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Letter to the editor: There are options to political dissatisfaction

To the editor:

The Non-Aggression Principle is a central philosophy of Libertarianism. It is defined that any aggression initiated by force, threats or coercion to make any forceful interference with either a person or their property is inherently wrong. It does not forbid forceful defense.

There are several arguments around the principles definitions and philosophy, which is encapsulated within each of the different caucuses of the Libertarian Party. Like both major parties, we have many competing ideologies. It can sometimes lead to the frustrations we commonly see in the world of politics and to the gridlock that slows down the machinations of government. We are not a perfect party, but we do have a large tent to welcome all who wish to join.

Like the rioting and burning that took place in several major cities across the country this past summer, the Morgan County Libertarians condemn any and all acts of violence and destruction, especially those that occurred in our nations capital this week. We are against the initiation of force to achieve political or social goals. There are real grievances on both sides of the political spectrum that need to be earnestly and honestly addressed in the highest echelons of our government. Both sides have exploited the government to their own benefit and have disregarded and disenfranchised others. Those loopholes and deficiencies in our laws must be stopped and things must be changed. Libertarians wish to see a very different government and set of public policies that listen to all grievances and petitions with equality and fairness. Libertarians are committed to achieving that end peacefully by persuasion, peaceful protest and demonstration, and through winning elections at all levels of government.

It is time for you, dear reader, to decide if you wish to continue the madness of voting against your own self-interests through re-electing Democrats and Republicans or if you are willing to try something more principled.

If you are a Republican that is shocked and angered by your party giving succor to an authoritative, seditious tyrant wishing to overthrow the general tenants of our democracy, inciting a cult-mob to acts of violence to retain power, or are a Democrat that feels that socialism is a failed economic philosophy that will only take more of your money and expand the size of government and debt your grandchildren will owe or are simply a common citizen that is tired by the response from both parties saying more government is the solution to all of the nations ills, there is another way. If you want a party that follows the Constitution and wants to leave you alone to live your life as you see fit as long as you are not hurting anybody else, please reach out to the Morgan County Libertarians or the Illinois Libertarian Party.

Even if you are not convinced, simply ask questions you may be surprised by the answers.

Ben Cox

Jacksonville

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Letter to the editor: There are options to political dissatisfaction - Jacksonville Journal-Courier

(Paris) Wikipedia is still the greatest digital common good that the internet has delivered to us: the free online encyclopedia, one of the last dinosaurs of the libertarian and participatory internet, celebrates its 20 years with several challenges to overcome.

Posted on January 15, 2021 at 8:55 a.m.

Yassine KHIRIFrance Media Agency

A small miracle at the time of the triumph of the GAFAM and the Internet merchant, as described to AFP the historian Rmi Mathis, ex-president of the association Wikimedia France.

Founded on January 15, 2001 by the American Jimmy Wales with a non-profit goal, Wikipedia aims to bring together the knowledge of the planet on a single online platform thanks to millions of voluntary contributors.

The success was immediate. The first site was developed in English, German and Swedish Wikipedia followed in March 2001, and soon after ten more including French, Italian, Chinese, Russian and Catalan.

Looking to the future, Jimmy Wales hopes Wikipedia will spread to developing countries: It is really important that the next billion people coming on the internet want to contribute. The founder, interviewed by AFP, dreams of an institution that lasts so long [] than the University of Oxford.

PHOTO DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS, AFP

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales

The seventh most visited site in the world, Wikipedia has more than 55 million articles published in 309 languages. The content of each site is independent: no translations, but original contributions, sometimes supplemented by robots from public data.

Contrary to the traditional encyclopedia written by recognized experts, this collection of knowledge compiled by amateurs, often anonymous, has attracted innumerable criticism and hostility from certain academic circles.

When we know in more detail how Wikipedia is monitored, the articles are written, and the community exchanges, we can still consider that there is an overall level of reliability which is important, estimates Lionel Barbe, master of conferences at Paris-Nanterre University.

There remains a problem of diversity in the sources and themes addressed, with blind spots on subjects linked to developing countries. In question, the profile of contributors, mainly from the United States and Western countries.

The fact of wanting to build an encyclopedia does not attract just anyone and the people who are there are often CSPs, urban, graduates, supports Rmi Mathis, author of Wikipedia: Behind the Scenes of the Worlds Largest Encyclopedia (First Editions).

