Written by Aubrey Freedman, Chair of the Libertarian Party of San Francisco
Well, another Pride has come and gone, and I’m glad we were there again. This year we added our Spinning Wheel of Crazy San Francisco Laws, and I’m glad we included the ordinance and government code numbers because most folks were astounded at how crazy most of the laws are. They have such faith in government in this city—perhaps our spinning wheel helped a tiny bit to create a speck of doubt about the wisdom of our elitist leaders. If not, it was good fun anyway. Of course, we also had the world-famous World's Smallest Political Quiz. I just compared the results of the last 4 years of our WSPQ (I save the charts for the record), and as usual the Left Liberal and Libertarian quadrants were fairly evenly matched. The Centrist quadrant was especially heavy this year. One man felt the quiz needed nuancing, so he scored his results as 52 and 48—that was a first!
This year, as expected we had a lot of questions and interest in Gary Johnson, and also quite a few inquiries about Brexit and gun control. I didn’t see any reason to pussyfoot around about gun control, so I let them know we generally favor no restrictions at all on guns and the Second Amendment—and no registration too because the criminals and crazies aren’t going to bother with all that. Surprisingly, when folks landed on one of the 2 winning slots (things that are still legal, for now) of our spinning wheel and chose to pick a button, quite a few picked one of the leftover buttons from one of the gun shows: “I’m not a Gun Free Zone.” Definitely not politically correct for San Francisco, and good to know that some folks are not afraid to run against the tide. Also another thing I noticed that I hadn’t seen before was folks coming up to our booth and asking what is a Libertarian and what is Libertarianism. There does seem to be more interest in the topic these days—even in a leftist city. Also, the Chelsea Manning contingent marched again this year, and a few folks inquired about the status of Chelsea (they may have noticed her poster at the back of our booth). All in all, everyone seemed to be in good spirits, and most of those who stopped by seemed to be at least moderately interested in our ideas. If there was any Libertarian within a few miles of our booth, they definitely found their way to us and were grateful to have us there!
The only down incident was that our donation jar was stolen on Sunday morning with around $25 in it when I turned my head for a moment to look for something. Fortunately I had removed a very large donation from the jar earlier that morning and stuck it in my pocket, and thank goodness I did that or I would have taken the gaspipe had I lost that amount of money. Live and learn, as they say.
And finally a heartfelt thanks to all our volunteers who helped out at the booth this year: Jason, Brent, Francoise, Alex, Dylan, Mike, Jim Elwood, Will, Peter, Phil, and Starchild. Thank you for schlepping out and helping to make the booth look half-decent and interacting with our “customers.” One mind and one heart at a time—that’s what outreach is really all about. Per one Facebook report, the Green’s booth looked pretty pitiful and ours looked like “Grand Central Station.” Special thanks to Marcy for promoting Pride 2016 with an article on our website and also to Phil for getting the new poster made up. It turned out great, and though we didn’t give out that many of them, we will use them in future outreach events. Love that Rothbard touch! Also the shoe rack worked out great for all the pamphlets and brochures—thanks, Francoise!
Well, another Pride has come and gone, and I’m glad we were there again. This year we added our Spinning Wheel of Crazy San Francisco Laws, and I’m glad we included the ordinance and government code numbers because most folks were astounded at how crazy most of the laws are. They have such faith in government in this city—perhaps our spinning wheel helped a tiny bit to create a speck of doubt about the wisdom of our elitist leaders. If not, it was good fun anyway. Of course, we also had the world-famous World's Smallest Political Quiz. I just compared the results of the last 4 years of our WSPQ (I save the charts for the record), and as usual the Left Liberal and Libertarian quadrants were fairly evenly matched. The Centrist quadrant was especially heavy this year. One man felt the quiz needed nuancing, so he scored his results as 52 and 48—that was a first!
This year, as expected we had a lot of questions and interest in Gary Johnson, and also quite a few inquiries about Brexit and gun control. I didn’t see any reason to pussyfoot around about gun control, so I let them know we generally favor no restrictions at all on guns and the Second Amendment—and no registration too because the criminals and crazies aren’t going to bother with all that. Surprisingly, when folks landed on one of the 2 winning slots (things that are still legal, for now) of our spinning wheel and chose to pick a button, quite a few picked one of the leftover buttons from one of the gun shows: “I’m not a Gun Free Zone.” Definitely not politically correct for San Francisco, and good to know that some folks are not afraid to run against the tide. Also another thing I noticed that I hadn’t seen before was folks coming up to our booth and asking what is a Libertarian and what is Libertarianism. There does seem to be more interest in the topic these days—even in a leftist city. Also, the Chelsea Manning contingent marched again this year, and a few folks inquired about the status of Chelsea (they may have noticed her poster at the back of our booth). All in all, everyone seemed to be in good spirits, and most of those who stopped by seemed to be at least moderately interested in our ideas. If there was any Libertarian within a few miles of our booth, they definitely found their way to us and were grateful to have us there!
The only down incident was that our donation jar was stolen on Sunday morning with around $25 in it when I turned my head for a moment to look for something. Fortunately I had removed a very large donation from the jar earlier that morning and stuck it in my pocket, and thank goodness I did that or I would have taken the gaspipe had I lost that amount of money. Live and learn, as they say.
And finally a heartfelt thanks to all our volunteers who helped out at the booth this year: Jason, Brent, Francoise, Alex, Dylan, Mike, Jim Elwood, Will, Peter, Phil, and Starchild. Thank you for schlepping out and helping to make the booth look half-decent and interacting with our “customers.” One mind and one heart at a time—that’s what outreach is really all about. Per one Facebook report, the Green’s booth looked pretty pitiful and ours looked like “Grand Central Station.” Special thanks to Marcy for promoting Pride 2016 with an article on our website and also to Phil for getting the new poster made up. It turned out great, and though we didn’t give out that many of them, we will use them in future outreach events. Love that Rothbard touch! Also the shoe rack worked out great for all the pamphlets and brochures—thanks, Francoise!