Libertarian Party convention

[FSBlueApocalypse]

http://reason.com/blog/2012/05/05/anarchy-at-the-libertarian-party-convent

[Goaticus]

I have to say, if Lee Wrights became national chair I would consider being a dues paying Libertarian National Party member.

[Virgil0211]

I have to say, if Lee Wrights became national chair I would consider being a dues paying Libertarian National Party member.

Would you settle for vice-chair?

Holy crap, both the chair and vice chair are from Texas? O.O

[Goaticus]

I'll have to do some more research on the current chair. Hopefully this means the Bob Barr Wayne Allen Root days are over.

[MrBogosity]

I'll have to do some more research on the current chair. Hopefully this means the Bob Barr Wayne Allen Root days are over.

Wayne Allyn Root squeaked into the at-large members, so we're stuck with him another two years. On the plus side, Michael Cloud and Starchild both made it in!

[Virgil0211]

Wayne Allyn Root squeaked into the at-large members, so we're stuck with him another two years. On the plus side, Michael Cloud and Starchild both made it in!

Yeesh... How does that idiot keep getting in? I don't get it.

How would you evaluate the current LNC makeup?

Also, my offer to compare notes on conventions still stands. I got stuff that'll make the LNC convention look amazing by comparison. =P

[MrBogosity]

Yeesh... How does that idiot keep getting in? I don't get it.

Gary Johnson actually endorsed him! I'm behind him as a candidate, but he's not making it easy for me to like him. Of course, I don't really like the idea of ANY Presidential candidate endorsing ANY candidate for party office, just on principle.

How would you evaluate the current LNC makeup?

I'm good with it. We cleaned house. We got good people in to the 4 offices, and there's at least 2 at-large members who are good, principled Libertarians, too.

Also, my offer to compare notes on conventions still stands. I got stuff that'll make the LNC convention look amazing by comparison. =P

The mind boggles...

The hotel wasn't the greatest venue, either. I thought the Flamingo (where TAM6 was held) was a bad venue for a convention, but the Red Rock proved to be MUCH worse. It was hard to find your way around, wasn't really convenient, and the hotel staff didn't help, either. One of their security flunkies told me I couldn't hold up my Lee Wrights sign when I was manning the Lee Wrights table!

[Virgil0211]

Gary Johnson actually endorsed him! I'm behind him as a candidate, but he's not making it easy for me to like him. Of course, I don't really like the idea of ANY Presidential candidate endorsing ANY candidate for party office, just on principle.

I'm good with it. We cleaned house. We got good people in to the 4 offices, and there's at least 2 at-large members who are good, principled Libertarians, too.

The mind boggles...

The hotel wasn't the greatest venue, either. I thought the Flamingo (where TAM6 was held) was a bad venue for a convention, but the Red Rock proved to be MUCH worse. It was hard to find your way around, wasn't really convenient, and the hotel staff didn't help, either. One of their security flunkies told me I couldn't hold up my Lee Wrights sign when I was manning the Lee Wrights table!

1. Same here. I actually reread that line 3 times when I saw it in a story on Reason. I mean, from what I understand about Gary Johnson, he and WAR are about as compatible as oil & water. I mean, that's a bit like nominating Bill Maher for a post at the CDC.

2. Well, at least that's good news. Here's to hoping it yields future returns.

3. You have no idea. Here's the stuff that I can think of off of the top of my head:

1:[spoiler] At the largest convention I've volunteered for, the venue regularly overcrowds. Now, the overcrowding itself isn't so much the problem as the little side-effects that come with the overcrowding. The "safety" staff (because we're all unpaid volunteers & Texas law prevents us from identifying ourselves as 'security' unless we have a license from the TDC) keeps abreast of Amber Alert and possible sex offenders in the area. Now, consider that up to 50% of the attendees will be heavily costumed and you have about 15-25 active duty safety staff (on the good days) for a venue that attracts several thousand people in a large crowd. It's the Where's Waldo book from hell. [/spoiler]

2: [spoiler]This has also led to a strange phenomenon of homeless people walking onto the grounds in order to panhandle (which has jokingly been referred to as the "hobo hunt", as there's always one and he never seems to stay still long enough for the one who first sighted him to get word to the on-site officers on time. Yeah, that's another thing- we're technically no different than private citizens, so we can't physically restrain or bar someone's movements if they try to get into a restricted area or onto the premises without paying for a badge. We have to call the officers, who will then (hopefully) investigate and take action. Most active-duty officers I've ever seen on site? 3-4.)[/spoiler]

3: [spoiler]But that's not even the worst part of the overcrowding. Imagine that you have a diverse group of teenagers to young adults who, in their excitement to see as much as they can, may neglect certain hygiene practices. This is what is commonly referred to as "con funk". It's usually strongest in the areas where people linger in one area for an extended period, especially if they sweat (Arcade room, the room used for the "dance", & the "battlegrounds" area are usually the worst, and it's not unheard of for the smell to linger for more than 3 days after the end of the convention). [/spoiler]

4: [spoiler]Now those hygiene practices I mentioned? At the extreme end, they start to include the basic "eating & drinking" thing that's so popular among live humans. At smaller cons, this usually stays limited to the point that no significant action is needed by the staff (oftentimes they'll just head back up to their room and rest). However, for some reason, the larger cons also attract a few of the more... Okay, I'll just say it. They attract the nutcases. At this "largest convention" I've volunteered at (name redacted to protect the innocent :-P), there is ALWAYS someone leaving in an ambulance on each day at least once. Usually, it'll seem like one is lingering in the road outside on Saturday when it's actually multiple ambulances. Saturday's usually the day that the "big musical guest" plays their concert, and they often attract some psychotically devoted fans. These are usually the ones who forget to eat and drink water by the time of the concert and actually need to be wheeled out on a gurney. In one extreme event, a girl passed out during the concert from dehydration to be wheeled out to the ambulance and, once she stabilized (apparently she was well enough that she didn't need to go to the hospital immediately, though I'm mainly going on observation here), she asked them to wheel her back in. For some reason, they allowed this, and I can't imagine why to this day (although, like I said, I'm going by observation & what the guys upstairs said. What I definitely saw was a girl being wheeled out from the concert on a gurney, then wheeled back in about 20 minutes later.). [/spoiler]

