I think that I may well toddle along too...

DK

Does the conference rate include the dinner? The forms strike me as ambiguous.

Well this is one conference that I will not be going to.

On the positive side at least I will not be sitting about holding down my rage at not being invited to speak.

Perhaps it is a pity that I can not have back all the money and time that I have spent on such events over the last couple of decades. But then, if I had my life over again I am not sure I would have acted any differently.

All very commendable. But I think libertarians also need some older folks -- yoof is all very well for the future, but some gravitas is required to counterbalance the more anarcho-libertarian stuff that yoof is prone to espouse.

From my own extensive personal observation over many years it is the older folk who are more inclined to be anarcho-libertarians, most of the younger people are minimal/small statists looking to get on in the world of free market think tanks and policy institutes.

Not that this matters much since the practical upshot of these differences are neither here nor there in the British libertarian movement.

Shame that Paul Marks has never been invited to speak - he is an excellent speaker. Shame also that he is boycotting the conference.

The comment from Paul Marks makes him sound like a bitter old man. The sort that Brian Micklethwait calls "loser libertarians" in Losing, Blogging and Winning. The sort that rather than getting involved and changing the climate of opinion would rather sit at home and snipe and moan about what everyone else is doing. If all he can do is attack what everyone else is doing, while doing nothing constructive himself... well I'm glad no one thought to invite him to speak.

Well, Paul has stood for and been elected to political office. Where he serves and it is safe to presume he holds to his principles.

Have you even run, Topcat? Would anybody even think you worth voting for?

Interesting.

We are very near to getting registered by the AEC in Australia. Hopefully there will be a libertarian party fighting in the upcoming Senate election. Policy page here.

Where is the UK equivalent?

With the Broonster, Ming, the Greens and Dave 'Blair-lite' Cameron to choose from, there isn't so much a gap in the market but a chasm.

I run a successful business in Atlanta and over the past five years have donated nearly $700,000 to libertarian causes, in addition to helping network campaigns and think tanks to other business donors.

Topcat,
Um... What was that? A plug for whatever you do in Atlanta. "networking", "think tanks"? You're sounding like Dave Cameron. Paul stode for office and won. You just seem to be on a power-kick. I can certainly assure you that if I had USD 700,000 disposable I'd spent it on something a fair bit more interesting than libertarian causes. I suspect I'd use it to just live my life in a genuinely libertarian manner. I'd probably buy a plane or something rather than host an endless round of USD500 a plate rubber-chicken political "events".

Mid,
I think it's very safe to assume Mr Marks has stood by his principles. If the Tory high-command ever looked at this blog he'd be dragooned out of the party very quickly indeed.

That's very nice, Topcat. I've been reading very enlightening and mind changing historical and philosophical essays and comments by Paul since I first noticed him at least a couple of years ago, now.

Are your essays online for us to read? How many minds have your writings or speeches changed? Where are all of your lucid and insightful comments putting current affairs into a libertarian context? How many people look to you for perspective and historical roots when new situations defy immediate comprehension?

I am not sure what you are trying to achieve. You come in and insult one of the most learned and respected writers here. It's nice you give money to libertarian causes as presumably your money is worth more than your time. Certainly what few words you've contributed so far fail to impress. In fact it's rather amusing that your great contribution is to snipe and moan about somebody sniping and moaning. But I assure you, Paul has earned my profound respect with the shear quantity and quality of insightful things he's written. He ties history to the present like no other writer, published or not, that I have read.

While you've spent your time making yourself materially rich (no sin there, good for you), Paul has spent his time making himself rich in knowledge and understanding. And by sharing it, making all of us who read him that much more understanding and better equipped to defend libertarianism against the attacks it is facing.

Just out of curiosity, for how many months or years have you been reading Paul's work? Or do you judge people's entire lives based on an occasional outburst of frustration? Would you survive that same standard of review? I am absolutely certain I wouldn't.

Topcat

If you are in the business of shelling out money to worthy libertarian causes, then there is none worthier than ours. We could definitely use some cash.

"Where is the UK equivalent? [of the American Libertarian Party]"

There isn't one. It has been the philosophy of the LA that political office is currently unattainable (see Sean Gabb's recently reissued book).

Arguably, this has prevented Libertarian ideas from reaching a wider audience. Certainly, they are almost never argued in the context of elections.

