February 2024
Election season begins ...
Hello Liberty Lovers of Riverside County!
If you would like an essay featured in the Liberty Letter, or if you read or watched something awesome that you think should be in the Suggested Reading of one of these newsletters, reach out to us at admin@rclp.us and let’s chat!
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In the News: Meet the 2024 County Executive Committee
At the 2024 annual convention of the Libertarian Party of Riverside County (AKA the Q1 central committee meeting), a new executive committee was elected. Meet them (or re-acquaint yourself with them) in their own words below, and feel free to click the comment button at the very bottom of this email to say hello in the Liberty Letter comments section.
Chair: Loren Dean
I grew up in the city of Riverside and have always called it my hometown. Nevertheless, I spent 15 years working out of state, mostly in Oklahoma, where I discovered the Libertarian party around 2013 and realized it fit my own general contrariness quite nicely. I returned to the land of my people, my beloved Inland Empire, in late 2019 to remarry and start a new chapter of my life. I got connected with the RCLP (at a meetup in the fabled back room of Bob’s Big Boy in Calimesa, IYKYK) and started volunteering to help. Now I can’t stop, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Vice Chair: Jeff Hewitt
I am a lifelong resident of southern California having been born in Redlands and living most of my life around Yucaipa and Calimesa. I came to Libertarianism in 1976 when Roger McBride was the presidential candidate. Digging thousands of swimming pool holes and voting for seemingly thousands of Libertarian candidates over the years, I concluded that there were a lot of people swimming in refreshing water and no one swimming in refreshing liberty. In 2010 I was elected to the city council of Calimesa and 5 years later became the mayor. In 2018 I was elected the Fifth District Supervisor of Riverside County. I have served on the state executive committee and national committee of the Libertarian Party and now look forward to my duties with the RCLP.
Vice Chair: Trevor Bodi
In 2019 we moved to the Temecula Valley and have truly enjoyed living here. In 2020 when Covid hit it was the red pill moment for me and my eyes were opened to the horrible governmental overreach that ensued in that time, especially infringing on the practice of religion because I’m a follower of Christ. I originally came from a conservative Republican background so when I realized the GOP would do nothing to push back and my wife telling me over and over again both sides are corrupt, I knew that I was done with the GOP and chose the third option which is the freedom faction, liberty. I currently am a project coordinator for a property development company in San Diego also I help clients buy, sell, and invest in real estate. My hobbies include playing guitar, working on cars and motorcycles, shooting, and spending time with my family.
Treasurer: Joshua Clark
I grew up in Riverside and graduated from Jurupa Valley High School. I’ve been philosophically Libertarian since around 2005 when a friend gave me a copy of “The Uncle Eric Series” by Richard Maybury. I started reading a lot more libertarian oriented literature, and was a big supporter of Ron Paul in 2008, and 2012, moved back to the Riverside area in 2019, and decided to get involved with the local party in 2021. I have been RCLP Treasurer since 2022.
Secretary: Marcus Schuff
I grew up in Temecula and graduated from Linfield Christian High School. I served in the US Army and was deployed with Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. I attended Mt. San Jacinto College and North Dakota State University where I studied Liberal Arts, Humanities, New Media and Web Design. I became a libertarian during Ron Paul’s presidential run in 2008, and I was a Ron Paul Delegate in North Dakota in 2012. I have been back in Temecula since 2020 where I want to continue the fight for liberty. I own and operate my own small business developing websites and apps. I am an avid Scuba Diver and hold seven dive certifications, and I am working towards a Master Scuba Diver Certification.
Election 2024 Updates
The Voter Guide
Your ballot will be arriving in the mail this month. By now, you should also have received a primary election Voter Information Guide in the mail, which looks like this:
Whether you are planning to vote or not, there is important information in this guide, and you should read it. Candidates for state offices publish official candidate statements in it (and remember there’s a Senate seat to fill, since the keys to Dianne’s office door had to be pried from her cold dead hands). Also, the parties with ballot access in California each get space to highlight their values, to give prospective voters an idea of what kind of candidates they might field. Reading the different party statements is very educational, and it never hurts to be informed about who wants to be the next swamp creature in the Senate.
The real action this election, though, is the bond measure. Proposition 1 is a six-BILLION-dollar load of public debt. Any sane libertarian must vote against public debt in any form, based on principle alone. Basic property rights are central to the libertarian ethos, and when government can borrow against YOUR property, you don’t have any property rights.
Proposition 1 is an abomination, and it’s worth voting against this thing even if you don’t vote for anything else. For some, it will matter what the money is supposed to be for, and fortunately the voter guide has details about that so you can be fully informed. Of note, this voter guide also includes For and Against statements regarding the proposition, and it’s VERY illuminating to see who is both for and against this thing. Seriously, you need need need to read about this (and feel free to click through at the bottom of this email and share your thoughts in our comment section).
Election Officer Opportunities
The county registrar of voters needs help every election, but this year everything is going to be bigger and crazier, full of charged suspicion about the logistics of voting. Now is the time to get involved and make sure the system itself is fundamentally fair and secure. As libertarians, we are uniquely positioned to help keep the voting system neutral, since it is much easier for us to avoid being accused of partisan shenanigans by the apparatchiks of the duopoly parties. And the ROV is even paying people now; assuming four 8-hour days, you could make like $600. As a libertarian reading this newsletter, you may have a strong opinion about this kind of thing, but if you need a little something extra between now and the end of March (or know someone with such a need), it is what it is.