5: [spoiler]Also, the dance I mentioned? It's technically a "rave", but they avoid using the term because of the association with drug use. You still have the techno music, the DJ, the smoke machines, glo-sticks, etc. Now, considering that I've already discussed the problem of finding people on the amber alert or sex offenders list is difficult, finding a hobo is difficult, and we have a dance done in a style that has historically been associated with drug use, and you can probably guess where I'm going with this. There is almost always one person apparently dealing ecstasy in the "rave". Because of how "safety" works (i.e., we call the on-site police and they handle it), I don't usually find out whether or not they were actually dealing. Oftentimes the police will escort him out of the dance and handle things. On the plus side, however, we usually have the same cops, each year and their hasn't been an incident involving violence (either to my knowledge or observation, but I could be wrong. There was one incident I heard of which actually happened off-premises between a street patrol officer & several intoxicated guys a bar down the street. I wasn't volunteering at this one, but one of my friends who volunteers more regularly than I do is a former MP (apparently also certified as a Krav Maga instructor) and current HCPD officer. Apparently, the officer stopped the guys for public intoxication and disorderly conduct, and one of the lieutenants who had a walkie-talkie noticed this and radioed my friend to see if he knew anything about it. That was when said drunk people attacked the officer. From what I heard, the guy in the lobby radioed "officer down", and he bolted out of Ops. Supposedly, he put the attackers in the hospital and performed first aid on the officer while the help arrived (Disclaimer: This is second-hand, so I'm not sure exactly how reliable this is, but I did get it from multiple sources at that event so I'm inclined to believe at least something happened.). [/spoiler]

6: [spoiler]Now, we get to the problem of management. Just about every one of these conventions is, in some way, the mutated outgrowth of some small anime club that grew beyond the "club" format. As such, there's a bit of nepotism and inexperience when it comes to the actual "management" functions. This can lead to such things as the owners of the convention pulling out a week before & leaving the on-site director with the responsibility of cleaning up their mess. They may also have difficulty with anything from negotiating with the venue (where the hotel apparently decides that the terms of the contract don't apply anymore and they can close the rooms whenever they wish) to just plain keeping the damn thing funded (toughest convention I volunteered for was one that literally renegotiated its contracts & changed owners twice in the weekend during the convention, and THEN needed to run a fundraiser on top of that). They also changed half the staff during that time as well. Of particular note (to me) was the "safety" (though at this time we were still calling them "security") head, who had no competencies whatsoever. I was just a volunteer and I ended up pulling him away from the arcade and tabletop gaming rooms 3 times. At this point, I was the only 'volunteer' left in security. There was one other person helping out who was a normal attendee who offered to lend a hand. It was the two of us trying to manage a little over 1,000 attendees. Luckily, the staff for each department managed to pick up some of the slack, but we still had to keep the main traffic areas running smoothly. At about the third time I had to pull the security head back to do his damned job, I was about ready to strangle the guy. Funnily enough, once we replaced him with someone who knew what they were doing, just about all the security volunteers who quit returned immediately.[/spoiler]

So, yeah. I think that covers most of the stuff I've run into. Hope that helps you feel better about the LNC. Keep in mind, though, I didn't even go into the broken chandelier that almost crushed a few attendees. There's more of this rabbit hole to traverse... :-P

[Goaticus]

Gary Johnson actually endorsed him! I'm behind him as a candidate, but he's not making it easy for me to like him. Of course, I don't really like the idea of ANY Presidential candidate endorsing ANY candidate for party office, just on principle.

Odd since Wayne Allen Root endorsed Romney for President.

[MrBogosity]

Odd since Wayne Allen Root endorsed Romney for President.

I know, right?

[Travis Retriever]

Odd since Wayne Allen Root endorsed Romney for President.

Dear W.A.R.,

You suck.

Sincerely,

Surhotchaperchlorome

[Virgil0211]

I know, right?

Seems like one of those very, very odd little things that just doesn't seem to make any sense however you try to view it. I mean, really, I can't understand it. Maybe WAR put on a good act for GJ or something and GJ wasn't quite aware of just how crazy he was? (I mean, it's possible. Aside from this forum, the only other place I know WAR from was the video interview Reason.com did with him a while back.)

[MrBogosity]

Would you settle for vice-chair?

Holy crap, both the chair and vice chair are from Texas? O.O

And BTW, Lee endorsed Geoff Neale when he withdrew his nomination from the Chair's race.

[MrBogosity]

Maybe WAR put on a good act for GJ or something and GJ wasn't quite aware of just how crazy he was?

That's the impression I got. It seems that Johnson was unaware of what a lot of his supporters were up to. I tried several times just to get a 2-minute interview with him, and he was friendly and willing to do so, but one of his campaign people (ALWAYS with him) would step up and say, "No, we need to go now." Bastages.

We really wanted an opportunity to talk to him absent his campaign staff. We got the impression from talking with him that he supported the Fair Tax kind of reluctantly, like he thought he had to in order to have an effective campaign. We think he's getting bad advice.

[MrBogosity]

Dear W.A.R.,

You suck.

Sincerely,

Surhotchaperchlorome

Lee had stickers made up, as part of his Stop All War campaign, with the big word WAR in letters, and a circle with a line through it. Pretty much everyone knew it had a double-meaning!