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Written by Aubrey Freedman, Chair of the Libertarian Party of San Francisco

Well, another Pride has come and gone, and I’m glad we were there again.  This year we added our Spinning Wheel of Crazy San Francisco Laws, and I’m glad we included the ordinance and government code numbers because most folks were astounded at how crazy most of the laws are.  They have such faith in government in this city—perhaps our spinning wheel helped a tiny bit to create a speck of doubt about the wisdom of our elitist leaders.  If not, it was good fun anyway.  Of course, we also had the world-famous World’s Smallest Political Quiz.  I just compared the results of the last 4 years of our WSPQ (I save the charts for the record), and as usual the Left Liberal and Libertarian quadrants were fairly evenly matched.  The Centrist quadrant was especially heavy this year.  One man felt the quiz needed nuancing, so he scored his results as 52 and 48—that was a first!

This year, as expected we had a lot of questions and interest in Gary Johnson, and also quite a few inquiries about Brexit and gun control.  I didn’t see any reason to pussyfoot around about gun control, so I let them know we generally favor no restrictions at all on guns and the Second Amendment—and no registration too because the criminals and crazies aren’t going to bother with all that.  Surprisingly, when folks landed on one of the 2 winning slots (things that are still legal, for now) of our spinning wheel and chose to pick a button, quite a few picked one of the leftover buttons from one of the gun shows:  “I’m not a Gun Free Zone.”  Definitely not politically correct for San Francisco, and good to know that some folks are not afraid to run against the tide.  Also another thing I noticed that I hadn’t seen before was folks coming up to our booth and asking what is a Libertarian and what is Libertarianism.  There does seem to be more interest in the topic these days—even in a leftist city.  Also, the Chelsea Manning contingent marched again this year, and a few folks inquired about the status of Chelsea (they may have noticed her poster at the back of our booth).  All in all, everyone seemed to be in good spirits, and most of those who stopped by seemed to be at least moderately interested in our ideas.  If there was any Libertarian within a few miles of our booth, they definitely found their way to us and were grateful to have us there!

The only down incident was that our donation jar was stolen on Sunday morning with around $25 in it when I turned my head for a moment to look for something.  Fortunately I had removed a very large donation from the jar earlier that morning and stuck it in my pocket, and thank goodness I did that or I would have taken the gaspipe had I lost that amount of money.  Live and learn, as they say.

And finally a heartfelt thanks to all our volunteers who helped out at the booth this year:  Jason, Brent, Francoise, Alex, Dylan, Mike, Jim Elwood, Will, Peter, Phil, and Starchild.  Thank you for schlepping out and helping to make the booth look half-decent and interacting with our “customers.”  One mind and one heart at a time—that’s what outreach is really all about.  Per one Facebook report, the Green’s booth looked pretty pitiful and ours looked like “Grand Central Station.”   Special thanks to Marcy for promoting Pride 2016 with an article on our website and also to Phil for getting the new poster made up.  It turned out great, and though we didn’t give out that many of them, we will use them in future outreach events.  Love that Rothbard touch!  Also the shoe rack worked out great for all the pamphlets and brochures—thanks, Francoise!

The Libertarian Party lost one of its own today, Dr. Marc Allan Feldman, 2016 LP presidential candidate. Marc’s “No Votes for Sale” campaign exemplified what all campaigns should be like. His closing speech at the LP convention in Orlando in May 2016 gave us a picture of what a “Libertarian” should be.

We are trying, Marc.  We will keep trying to be what you described in your epic “I am that Libertarian” speech in Orlando. 

     What you want to be Libertarians
      Anarchist no apologies success freedom Ninjas world class bad-ass Libertarians
      No pain no gain get those petitions signed in the rain Libertarians
      Sorry I’m not sorry Libertarians
      No excuse Libertarians 

Rest in peace, our friend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_toYr_Hcdo

http://reason.com/blog/2016/06/23/5th-place-libertarian-presidential-finis

The Pride Celebration is always a big time for the Libertarians.  It brings us back to decades earlier when “equality” was not even an “in” word, when you better love the “right” person, when others told you who you are.  Way back then, Libertarians already felt in their hearts and minds that equality is a given, and who you love is your own business.  Since its founding in 1971, the Libertarian Party has held equality and individual liberty as core beliefs.