80%, or even more, it is white men who write Wikipedia articles, explains to AFP Marie-Nolle Doutreix, lecturer at the University of Lyon 2.

We went from 15% to 18.6% of biographies of women in French Wikipedia, says Natacha Fault. Founder of the Les sans pages project, aimed at combating gender imbalances.

But the gender gap will never be filled, because the reality is that the achievements of women have been very little documented throughout history.

Despite everything, at a time of the triumph of GAFAM, the online encyclopedia is a rare survivor of the participatory utopia of the libertarian web, conceived as a decentralized network of exchange and knowledge, recalls Lionel Barbe, for which Wikipedia is after all the greatest digital common good that the Internet has delivered to us.

Jimmy Wales assures us: We are not diverted from our mission for the sake of making more income, so we are not faced with these problems that we see today, this question of algorithms designed in such a way as to encourage engagement in order to increase advertising revenue.

The commercial Internet also has an interest in Wikipedia continuing, nuance Marie-Nolle Doutreix. Google has promoted the visibility of Wikipedia, but in return it uses its articles in its search engine and has significant traffic thanks to this encyclopedia.

Some would also like to draw inspiration from the encyclopedias original model of community moderation in the face of the massive circulation of false information on social networks.

We must not believe either that Wikipedia is going to save us from our own demons. It remains a tool. If we love conspiracy, I doubt that Wikipedia can discourage you, explains Lionel Barbe.

So Wikipedia faces two great challenges: to continue to encourage vocations as encyclopedias, and to moderate its own content and internal debates, on the basis of voluntary work.

All of this, as Lionel Barbe explains, in a context of very strong growth in collective fantasies.

More here:
Wikipedia 20th anniversary | The libertarian internet dinosaur has become the worlds largest encyclopedia - Inspired Traveler

The frequent appeals to personal liberty made by anti-maskers and lockdown sceptics make a depressing addition to the Covid debate for anyone on the left who believes inliberty.It isnt just that those appeals dont add up to a very good argument. Its that a small group on the libertarian right (and assorted contrarian types who havejoined their ranks) have claimed the word liberty for themselves, degrading its meaning to suit their own ends.

But we've been here before.Duringthecholera outbreaks of the 19th century,therewasalsoastrident minority resisting the rules brought in to save lives, often by means of invoking liberty. (There were conspiracy theories then, too, one of which claimed that elites had released cholera to cull the poor;thisisprobably worth rememberingevery time you read about 5G or mysterious Chinese labs.)

What's interestingisthat the basisfor the public health measures put in place at the end of that century and afterwards was provided in part by John Stuart MillsOn Liberty, whichbecameaclassic text on the subject.According to Mills harm principle, liberty may be suspended if its expression harms someone else. TheDeclaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which laid out the values of the French Revolution, said much the same thing 70 years before.But though the lockdown sceptics arguments have beendiscredited,we still find ourselves in a semantic muddle. Andthereason for this is that many on the left have granted those self-described libertarians the exclusive right to define liberty, by forgetting or neglecting the libertarian strands of their own tradition, as well as their defenders.

[See also:Why lockdown sceptics should accept the overwhelming case for restrictions now]After all, libertyisn't the preserve ofthe right.Manygreat thinkersonthe left Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Herbert Read fuseda respect for liberty with a concern for social justice. You might even mention Gore Vidal, or Christopher Hitchens, whose libertarian leanings stayed with him throughout his political life.Defending (and, indeed, demanding) civil liberties was once a defining principle of the left.Bound up with itwas aleftist defence of liberty that differs starkly from the absolute variant on themodernlibertarianright. Orwell, invoked by the right whenever absolute free speech is questioned, wrote that there always must be, or at any rate there always will be, some degree of censorship, so long as organised societies endure. According to the leftist tradition, liberty may be (and often is) put to one side in pursuit of another cause: Freedom without equality is exploitation, as Rosa Luxemburg put it. To defend liberty, in other words, is not to give up your critical faculties, your common sense, or your regard for others. It isnt to become an evangelist for unbridled individualism.It's just to respect personal freedom and agency in the context of wider society.

