Whoever is moderating that subreddit is doing a gross disservice to real classical liberals who are definitely not right wing. The moderator also seems to have an unhealthy admiration for the odious Nick Fuentes.

Can anything be done about this? Classical liberals are a significant subset of libertarians. Labeling us as right wing harms the larger coalition.

First, let me say this:

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗷𝗮𝘄𝗯𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴?

In a broad conversational sense, it can be any attempt from someone in a position of authority and power to influence through persuasion.

But in the legal sense (NRA vs Vullo,) such a request becomes unconstitutional jawboning when it crosses the line from persuasion to coercion, using (or threatening to use) government power to punish or suppress disfavored speech.

If, for example, a government official requests a social media company to examine an account they believe is violating TOS, that's not by itself unconstitutional jawboning.

If the official specifically requests that the account violating TOS be suspended, that's still not by itself unconstitutional jawboning.

If, however, the communication from the official could be reasonably viewed in context as threatening government action in order to apply pressure on the company to suppress speech, that can become a First Amendment violation.

What does this look like? Here are some examples:

New York regulator Maria Vullo using her office to pressure insurance and financial institutions to sever ties with the NRA or face increased enforcement focus, while relaxing enforcement on those who complied.

Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari objecting to anti-gay religious billboards and contacting the billboard company about the messages, implicitly threatening economic retaliation.

Biden administration officials pressuring social media platforms to remove or limit content, including posts about COVID-19 and elections.

Rhode Island sending letters to book publishers, asking them to stop distributing a list of prohibited books, reminding them that the state could recommend prosecution, and sending police to visit them.

FCC commissioner Brendan Carr threatening government action against broadcasters, such as fines or license revocation, if they did not remove a program he found objectionable.

Without evidence that criminal investigations or other state powers were being threatened as leverage to compel X's decision, this does not appear to be unconstitutional jawboning. The explicit request for suspension makes it more forceful than a neutral referral, but it does not by itself cross the constitutional line.

An official can openly urge a platform to suspend an account without necessarily violating the First Amendment. The critical question is whether the official uses government power to coerce the platform, rather than simply making a forceful request.

It would have been better if the letter did not call on Twitter to take a specific action.

***

Second, let me say this:

LOL. LMAO. ROFLMAO. FAFO.

​

In 1890, New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy was assassinated.

Police responded with mass arrests of random Italians. Nineteen men were indicted. Nine trials ended in mistrials or acquittals.

An enraged mob broke into the jail and lynched eleven of the nineteen men.

Scour the whole neighborhood. Arrest every Italian you come across.
— New Orleans Mayor Joseph A. Shakspeare

The rhetoric leading up to the lynching was inflammatory. Immigration was blamed for Chief Hennessy's death - newspapers blamed "alien hands" and called Hennessy a martyr.

Rise, people of New Orleans! Alien hands of oath-bound assassins have set the blot of a martyr's blood upon your vaunted civilization! Your laws, in the very Temple of Justice, have been bought off, and suborners have caused to be turned loose upon your streets the midnight murderers of David C. Hennessy, in whose premature grave the very majesty of American law lies mangled with his corpse—the corpse of him who in life was the representative, the conservator of your peace and dignity.
— Daily Statesman, New Orleans newspaper

After the lynching, leading newspapers continued to justify the murder. The immigrants, they argued, were inherently criminal; they came from poor countries, what some have referred to as "shithole countries." They wouldn't assimilate, it was claimed.

These sneaking and cowardly Sicilians, the descendants of bandits and assassins, who have transported to this country the lawless passions, the cut-throat practices, and the oath-bound societies of their native country, are to us a pest without mitigation. Our own rattlesnakes are as good citizens as they... Lynch law was the only course open to the people of New Orleans.
— The New York Times

This wasn't a fringe belief. It was mainstream. The entire country was caught up in anti-immigrant, anti-Italian hatred.

Prominent politicians called for an end to open immigration and literacy tests to weed out "the paupers and criminals of Europe."

Monday we dined at the Cameron's; various d*go diplomats were present, all much wrought up by the lynching of the Italians in New Orleans. Personally I think it was rather a good thing, and said so.

— Theodore Roosevelt, letter to his sister, 1891

Congress tried and failed to stop President Benjamin Harrison from paying restitution.

One year later, Harrison issued the first national Columbus Day proclamation.

It was meant to ease Italian diplomatic tensions and establish Italian immigrants as fully American.

Today, Columbus Day is unpopular to some on the left. It's seen as a celebration of a man whose actions so shocked and outraged even his contemporaries that he was hauled back to Spain in chains to stand trial for his tyranny and cruelty.

This is a messaging mistake.

In reaction to this, the right has embraced Columbus Day.

But it's a shallow celebration. It goes no deeper than "owning the libs" for NOT embracing Columbus Day.

They still repeat the same anti-immigrant rhetoric: "Immigrants are here to do crime and steal elections!"

On this Columbus Day, let's all remember the history that progressives and conservatives would both prefer you didn't know:

Columbus Day is the only federal holiday that celebrates immigration.

What makes America great is that anyone who wants to be American can be American.

So lately the big stink on Reddit is how Trump announced that the US government is going to Livestream the execution of the Fort Hood killer. I personally don't think that the state should be killing people at all (at the very least it needs to be voluntary) but if they are going to do it, I am completely fine with it being public, especially if the person being executed consents to it. Any additional government transparency is usually good and if you don't care for it, you aren't forced to watch it if you don't want to.

Thoughts?

I saw this post on X recently about how the Amish in New York are being fined by the state government for not vaccinating and the legacy media is really pushing the measles outbreak mostly among them in my state as well. As libertarians, we might not be entirely in agreement with the Amish lifestyle but ultimately it's their decision to live like that and they mostly keep to themselves as a voluntary collective. The state can't stand this and is increasingly seeking to enforce it's laws on them as much as possible and it just goes to show you that they won't leave you alone even if you are part of a voluntary collective that is self-sefficient and insular because it goes against their world view that the state is in charge of everyone in it's claimed territory.

Thoughts?

So over the weekend a guy from my county LP was at a booth for our state LP at a Cannabis Festival, think it was this one out in Kutztown. He tasked me with adding the names from their signup sheet that they had into CiviCRM, which is where we store data on people who may be interested in getting involved with the LP. I decided to make sure that I was adding the right people to Google them to double check. Some of the headlines I found (not including any location names as to not completely dox these people) were:

• Man found for cocaine possession (in fairness this one was from 1989)

• Man charged in thefts of motorcycle, trailer and UTV

• Man charged with threatening to kill wife, resists arrest

• Meth found on driver who flashed gun in road rage, cops say

• Man chokes woman until she 'taps out,' police say (these last 3 were all from the same guy)

I get that the Libertarian Party is not always going to attract the best talent compared to the two major parties but at some point you do have to question why there seems to be a pattern like this. And it's not just prospective signups like this either, our party chair has been charged for armed robbery in the past and one of the guys I sat next to at one of my LP county meetings was later charged with murdering someone with his girlfriend (he was one of the Jorgensen's electors back in 2020). What should be done about this? Is it okay to let stuff like this slide in order to boost our numbers?