Years ago, one of our members, Michael Acree, wrote Honoring LGBTQQII Rights – And Everyone Else’s:  A Libertarian Tradition.  To this day, the LPSF distributes this popular brochure at Pride – and everywhere else.  To this day, the Libertarian philosophy, so clearly expressed in the article, remains constant:  “Pro-choice on everything – everything peaceful.  The Libertarian philosophy, nicely captured in that slogan, embodies a profound respect for individual differences.”  We invite you to read the entire article, in the Issues section of our website.

The LPSF booth will be located on the south side of McAllister between Polk and Larkin Streets. Thank you to the volunteers who will set up and staff the Libertarian booth at Pride this weekend June 25 and 26, 2016. 

The old, fuzzy picture?  Members of the Libertarian Party of San Francisco marching at Pride 2003. The one riding in the car is Michael Denny, 2003 candidate for Mayor of San Francisco.  To his right wearing the white T-shirt is Michael Acree, author of Honoring LGBTQQII Rights – And Everyone Else’s:  A Libertarian Tradition.

Latest news on the national front:  Former governor of New Mexico and Libertarian 2012 presidential candidate Gary Johnson was nominated on May 29 at the Libertarian National Convention as the presidential candidate to represent the Libertarian Party in November.  Former Massachusetts Governor William Weld won the vice presidential nomination.

There are factions in every political party, and the LP is no exception.  Referring to the convention delegates, Johnson promised to represent “everyone in this room.” That promise, the fact that Johnson has received more media attention than any other recent LP presidential candidate, and dissatisfaction withe the major parties’ candidates might propel all liberty-leaning voters of all political persuasions to get behind Johnson, push him up the polls so he has a chance to get into the national debates, and vote for him in November.

C Span covered the Libertarian Party convention, and clips are on the C Span website.  There are numerous articles on the Web regarding the convention; among them is one in The Washington Post which describes the issues involving the candidates well.

Gary Johnson, along with other Libertarian presidential candidates, will be on the June 7 ballot as well as the November ballot. 

The Libertarian Party of San Francisco lost a friend.  Sergio Klor de Alva, an enthusiastic and affable 24-year old already a veteran of political campaigns of several local office holders, was killed in a car accident on April 26.  Several of us at the LPSF had the pleasure of knowing Sergio, and were uniformly impressed not only by his efficiency but also by his friendliness. 

At the time of his death, Sergio was the campaign coordinator of Joel Engardio’s Board of Supervisor’s campaign.  Engardio had the sad task of advising those of us involved with Sergio’s campaign work of the tragedy.  He said, “I’m devastated to announce that Sergio Klor de Alva, our campaign coordinator, was killed early Tuesday morning in a car accident.  This is a tragic loss for me personally and for our campaign.”

Indeed, a loss for all who knew Sergio.  Friendship crosses political and partisanship boundaries.  Our heartfelt sympathy goes to his family.

The Libertarian Party of San Francisco extends huge thanks to the participants of the 3rd Annual Panel Discussion – Bay Area Growth and Transportation of Sunday, April 10th.  The room was full, the audience was most attentive, and the Q&A lively.  Starchild did his usual great work as panel moderator, keeping the discussion moving but focused. 

Gerald Cauthen and Thomas Rubin are fountains of knowledge and experience, and we are grateful that they gave so freely of their time and talent as our panelists.  At this event, they also proved to be resourceful when the projector we were provided refused to work!  Even though they had prepared PowerPoint presentations, they promptly switched to analog and gave excellent talks without a single prop.  Speakers can only do that when they really know their stuff!

The panelists covered solid material on the subject of local transit systems.

o All systems, including transit, eventually fall victim of their own success. After decades of growth, automobile travel has given rise to gridlock. BART’s trains are now crowded and stations not well maintained, as the system’s capacity has reached its limit.

o Systems must evolve and adapt to new realities, but people responsible for them often prevent effective evolution as they “flag wave” in favor of their own narrow interests. The dismal performance of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (the transportation planning, financing and coordinating agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area) is a case in point.

o There are cities that have succeeded in designing and implementing novel transportation systems that work well. The City of Curitiba, Brazil, developed Bus Rapid Transit, a system that has the characteristics of a rail system (movement on dedicated streets unimpeded by other traffic, payment of fares made before boarding, accessibility by riders with deferring needs) as well as characteristics of a bus system (avoidance of the very high capital costs of rails and tunnels, so that funds can be allocated to reliability and frequency).

o Effective transportation systems require the selection of “good people,” dedicated to good planning. The Bay Area’s regional agencies are led by board members who hold official positions in their own local communities, and are therefore not completely engaged in regional needs. As a result agencies have become “staff driven” rather than leadership driven.

o Bay Area’s transportation is broken. Complete reorganization of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission is essential. If such reorganization is to occur, the public must become involved, since public officials are not presently inclined to shake up the status quo. Both panelists recommended public involvement in transportation, neighborhood, and other types of groups, where ideas are discussed and communicated to local officials.

