from the San Jose Mercury News. The article on the protest in the Sunday, October 21, edition noted that a few people present were demonstrating "in support of the government," and quoted Ira, identified as a Libertarian, as saying that the rally was "an attempt by Socialists and other leftists to hijack the events of September 11."

This event turned out to be an example of the many groups with a Socialist agenda hijacking the atrocity of September 11th to promote larger government and less freedom.

While approaching the rally meeting point at Justin Herman Plaza, I was pitched hot ’n’ heavy by a veritable gaggle of people trying to sell me the latest copy of The Socialist Worker or The Worker’s Vanguard. The latter was headlined "For Class Struggle Against US Capitalist Rulers."

Then I moved into the plaza. There was a large booth by the International Socialist Organization, loaded with anti-freedom propaganda. Across from the ISO table were the International Answer folks–the same ones that have aligned with Cuba, FARC, the Shining Path, the PLO, German Communist Parties, Dutch Communists, Greens, and scores of other groups whose goal is to end the free market and individual freedom.

While walking around, I was handed flyers by a multitude of Socialist groups. Examples: A flyer promoting "The Case for Socialism" by the International Socialist Organization; a flyer by the Socialist Alternative (www.socialistalternative.org), that advocates "Public Ownership of Key Industries Under Workers’ Democratic Control and Management"; and "Abandon the War on Terrorism and Give the Money to the Workers."

There were, of course, speakers. But virtually all of them, from Supervisor Chris Daly, to Carlos Petroni, to a very poorly informed and confused student from SFSU, and others, hijacked this event to spend considerable time to promote their positions on Socialist electric power (MUD), the PLO, Viequez, restricting oil use, "justice" in Central America, and other issues that the Socialists have been promoting for decades. I never heard a peep about the PATRIOT bill ("anti-terrorist" legislation). There were also many signs that advocated Socialist goals, and pacifism.

In summary: A sunny Saturday rally that was used by Socialist organizers to promote the goal of ending individual freedom and the free market in the United States, under the guise of protesting US actions in Afghanistan.

As a libertarian, I find very little useful purpose for government. As a minarchist within the Libertarian Party, I can narrowly define its role as being a protector of the people within its borders from internal and external predators. The terrorist acts of September 11th perpetrated on thousands of innocent people within our borders justify government military action on behalf of the citizens of the United States. As a libertarian, I can express full support for the present military response taken by the government. This is not Viet Nam. This is not Desert Storm. This is not the Balkans. This is self-defense. Doing nothing is not acceptable. Retribution is the only viable option. Hunting down and killing terrorists and those that harbor them, destroying their capabilities for terrorist acts, and cutting off their sources of financial support are essential if there is any hope for peace. For those well-meaning libertarians who oppose the war I ask, what should the response be? I have yet to hear one plausible solution to rid the world of the scourge of terrorism. Stop the bombing, but then what? We’re dealing with a regime that treats women like nonentities, veiled from head to toe. We’re dealing with an enemy that places no value on human life. We’re dealing with an enemy whose goal is the destruction of our very existence. They will stop at nothing, and neither should we in defense of ourselves. Self-defense is a moral imperative. As a libertarian, I hold fast to the principle of noninitiation of force. But when force is initiated on Americans in a magnitude never seen before, I want the government to respond and make good use of the tax dollars it took from me. Give peace a chance by liberating the world from the tyranny of terrorism.

Excessive endangerment of innocent bystanders is initiated force, even during an act of defensive force. Of course, the definition of excessive endangerment is subjective, but people who believe that all people have equal natural rights should at least not endorse imposing more danger on civilians in another nation, such as Afghanistan, than they would endorse imposing on civilians in their own nation in similar situations, such as hostages, or children in the house of an armed suspect who is resisting arrest. When a person says that bombing in another nation is necessary to protect American soldiers, that person is saying that soldiers from the political region known as the United States of America have more of a right to live than do children in other political regions, simply because they are members of a nation (or tribe) known as Americans.