And yet, turned over to sundry contrarians and the fringes of the libertarian right, inside and outside parliament, untrammelled individualism is what the word is now associated with. Liberty a political construct, used synonymously with but distinct from freedom is coming to mean a kind of absolute, do-whatever-you-like autonomy that has no regard for the harm that autonomy might do to others. On that view, being told you're not allowed to swing an axe into someone's face would be an attack on liberty. This is obviously ridiculous, but the fact is thatthe left has allowed a small group on theright to give liberty whatever meaning it likes.This isnt just an academic point. The lefts desertion ofliberty as an idealhas some dispiriting real-life consequences. There has been weak opposition from the left to the roll-out of warrantless mass surveillance as well as its means, much of it fraught with bias thathas very real consequences for social justice. The news over the summer that the right to peaceful protest might be restricted was met with little more than a shrug. (The architect of thatplan, theHome Secretary, Priti Patel, described the Black Lives Matter protests as currently unlawful due to Covid-19.) And one cant help but feel that the news the government has reportedly dropped its plans to let people define their own gender might have provoked a stronger reaction if a zeal for social justice could have been fused with an appeal to liberty.As for the pandemic,a nuanced critique of the Coronavirus Act from across the spectrum has been lacking.Those who would think of themselves asliberalhave been silent, despite the criminalisation of many forms of human behaviour without real debate, to be ratified retrospectively. Perhaps this is necessary in this case, but the lack of opposition sets a dismal precedent.As it is, the word liberty has been left to those who gleefully tweet photos of themselvessansmasks. That's something the left should findoff-putting. Compassion and a real emphasis on the common good are necessary during a crisis such as the pandemic. But that doesnt condemn the idea of liberty to meaninglessness or irrelevance.

[See also: Richard Seymour on why the hard right fought against lockdown]

Harry Readhead is a member of the advocacy group Liberty.

The rest is here:
How the right claimed liberty and made it a toxic word - New Statesman

In the 2020 presidential election, the Libertarian Party candidate, Jo Jorgensen, gained 1.2 percent of the vote, less than half the partys 2016 election result.Jeffrey MichelsandOlivier Lewiswrite that despite signs that pointed towards the potential for libertarian voters to beking makersin the 2020 election, their dislike of DonaldTrump turned many to Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.

In the 2016 US Presidential election,the former RepublicanGovernor of New Mexico,Gary Johnsongained3.3 percentof the national vote share,the highest on record foraLibertarian Partypresidential candidate.This modest milestonecould have been written off as the result of a race featuring two highly unpopular mainstream candidates, Donald Trump andformer Secretary of State,Hillary Clinton. But itmightalso haveportendeda more meaningful movement inUSelectoral politics,onein which a growing Libertarian Party or at least an increasingly independent bloc of libertarian voters gainsthecriticalmass totip the race.Infiercely competitive bipartisancontests, protests voterscould position themselvesaspower brokers.

When we entertained this possibilityduring the primary season,plenty ofsigns were pointing toanother strongresult for the LibertarianParty.The frontrunners of the Democratic Party primaries were relativelyradicalcandidateslike Senators Elizabeth Warren and BernieSanders,who were proposinga new pushofstateintervention in the economyanathemaof courseto libertarian ideology.Meanwhile,Trumps dominanceofthe Republic Party was unquestioned, blocking any attempt to move the party away from the incumbents brand ofblunt nativism.And the one RepublicanHouse Representative, JustinAmash,whodiddare questionthisdominanceand in doing so became a minorcult hero threw in his hatfor the Libertarian Party ticket.

But then, alotchanged. Democratsrallied behindmoderateformer Vice-President Joe Biden, while LibertarianschoseJo Jorgensen, a familiar face within the partybuta strangerbeyond it.TheCOVID-19 pandemicthenrenderedimpossible thein-personcanvassingnecessaryto raise Jorgensens profile. And itleftlittle place for libertarian discourse in public debate. In the run up to the election, thequestionwasnot whethergovernment interventionwasjustifiable, butratherhow much and what kind was needed.

As a result,inLibertarian candidatesfinished withjust under 1.2 percentof the vote in the 2020 election, losingnearlytwo-thirdsof theirsharecompared to 2016.

Did the2020setbackconfirm that theLibertarian spike of2016wasnot asignbut a fluke?Looking at the bigger picture,was it rash to consider thatlibertarianvoterscould becomekingmakersin US Presidentialelections?

