Don, I’m curious who are these “very folks” in the LPCA who derided your parentage and right to breath. That kind of behavior deserves specific public shaming rather than elliptical vague accusations.
Note that the mission statement above is an almost verbatim copy of the 2005 California Freedom mission statement. One problem with a printed newsletter is that its space constraints invariably amplify the impact of the editor’s interests/obsessions. Space is not a problem at CalFreedom.net, so this should be much less of an problem than it may have been in the printed newsletter.
I do think civil and constructive philosophical debate has its place. As Keynes said: The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.
However, a party newsletter should be more outwardly-focused than inward. The best way for Libertarians to get their philosophizing into this new forum is to get their philosophizing in front of a non-libertarian audience in California. CalFreedom will gladly cover such outreach efforts.
ATBAFT, nobody’s claiming that the levels of success for the LPCA/LPFL/LPUS are monotonically increasing. Ralph’s perspective is very inspiring, and I’d like to underscore the idea that the key to “revitalizing” (or heck, vitalizing) the LP is to connect it to the broader mainstream freedom movement. The LPCA has an email distribution list of around 5000, and putting California Freedom online is going to make it easier to engage them.
I’m no longer on the LPCA ExCom, so I can’t speak to when the print edition might be resumed. What I’ve been advocating is that our printing/mailing budget instead be used to send out postcards to a broader audience, with teaser headlines to draw them to our online news, and a plea for them to give us their email address.
