What's Wrong with the NYC Libertarians?

New York City Libertarians are going through what may only be described as pre-pubescent in-fighting and mud-slinging. I'm a member of discussion lists of Libertarian groups throughout the country, and therefore get a decent feel on the pulse of the nation's Libertarians. I must say, of all the groups in the country, the NYCers are the one's taking this cycle's walloping the worst.

As a libertarian, I'm fairly used to being disappointed by the cycle's election returns. We had our hopes up pretty high this year, too, and the only major sucesses were Howie Rich's emminent domain initiatives passing around the country. I've discussed the minor victories we achieved in Texas and South Florida, but the results in NYC were particularly dismal for a major population center with a fairly active Libertarian core group.

Unfortunately, this group hasn't taken it very well. Instead of analyzing their work and defeats extensively, and beginning planning for next year's Muni-Elections, they've decided to turn on one another like wild dogs. It mostly centers around a fellow named Dr. Tom Stevens, who if you believe his detractors, is a ego-maniacal pedophile. His supporters call him a Libertarian purist. In actuality, he was the leader of the Queens LP group, one of the fastest growing contingents of the NY Libertarian party.

The controversy started when a quorum met to de-certify the Queens LP as no longer being affiliated with the NY State LP. Apparently, this was building up for some time by those who were either jealous of or in some way inhibited by Dr. Stevens' ambition. Unfortunately, there is now a rift in the party of those loyal to Dr. Stevens, and those who will stop at nothing to get him out of the party. The latest effort to stir up the drama pot was by Mark Axinn's resignation as Manhattan's representative to the state party convention, and an attempt to replace himself with Dr. Stevens.

The Secretary of the NY LP accepted the resignation of Mr. Axinn, but did not accept the nomination of Dr. Stevens, citing an obscure portion of party by-laws.

The details of the case are inconsequential, and are symptomatic of a bigger problem - the inability of certain sects of the LP to put aside differences and focus on the real fights; the inability to 'save it for the game' if you will. I think this is because after repeated thrashings, and the inability to really see the difference they are making, they feel the need to lash out and manipulate things in a court where they know they can make a difference - in parlaimentary politics. Unfortunately, this is ultimately counter-productive, and needs to stop.

I say to the NY LP what I said to my parents after they decided to divorce after 29 years of marriage: "Grow up, stop acting like children, and get back together."

/mark "rizzn" hopkins

The Nativity: A Review

I saw The Nativity the theatre with my wife – my pops picked up AJ and took him and his cousins to Chuck E. Cheese’s. We had originally intended on watching the supposed snuff film Apocalypto, but due to time constraints were unable to make the right showing to be back in time. The only show worth watching that was playing on our schedule was Nativity, so we watched.

One thing I’ll say right off the top – if you’re expecting something as powerful as Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ, then don’t see this movie. Don’t get me wrong, it has it’s moments, but it’s not there by a longshot. It’s clearly not written from a Christian perspective, playing heavy on the Magi and King Herod as main characters, and uses that well known Hollywood creative license with the recorded facts in the case. The exact lines that gave me this impression fail to come to mind, but I definitely came away with a “multiculturalized” feel from the movie.

Instead of remaining true to the timeline in the Bible, they re-arrange major details to make the film fit nicely into a two hour timeslot. It makes for a sappy Christmas card setting to portray the Magi appearing at the stable along with the shepherds on that first Christmas Eve as the movie presents it, but the Bible says the Magi visited and saw Jesus at "the house" where Joseph and Mary were residing. Most biblical scholars believe this was at least several months later, perhaps as much as ten to twelve months. This undoubtedly entered into Herod's decision to have all male children two years old and under killed "in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi." (Matt. 2:16)

But according to the movie's time line, why didn't Herod just have male babies two months old and under killed? Again, for some unknown reason, the movie gives us the impression that the Magi decided on their own not to return to King Herod. Not only would it have been more dramatic, but also biblically accurate if the movie would have shown the Magi telling us that they had been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, returning to their country by another route. It's a shame that the movie completely disregards this and inaccurately presents this as their own decision.

Cinematically speaking, the efforts to make the Magi amiable are well intentioned, it ends up just being a bit goofy. The gadgets they use in their astronomy/astrology efforts are comical and out of place in this film. Herod's character isn't developed well enough; he was a complex politician, and more insight into his actions would have been useful for the context of the story. Although Herod is generally believed to have been ruthless and barbaric in his efforts to maintain his sovereignty; the film goes overboard, making him a typical psycho stereotype. A few events at the end are compressed in their chronology, although that may be a plus, by showing all the visitors to the newborn Jesus simultaneously.

Overall, I would say that most of the flaws are a result of weak directing. At times it felt fragmented and in-cohesive as a story. I felt like I was watching a moving picture book rather than a movie. The film should have had much more impact than it did. As it is, it feels more of a sentimental story for those who know and love it. But as an evangelical tool that shows the world a glimpse of wondrous news, I believe it falls far short of its potential power.

/rizzn

Libertarian Strategy: Should We Focus Democratic?

The conversation more or less says it all.  It took place this weekend on the Texas State Libertarian Executive Committee.  The linked article also provides background and is worth reading.

Pat Dixon:

As a Libertarian I will not coerce you, but I strongly recommend and request you regard this link as required reading and consider its pertinence to the 2008 campaign.

