BECOME UNGOVERNABLE declared the screens surrounding the International Ballroom at the Libertarian National Convention, held in Washington, D.C. May 23-26.

 

There were times when the convention itself seemed ungovernable, despite plenty of rules of order.

 

Bored by the interminable debate over credentialing I wandered the halls where tables were set up. There were tables for most of the candidates for President and for LP offices; there were tables for LP caucuses; there were tables for authors selling their books; and there were tables for various causes.  Indeed there were three tables devoted to different ways to count votes.  The tables cost the vendors from $250 to $1000, depending on size and location.

 

 

I was surprised to see a Right to Life table, as I always thought that a woman’s right to control her body and her reproduction was a Libertarian principle.  Apparently I was wrong.  Ninety-five percent of the time no one was sitting at that table.  The one time I was able to talk to someone I asked what they meant by Right to Life.  I assumed there would be a Libertarian version and was surprised when I heard the standard view that life begins at conception and should not be destroyed through human action.

 

From talking to others, apparently there used to be a version of a pro-choice plank in the LP platform, but that was removed in 2022. 

 

Now the platform says  “We ... hold that where governments exist, they must not violate the rights of any individual: namely, (1) the right to life — accordingly we support the prohibition of the initiation of physical force against others.” It also says “Individuals own their bodies and have rights over them that other individuals, groups, and governments may not violate.”

 

Figure that one out.

 

Lots of tables said “caucus” but apparently none of the caucuses were meeting.  The Bitcoin Caucus didn’t even have a person behind the table – not once.  The Radical Caucus had a large display of buttons and stickers with “Abolish.....”  Followed by the initials of various agencies – dozens of them. Is there any government agency they don’t want to abolish?   One button said “Privatize Nature”  They were for the taking but displayed on a glittery background that made them difficult to photograph. No one was there to explain how radical libertarianism was different from anarchism – or is it?

 

Although there were plenty of women behind tables and at booths, there was no women’s caucus, or feminist caucus, or any version of a racially explicit caucus. 

 

I saw few female faces in the delegate ballroom.  From counting faces, I estimated that women were only 20 percent of the delegates.  A couple of women sitting behind credentialing tables said they thought it was closer to 30 percent.  Unlike the two major parties, the LP does not require half women or any other percentage among its delegates.  I also saw few dark faces; one wore a t-shirt that said Black Guns Matter.

 

I asked a couple women why the LP was so overwhelmingly male. Their best guess was because it has a heavy emphasis on the right to bear arms and the right to ingest mind-altering substances.  They said that guns and drugs were male issues.

 

That doesn’t mean the LP is afraid of female leadership.  Angela McArdle was elected to another two-year term as Chairperson of the LP and Caryn Ann Harlos was re-elected as Secretary.