Take a look at the details at this link, and get involved if you can (and share your experiences in a future newsletter!).
https://voteinfo.net/county-riverside-registrar-voters-seeking-election-officers
More Suggested Reading/Viewing/Listening This Month
The World Economic Forum, broadly known as a hive of collectivist busybodies led by a James Bond-movie villain, made the mistake of inviting Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei, to speak. He unloads on their whole experiment to their faces, and it’s high time somebody did. Watch his remarks here (and kudos to his translator):
And if you want to see something pretty amazing, here’s that speech again, translated aloud by AI, and in Milei’s OWN ACCENT. Deepfakes for liberty!
Lance Christensen, writing at the California Policy Center, discusses running for local office. https://californiapolicycenter.org/want-to-rule-the-world-run-for-local-office/
And local office may be more important than you think, faster than you think. Texas is looking to go nose-to-nose with the Feds over border security, and if they can make it stick then the door will start swinging open to a LOT of local activism and activity that most people have never even dreamt of: https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-issues-statement-on-texas-constitutional-right-to-self-defense
Utah may be heading in the Texas direction. State-level nullification of federal law is a frontier that is on the brink of getting leapt into. It will make your local activity exponentially more important. Check out Mike Maharrey’s commentary at the Tenth Amendment Center: https://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2024/01/to-the-governor-utah-passes-bill-to-create-process-to-end-state-enforcement-of-some-federal-acts/
https://news.lp.org/ is the website for the newly launched Libertarian Party news portal. What was once a periodic newsletter will now be a 24/7 web presence. Check it out, subscribe there for updates, and check out how to contribute yourself!
Calendar Notes
As always, bookmark and regularly check our website for the most up-to-date event details:
23-25 February 2024: Libertarian Party of California annual convention. Since 2024 is a presidential election year, this convention will include the election of state delegates to the national convention in May (in Washington D.C.). For us here in the southern parts of the state it’s conveniently located in Orange County this year! This year’s convention will also be visited by several of the candidates vying for the LP POTUS nomination, who will get a chance to discuss the issues of the day with the delegates, one another, and some surprising third-party guests. It’s never too late to work on coalition building, and any LP presidential candidate is going to need to be able to do it, so it will be fascinating to see how they perform on these convention panels. It should be a great time! Find details (schedule, procedures, hotel reservation, etc.) here: https://ca.lp.org/2024-convention/
5 March 2024: The California Primary election. It never hurts to plan ahead for these, especially since ballots will be coming in the mail this month. Find details here: https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/upcoming-elections/pres-prim-march-2024
23-26 May 2024: The Libertarian Party National convention. Under this year’s theme, “Become Ungovernable,” libertarians from all over the country will discuss and debate the issues of our time. LPN will also conduct its regular election of officers. As this is a big election year, this will also be the event where the LP nominates its presidential ticket for the general election. Find details here:
Voter Registration and Party Membership
If you vote, be sure your registration is Libertarian, since different ballots get mailed to different people depending on that stated preference.
Whether you vote or not, stay abreast of your registration details on the California Secretary of State page at this link: https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/cavoter
Being a registered Libertarian voter certainly allows you to call yourself a real libertarian. However, there is more you can do. You can join the national Libertarian Party as a “sustaining member" by signing the membership application statement and paying dues (currently a minimum of $25 per year) to the national organization. Note that while paying dues at the state level (California) makes you a local "central committee member," national membership is separate.
If you aren't a dues-paying member at all, you can join as a national member AND as a state/county member using a single online form:
Combined National/State/County Membership Form
Join us in taking a stand for a world set free!
Closing Thoughts from the Chair
The anniversary of the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution happened on 16 January 1919. For those not keeping score at home, that was the prohibition amendment, outlawing alcohol from sea to shining sea. It was a disaster. Prohibition always is.
No one was saved. No one was protected. Lots of people were harmed in the explosion of organized crime that followed, as now-criminal gangs squared off with rival gangs, some of whom even carried badges. That violence lasted 14 years. The whole thing was such an atrocious boondoggle that by 1933 enough people had had enough that the Eighteenth was repealed by the Twenty-first. Good riddance.
America’s ludicrous experiment with prohibition does have a silver lining, however: we can now empirically call it a ludicrous experiment. Prohibition is a dumb idea. It’s a dumb idea every time it’s tried. And there are people who want to try it in your town right now. What they want to prohibit may differ, and the justifications they use may differ, but the doctrine is the same: government gets to decide what people can buy. It’s absurd to believe government can accurately determine what people can buy. There is no good reason to allow government actors to hold that power. Nothing comes of it but violence. It’s happened before, with real results in the real historical record that can be pointed to as real evidence of the concept’s real (and utter) failure.
The future is local, and you have a pack of local prohibitionists in your community right now. They need to be opposed, not with “do what you want” rhetoric, but with “choose to live your way” principle. Libertarianism is a philosophy centered not on freedom to do whatever you want, but on freedom to make rational choices about your life without being forced to choose otherwise by those who disagree with you.
2024 is going to be a wild ride. There will be lots of talk of voting this year. Prohibitionists of all sorts will be looking to get loud. Don’t let them talk you into surrendering your freedom.
–Loren Dean
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