Libertarian Gamma Males Hate Alpha Males

Control freaks have long pestered the Libertarian Party. They infest the LP from time to time, trying to dictate how everyone should behave "to win elections," or what the party's message should and should not be. The Nevada LP's recent crack down on its county parties is one example. The actions of the Reform/liberventionist/Root faction provide other examples.

Even so, the control freaks always have a hard time because, as it's long been said, trying to manage libertarians is like herding cats.

Now I've come across an interesting term, in an article about Herman Cain, that relates to this phenomenon -- the Gamma Male.

From reading this article, it seems to me that Alpha Males can easily rule Beta Males -- but the LP is mostly composed of Gamma Males. Alpha Males (which is what I consider Bob Barr, Wayne Allyn Root, Aaron Starr, and some others, to be) cannot control Gamma Males. Gamma Males don't want to rule, but they rebel against control.

(Yes, there are some women in the LP, but unfortunately, the party's fate is still largely determined by male power dynamics.)

Here's the relevant excerpt from the article, by Daniel M. Ryan, found at EnterStageRight.com:

"The division of people into Alpha and Beta started, unsurprisingly, with experiments on rats. Studying social dynamics, the scientists found that certain rats struggled to assume leadership of the rat packs and tended to end up as leaders. They were labeled Alphas. Other rats didn't fight for leadership, and were content to follow: they were labeled Betas. The two categories seemed exhaustive, until those rat-watchers discovered a third kind of rodent.

"That rat was labeled the Gamma. Superficially, it appeared to be an Alpha. What differentiated the Gamma from the Alpha was the former's disinclination to either lead or follow. Gammas that got leadership slots grew tired of being the boss and went off on their own. Interestingly, they were confused with Alphas but not Betas. Gammas weren't much for following....

"The Gamma personality has not entered the popular argot, despite the Gamma's correspondence to a definite psychological profile. A Gamma male, or female, is a dominant loner.

"Like their rat counterparts, [Gamma humans are] not much for following but show little inclination to lead. In a way, it's surprising that there's not more recognition of the Gamma personality because there's a whole Gamma subculture right in front of our eyes. As dominant loners, whether rough-hewn or refined, they're inclined to be individualists.

"As people, they tend to assume that other people are like themselves. Consequently, they tend to see the leader-follower bond as a little odd or degrading. Some are more sophisticated then others, but their psychological profile inclines them to look on leaders with suspicion and followers with disdain.

"H.L. Mencken, to take a single example, was all Gamma. What other kind of person would see democracy as something akin to a well-run slave plantation, with vote solicitation obliging the master to always wear velvet gloves and keep pampering the slaves? His knack of portraying political leaders as either rascals or buffoons went hand-in-hand with an eternal contempt for their supporters and followers. Clearly, H.L. Mencken's own political prejudices squared tightly with the Gamma profile. So does anyone who despises the "sheeple" for needing the sheepdog."

Read the entire article.

Wayne Allyn Root Uses Libertarian Party for Neocon Stardom

Since 2007, when I first saw him speak at the 2007 Libertarian Party of California state convention, I've said that Wayne Allyn Root is using the LP to promote himself, seeking a new career as a paid political pundit, with all the usual lucrative book deals, and radio & TV gigs.

Why would Root seek a new career? Perhaps because his sports betting business was already tanking in 2007, though I didn't learn about that until later.

Why would Root use the LP to attain the goal of media star/political pundit?

My logic: The world is full of Rush Limbaugh wannabes. An aspiring, right-wing media pundit, one with no serious political creds, must separate himself from the herd.

Winning the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination is one way to rise above the pack.

Plus, the libertarian pond is much smaller than the conservative ocean. It's easier to look like a Big Fish in the LP than in the GOP. Less competition when Fox News needs an "official libertarian spokesperson."

Root only won the LP's VP nomination, but his plan worked. Despite Root's ignorance of both libertarian philosophy and internal party issues, the VP nomination brought Root instant "political spokesperson" creds. Which he immediately began leveraging to pump up his own personal stardom.

Root's supporters derided my analysis of Root's motives and intentions.

Robert Capozzi called me a "mind reader" for presuming to know Root's motives and intentions.

No, not mind reading. One may logically assess a person's motives and intentions based on that person's circumstances, statements, and actions. We all assess other people's motives and intentions, every day.

IPR's "Libertarian Girl" said my analysis was ridiculous, because if Root wanted to use a political party for personal fame, he'd join the GOP rather than the LP.