Based on our audience’s comments and questions, our guests agreed that Bay Area’s transportation is broken. Hopefully, our panel incentivized some to participate in actions to fix it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We at the LPSF make the following suggestions for action:

Participate in the work of the Bay Area Transportation Working Group or SaveMuni:

http://www.batwg.org/contact.html

http://www.savemuni.org/join-savemuni/

Become informed about successful transit systems:

http://www.reimaginerpe.org/node/344

Read other than the mainstream media about how some people are researching on what actually works in “freedom, mobility, and affordable home ownership.”

http://americandreamcoalition.org/

Whether you are a long-time San Francisco resident, a new arrival, or are planning to take a job in the City, you will need to figure how to get around.  If you live and work in the City, is MUNI reliable, or is there parking if you choose to drive?  If you commute, are highways chocked with traffic, or Caltrain slow as molasses?  Will you be able to drop off your kids at school or daycare, and still get to work on time?  How about the cost of your transportation?  Are those bonds that were going to “fix MUNI” “without any increase in property taxes!” performing as advertised?

Then there are questions of costs beyond dollars and cents.  Do costs include loss of local control when regional bureaucrats take over how you travel?  How about transportation equity between low-income riders who mostly ride buses, and more financially comfortable riders who tend to use rail such as BART?  Transportation consultant Thomas A. Rubin has studied, testified, proselytized on statistics showing that high-cost – and therefore, highly subsidized – rail transit tends to cause the starvation of lower-cost bus transit. 

Where politicians have decided to make housing for many more thousands new residents the topic du jour, thoughts of how everyone will get around take a back seat, unless riders learn the facts and demand cost-effective, efficient, equitable transit service.

Thomas Rubin will be one of the panelists at the panel discussion hosted by the Libertarian Party of San Francisco.  The other distinguished panelist will be Gerald Cauthen, who has fought long and hard to improve MUNI and increase public input in policy making (see previous article I-280 Traffic Barreling Down Your Street? for a revealing quote by Cauthen).  Please join us.

Libertarians are fond of pointing to consequences of a paternalistic state.  Free healthcare, free education, free shelter, free MUNI all come at a price.  In addition to the obvious price that somebody has to pay for what is free to others, there is the price of loss of control over our own lives. 

Zelda Bronstein’s article on 48 Hills of March 29, When City Planners Treat Us Like Infants, gives an excellent account of the “public input” techniques trending with City planners.  First, the fact that public engagement occurs after projects are significantly underway, puts the newly-advised and often surprised public at a disadvantage.  Secondly what planners call public engagement amounts to a high-school-type science fair, where the public is invited to view pictures and graphs hanging on walls or propped on tables.  A pat on the public’s head, a check mark where it says “public comments” and a project goes forward.

Those who opposed Plan Bay Area as presented, and tried to inject some accountability to voters in the Plan, were consistently met with either science fair-type events or City officials who could not have looked more bored.  Plan Bay Area sailed through without ever appearing on any election ballot or carrying any future accountability to voters. (See,Plan Bay Area Adopted Under the Cloak of Midnight, Literally!)

Plan Bay Area seems to have established the precedent.  Significant changes to our way of life are planned and implemented at the will of bureaucrats. 

The “public engagement” offered by planners of one such change is discussed in the afore-mentioned article.  Zelda Bronstein notes that the Railyard Alternatives and I-280 Feasibility Study (RAB) includes “a proposal to take down I-280 and re-route the former freeway traffic on a boulevard through the neighborhoods.”  She points that although the infrastructure changes “are massive and controversial,” what is even more debatable is the manner in which public input has been sought.  The community was offered a chance to comment on this infrastructure change two years into the planning, via the science-fair technique.
 

“It’s as if political discourse has been reduced to the equivalent of Twitter exchanges—with one crucial difference: It’s just the public that’s being subjected to these demeaning maneuvers. The power players aren’t wasting their time playing silly games; they’re meeting with the decision-makers and shaping public policy behind the scenes.”  Excellent point, Ms. Bronstein!