If a gang of militant Christian fundamentalists took over Texas and refused to extradite suspected terrorists, I doubt that many Americans would advocate bombing supposed military targets in Texas with missiles from hundreds of miles away or from airplanes flying so high that the pilots could not see the giant red cross painted on the roof of a food warehouse, especially if, as in Afghanistan, millions of people were unable to leave the area and were unable to receive desperately needed food because of the bombing.

If the U.S. military cannot get enough volunteers to capture suspected terrorists without excessively endangering civilians, they should wait for a better opportunity. This would not increase the risk of attacks against Americans. In fact, it would decrease the risk, because endangerment of civilians drives more young men on the edge into terrorism. I think the number of people in the world who would turn to terrorism simply because of religious beliefs is very small. Most potential terrorists require a much bigger push, and the U.S. and other governments have been giving that push for a long time.

Even if the U.S. became a police state with everyone spending most of their time fighting terrorists or supporting those who do, terrorism could not be completely stopped with force, just as the drug trade cannot be stopped with force. The best defense against terrorism is to stop making enemies.

Anyone interested in pursuing justice and security without war between nations might want to visit www.antiwar.com, a division of the Center for Libertarian Studies.

* * *

Kelly Russell Simpson stirred a hornet’s nest with her article about an IAC-sponsored peace rally she attended. While I agree with those who favor an inside rather than a front-page placement of such material, generating controversy is one of the purposes of writing for publication. Kelly is to be congratulated, and appreciated, for shaking things up.

Meanwhile, Libertarians would be remiss if we spent so much energy infighting over the moral correctness of the military action that we missed a larger and perhaps more fundamental point. The war is a train that’s left the station, with most of the country on board. We squander this moment in history if we don’t focus on the chain of bureaucratic institutions whose failure to perform led to the deaths of 5000 or more Americans, and more horror to come.

Surely Libertarians are in accord that bureaucratic oversight of security functions was bound to fail. Every link in the "protection" chain was ineffective at best, and destructive at worst, from the inane airport quiz about whether passengers packed their own bags, to the prohibition of asbestos as insulation for the steel beams in the towers. How many of the dead might be alive if the steel had melted just a little more slowly? The more critical the function, the more dire, and tragic, is the fallout from failure.

Whether you view this war as one of the few legitimate functions of government, or as another American intrusion on foreign soil, it could end up helping us to illustrate the cost of bureaucracy in terms that can’t be misunderstood. As the human toll and the dollar toll mount–and they will–Libertarians should speak with one voice about the need to dismantle and/or privatize wasteful and ineffective public programs. Security is a commodity like any other, and Americans could only benefit from a free market approach to providing it.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Note: LPSF bylaws require a vote of 3/4 of members present to make a recommendation to vote for or against a particular proposition. The comments below were written by Starchild and Chris Maden.

Proposition A. Community College District Bond: NO. The Community College should anticipate capital expenses in its annual budget, not ask San Francisco taxpayers to foot the bill for additional spending after budgeting 0 in their regular annual budget.

Proposition B. Solar Energy Revenue Bond: NO. A feel-good, city-run program to acquire renewable energy resources will be an easy target for patronage politics. They claim it’s self-funding. We’ve heard that before.

Proposition C. Charter Amendment: Elective Office Vacancies: NO POSITION. Pro: Voters would get more say in filling vacant elective offices. Con: This kind of tinkering does little besides distract people from the real issues.

Proposition D. Charter Amendment: Landfill in San Francisco Bay: NO POSITION. Pro: This measure creates more hurdles for government, not private projects. Con: The City is inevitably involved with every major development project in the city, so this proposition would effectively put the brakes on everything, including needed airport expansion.

Proposition E. Charter Amendment: Elections, Ethics, Outside Counsel: NO POSITION. Pro: Rules on ethics and protections against electoral fraud would be strengthened. Con: It would also mean a new bureaucracy and more spending.

Proposition F. Charter Amendment: Municipal Water and Power Agency: NO. At a time when cities around the world are seeking to open poorly performing state-run monopolies to competition, naïve socialists in San Francisco want to create a new one.