One straightforwardresponsewas put forthimmediately after the electionbycommentatorsandpoliticianswho argued that the Libertarian Party nonetheless decided the election, spoiling a Republican victory. Despite underperforming relative to the previous election, Jo Jorgensons ticket still was the second-best result in Libertarian Party history, and it was enough to cover the difference between Trump and Biden in several swing states.

Thisspoiler argument rests on the false assumption that voters of the Libertarian Party, and moregenerallyvoterswhoseidentificationwithlibertarian valuesrivals their loyalty toany particular party, belong, in the end,totheGOP. It was precisely the extent to which this assumption was false thatprovides a key to answering the questions set out above.TheRepublican Party showed in 2016 that its turn to Trump could cost it a large portion of voters to a Libertarian Party protest ticket. Doubling down on Trump in 2020, the GOP proved it could pushthelions share of these same voters into the enemy camp,assuringits defeat.

Indeed, the story of 2020 is not the number of those who turned to the Libertarian ticket, but those who turned away from it, in favour of the Democrats.Among theeightmillion peoplewho voted for a third-party candidate in 2016 (half of which voted for the Libertarian Party), an overwhelming majority sided with Biden in 2020.The main indicator is thatwhile Trumps 2020 results are similar to those of 2016,Bidens are much better than Clintons in 2016.Some of these not-Clinton-but-yes-Biden votersmight be new votersor former Republicans, butexit poll surveyscorroborate the hypothesis that a significant number of 2016 Libertarian voters opted for Biden in 2020.

They did this despitethe fact thatJoe Bidenscareerrecord andelectoralcampaignstillpresenteda number of red flags for libertarians.Mostnotably, heproposedwhat could be become the mostambitious planof government spending in decades.But these concerns were evidently outweighed by the prospect of another four years of a Trump presidency. If there is any libertarian case for Biden, as onelibertarian commentatorput it, its situational, and that situation ends on January 20.

The 2020 elections showed then that theblocfrom 2016is still there and is still important, but that itspotential to determine electionscomes fromswingingfrom one party toanotherinstead of settling onand leveragingits own.

Unfortunately for libertarian-minded voters, thisleavesthem with onlyrelatively pooroptionsin future elections. There is apossibilitythat many of them will turn back to the Republican Party once it puts forth a less offensive candidate. ButtheGOPwill likely remain in thrall of thebloc that Trump forged,a bitter reality for libertarians whojust a decade ago seemed totake the reinswiththesuccess of theTea Party movement.The Democratic Party will surely keep some of the votes it won from this bloc as well.But the pressure to placate its far-left wing will likely outweigh its desire to permanently win over the moderate libertarians. And for the Libertarian Party to beanything more than a last resort,it wouldhave to prove itself capable of exactly that which it failed to do this election: rally this bloc under a common banner with a shared strategy, in so doing convincing mainstream parties that it cannot be ignored.

In the next Presidential election, theblocs voteswill likely be dividedbetween thesethree options,weakening theefficacyof eachand likelystokinga fourth option:abstention.

There is aparadox that limits the blocs potential.The same characteristics that predispose libertarians to be swing voters their pride in rational, independent behaviour,and their resistance to organised politics,if not outrightanarchism also makes them unlikely tocoordinate their actionon a large scale to optimallyleverage this position.Perhaps they could rally together through another groundswell movement like the Tea Party, not a totally fantastic scenario considering that resistance to governmentspending and restriction ofcivil liberties willsurely mount as Covid-19 recedes. Butcould this feed into an independent forcethat would break thetwo-party doom loop,withoutbeing co-opted by the general anti-establishment rage buoying the Republican Party?

Instead,Libertarian Party and independent libertarian voterswill havetosettle forgettingcreative andpickingsmallerstrategically placedbattles. We have alreadyobservedthis inthe elections for Senate, where libertariancandidates in Georgiahelped toforce two run-offs, the results of which will decide the majority. Therun-offsarestillmostly alose-losefor libertarians, butthereissurely athrill in throwinga spanner in the workingsof the major parties, especially if thisincitesthe opposition to offermore libertarian policies.AsLibertariancandidatein Georgia Shane Hazelnoted:I hope people understand that creating a run-off should be the primary mission until the party is much stronger.

