Geese. Ganders. Pots. Kettles. And the return of the pan.
Plus! A special appearance from a financial activism CALL TO ACTION (at bottom)!
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First, a love note to well-intentioned Mises.
If you are currently a member of the Mises Caucus because you once believed the leadership and cause were worthy of such an anti-liberty strongman strategy, you can more easily be forgiven for your transgressions if you leave now.
We may try to do the right thing, but ultimately, we’re human, and we’re prone to emotional error, especially where manipulators are involved.
HOWEVER:
If you’re toxic Mises (MiTox) and still riding the coattails of the Reno Reset and The Embezebelment™️, you don’t belong in this movement anymore. MAGA is across town. Please see yourself to the exit, or you may be 86’ed.
[1930s (as a noun, used in restaurants and bars to indicate that a menu item is unavailable or that a customer is not to be served): perhaps rhyming slang for nix.] ~Google
The Meta-Projection is Real
Mises can Spider-Man point at LPAlliance for opposing them all they like, but only one is Peter Prime, and it’s LPAlliance, the organization that outflanked Mises’ LNC Interloper-Man to stop him from exploiting loopholes to interfere in LP Hawaii’s operations, a tactic that has been the primary election and parliamentary strategy of Mises since its inception.
Hawaii’s lack of out-of-state membership restriction and intentionally lax and ambiguous bylaws allowed Mises to corrupt what would later become an improperly noticed hybrid convention in a desperate gambit for its survival, with Mises Chair Angela McArdle and LNC members Andrew Chadderdon and Travis Bost all participating on behalf of LPHI Chair Austin Martin, as well as a threateningly litigious James Wiley after the fact.
(Credit: Devin Saxon)
On the subject of Angela McArdle, Martin shut down the Zoom text chat and removed me from the convention after I called out Embezebel. I had to rejoin, as did some other members of LPA who were not easily credentialed. In all, credentialing took ~2.5 hours while Austin made self-aggrandizing speeches.
This would later be revealed to double as a stall tactic to whip votes, with credentialing to remain open throughout the proceedings. Was it all for the appearance of strength? Fail. Was it for the 3 delegates? Maybe, but it’s a pyrrhic victory. Was it to expand the number of delegates for HI and Mises? Flat on their faces.
Because Amanda Griffiths and Kyle Davis organized a digital resistance in under 48 hours, whereas Mises had months of lead time and Austin Martin in our Discord, sowing dissent. More on that in Part Two.
In the end, the only winning move was not to play. A motion was made to continue as an in-person convention, on which only those attending in person were allowed to vote. They would later claim they had the votes, anyway. Sure, Jan.
So they took their nuke and went home, never admitting defeat, a la Roger Stone and Donald Trump, a pigeon knocking over the Chess pieces, shitting on the board, and declaring victory.
Only MAGAtarians could argue that The Doctor is the villain.
I Hate Lolberts, err, Roberts.
The finer points of parliamentary procedure (Roberts’ Rules) are best left to those who practice it, and while I have read arguments that Austin Martin made the correct call procedurally, others have made it clear that the bylaws are ambiguous, and that that was probably by design.
According to Roberts’, virtual participation is not permitted. However, bylaws overrule Roberts’. There was precedent, and the credentials report was accepted. Arguments that this invalidates prior conventions are speculative, although I admit to sharing in that speculation.
Always remember two things about what we’re all doing here: politics and narcissism are both transactional, and sometimes their Venn diagram is a circle. Thus, narcissists weaponize ambiguity to keep us from moving forward without them. We saw this prominently when Steven Nikhaila brokered a deal with LPNH to try to keep them on libertarian messaging. It lasted about five minutes and gave Jeremy Kauffman something new on which to grandstand.
Thus, my argument remains days later that even if the call was correct, it disenfranchised not just those who joined to oppose a Mises Caucus that should have never been involved to begin with, but also members from other Hawaiian islands who were noticed that the convention would be, once again (since COVID), hybrid. The bylaws allow for alternative venues.
The reality of that is that Austin Martin is a cheater and an incompetent Chair for not finding the solution (or testing technology, for that matter) beforehand, not or.
He has made it clear that, despite the personal accomplishments that he expressed at great length, he cares more about Mises than the 14 people he now represents.
One. Four. That was not a typo.
You might remember that I wrote a similarly scathing analysis of Mises through the lens of the resignation of former LNC At-Large member Adrian Malagon a while back, called The Party of Plastic Princely Pals. This is just more of the same. No principles. Backroom deals. Stabbing in the front, but keeping that smile on. Better to be miserable and one of the Plastics than be out in the wilderness. I can only speculate what this might cost Martin.
So while I understand that most people just want to be loved, even in politics, maybe especially in politics, I don’t share that value, as my principles always come first. I’ve always been more Kobayashi Maru than “any port in a storm.” I’d rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I’m not. It’s the ’tism.
I don’t think it’s doing anyone in Mises any favors in the long run. Loyalty tests are for followers, and they’re fresh out of leaders.
Let’s Play National Poli-Psychological War
They came from all around. From the mountains of Colorado to the hills of Hollywood. From the Lakes of the Great White North to… well, more mountains, but in West Virginia.
And they all had the same complaint: everyone else was an interloper. They had a right to be there, but the rest of us, in the words of Amanda Griffiths, were “meddling kids.”
The double-standards. The grandstanding. The vote stacking. The obvious posture for a hostile takeover. The projection onto LPA for opposing them. The gaslighting about it all, afterwards. It wasn’t them. It’s never them. It’s always everyone else.
Ironically, I only joined to protect everyone at LPHI and the LNC from Austin and Mises, and had no intention to vote on other party matters, leaving that to the Hawaiians. It was Mises who held the floor more often than not. Someone asked me if I would have continued to engage with LPHI had Austin provided a proper convention?
You’re damn right, I would have. I’ve used my multi-disciplinary political and media skills to call out bad actors and protect the vulnerable from predators in niche communities online and in ‘meatspace’ from anywhere I am since 1991. Mises is no different.
Enter Financial Activism
I hadn’t noticed that Bost had attended at first, and I had never interacted with him before. Wiley’s whine is entirely out of left field, as well. I mean, Mises swore they weren’t involved, right? So this was all an “unexpected” double and triple-down:
It’s perfectly reasonable when told that your membership gives you voting rights to expect voting rights. Incidentally, this is the second time I’ve had an affiliate attempt to de-credential me in as many conventions since I’ve been back with the LP as of the beginning of the year. It’s my second legal threat, and the second in desperation and with absolutely no basis.
The first time someone tried to de-credential me, I was singled out at the LPNH convention, and it failed, although they’ve since blocked me on Twitter/X. Their digitized convention program can be found here. This time, I was a member of a class, and it succeeded. Because they cheated.
So morally and ethically, you are in the clear. Administratively, PayPal has strong buyer protections. I’ve already completed my dispute. Easy peasy. Just tell them you were promised participation, but were denied as well, as were nearly 100 others. Service not delivered.
