Agenda for the June 20th Meeting

The next regular meeting of the Libertarian Party of Tom Green County will be held June 20 ^th 2011 at Hidalgo's West on Sherwood Way.

The meeting room will be available at 6:00pm for dinner and socializing before the meeting and the meeting will start at 7:00pm.

1. Future Meetings
   • The July meeting will be held on July 11 ^th 7:00pm at Hidalgo's West. Future meetings will be tentatively scheduled for the 2 ^nd Monday of each month at Hidalgo's West.

2. Introduction of the executive committee
   • Each member of the executive committee will give information on their involvement with the party. Volunteers to fill a vacancy on the committee will be recruited.

3. Preliminary goals for the local party will be discussed. These include
   • Running for and winning local offices.
   • Lobbying for City Council meeting times that are friendly to citizen work schedules. There should be evening and weekend meetings to encourage greater participation in the process.
   • Engaging younger audience, especially at ASU.
   • More letters to the editor by Libertarians and from a libertarian point of view.

4. Volunteer Training
   • If there is enough interest, we would like to conduct a short letter writing class with some simple reference materials.
   • Let us know what other training our local Libertarians would find useful.

5. Request for Ideas and input
   • We plan on ending future meetings with ideas, input, and feedback from the people at that meeting. We especially need to update our statement of principles. Please let us know what you expect, what you hear, what you see, and what you need.

Hope to see you all there.

June Libertarian Party Meeting

The next meeting of the Libertarian Party of Tom Green County will be at Hidalgos West on Sherwood way on June 20th at 7:00pm. The room is reserved from 6:00 so come early, socialize, and enjoy a good meal before the meeting.

Hope to see you there.

Next TGC LP Meeting

The Libertarian Party of Tom Green County will have another meeting on May 16th, 6:00 PM at Cheddar's. We will be discussing local issues, like the garage sale ordinance that will be on the agenda of the May 17th City Council meeting. After this meeting, we will try to settle down to monthly meetings.

Hope to see you there.

Are Libertarians Anarchists?

Libertarians believe that a smaller, efficient government best serves our city, county, state and our nation.

Libertarians seek to reduce government to a size necessary to efficiently support its constitutional responsibility and get rid of unnecessary programs and agencies. Libertarians support balancing the budgets at all levels of government by cutting expenditures, and not by raising taxes.

As government debt, unfunded obligations, and unnecessary spending are eliminated, the generated savings must be returned to the people of Texas in the form of lower taxes.

Libertarians want government limited to it's primary functions: to protect your freedom and your constitutional rights of Life, Liberty, and Property -- all crucial rights for building a free and prosperous society.

Libertarian Party Meeting

You will have a chance to meet the new Libertarian Party of Tom Green Party Chairwoman at Cheddar's Casual Cafe on May 3rd at 6:00pm. We will probably be on the patio unless it rains. See you there.

Libertarian Party County Chair

We now have a new Libertarian Party of Tom Green County Chair: Barbara Pratt. She will be on facebook soon. Read here first article and make her feel welcome. She has a tough job ahead of here and she will need all of our support.

The Proper Role of Government – Libertarian Style

Today marks a sad day in, as I like to call it now, San Franangelo. The Smoking Ban has gone into effect city wide, and marks the codification of a loss of property rights here. The ban basically tells private business owners that they can no longer allow a certain legal activity in their own private businesses. This not only affects private businesses that depend on public patronage, like bars and restaurants, but also to manufacturing and other service related businesses. If a business has more than one employee, smoking is banned at that business at all times. So, even after all the employees go home for the night, the owner is forbidden by law to light one up on his/her own private property.

Let’s see how a libertarian government would have handled the issue.

A small group of San Angelo citizens get together and decide to petition the local government to instill a ban on smoking in private businesses. They enlist the aid of other like-minded groups from across the state and nationally for financial, legal, and logistical support. They begin a publicity campaign, and have the support of the local media.

They finally follow established procedures, and the proposed ordinance is placed on the ballot. 10,000 of San Angelo’s 80,000 citizens vote in favor of the ordinance and it is approved by the voters. By procedure, it then goes to the city council for final approval and implementation.

The libertarian city council considers the ordinance in which a small number of citizens are asking to usurp the private property rights of private businesses owners to allow or disallow a legal behavior. As the petitioners have no fungible rights to the private businesses, enacting the overreaching ordinance would infringe on the private business owners rights by using the force of government. Further, the undue influence of monetary donations and other logistical support by non-citizens in the ordinance is also considered. The city council realizes it is bound to protect the rights of their constituents from this outside influence as well.

The council does not approve the ordinance, stating the proper role of government is to protect the individual property rights of citizens against those that would interfere with the rights of others by fraud or force.

Many business owners in town, noting the large voter turn-out and wishes of that portion of the population, choose to disallow smoking in their business while others continue to allow smoking. In this, the rights of business owners to allow legal activity in their businesses are not infringed. Both smoking and non-smoking establishments are allowed to continue business as desired by their owner, and flourish. Further, the city council gains the respect of all informed citizens, as the citizens are no longer worried about what individual or property rights will be taken away next.

Conclusion:

The proper role of government in a libertarian view is to protect the individual’s rights from others who would infringe on those rights by fraud or force. That includes government force.

That’s not what happened in this case. The San Franangelo city council decided that majority (mob) rule was more important (to their reelection efforts) than individual rights and the rule of law. They allowed a small group, supported by “carpetbaggers” from outside of San Angelo, to usurp the rights of San Franangelo citizens. Not the right to smoke, as there is no such thing. It is the right of a private business owner to control his/her private property.

Our council failed in their role as protectors of individual rights.