Proposition G. Charter Amendment: Redistricting: NO POSITION. Pro: Deadlines for redistricting are important for truly representative government. Con: Measure G requires the use of "adjusted" census data open to political fudging.

Proposition H. Charter Amendment: Revenue Bonds, Renewable Energy, and Energy Conservation Projects: NO. City Hall needs the power to approve more bond measures like Florida needs more butterfly ballots. Politicians should learn to spend within their more than ample budgets.

Proposition I. Creation of Municipal Utility District: NO. The left-wing Bay Guardian’s jihad against PG&E is based on knee-jerk opposition to capitalism, not common sense or the facts. Their plan won’t make energy cheaper.

The LPSF also recommends Joel Hornstein for MUD Director, Ward 2. Joel would strictly limit the scope of MUD, if passed, to the mandated electric and gas utilities, and he "opposes public takeover of anything else."

And a reminder from Chris Maden: Write in None of the Above on your ballot (and vote for it) in any race for which you find the listed candidates unacceptable. It won’t be officially counted, but it makes a small statement.

Starchild invited candidates for office to speak to Libertarians at the Direct Action Forum at the Maharani Restaurant October 24. The usual time for the event would have been the 17^th, but it had been scheduled too late to be announced in the October newsletter. Starchild delayed the event for a week in the hope of getting a flyer included in the mailing to registered Libertarians, but that mailing didn’t go out until the 26^th.

Nevertheless, he reports, "We had a great turnout–of candidates. Nine showed up: Rennie O'Brien, Joel Hornstein, Crystal Chamness, Cal Webster, Garrett Jenkins, Dan Kalb, Phil Ting, and Rose Tsai running for MUD Director, and Jim Lazarus running for City Attorney." However, "Only three Libertarians were present: Michael Edelstein, Bryce Bigwood, and myself. So we were outnumbered by more than 3 to 1 at our own event–a bit embarrassing for the LP. . . .

"Anyway, what we learned about the candidates was educational, if not particularly heartening. Bryce and I agreed (Michael had to leave before the event was over) that most of them were terrible. With the exception of Joel Hornstein, whom the LPSF has already recommended, even those who seemed a marginal improvement over their colleagues evinced very little understanding of markets and were all too willing to support things like eminent domain seizures of property.

"Two that I had thought might be promising, Crystal Chamness and Rose Tsai, turned out to be disappointing in their views. Tsai I knew of by reputation as a conservative and a vociferous opponent of rent control. However, on the issue of MUD, she turned out to be an enthusiastic supporter of Proposition I, the more disastrous of the two power-municipalizing ballot measures.

"Probably the most left-leaning of the candidates (and some of the most likely Marxists didn’t show) was Garrett Jenkins. His theme was how residents of the Bayview and Hunter’s Point are suffering from cancer, asthma, and other illnesses due to area power plants, and that the city must take them over in order to shut them down.

"Jim Lazarus, the former Feinstein aide running for City Attorney, seemed cast in the authoritarian image of his old boss. He said he felt that incumbent Louise Renne’s participation in lawsuits against gun and tobacco manufacturers has been a good thing for the city. Both in his speech and in his literature he mentioned as priorities going after negligent landlords (read: enforcing building code laws that shouldn’t be on the books) and enforcing ‘quality of life’ issues, which is usually code language for harassing the homeless or prosecuting victimless crimes.

"Unfortunately, from what I can tell, none of his three competitors appear to be any better. Lazarus was the one I had thought might turn out to be the best of the bunch, but now I suspect they are four peas in a pod.

"Nevertheless, the candidates were generally polite and good sports at attempting to answer the tough questions we put to them. The one who scored lowest on this scale was probably Phil Ting. True to his heritage as a community relations official at SF State, Phil seemed to Bryce and me to be trying to promise everything to everyone, and wouldn’t give a straight answer on racial preferences after repeated questioning (though his uncooperative reaction gave us a pretty good idea of his views).