Jeff Daiell:

Pat, thanks for posting this, as I long ago got tired of being slammed for saying we should reach out to lefties as well as righties. For that matter, we need to reach out to a *lot* of constituencies we haven't approached much so far -- African-Texans, Texan Indians, GLBT individuals, Mormons, evangelicals, labor, etc.

John Shuey:

I disagree with Jeff...and some of the Cato article...in that I  believe the Democratic core is too heavily invested in class warfare and income redistribution to ever buy into the LP's positions. But there are those fiscally conservative Dems who, again, might possibly be converted.

Jeff Daiell

Depends on what you mean by "core". Yeah, the
brazenly socialist activists within the DP will not
accept any tolerance toward the free market. But,
just as many Greens have over the last few years
joined us when they realize that statism is bad for
the environment and other living things, so might some
lefties who are lefties because they don't realize
government is the tool, the plaything, and the weapon
of the privileged move our way when they realize that
it is.

Also, many groups align with the Democrats because the
Democrats aligned with them, at least officially, and
alleged advocates of free enterprise disdained them.
Those are groups we can recruit from.

Finally, keep in mind that even if we peel away 3-5%
among any of these groups, and especially if we do so
from more than one, the bipartisans will notice and,
however grudgingly, will move in our direction on some
issues to attract those folks back.

Financial Crisis Averted

I had a serious cashflow issue at the start of this month that today has resolved itself.  I’m very happy about this, and I’m going home to take my wife on a hot date.

Life is good.  See ya all Monday!

/rizzn

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Corporate America creating more Rizzn-Like Lifestyle

Yahoo Finance ran an article today with the following leads:

One afternoon last year, Chap Achen, who oversees online orders at Best Buy Co., shut down his computer, stood up from his desk, and announced that he was leaving for the day. It was around 2 p.m., and most of Achen's staff were slumped over their keyboards, deep in a post-lunch, LCD-lit trance. "See you tomorrow," said Achen. "I'm going to a matinee."

Under normal circumstances, an early-afternoon departure would have been totally un-Achen. After all, this was a 37-year-old corporate comer whose wife laughs in his face when he utters the words "work-life balance." But at Best Buy's Minneapolis headquarters, similar incidents of strangeness were breaking out all over the ultramodern campus. In employee relations, Steve Hance had suddenly started going hunting on workdays, a Remington 12-gauge in one hand, a Verizon LG in the other. In the retail training department, e-learning specialist Mark Wells was spending his days bombing around the country following rocker Dave Matthews. Single mother Kelly McDevitt, an online promotions manager, started leaving at 2:30 p.m. to pick up her 11-year-old son Calvin from school. Scott Jauman, a Six Sigma black belt, began spending a third of his time at his Northwoods cabin.

At most companies, going AWOL during daylight hours would be grounds for a pink slip. Not at Best Buy. The nation's leading electronics retailer has embarked on a radical--if risky--experiment to transform a culture once known for killer hours and herd-riding bosses. The endeavor, called ROWE, for "results-only work environment," seeks to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity. The goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours.

My first thoughts were something along the lines of “crap, another one of my secrets to success out the window.” If only corporate America thought like this back when I was a drone, I might still be a drone today.  My brother can attest to the fact that I was very fond of saying “as long as I get the work done, why would the care about X…”

I don’t think this will ultimately fly, simply due to a few salient facts:

1) Not every job can be quantified emperically. What about someone from upper management or a personal assistant?  Can you grade them on the effectiveness of their job performance?  These are mostly ‘gotta be there’ positions because their effect for the company is psychological, principally.

2) Some jobs heartily require presence during business hours. Receptionists, IS/IT departments, etc. For someone in the fix-your-computer (or even worse, the fix-your-server)department to take the day off to hunt and try to phone in a server fix from the middle of a connection poor deer lease in West Texas is what I like to call a Bad Idea (tm).

3) Good morale doesn’t always equate to good performance. There are some business types in which you want to have good morale – media, food service, and some sales based companies.  Many times, though, poor morale due to a disconnect between management and staff is healthy for a company.  Liken it to when you get pissed off.  If you’re like me or people I know, you tend to clean, move around, run, or something to blow off steam, and you do it with a vengence.  The balance of morale for a company usually should be kept somewhere between mildly perturbed and just short of friggin’ postal for best results.

/rizzn

Interesting New Form of Organised Crime

This from the Guardian:

Organised gangs are recruiting the next generation of internet criminals by approaching undergraduates on university campuses.

In some cases gangs offer to finance undergraduates' studies and plant them as sleepers within target businesses, according to a report on cybercrime which draws on intelligence from the FBI and British and European hi-tech crime units.

Greg Day, security analyst for McAfee, said: "A lot of these people go into chatrooms, discussion sites, and start a discussion. Organised crime is involved in that."

Inexperienced young hackers often talk to each other in an internet slang known as l33t, which helps gangs target them. One popular tactic is blackmail. "They'll say: 'We know you did this, we can shop you unless you come and work for us'. Sponsoring students through a degree is more likely to happen in less affluent countries like Russia or India."

The report warns: "There is a false economy of trust. People don't present personal information to strangers on the street, but building profiles online means that internet criminals can instantly access a mine of details - names and interests, pets and life stories."