E by Gum! Some folk have more brass than sense!!
Flash cash like that in this neck of the woods and you are likely to be made a Dame at the very least.
Pantomime probably, but we all have to start somewhere!

How do you feel?

Peter

Why is there a belief that office is unattainable?

Admittedly the political system is far more favourable for us in Australia than the fptp system in the UK.

Actually I am a bitter old man (so my foes have it right and my friends have it wrong).

True I may be "old before my time" (but when I get up in the morning there is no kidding myself that I am not old).

Also I am not bitter at anyone in particular - not even me (as I said, I am not sure I would have done anything differently over the last couple of decades). I am just bitter generally (after all, as one gets older, bitter things taste better than sweat ones)

On the conference point:

I have been going to conferences and meetings for decades. I have no money for this sort of thing now - even if I had the desire. And I do not have the desire - because I do not see it as very "constuctive".

I would love to help push the world in a different direction.

Less government spending, less regulations, denationalization rather than nationalization (it is the latter than is going on in many countries) and so on.

But I do not see how me going to an L.A. conference and hearing people say things that I first heard (and said) many years ago is going to help with any of that.

Na! we didn't have it wrong!
All your friends know what a bitter twisted old git you are!
We like you like that!
It was called sticking up for buddies under unwarranted attack.
You are far more useful doing what you do, informing us all on things we would otherwise never know or ever think of googling up, than going to yet another pointless Conference. It's all so 19th Century...
;-)

As President of the Libertarian Alliance I find Paul's comments strange. He starts by being bitter that he is not speaking at this event - even though he has never indicated to me, Dr Sean Gabb or any serving member of the LA committee that he actually wants to be a speaker at such an event. Then, next thing, bang, he believes that all such events are a complete waste of time anyway! Paul, we are not mind readers. If you dont tell us that you want to be a speaker how would we know? Now, for the record, are you interested in being considered as a speaker for future years even though you clearly believe that such events are a complete waste of time? I genuninely want to know as someone who has known you for 20 years and has always considered you as a sound friend.

RAB beat me to it. Older than tradition and more bitter than truckstop coffee. But my favorite read, either in spite, or because of it.

RAB - the world would be a poorer place without you (thanks also to Midwesterner).

As for Dr Tim Evans' comment.

Am I interested in being considered as a speaker in future years?

Well that is rather amusing (for a reason that is in no way your fault).

You have no idea that I used to like speaking because you are "not a mind reader".

Is that why you have (for years) told people you will not ask me to speak because I suck my thumb?

Or the other things you say about me (all true) - or did you think I did not know what you say?

There was never a problem Tim - you could have said any of these things to my face.

By the way I wish the conference every success. And I do believe that young people (who will not have been exposed to such things before) will gain some pleasure and knowledge by going (and I would advise them to attend).

I certainly do not hold that getting elected to something is any more likely to achieve anything good than going to a conference (if I did hold that, the group meeting next Monday night would remind me how pointless getting elected is - at least most of the time, sometimes there is fluke like success).

It is a matter of avoiding irritation (if I do not go to council meetings I do not get paid - this is not true of going to conferences), and saving some money.

A lot of people seem to have missed my comment about feeling that I would (most likely) have acted the same over the last couple of decades if I had this time over again.

This includes going to conferences.

Things come to an end, this does not mean that I really regret going to conferences in the past.

To be fair it may have been the post that got my goat.

Anything that is entitled "It's a new dawn. It's a new day" (and is not meant as a joke) is likely to set me off (a character flaw I know).

Especially if the post implies that things are going well. Whereas, in reality, the Welfare State is growing in all Western nations (and some non Western ones as well), regulations are increasing all the time and there is even nationalization in some countries.

Russia, some Latin American nations, and even Estonia (the railways).

The title and general line were better suited to 1989 than 2007. Time has moved on.

Still things will change eventually.

The Welfare States will either be rolled back or will go bankrupt (there is no third option).

And nations like Russia, Bolivia and Venezuela will find that even vast natural resources do not give you a pass from economic law.

Paul, I note that away from your diversion on the thumb sucking front, you have still have not responded to my central question. Accepting that I am not a mind reader, do you want to be a speaker at a future LA Conference or not? It would be helpful if you would clarify this with me one way or the other. Try and just answer Yes no No.