The problem with Tara DeSisto
Dear LNC Members,
I am a member of the LP and I am writing to you in reference to Tara DeSisto’s recent performance on The Political Deep Dive Podcast. I am extremely displeased. I realize that she’s only the help and hence conflates your ownership of the Libertarian Party trademark and its attendant byzantine internecine warfare, which appears to be your stock in trade, with the concept of libertarianism. But that does not excuse her use of her staff position to further her side of the conflict. For example, at 60:58 into the podcast she says, “I want to touch on the free state project for a minute because I think that's really important to understand a lot of libertarians think that the free state project is a libertarian initiative and it's not.” This statement has sense only if one constrains the meaning of the term libertarian to ‘member of the Libertarian Party™’. Without that constraint this statement is free of sense, i.e., it is nonsense. It is a nonsensical utterance designed to denigrate one of the most successful operations libertarians have attempted in America while furthering her side in the LP’s incessant internecine warfare.
But this nonsense notwithstanding, when she cited her experience in Kosovo, it rang as true as Hillary Clinton’s Kosovo tale. And citing her experience working at the Harvard Kennedy school of government running a program called the future of diplomacy project made her sound just like Clinton’s gaff regarding Henry (the kiss of death) Kissinger during her debate with Bernie. Has she never read Albert Jay Nock’s classic “Our Enemy, the State”? Have any of you? Libertarianism is not about turning the duopoly into a triopoly. We are not looking for a kinder, gentler, and unbigoted gloved fist. We want freedom. And that’s what the Free State Project is achieving.
The other aspect I found disturbing was her emphasis on fund raising. I realize that’s her job, but it really took me back to the experiences that made me become a libertarian back in 1985. I had just read Walter Williams’ classic “The State Against Blacks” and was watching PBS. They interviewed a state education bureaucrat regarding the abysmal academic performance of the students in their system. The bureaucrat responded by citing how much more money they had been able to get from the federal government and how much they were spending. It was my road to Damascus experience. Raising and spending money is not educating children and raising money for the LP does not advance the struggle for freedom in any manner at all.
Over the past 37 years I have joined and left the LP several times over stupidities like this. No more. I don’t have enough time left to wait for you to notice I’ve left and try to figure out why. I’m a free stater. We create positive change. The positive change I want now is to have Miss DeSisto terminated with prejudice immediately. I want her treated like an errant trader in an investment bank. Locked out of all systems, escorted off the premises by security with the assurance that her personal property will be returned to her after it has been thoroughly examined. It is important that you establish for the help the nature of the moral hazard they face when they stray outside the bounds of acceptable behavior. In short, stupid should hurt.
Yours truly,
Kevin Tyson