More good points as Zelda Bronstein tenders this remark, “As transportation engineer, consultant, and activist Gerald Cauthen told me about the RAB project:

During at least the past two years there have been ongoing meetings with local agencies, affected transit properties, MTC, state and federal agencies, and San Francisco’s elected officials here, in Sacramento, and in Washington. The tried and true method of getting the political snowball rolling downhill before the opposition knows what’s going on is already well under way. Only the public has been left out of the discussions…”

Willie Brown, one of San Francisco’s most colorful mayors, is often quoted as saying, “Things rarely happen by chance: Our landscape is shaped by competing visions of what a shared place should be. And more often than not, the winners are those who use the most brazen tactics.”  At least Da Mayor was honest in his own way.  We all knew he was, well…colorful.

Young Americans for Liberty had their Second Annual Spring Debate at San Francisco State University on March 1, 2016.  Teams of libertarians and progressives did an excellent job pointing out the downsides and the benefits of a managed economy.  The truly free market vs. elected socialism.

The first set of debaters tackled health care.  Progressives rallied behind a single-payer system under which everyone would be insured, overhead necessitated by competition would be eliminated, robust negotiation with drug companies by government would be possible, costs to individuals would decrease because out of pocket expenses would be eliminated.  Libertarians argued that cost estimates of a single-payer system are unrealistic because government would need to absorb costs now borne by private employers, government’s track record running Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA would predict equally poor outcomes in a government-run health care system, competition and accountability which are principal means of quality control would disappear, and voluntarism would be further discouraged.

The second set of debaters responded to the question of how the U.S. economy was doing and what policies need to be promoted.  Progressives noted that the chance at a good economy was being sabotaged by the 1% elite; therefore, government needs to level the playing field by implementing free education and health care for all funded by a tax on Wall Street, strong regulation of big businesses, and other measures to discourage corporate greed.  Libertarians pointed that government intervention now in effect such as federal student loans, the Affordable Care Act, Fannie May/Freddie Mac have done nothing to improve the lot of the disappearing middle class; therefore, the solution to a poor economy would be removal of barriers that discourage innovation, removal of subsidies that encourage dependency, and elimination of all other impediments to a functioning free market.
 
Thus, the debaters presented two very different visions – some would say two extremes – of what
their ideal U.S. would look like.  Good job, debaters and organizers!

For information on Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) at San Francisco State University, visit http://www.yaliberty.org/chapters/san-francisco-state-university

San Francisco is once again going through epic changes.  True to its rising Phoenix, the City has survived conflagration and political sea changes.  Hopefully, it will survive the current Board of Supervisors.  Each day brings news of another scatty proposal.  As we at the Libertarian Party of San Francisco have repeatedly noted, each proposal when turned into legislation, 1) brings consequences, which then require more legislation, and 2) should remind us of Lucy telling Peanuts this time she will hold the football still (the iconic symbol of trusting souls by the late great cartoonist Charles M. Schulz).  

These two proposals illustrate the chain-reaction effect:

 o  Hotel tax increase of 1% over the current 14% to help address homelessness.  If a hotel room rate is $300 without tax, with tax it will cost $345.  High lodging costs might discourage some visitors if not from staying in the City altogether, surely from staying at hotels.  So, looks like an additional fix might be needed to prevent vacant hotels rooms.

 
o  Just in case visitors might be thinking of staying at Airbnb instead of paying higher prices for hotel rooms, there is a proposal to hike Airbnb taxes too.  Some folks might just decide to lodge in Daly City.  So, will the “solution” be to tack an additional fee to the BART fare?

To illustrate the Lucy effect, one need only mention “affordable housing requirement.”

o  In 2012, voters approved the Housing Trust which would solve the challenge of high housing costs by requiring that developers subsidize 12% of the housing units they build.  Problems solved, right?

o  In June 2014, the Board of Supervisors approved for the November ballot a non-binding resolution establishing a goal of 33% affordable housing in areas of the City where significant new housing is added.  Sources of revenue were supposed to be found.  But…

o  In October 2015, referring to the Treasure Island housing project, Supervisor Jane Kim said, “Now 40 is the new 30.  The project is entitled and there is an agreement set by both parties.  I want to study it and see what’s possible.” Bizjournals.com/Treasure Island Housing Project. Meanwhile in San Francisco…

o  On the June 2016 ballot, we will see a proposal indicating that project sponsors shall construct 25% of all units constructed on the project site as affordable housing units.  If the project sponsor elects to build affordable housing off-site, the affordable housing percentage goes up to 33%.  Soon 50 will be the new 33?

We would all like the City to be “affordable.”  However proliferating legislation with the resulting bureaucracy, and subsidized housing characterized by moving targets are bound to raise costs.  Bureaucrats cost money – tax money, and the market will automatically raise the price of anything to account for uncertainty.