No, not really. Had Root sought power within, or through, the GOP in 2007, he'd have been a small fish among Big Boys. The GOP wouldn't have nominated Root for vice president. And Root's ego can't abide toiling in the shadows of GOP power brokers, hoping for a chance to maybe run for state assembly in 10 years.

But now I am vindicated. On January 31, 2011, Root sent an email to S. Rowan Wilson, which Wilson released to the public. (Root's email was in relation to yet another Root fiasco, specifically, the Nevada state LP's power grab, disaffiliating its county parties.)

In his email, Root reveals his personal goals. Here's the relevant excerpt (the ellipses are in the original), in which Root writes to Wilson:

"And I'm not interested in local issues- I’m 100% a national guy.

"So only when I’m 70 years old and retired will I be interested in running for Congress or U.S. Senate. At that point it might be fun to move to D.C. and add a new chapter to my life.

"In the meantime my goal is to become very famous as a TV and radio host over the next 6 years...and run for President in 2016 with the name recognition of Rush or Hannity or Glenn Beck or Michael Savage.

"And get Ross Perot-like vote totals...and then become a true national celebrity known and respected by all.

"Then spend 4 more years as the Libertarian-conservative Rush or Beck on radio and TV...

"then actually have a legitimate shot to win the Presidency in 2020...

"And if that doesn't happen...at that point as a household name (like Ross Perot, Al Franken, or Jesse Ventura) become Nevada's U.S. Senator.

"But the only way to 'settle' on U.S. Senate and actually win...is to become Nevada's most famous citizen as talk show host...TV celebrity...and serious Presidential candidate."

You can read the full Root/Rowan email exchange on Independent Political Report.

Are Root's motives relevant to anything?

Yes. If Root seeks a personal success that requires the approval of Fox News and the right-wing punditocracy, then Root will craft his Message to appeal to those who can give him that success -- the pro-war Establishment.

Root will also avoid sensitive, controversial issues (e.g., aid to Israel, open borders, drug legalization, gay marriage), or even take an anti-libertarian position on those issues, should it offend his Fox News customer base.

Which makes Root a damaging spokesperson for the LP.

Libertarian Party Is Too Right-Wing for Republicans

A little over a week ago, I attended a non-political, arts-related social event. A man recognized me from a couple of years ago, and said, “You're a libertarian, right?”

I explained that I was no longer a member of the Libertarian Party.

He replied that while he was a progressive, and usually voted Democratic, he'd liked some things about the LP, but that in recent years, the LP “had turned really right-wing.”

I asked for examples. I wondered if he could cite specific names or incidents that caused him to feel this way.

He didn't have any particular person or incident in mind. He said he knew several Libertarians, and their general impression was that the LP “had turned really right-wing.”

I don't know if these libertarian friends of his are party members, or just philosophical libertarians.

This man's demographic background: a Latino (fully integrated; no accent), in his early 30s, with wife and kids, who works in the arts and lives in California.

But this is even more noteworthy...

Most folks at this event were progressive Democrats, but I also met a man who described himself as “a former Republican,” but now registered as an independent. A white guy, early 40s, who works in the arts.

He too complained that “the Libertarian Party is too right-wing.”

Again, he couldn't cite any specific names or incidents that made him feel this way. It was just his general impression that the LP had become “too neocon.” (His words.)

When I told him that I'd cast a write-in ballot for Ron Paul, he grew excited. He had voted for Paul too.

He liked Ron Paul, but not the LP. Paul was cool; the LP “too right-wing.”

A couple of observations:

1. While the general public may not pay enough attention to LP candidates or leaders to remember any specific names, the message is trickling down that the LP is “right-wing.”

2. The current LP (brought to you by the Reform faction) not only repels libertarian-leaning progressives, it's gotten so that the LP repels libertarian-leaning Republicans.

LP Reformers (and specifically Wayne Allyn Root), say the LP must focus its outreach on Republicans. Well, there's nothing wrong with outreach to libertarian-leaning Republicans -- but the current LP repels them. Instead, the current LP resembles the Neocon GOP which libertarian-leaning Republicans are escaping.

Rather than provide a home for libertarian-leaning Republicans, the current LP resembles the Neocon creeps they just escaped from.

This former Republican is not unique. I was a registered Republican before I quit trying to “work within the GOP” and switched my registration to Libertarian. I left the GOP because of their pro-war/anti-civil liberties policies.

Only to leave the LP for the same reasons.

