A new site vision; a new era

[cajuncocoa]

I think this is being over thought, don't try and reinvent the wheel. Just be the best pro-liberty discussion forum you can.

I don't agree with Teh Collinz often....but when I do he says things like this.

+rep

 

[Bryan]

I hope - Bryan - you will continue to evaluate candidates for public office. I really feel we stop getting obsessed with presidential politics

Certainly, as well, anyone can request for an evaluation to be conducted. Thanks.

 

[Bryan]

I think this is being over thought, don't try and reinvent the wheel. Just be the best pro-liberty discussion forum you can.

Naturally I completely disagree, and you'll have to put up a solid argument to change that.

Our aim is to be the best pro-liberty website, not just limited to a forum, so part of the goal is to better build off of it.

The question becomes, how do we work toward that goal? The core of the message is we're communicating our new vision for improvement and we have outlined nine items we will first address. Based on all data, a stay the course plan for the site is not a good plan for the site, or the movement.

So I'm not sure what you are seeing as being over thought and I'm not sure what wheel you see is being reinvented? Could you explain, please?

Thanks for the input.

 

[Natural Citizen]

Hey, let's do a podcast.

Just put it up in the corner some place.

 

[Natural Citizen]

Our aim is to be the best pro-liberty website, not just limited to a forum...

I like this line of thought. Something like a digest. Or journal. A magazinish web site of sorts.

 

[Matt Collins]

Naturally I completely disagree, and you'll have to put up a solid argument to change that.

Our aim is to be the best pro-liberty website, not just limited to a forum, so part of the goal is to better build off of it.

The question becomes, how do we work toward that goal? The core of the message is we're communicating our new vision for improvement and we have outlined nine items we will first address. Based on all data, a stay the course plan for the site is not a good plan for the site, or the movement.

My suggestion is this... become the daily news site for the liberty movement... make the front page a drudge style site and keep it updated regularly. This will be nearly a full time job, but in my experimentation I am confident the revenue from ads will allow you to make a full time living off of it.

I tried this for a while but it took 4 hours a day to sift through the news and keep it updated. And to get a big enough audience it would cost some decent marketing dollars to invest. Overall I think within a year or less it would see a return though.

 

[younglibertarian]

Maybe someone could conduct video/audio interviews with liberty minded candidates and activists and make it a weekly thing.

My suggestion is this... become the daily news site for the liberty movement... make the front page a drudge style site and keep it updated regularly. This will be nearly a full time job, but in my experimentation I am confident the revenue from ads will allow you to make a full time living off of it.​

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Fantastic idea but it WOULD take a lot of work.

 

[undergroundrr]

Hey, let's do a podcast.

Just put it up in the corner some place.

Am I the only guy on earth who still listens to podcasts? I'm terrified all the good ones are going to disappear one day.

I respect Bryan's impulse, intuition and reasoning in nudging the site to the next step. But it's hard not to see the structure stiffening and becoming less resilient with the proposed changes. The vBulletin format is very fluid and reshapes itself according to momentary or metamorphosizing situations. The problem as identified is the site's ebb and flow of traffic (and thus its livelihood) with the public prominence of a strong, national pro-liberty candidate. With the absence of that, the members' interests and motivations have been shown to get a little skewed to say the least.

It's not a given but not impossible that in the coming months McAfee might become a rallying point. To the extent he becomes linked with the Ron Paul ethos, it could liven up things around here again, but I can see the need to chart a more deliberate and less reactionary course.

The words "guide point" mean nothing to me. In fact the word "guide" might even have the anti-liberty connotation of being guided rather than taking one's own course. And the word "point" could imply the exact opposite of the infinity of possibilities that are supposed to open up when one can live according to one's own initiative without hindrance from the forceful means of an arbitrary power. I know those aren't the intended meanings, but fwiw my knee-jerk impression.

 

[younglibertarian]

Are there any statistic charts regarding activity and membership that could be published?

 

[Conza88]

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Education.

 

[Conza88]

Same Mission; New Vision
It can be argued that the contraction of liberty support for Rand’s 2016 campaign sent a message that our movement needed to regroup. While a strong liberty candidate may emerge in 2020 to help propel us, such an event is not guaranteed and is also a long way off. Whatever the case may be, sitting around and waiting for something to happen is not a good plan.