Of course, the Libertarian Party can also think global, act local. In Wyoming,Marshall Burtbecame the first Libertarian to win a statehouse seatsince 2002, andthe fifthin US history. Via its Frontier Project, the Libertarian Party hopes to wina fewmore state-level seatsinNorth and South Dakota, Montana, Utah, and Wisconsin.There is also the possibility of winning more specific, less party-political ballots,viareferendums.In 2020,many referendumspassed seemingly libertarianproposals ondrugs, taxes, rent, voting rights,ranked-choice voting,andlabour regulations.Californian referendumsare a prime example of this, butAlaskaandColoradoare also interesting cases.

The questionofwhether the Libertarian Party or a bloc of libertarian voters emerges as a swing factor andkingmakerin future US elections will depend on the success of a project to carve a common identity and settle on a shared strategy.They could do this autonomously with their own party or by fitting into a spaceleft by one of themainstream parties.But neitherscenarioappears likely in the short-term,meaningthe battle for libertarian values will likely be waged where it has been waged best,far from the centreofthebiggestelectoral stage.

Please read our comments policy before commenting.

Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP American Politics and Policy, nor the London School of Economics.

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Jeffrey MichelsCollege of EuropeJeffrey Michels is a Parliamentary Assistant at the European Parliament and an Academic Assistant at the College of Europe,Natolincampus.

Olivier LewisCollege of EuropeOlivier has been a Research Fellow at the College of Europe, Natolin campus, since August 2019.Olivier is currently writing his first book,Security Cooperation between Western States, to be published with Routledge. He is also working on shorter publications related to counterterrorism, counterinsurgency,and Brexit.

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What Happened?: The 2020 election showed that libertarians have a long way to go before they can become a national movement. - USAPP American Politics...

New Yorks 22nd Congressional District will not have a representative when the next session of Congress begins Jan. 3.

The final hearing in 2020 of the judicial review of the congressional race wrapped up in Oswego County Supreme Court with some questions left unanswered. The case will not resume until after the state court systems recess is over Jan. 4.

The results in the race between U.S. Rep. Anthony Brindisi and Republican Claudia Tenney have not been certified, more than seven weeks after Election Day. Its the only House of Representatives race without certified results.

Among the unfinished issues in the judicial review is the ongoing canvass of administratively rejected ballots in Oneida County. The ballots are being canvassed under a Dec. 8 order from state Supreme Court Justice Scott DelConte.

The latest update on the Oneida County affidavit count, from Wednesday morning, had a total of 847 ballots reviewed, including 253 on Monday and 594 on Tuesday. The county board of elections still had 950 ballots to canvass.

Of those recently canvassed ballots, 237 have been included in the preliminary count. The numbers presented Thursday morning gave Brindisi 125 votes additional votes,92to Tenney and nine to Libertarian candidate Keith Price, with no votes on the remaining 11 ballots.

The current, overall unofficial results now edge to Brindisi, giving the incumbent a 14-vote lead. Tenney previously led by 19 votes; its the second time Brindisi has taken a narrow lead in the unofficial and incomplete count.

During Wednesdays proceedings, DelConte ordered the Madison County Board of Elections to correct timestamp errors on ballots received on Election Day, but timestamped Nov. 4. Employees, including both commissioners, at the countys board of elections testified they did not receive any ballots by hand after Election Day.

Madison County Board of Elections Republican Commissioner Mary Egger reiterated testimony that affidavit and absentee ballots received at polling sites were secured in the county jail, then brought to the board of elections offices Nov. 4. The ballots, which were sealed on Election Day, were then timestamped.

A total of 119 ballots would need to be corrected based on the timestamp error, per DelContes order. A Madison County Sheriffs deputy arrived at 3:30 p.m. to return the ballots to the board of elections to make the corrections, which will be completed before the candidates or their representatives.

The judicial review for ballots in Chenango County continued, with attorneys for both candidates arguing the validity of ballots based on stray marks, dropoff locations and other discrepancies. At the end of Wednesdays hearing, DelConte called a halt to the Chenango County review, to be resumed Jan. 4.

The court has yet to review any contested ballots from Broome and Oneida counties. Even once the campaign attorneys have argued their cases in court, DelConte will need to make rulings on hundreds of contested ballots before there is a final count in the race.

Read more from the original source:
Judicial review in NY-22 congressional race on hold until next year - Utica Observer Dispatch