The Reform/Root faction says the LP should ignore libertarian-leaning progressives, because the real gains are to be had among Republicans. But the LP isn't attracting libertarian-leaning/Ron Paul Republicans. Only Neocons are pleased with today's LP -- and they'll be voting GOP come November.

Fight Facebook Censorship in China

From DemandProgress.org:

Facebook will do anything to get China to accept its friend request. As China cracks down on dissidents and Google condemns that country's authoritarian leadership, Facebook is considering a partnership with Chinese censors.

Will you tell Facebook to start respecting civil liberties? Just click here to sign our petition to Mark Zuckerberg.

And let's make this campaign go viral on Facebook: click here to share it with your friends.

Facebook's lobbyist Adam Conner just told the Wall Street Journal, "Maybe we will block content in some countries, but not others....We are occasionally held in uncomfortable positions because now we're allowing too much, maybe, free speech in countries that haven't experienced it before."

Astounding. And this disregard for civil liberties is nothing new: Facebook has consistently dodged hard questions about free speech. Last year they refused to attend a U.S. Senate hearing on "global Internet freedom" and the company won't join the tech industry's Global Network Initiative, which promotes human rights and free speech.

Thanks for taking a stand against censorship.

-- The DemandProgress.org team

Ron Paul to Announce 2012 Presidential Run

The National Journal reports:

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, whose outspoken libertarian views and folksy style made him a cult hero during two previous presidential campaigns, will announce on Tuesday that he's going to try a third time.

Sources close to Paul, who is in his 12th term in the House, said he will unveil an exploratory presidential committee, a key step in gearing up for a White House race. He will also unveil the campaign's leadership team in Iowa, where the first votes of the presidential election will be cast in caucuses next year.

Paul, 75, ran as the Libertarian Party candidate in 1988, finishing with less than one half a percent of the vote. After more than a decade as a Republican congressman, Paul gave it another shot in the 2008 presidential election, gaining attention for being the only Republican candidate calling for the end to the war in Iraq and for his "money bomb" fundraising strategy, which brought in millions of dollars from online donors in single-day pushes.

Read the entire article.

Rachel Hawkridge Quits Libertarian Party

Washington state LP officer Rachel Hawkridge (who two years ago addressed the LNC's attempted purge of Lee Wrights) joins the long list of activists and leaders who've left the Libertarian Party.

Hawkridge gives her reasons in the below email, which was forwarded to me.

Hawkridge writes:


Dear State Chairs, Friends & Allies –

Most of you know by now that I have abandoned you, disappeared, and you have probably heard that I have left the LP.

It's all true. I'm finished. Life member of the LP. LPWA's "Activist of the Year -– 1999". I'm not going to be silent, nor take any more BS from this bunch of misogynists.

Several months ago, [LP national chair] Hinkle demanded that I step down from the Convention Oversight Committee. He said I wasn't participating, that furthermore, "everyone tells him" that I hadn't done anything last term on COC.

Except the Admiral (last year's COC Chair), who when asked if this was true, said "Absolutely NOT"!

I said I had been participating –- just about one week before this demand, I had been on a conference call WHERE HE WAS PRESENT, where I talked a lot!

For most of the conference calls, I had been present, but muted, as they were invariably scheduled during dinner time with my Hugs. I listened to the discussions, sometimes unmuted and commented, but mostly eMailed in between.

I told him this, and he continued to insist that I resign, or he would remove me. He said it would "be better for me" if I resigned.

Former treasurer James Oaksun told me that most COC correspondence was not being distributed to me (nothing that went through the Secretary, Alicia Mattson). Mattson confirmed that she was not sending me the information on a conference call when David Nolan asked.

I provided proof of my presence (hours of damned conference calls from my phone bills, and eMails), and also told him that the conference call reports listed participants.

Hinkle then called me a "bald faced liar" to a friend of mine.

Then there was the Oregon debacle -– Hinkle, Mattson and Carling showed up at an Oregon convention, and Carling and Mattson intimidated the State Chair into canceling due to lack of quorum. They maintained that the quorum requirement (according to RONR) was not met, as it required a percentage of the entire membership.

Another Registered Parliamentarian provided an differing opinion, as Oregon's conventions are NOT conventions with "elected representatives" as in the RONR requirement, they are "mass meetings" where everyone who is a member is welcome. Hinkle threatened Oregon officers with "We'll be watching."

The LNC's secretary, Alicia Mattson, established a secret discussion list from which I was excluded, apparently on the basis of untrue allegations that I couldn't be trusted with confidential information. This list is used to conduct business, as the Vegas binder had printed pages from it on agenda items.