It became pretty clear principles over pragmatism wins in the long run. Education is the first and foremost point of focus for any campaign; that's what made Ron special. That clearly was not Rand Paul's goal or strategy. It was to "win" first. That fails. If you can't understand that; then nothing will help.

• We can improve the level of discourse of the site.

Not burying the philosophical & educational discussions would be a great start.

What is Needed to Achieve Our Goals (base theory; long and skippable)
If one gives extensive thought to our Mission, one can identify four key dilemmas that we face:
1. What exactly is liberty?

No-one makes clear what libertarianism is better than Stephan Kinsella. Although this passage by Murray Rothbard is hard to surpass:

• Libertarianism is not and does not pretend to be a complete moral, or aesthetic theory; it is only a political theory, that is, the important subset of moral theory that deals with the proper role of violence in social life… Libertarianism holds that the only proper role of violence is to defend person and property against violence, that any use of violence that goes beyond such just defense is itself aggressive, unjust, and criminal. Libertarianism, therefore, is a theory which states that everyone should be free of violent invasion, should be free to do as he sees fit except invade the person or property of another. What a person does with his or her life is vital and important, but is simply irrelevant to libertarianism.
  — Myth and Truth About Libertarianism

That is essentially libertarianism in a nutshell. The above definition provides the big tent perspective. As long as you are attempting to apply the non-aggression principle there can be general agreement about most conclusions. However, what one bases their justifications on does matter otherwise the agreement is merely superficial. There is no problem with fellow travellers who differ with their epistemology as long as they are radical abolitionists.

Put simply libertarianism begins from first principles with the concept of self-ownership, and original appropriation which necessarily leads to the non-aggression principle. The a priori of argumentation, or argumentation ethics offers the praxeological proof which establishes self-ownership as an axiom. It serves as a negative critique of justifiable norms. It bounds the scope of norms that can be consistently justified without pain of contradiction.

• Here the praxeological proof of libertarianism has the advantage of offering a completely value-free justification of private property. It remains entirely in the realm of is-statements and never tries to derive an “ought” from an “is.“ — Hoppe, Economics and Ethics of Private Property, p345.

• My entire argument, then, claims to be an impossibility proof. But not, as the mentioned critics seem to think, a proof that means to show the impossibility of certain empirical events, so that it could be refuted by empirical evidence [such as the existence of non-libertarian societies-RPM and GC]. Instead, it is a proof that it is impossible to justify non-libertarian property principles without falling into contradictions … empirical evidence has absolutely no bearing on it. — Hoppe, p406.

Libertarianism is meta-normative, it establishes what you have a right to do. It does not say what you ought or should do. In this sense, being an axiomatic-deductive legal theory based on action it is not a part of ethics at all. [1], [2], [3], [4].

2. Why should people support liberty?

People who are civilized are … concerned about justifying punishment. They want to punish, but they also want to know that such punishment is justified — they want to legitimately be able to punish … Theories of punishment are concerned with justifying punishment, with offering decent men who are reluctant to act immorally a reason why they may punish others. This is useful, of course, for offering moral men guidance and assurance that they may properly deal with those who seek to harm them.
— Stephan Kinsella
​

Better yet; Rothbard's — Why Be Libertarian?

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3. How do we return to liberty?

​

1. Entrepreneurship, which is the fullest expression of liberty, is based on shrewdness, ingenuity, and tactical perspicacity. Political power, which is the diametric opposite of liberty, is ponderous, anachronistic, and perpetually behind the curve. Hence, a great window of opportunity to prove themselves opens up for all those who possess entrepreneurial talent – especially if it is coupled with technological talent – a window of opportunity to create solutions that allow for circumventing political power’s sphere of influence, and thus for undermining the belief in its indispensability. This is precisely how Bitcoin slowly sterilizes the power of central banks, the Internet erodes political control over the flow of information and the enforceability of “intellectual property rights”, and arbitration agencies reduce the role of legislation. In addition, the emergence of such solutions offers a clear illustration of the fact that effective entrepreneurship not only does not need political protection, but actually thrives to the extent that it is free from its influence.

