Meeting of 10 December, 2016

• Francoise Fielding (recording)
• Ivy Valory (she was here last time. She voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary but switched to Gary Johnson in the general election. She really likes libertarian ideas.
• Nick Smith was involved in promoting Gary Johnson for the presidential election. He is now our webmaster.
• Aubrey Freedman (Chair)
• Phil Berg arrived at 3:40 pm
• Leo Miretsky arrived at 3:55 pm
• Marianne Haas

Francoise and Aubrey went to a talk on climate change by Lord Christopher Monckton in Montara on Thursday. One of the things Aubrey found most interesting is the way the pro-climate change proponents manipulate charts, graphs and numbers to make their point.

 Ivy has a big family that loves politics. She has two sons. One is a libertarian The other is an attorney who got a big dose of of liberal thought in law school and he is more big government. He feels that Libertarians will never get electoral votes because Perot had 20% of the popular vote without getting any electoral votes.

Nick has taken on our website. Aubrey says he is very fast to respond to requests.

Aubrey finished the newsletter that we got today. He went to a “Healing Event” right after our last meeting. The idea is that this year’s election was so very divisive that some healing was needed. The event took place in a church but was not religious. Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians and Greens were invited. Our own Marcy Berry gave a great speech in which she said that our icon is the porcupine, which is peaceful but if you bother it you will get a needle. She pointed out that Obama said that the new administration should benefit from a presumption of good faith so our message was appropriate. The Republican representative also gave a good talk in which she told a story about a woman with a Trump sign who went to a Clinton rally with a story about a lost dog and everyone wanted to help. She said the same thing happened with a woman who went to a Trump rally with a Clinton poster and the same story. Again everyone wanted to help.

On the other hand, Democrat Mark Levine was just mad and upset and ranted about “needing to get out there”. The Green guy was just as bad, pushing his agenda, which was “Get money out of politics”. Both were inappropriate for this meeting. After the event 2 people came up to Marcy and Aubrey. One was a woman who said that after hearing Marcy talk she wants to vote Libertarian. Another was a man who pushes community service but on a voluntary basis. Aubrey wants to ask him to write article for our website.

Phil said he does his best activism in spaces like Lyft talking to people and trying to steer the conversation. Also recently while waiting for a flight he spoke to a Berkeley professor who had given a talk at Harvard about school choice. He talked about gold, which the professor didn’t know much about. He walked him through the history of money and how the Founders understood that money had to be an object of value in itself, which is why they prohibited fiat currency.

Leo reposts anti-statist items on Facebook.

Maryanne said that she got into it with the librarian who helped her get to our room and who blamed Libertarians for Trump’s victory. She pointed out that Libertarians had probably taken more votes away from Trump and the Greens from Clinton. She also decided to help Pence out with respect to his comment about the way we treat the most vulnerable. She wrote him a letter enumerating some things he could do that disabled people really need. She also wrote the National Institute on Disability because they work with agencies to promote rights. She discovered there is a “Disabled Caucus” in Congress and talked to Barbara Lee who is a member of the caucus. She also goes to parties and works with Republicans to promote liberty

Lincoln Network Presents: Man vs Machine- sponsored by PRI at   Galvanize Tech School, 543 Howard St. on Monday December 12th  6:30 to 8:30 pm. Check with PRI for admission.

Dinner with Larry Sharpe who was a candidate this year for the LP Vice Presidential nomination. He posted on Facebook that he’d be in town this coming week. We thought we’d host a dinner for him on Wednesday but then he wrote back a cryptic message so maybe not. Ivy would be willing to host if it were a group of less than 10. Aubrey will let her know.

Golden Gate Liberty Revolution- Monthly Meeting at The Patriot House, 2 Embarcadero Center, Monday December 19th from 7-9pm. The location is not permanent so it could change. Check.

Next month’s LPSF meeting will be on the first floor. Aubrey will remind us.

The Newsletter is ready. Aubrey expects to send it out to about 300 subscribers this month.

Aubrey went to the LPCA Executive Committee meeting last month and made a fuss about the state membership records which are all messed up. It is now a month later and they are still messed up. The Secretary should be keeping the membership records but he isn’t so the Treasurer, Gale, has been trying to do it. In any event, we have 21 life members and 26 regular members for a total of 47 like last month.

Les was not here today. Aubrey thinks our money situation is decent (about $4,000 after deducting the bill Aubrey submitted today for election expenses).

Nick is taking over from Marcy and is going to be doing the website from now on. Thank you to Nick.

Marcy used to write articles. Aubrey does 3 articles a month. He wants Nick to post them in staggered fashion so that new material will come out every week.

Aubrey is asking people to submit stuff with a libertarian angle so the website doesn’t get stale. Send it to Nick for posting at [email protected]

Aubrey looks at bay area events and lets Nick know so Nick can post them. Anyone who has events to post should send them to Nick. The more advance notice the better.

Next month is the election of officers. Anyone who is interested can run.

We have a problem with activism. We need people to run.

Aubrey is willing to be the Chair again next year but he will be leaving CA in a few years.

We also need a Vice-Chair (who does not have specific duties but helps the Chair), a Treasurer (although Aubrey thinks he can convince Les to continue), and a Secretary.

Please consider running.

We skipped this item because it was meant for Starchild and he was at a National LP meeting.

We have been doing a tax day event for many years.  In the last few years it has been a panel discussion, not necessarily on taxes.  It is time to think about next year’s event. The key is getting good speakers.

Phil suggested the topic “How Libertarians and Greens can get together for a Better World. Exploring Common Ground”. Topics that could be discussed are the environment, poverty, race relations, civil liberties.

Phil would be willing to present our side. Aubrey will get in touch with Barry Hermanson for the Greens.

Starchild will probably be willing to moderate.

We will advertise it as our 4th Annual Spring Conference.

Aubrey checked the Dept. of Elections website and they had updated

some facts that Aubrey had announced at the last meeting.

Voting in SF at the last election went from 72% to 81% and not to 56%.

Also Gary Johnson got 8,883 votes this time (almost 9000).