In Jan, it came to my attention that Pat Dixon was actively sabotaging the LSLA conference.

At that point, the health problems that I had fighting for a couple of months became a crisis, and I went into surgery. The result of putting off surgery for a couple of months meant that I was seriously run down, and hellaciously anemic. I spent several days in the hospital just getting TPN BEFORE I could have surgery. (TPN is nutrition by IV; in my case by a line directly to my heart.) I was in the hospital for a total of 2 weeks, followed by a long and very tough recovery.

My Hugs demanded answers from Hinkle, and has never gotten any response other than "Tell her to resign."

Hinkle is a liar, and will cut out any representative that he doesn't like. As State Chairs, we are not important enough for him to respectour State autonomy, nor our representative. He refused before his election to vote against "his friend, Aaron Starr", and now Starr has a firm hand on the puppet strings. Starr's paramour Mattson is Secretary, and taking over much of the decision making on agenda and RONR, since Hinkle is incompetent.

Finally, the "data dump" sent to State Chairs more or less monthly, most recently in April 2011, did not list me as a member, even though I'm still officially the state chair of the Libertarian Party of Washington, and a Life Member of the Libertarian Party. (Headquarters claims to know nothing about why my name wasn't on the April "data dump" for the LPWA, and claim that I'm still listed as a member).

Hinkle will lie, with no compunction, even about things that can be proven.

My Hugs and I are leaving the LP completely. He's been a member since his original member number of 324. I've been a member since 1995.

Please accept my gratitude for allowing me to be your representative, and forgive me for quitting on you. I cannot continue to be part of the disgrace that much of the LNC has become.

I urge you to elect Vicki Kirkland to Rep., and elect a new Alternate on Monday evening. Don't let the seat fall to someone who will misrepresent you.

I appreciate getting the chance to get to know all of you, and would love to continue to have a social relationship with you, even though I will not be involved in the Party.

Peace.

Rachel Hawkridge
Sovereign Woman, Nama Waycho & Lover of Hugs


Libertarian activists are abandoning the dysfunctional LP (which increasingly behaves as a subsidiary of Wayne Allyn Root Enterprises), and are instead investing their time and money in Antiwar.com, Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty, or really, anyplace other than the LP.

Afgahn War Worsens; Amputations Increase

Some Libertarian vote-getters and chickenhawks say that we should focus on the economy -- that our current wars (three, so far) are no longer an issue.

Yet as Tea Party chickenhawks whine about taxes (while screaming their "support" for our budget-busting wars), the Los Angeles Times reminds us that our current wars will remain a lifelong issue for young Americans who were unfortunate enough to believe in war propaganda of chickenhawk bureaucrats and media pundits.

In this shocking article (with photo by Carolyn Cole), Tony Perry reports:

"A study by doctors at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where most wounded troops are sent before returning to the U.S., confirmed their fears: The battlefield has become increasingly brutal.

"In 2009, 75 service members brought to Landstuhl had limbs amputated. Of those, 21 had lost more than one limb.

"But in 2010, 171, 11% of all the casualties brought to Landstuhl, had undergone amputations, a much higher proportion than in past wars. Of the 171, 65 had lost more than one limb.

"Injuries to the genital area were also on the increase. In 2009, 52 casualties were brought to Landstuhl with battlefield injuries to their genitals or urinary tract. In 2010, that number was 142.

"Dr. John Holcomb, a retired Army colonel with extensive combat-medicine experience, said he and other doctors involved in the study were shocked by the findings, which he labeled as 'unbelievable.'

" 'Everybody was taken aback by the frequency of these injuries: the double amputations, the injuries to the penis and testicles,' said Holcomb, now a medical professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. 'Nothing like this has been seen before.' "

Read the entire article with complete photo.

Our current wars (Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Libya) have been going on for nearly ten years now. And during those ten years, some so-called "libertarians" have either cheered these wars, or said the Libertarian Party should not address the war issue because it was "divisive" and "libertarians of good faith" could disagree about the war.

By remaining silent and timid over this past decade, or paralyzed into inaction by infighting with liberventionists, the Libertarian Party has failed America. It doesn't deserve to win elections.

Shame not only on liberventionist chickenhawks, but on opportunistic vote-getters who quietly "oppose" our wars while focusing on "more voter-friendly" issues.

And remember, in 2008 Wayne Allyn Root called for an Afghan surge, before he flip-flopped on it in 2009.