2. One should use every possible opportunity to promote sound economic knowledge, which describes the process whereby individuals and their voluntary associations build their well-being on the basis of free exchange of goods and services in an environment of respect for property rights, unhampered competition, and spontaneously emerging price system. In other words, there is never too much of Bastiat and Hazlitt, be it among family members, friends, or colleagues. The more widespread this knowledge gets, and the more obvious its message becomes, the greater will be the social pressure to regain ever more areas of freedom of action understood as a precondition of personal well-being.

3. It is worthwhile to use every possible opportunity to promote the feeling of self-reliance, self-governance, and entrepreneurial initiative at the most local level possible. The goal of this activity is to bring about the greatest possible fragmentation and decentralization of all kinds of political structures, which is likely to lead to much greater economic integration of the territories under their control. This is a logical conclusion stemming from the fact that the smaller a given political organism is, the less capable it is of draining the vital forces of the local economy and hampering its spontaneous development, and the less resources it can devote to that purpose. In the most optimistic case, the ultimate culmination of such a decentralization process would be the emergence of a genuinely free and genuinely global economy composed of hundreds of thousands or even millions of independent economic zones, neighborhood associations, charter cities, and other forms of contractual, propertarian arrangements integrated through free trade and the global division of labor.

4. It is worthwhile to build in our social circles the most cosmopolitan atmosphere possible, an atmosphere that underscores the moral irrelevance of all affiliations that are not the result of a voluntary choice (including, for instance, ethnic affiliations), the moral universality of the principles of peaceful human coexistence, and the economic benefits stemming from it. It is important to bear in mind that in all likelihood it is precisely the instinctive attribution of moral meaning to ethnic affiliations that is the main driving force of oppressive political entities known as nation-states, together will all the armed conflicts that take place between them. Relegating all sentiments associated with such affiliations to purely aesthetic categories would be a very significant step on the road to initiating the decentralization processes described in the previous point, together with all their positive consequences.

5. Finally, as time and opportunities permit, it is worthwhile to engage in all kinds of charitable and philanthropic activities, especially if one can make one’s efforts in this context truly effective thanks to one’s entrepreneurial talent. The existence of such enterprises is always a clear sign for the broader community that effective help for the needy has its origin not in the will of “political authorities”, but in the grassroots efforts of free individuals and their voluntary associations, whose philanthropic initiative does not die even when the bulk of their resources is confiscated by the “authorities” in question. In other words, it is a signal showing that a consistent diminution of the influence of political power not only increases the scope of freedom of action, but also the scope of the most morally beneficial, natural consequence of this freedom, which is authentic charity.”

— Jakub Wisniewski

​

4. How can we assure that liberty is preserved?

“The Role of Subscription-Based Patrol and Restitution in the Future of Liberty” by Gil Guillory & Patrick C. Tinsley

Market voluntarists are often keen to know how we might rid ourselves of the twin evils institutionalized in the state: taxation and monopoly. A possible future history for North America is suggested, focusing upon the implications of the establishment of a subscription-based patrol and restitution business sector. We favor Rothbard over Higgs regarding crises and liberty. We favor Barnett over Rothbard regarding vertical integration of security. We examine derived demand for adjudication, mediation and related goods; and we advance the thesis that private adjudication will tend to libertarianly just decisions. We show how firms will actively build civil society, strengthening and coordinating Nisbettian intermediating institutions.​

The present paper explores the possible historical consequences of the successful establishment of a subscription patrol and restitution business sector. In support of the story we posit, we first address a number of topics to set the tone and clear up misconceptions about what is meant by free market provision of defense and law.

An outline follows:

1. Entrepreneur as Agent of Social Change
2. The Law Enforcement Paradigm and Vertical Integration
3. Search and Arrest
4. Does Free-Market Adjudication Provide Justice?
5. Development of the SPR Model—Social Strength and Derived Demand
6. Crisis and Liberty

In a sense, it is essentially a business plan for liberty. Normal customers (people not specifically interested in philosophy & non radicals) paying to read about voluntarism, surely not?!

