Bureaucrash has been a bold voice for liberty for years, steadily growing in popularity, but it’s taken on a not-so-bold new direction toward partisan politics as usual. Lee Doren was chosen as the new Crasher in Chief by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
It seems to me that Lee might best be described as a moderate Republican. That’s arguably not the worst thing a person can be, certainly, but his personal principles seem not at all in line with the stated goals of Bureaucrash. Lee’s referred to certain blogs as conservative (slash) libertarian, as if these are interchangeable terms, and some new entries on the B.C. blogroll since he arrived include Michelle Malkin’s and Rush Limbaugh’s. He also demonstrates a failure to grasp the fallacies of collectivism. In short, his failure to even understand the principles of liberty himself means that he will inevitably use the powerful voice of Bureaucrash to distort the meaning for thousands of others.
If you are disturbed by this new direction of the organization, I encourage you to join a new group on the Bureacrash Social website called Countering the Crasher-in-Chief. In the span of just a few days, it’s accumulated over 80 members.
Sadly, the organization is not likely to simply fade away. Instead, by embracing the mainstream, it will probably grow, but it will have lost the edge that made it a special place for principled lovers of liberty. For now, it has chosen a quantity over quality approach when it comes to members, which I feel is very short-sighted, but then that depends on the goals of the owners. If their only goal is to grow membership, then perhaps they have chosen well. I just hope they have more meaningful goals than that.
If this new direction is not quickly changed, Bureaucrash will lose quite a few supporters, including Ian Freeman, host of Free Talk Live, and myself. I do not want Mr. Doren wielding the voice of Bureaucrash to distort the already diluted meaning of the word “libertarian”. If this mistake isn’t nipped in the bud, it is my opinion that Bureaucrash goes far beyond becoming unworthy of your support. They become an enemy.
UPDATE 06/04/2009 3:30pm: I just discovered this video. Watch it before it gets taken down. Lee suggests that a powerful expression of dissent such as throwing your shoes justifies a violent death. It’s very possible that some bodyguard with a hair trigger finger might have shot the reporter thinking he was attacking with something dangerous. Personally, I admire him for having the courage to express his disgust so enthusiastically and honestly, something I aspire to do every day. I would probably not last long in a world run by Lee’s “principles”.
It’s sad to see that organization go down.
But it does open up a market niche for some former Crashers to gather the disaffected.
Heard about it while catching up on the Free Talk Live podcasts earlier today.
I deleted my account today.
Doren: “My definition of Non-Aggression is just a little different than yours”
Newseamus: “My definition of Liberty is A LOT different than yours Mr. Doren”
[...] http://anarchyinyourhead.com/…; Bureaucrash has been a bold voice for liberty for years, steadily growing in popularity, but it’s taken on a not-so-bold new direction toward partisan politics as usual. Lee Doren was chosen as the new Crasher in Chief by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. [...]
Another libertarian organization being taken over by these “conservative” douche bags.
Politics just won’t work.
I left Bureaucrash social while I was listening to the call by Lee Doren on Free Talk Live. I was ready to strangle the guy through the internet. Despicable!
*boinks the crunchy cons*
Yes that video was disturbing. I found of and posted it. I am glad you saw it dale. Disturbing to say the least.
I downloaded the video and have a backup.
If it gets deleted I can email it to anyone that wants it.
Dale, in your opinion, can a similar takeover happen to the FSP? Maybe throw it over to FTL for an answer.
Nice video find…
true colors…leopard’s spots…et al…
absolute garbage, this Mr. Doren……
Just caught FTL with Lee and I have to say, he acts like pretty huge douche-bag.
I thought the same think JD. I did not contribute that much with BC. I care very much about the FSP. So I’d like to make sure that this horrible situation never happens to the FSP. After all while BC was this online network where people could get together to get active I’m considering moving my whole family to one geographic region that is very far away from my family. I don’t want something that could be such a large part of my life being co opted by these blood thirsty invaders in the liberty movement.
Ugh. Libertarianism is not a complex philosophy! It has one damn principle–liberty!
Everything is deduced from that principle. These statists and archists like Doren are clueless.
FSP can’t be usurped, because it does not have a top down power structure, like Bureaucrash. Once people move, they get active in their own way for liberty — there’s not “in-chief” position for a usurper to take over.
Paul, there is possibly one way that FSP can be taken over, and it’s the same way that the Tea Parties were co-opted and the same way libertarians have been, also. And that’s if statists start associating themselves with the movement. Michael Savage can go on the radio and call himself the FSP. As absurd as this may sound, I wouldn’t be surprised. FSP needs to ingrain into the public media what they stand for, perhaps with a published manifesto, like that of Ron Paul’s. FSP needs to predict what may happen.
*sigh* another one bites the dust.. good grief, first the LP, then the Tea Parties, now this..
i too worry about the FSP being co-opted, not in the “leadership” way but in the co-opting of the brand. our activists will still be there but the usurpers will make it so when we say “FSP” it will be associated with social-conservative statism, just as Reagan got Libertarianism associated with corporatism in people’s minds so when you say you are one, people think “greedy bastard” not “respecter of rights”. happens to me all the time.
i like the idea of the Manifesto, but then the LP has one too, a simple one-liner and it’s still both sullied and misunderstood, the former leading to the latter. still, couldn’t hurt, and as far as the boots on the gound, most statists aren’t gonna move just to infiltrate us since they’ve got happy hunting grounds everywhere else. but the more effective we become the more we’ll be targeted.
both sides of statism, but especially the right it seems, work their treachery via corruption of language to make it impossible for their adversaries to accurately communicate their positions and it’s very effective.
