‘Cronyism and witch-hunting’

Libertarian Party founder David Nolan comments about the LNC’s concerted effort to purge Mary Ruwart prior to the convention:

Well, things have certainly taken a turn for the weird in the last 24 hours. As Peter Orvetti notes, the focus of the LP Presidential contest has suddenly shifted away from all the issues that are really important (the economy, the growing curtailment of civil liberties, foreign policy, bloated and corrupt government) to a third-tier fringe issue: child pornography. Why? Who does this benefit? As far as I know, nobody in the LP (including the many declared candidates for President) is in FAVOR of adult/child sex or child pornography. The question is, how does society best protect its members from these bad things? And the LIBERTARIAN answer is “rarely, if ever, by giving more power to governments, especially at the Federal level.”

I am appalled at the national HQ staff putting out a press release that implicitly disowns one of our candidates over such a relatively minor issue. First, because that’s not a proper role for paid staffers to assume, and second because several other candidates have taken overtly anti-Libertarian stances on a number of issues, and none of them have been shot at by the national staff for doing so. This whole fiasco just reeks of cronyism and witch-hunting. Our presidential nominee will be chosen by the delegates to the national convention in Denver, and attempts by the LNC or (especially) the office staff at LPHQ to subvert that process are despicable.

Well said.

Related posts here and here.

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