Branding Change
In support of the new era and to illustrate our objective of providing educational guides, the site’s secondary branding of “Liberty Forest” will soon be replaced with a new brand, “The Guide Point”. As part of this we have secured the domain name theguidepoint.com. The branding change will also help support an expanded scope of tactical efforts that we will use to support our Mission.

Not a fan. Think the severing of ties to RP will kill the site entirely tbh. You've established as the remnant of sorts. When SHTF again (matter of when, not 'if' - as per ABCT), folks will again be looking for like minded individuals. They won't be going to 'theguidepoint.com'.

Why the Chosen Name• Doesn’t use the word “liberty” – which doesn’t have broad appeal and is too specific.

I like the Liberty Forest; Tree of Liberty angle. Don't think the above is correct at all. EVERYONE tries to appeal to liberty. It's not specific at all.

 

[Bryan]

Hey, let's do a podcast.

Just put it up in the corner some place.

I like this line of thought. Something like a digest. Or journal. A magazinish web site of sorts.

Thanks, these are all good things, and good goals for the site to work on. It's all a matter of priorities and resources.

 

[Bryan]

My suggestion is this... become the daily news site for the liberty movement... make the front page a drudge style site and keep it updated regularly. This will be nearly a full time job, but in my experimentation I am confident the revenue from ads will allow you to make a full time living off of it.

I tried this for a while but it took 4 hours a day to sift through the news and keep it updated. And to get a big enough audience it would cost some decent marketing dollars to invest. Overall I think within a year or less it would see a return though.

Thanks, Matt. I agree that would be a good thing, it's also not something that could be done without keeping the forums or adding in other ways. As you note, there has to be a good plan to make this happen.

 

[Bryan]

Maybe someone could conduct video/audio interviews with liberty minded candidates and activists and make it a weekly thing.

I actually almost got this going in 2013 but pulled back for a few reasons, there are some things that we'll do related to this moving forward, so good call. I've done a few video interviews in the past (including a sitting congressmen), we won't go this route since it's best to be on location, which means high travel costs.

Thanks!

 

[Bryan]

I respect Bryan's impulse, intuition and reasoning in nudging the site to the next step. But it's hard not to see the structure stiffening and becoming less resilient with the proposed changes.

I'm not following you here, can you explain?

The words "guide point" mean nothing to me. In fact the word "guide" might even have the anti-liberty connotation of being guided rather than taking one's own course. And the word "point" could imply the exact opposite of the infinity of possibilities that are supposed to open up when one can live according to one's own initiative without hindrance from the forceful means of an arbitrary power. I know those aren't the intended meanings, but fwiw my knee-jerk impression.

Thanks for the analysis. When we started to look for alternate branding there were three main path that were ID'ed:
- have a name that explains your mission
- have a name that is completely abstract
- have a name that can infer some things but is mostly abstract.

I completely ruled out the first option and thought the third would be the best in that the URL words have a defined meaning but they combine to an abstract construct, so it is designed to mean nothing in a sense. I understand there are a lot of different possible connotations, but that is part of why the tag line and keywords are important.

 

[Bryan]

Are there any statistic charts regarding activity and membership that could be published?

What I said in the OP basically explains it. We started in May 2007, activity got very high during that 2008 campaign, it died down a good bit but had a good bump for Rand's Senate run in 2010. In 2012 we saw another big rise of activity, which far exceeded what we saw with Rand in 2016.

 

[opal]

so.. when you go with the new domain - what will happen to ronpaulforums.com? Are you selling it? Going to maintain the domain registry?
Could just be me, but I'd rather be a part of this one than theguidepoint - which still.. after contemplating it for a few days sounds like a publication that the Jehovah's witnesses would leave at the front door.

 

[AZJoe]

Good luck Bryan! Herding cats is a mighty task"

 

[undergroundrr]

I'm not following you here, can you explain?

In your discussion about a Foundational Knowledgebase, you mentioned building it on a wiki platform. I got the impression that would displace or at least lessen the prominence of the web forum side of things. Am I reading that right? Wikis are useful for me, but I've never been able to see them as communities. I'll dip into a wiki on, say, Frank Zappa's music to pick up information on a band member's involvement on a certain track, and then I'm gone. Maybe that's just me. I frequent other wiki/database sites that have full forums, but the forums are never very vibrant.