There’s not much investment in the FSP as an organization, just in the idea of getting people to move and get active. If the statists announce their love of the FSP, we can start by pointing out that they do not agree with the statement of intent, and so do not represent our views. If that PR battle fails, we just come up with a new name. Perhaps the “Move for Liberty” project. Liberty activists in NH can just call themselves that — liberty activists, they don’t need to associate with any group.
I think the statists would have a hard time co opting it, especially if they’re not willing to move.
I think we’re too decentralized, and not collectivist or authoritarian enough to be co opted. It’s really not even an organization, just a bunch of people moving.
I think throwing shoes at people can hardly be classified as expression. Rather, that’s what we call violence. You can argue that the reporter was justified in his attempt to commit violence against President Bush, who neither of us particularly care for, but I think politically motivated petty violence is hardly a cornerstone of libertarianism.
In retrospect, shooting the shoe thrower would obviously have been unjust as his attack was far from deadly. However, Doren makes a good point that, at the time of the attack, the Secret Service would not have known if there was a dangerous substance in the shoes. The fact that the thrower had time to remove and throw each of his shoes before being subdued should make us question how well the Secret Service is doing its job. Questioning the performance of government organizations seems like a rather libertarian thing to me.
That last one’s not me btw, although I don’t completely disagree
.
my concern is that people would refrain from moving if they get the wrong idea, and putting us on the defensive with our own target audience always having to explain “we’re not like so-and-so” and ultimately having to change our name is exactly the object of such tactics. corrupting the message of FSP could also send the message “trying things like this is futile” to those who had hope when they heard about it then were disappointed if their first exposure is from some statist, again using peeps like Reagan as an example. i’m constantly having to “clarify” anytime i use the word by saying things like, “economic *and* social liberatrian, and also, no corporate subsidies either, that’s not libertarian”, instead of just being able to say “imma libertarian” and be claerly understood.
[...] Everett said it best on his AnarchyInYourHead.com blog: Sadly, the organization is not likely to simply fade away. [...]
[...] Everett said it best on his AnarchyInYourHead.com blog: Sadly, the organization is not likely to simply fade away. [...]
[...] Everett from Anarchy in Your Head: Part 1 and Part [...]
[...] Everett from Anarchy in Your Head: Part 1 and Part [...]
Wow,
I was never on BC, but I did meet Jason, Pete, and Adam when they came through Vegas and, from what I’ve read about this guy on several BCer’s blogs, I just don’t see how he was ever appointed. And that last video is just ridiculous. He’s a moderate republican in the same way that Bill O’reilly is an independent. Not to mention the fact that, even if he was genuinely a moderate republican, that would be unacceptable in its own right.
Dale! Congratulations on getting linked from Libertarian Christians! Now you’re one step/link away from Strike-The-Root! Holy Cow!
Here, we see once again, how compromising for quantity ALWAYS results in a total failure of quality.
The FSP had basically failed before it started. Instead of following the sage advice of early participants and proceeding with a two-state model, the FSP plunged ahead with the lone mountaintop mentality. This flat-out refusal to listen to reason and sound strategy resulted in the alienation and non-participation of literally tens-of-thousands of potential participants.
In the interest of brevity we won’t break this down bit by bit but will reflect on a couple of key points to illustrate this subversion. The two-state model would have united BOTH “big-sky-country” supporters and the “metro-crowd” on two separate, distinct beachheads. Instead, the refusal to cultivate a BSC state option left the open-range cowboys and cowgirls with no FSP home. On that point we see that potential key allies were completely left out and forced to go it alone. People like L. Neil Smith, Boston T Party(Ken Royce), and frontiersman Joel Boniek of Montana amongst many, many others. We’ll leave it to your imagination to consider the immense value of a western front.
Then there is the complete and total failure in transparency and honesty in the membership and leadership of the FSP. Thousands of those currently counted as “members” cannot even be contacted and surely many should be removed from the roll-call due to dis-interest or non-existence. Those who remain see no serious day to day pro-active effort to cultivate a larger membership or even a larger audience. This is due in large part to the collusion and collaboration of the FSP insiders and does absolutely nothing at all to further the visibility of that component of the Freedom and Liberty Movement.
The truth of the matter is that a large portion of the FSP is most certainly NOT philosophically mature as students and advocates of the Non-Aggression Principle. Instead, as repeatedly shown, it is a microcosm of the world at large, full of delusional compromisers who will, in the end, bow down before the global-elite money-masters who rule the slave-nation prison-planet global-gulag with an iron fist just as they always have.
Live Free Until You Die!
or…
Grovel before your overlord masters, continuing to surrender yourselves and your children and your grandchildren to the beast.
You can’t have it both ways. You’re either part of the problem or you’re part of the solution.
When the price for tyranny is always the tyrant’s to pay, then the tyrants will fade away.
Stop funding and forging your own chains and shackles!
Indeed!
Another important BSC Freedom Lover I neglected to note:
William N. Grigg: http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/
Grigg is a full-force, heavy-hitter, who doesn’t pull his punches!
[...] move, CEI has installed an administrator who announced his intent to moved the content in a decidedly less individualistic direction, along with adding links, since removed, to such libertarian stalwarts as Rush “warrantless [...]
Too bad. One can argue about the competence of the Secret Service (they were questioning me about a joke on my FaceBook page at my apartment in Annapolis and my neighbors in DC in May while missing the Holocaust Memorial shooter who lived in Annapolis and shot people in DC). And about whether one can throw shoes at Bush administration peeps. The charitable view is that Lee was criticizing the media or the left-statists. Maybe he is educable?