"Many of the candidates had to wait while others were speaking and being interviewed, or stuck around after their turns to listen to their colleagues, so they got at least a mild exposure to libertarian ideas. Probably it was wasted on them, but you never know. Rose still seemed like the best prospect for working with in the future despite her unfortunate stand on public power, and I made sure she took some of our literature with her. She hosts a Cantonese-English radio show, so I asked her about the possibility of Libertarians as guests and she invited me to send her email about it. This could be a good shot at some local media exposure for our candidates."

Starchild spoke on October 29 with Howard Ash, self-described technocrat and candidate for MUD Board from Ward 1. On the basis of Ash’s understanding of markets and business, Starchild personally recommends a vote for him.

About 150 people gathered at the Argent Hotel on October 22 for a Cato Seminar, "Human Dignity and the Assault on Liberty," featuring P. J. O’Rourke as the luncheon speaker. The seminar was piggybacking on O’Rourke’s national tour for his latest book, The CEO of the Sofa.

The keynote by David Henderson was also tied to his new book, The Joy of Freedom. His address, "Deregulate the World: Why We Need to Be Free and to Allow the Same for Other Nations," was partly autobiographical, partly an exposition of the benevolence of the market. The arguments were standard libertarian fare–although, judging from the laughter when he quoted Mencken’s famous definition of Puritanism, he may not have underestimated the familiarity of his audience with the literature. Among his more interesting contributions was the report that Delta was ready to go on September 14 with a plan to put armed agents on every flight–but the FAA said no.

Wayne Crews, Director of Technology Policy at Cato, gave a brief but denser talk, which was unique in being relevant to its stated title, "‘Cyberlibertarianism’ and Its Critics." Crews addressed issues of monopoly as well as privacy. The concept of open access, he argued, is a sham so long as local companies retain monopolies on local networks–you can’t even run an extension cord across the street. Net infrastructure is, however, compartmentalizing and diversifying over time, so we could expect a market structure to comprise a mix of open and proprietary lines.

David Boaz’s talk, "The Attack on American Values," was basically a plug for Cato. Boaz noted that Carolyn Weaver, who had written an article for the first issue of the Cato Journal in 1979 on the insolvency of Social Security, had been appointed to the President’s Commission on Social Security; and when she resigned, she was replaced by another Cato staffer. Boaz sounded almost like Hamilton in emphasizing that Cato was "very much in favor of a government strong enough to do its job." In fact, the theme of his talk, and of O’Rourke’s following him, seemed to suggest that the purpose of the seminar was to reaffirm Cato’s commitment to the right wing of the libertarian spectrum.

O’Rourke’s talk was intriguingly titled "Why We Are Libertarians–Not Anarchists," but in fact did not discernibly address the topic. His principally distinctive serious point was that we should be no less worried about economic than civil liberties in the counterterrorism measures being proposed and implemented. His cynical humor drew steady laughs, but little of it would survive translation to print. "Democrats are secretly glad Republicans are in office," he said, "because Republicans know how to handle the equipment. Democrats would still be fumbling with the triggerlocks." Questioned about reparations for slavery, O’Rourke quoted Bill Maher’s line: "That’s so September 10^th."

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Thursday, November 1: Planning meeting for Walk for Capitalism (see below), 7 p.m., Café Muse, 785 8^th Avenue, SF. Contact David Rhodes, d_f_rhodes@hotmail.com.

Thursday, November 1: Walter Williams, "How Much Can Discrimination Explain?" Smith Center 10^th Anniversary Celebration, CSU Hayward. Tickets $10, 510-885-2640. www.sbe.csuhayward.edu/~sbesc.

Saturday, November 10: Richmond District meeting, 3-6 p.m., Round Table Pizza, 5160 Geary.

Wednesday, November 21: Direct Action Forum, Maharani Restaurant, 1122 Post, at Polk. www.lpsf.org for info.

Sunday, December 2: Walk for Capitalism. See www.walkforcapitalism.org.

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. Submission of articles and letters is encouraged. The deadline (including agenda and calendar items) is the penultimate Friday of the month.