Introduction and Meeting Announcement
Leonard Harris has kindly invited me to contribute to this excellent blog, and I'm excited to be part of this wonderful Richmond-area libertarian community! My name is Jeremy Weiland, and I'm celebrating my second anniversary as a resident of Henrico County. I've been involved in the libertarian movement for about 7 years now, and I've been blogging for 3 years.
I got involved in LPVA working on Sharon Wood's congressional campaign in 2000 and organizing libertarians at my school, Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg. A few years later I served on the LPVA State Central Committee until some rather unfortunate factional politics convinced me that the party was not the best way to advance libertarian causes. Since that time I reexamined my principles and beliefs and have gone from a left-leaning slant on the libertarian movement to a final embrace of the anarchist position as the logical end of libertarian thinking.
As an anarchist and avowed leftist, I realize this puts me on the outer edge of libertarianism here in Richmond. However, I believe that such labels generate more heat than light most of the time, especially in the often ueber-cerebral and argumentative libertarian movement (let's acknowledge it frankly). Hopefully my participation here can generate some fruitful discussion on how we can all best collaborate to promote those ends that we largely agree on.
For example, one of my current interests lies in the promise of community activism. By this, I mean a focus on politics and decision making that embraces the organic consensus of small-scale neighborhoods. Politics has come to mean huge ideological movements, cynical PR campaigns, pragmatic managerialism, and a form of conversation that eschews authenticity for mass appeal. The solution to this, I believe, is for politics to devolve to the front porches of neighbors; for decision making to occur on the face-to-face level, informed by local nuances and the particular concerns of individuals. This serves as a start towards building local institutions that render our dependence on central authorities like governments increasingly unnecessary. The benefits to individual liberty cannot be underestimated.
In order to realize such an end, I've founded the Richmond Left Libertarian Alliance. Our stated goal is to serve as a forum for all types of people who are dissatisfied with the the status quo - which I argue is the overarching significance of "the Left" as a historical force. We are encouraging radical leftists and liberals of all stripes to start talking with and engaging libertarians in order to work together towards shared goals. The libertarian movement and the activist movement in Richmond share many ideals and common foes - we would do best to support each other on matters where cooperation make sense and to discuss politely and critically where we disagree. I've written more on the goals of the RLLA here.
I hope that if you're interested in what I'm writing about that you'll consider attending the RLLA's next meeting at Commercial Tap House in Richmond on Tuesday, July 17 at 7:00 PM. And if you can't make it, please check our site for more events and articles. I certainly also intend to participate on this blog and share my thoughts with you here, and I look forward to your generous critical consideration of some libertarian thought that is probably a bit out there, honestly. Thanks a lot!