When the Mises Institute shuffled off its forum (now the very sparse libertyhq.freeforums.org), it was to purify a knowledge platform so that it could proactively provide information with little opportunity for unedited feedback. Instead of a 50 or 100 people posting multiple times a day (as with rpf), mises.org has 15 or 20 people who provide a post once a week or once a month. That to me is stiffer and less resilient.

I would also point out that "Liberty Forest" didn't become a very significant brand for anybody here that I know of. Nobody seems to refer to it as such. I presume everybody still thinks of it as Ron Paul Forums. And I think that's because the words "Ron" and "Paul" when joined together don't really encapsulate an individual human's identity any more as much as they are shorthand for a kind of compassionate conservatism where all the stupid fascist bits have been corrected by sensible libertarian and constitutionally derived solutions. Replacing "Liberty Forest" with "Guide Point" is neither here nor there. Replacing "Ron Paul Forums" with "Guide Point" presents a couple of problems -

1. It will seem like a little bit of a betrayal to some.
2. You will unnecessarily have to build public perception of a brand from the ground up, probably with no significant marketing capital, instead of just using the words "Ron Paul" to signify the same brand.

It's very valuable to know there's a place I can go where people are trying their best to perpetuate the ideals that Ron Paul espoused in the 2008 & 2012 presidential elections and during his terms as congressman. I have only once seen one instance in which RPF has seemed to violate the spirit of Ron Paul's ideas, and that was when trumpmania was at its worst and seemed to be proceeding unabated. The situation was subsequently corrected. RPF is my newspaper, because I know if something happens in the world that champions or threatens my values, I can pop onto the forums and people are probably already actively commenting on it and sharing information. That said, if it can't earn its keep on that basis the owners have the right and legitimate motivation to change it how they see fit.

 

[Bryan]

It became pretty clear principles over pragmatism wins in the long run. Education is the first and foremost point of focus for any campaign; that's what made Ron special. That clearly was not Rand Paul's goal or strategy. It was to "win" first. That fails. If you can't understand that; then nothing will help.

I largely agree, education certainly is fundamental and I think we need a lot more of it. The “win first” strategy can have a time and place, obviously it didn’t work for Rand. It seems to do better in congress and other positions.

Not burying the philosophical & educational discussions would be a great start.

What would you suggest? We did make the Philosophy forum open to the public back in 2013, I didn’t see any reason to keep it members-only.

Not a fan. Think the severing of ties to RP will kill the site entirely tbh. You've established as the remnant of sorts. When SHTF again (matter of when, not 'if' - as per ABCT), folks will again be looking for like minded individuals. They won't be going to 'theguidepoint.com'.

There has been no decision to sever ties with Ron Paul. It was first identified back in late 2007 that developing alternate branding has value for potential long term sustainability, which was why we have Liberty Forest. Up until 2012 a main part of our goal was to help build the brand equity of Ron Paul, now that he is retired, is that still valid? As stated previously, what the best path forward remains to be seen. Of course we have no intention of changing our agreement with Ron Paul, but conversely, maintaining a site just for the remnant is not a good plan.

Of course no one is inherently going to go to theguidepoint.com any more than they would any other site that doesn’t have a specific and limited agenda in the URL. The key for anything is building brand equity, why do people go to google to do a search? We have built up very little brand equity in Liberty Forest over the last 8+ years.

There are a few key points that put us down in this direction of using “guide” in the branding; one outcome of this site that was not fully expected was the level and degree that people have learned from their time here. I have been very surprised with the number of people stating their views have been reshaped by participating here.

The other interesting point is our search engine traffic, which we get a lot of due to our 6+ million posts. Within that, theres an underlying theme in that people are looking for information (of course), and often, deeper answers. So the question becomes, how can we best structure the site to best serve these people and our Mission? A bigger question is, when you’re doing a search, what URL are you most likely going to click on.

EVERYONE tries to appeal to liberty. It's not specific at all.

I use to think this way, but can no longer agree; too many people want things their way, and they want things easy and free. They want a society engineered to their desires. They are happy to sacrifice your liberty for their security. Education on why this is a failed path is necessary.