David F. Nolan, RIP

I just received word from two mutual friends that David F. Nolan (known to many as either "Dave" or "The Nolan") passed away suddenly last night, two days shy of his 67th birthday.

An Arizonan since 2005, most recently Nolan was the at the top of the Arizona Libertarian Party's ticket, running a respectable and visible 3rd-party candidacy for the U.S. Senate. He was the principal founder of the Libertarian Party and also known for proposing what came to be known as the "Nolan Chart", one of several two-dimensional descriptors of political belief or tendency.

My sincerest condolences go to his wife Elizabeth.

I will follow up with information about the memorial service and where to send donations in lieu of flowers.

Another Senate candidate.

Word from a credible source has David Nolan, a co-founder of the Libertarian Party, running for the U.S. Senate as that organization's candidate.

Nolan is underwhelming in person, to put it politely, and generally opposed to the sort of libertarianism that admits ideas and solutions instead of reflexive "principles". He's also been a destructive force within the Libertarian Party. At the 2008 convention at what was supposed to be an "elder statesman" dinner he called for the Reform Caucus, the single best hope for reviving that moribund 3rd party, to "go reform the GOP", and supported the restoration of a dippy, ideological platform that does the opposite of showing off the best of modern libertarianism. For as long as he's been around, he's said to have been a supporter of the Sarah Palinization of the Libertarian Party, and Brian Doherty's book has him as a driver of the "Never again Clark!" movement that destroyed the LP's shot at UK Liberal Party or German Free Democrats-style credibility. It's worse: later in 2008, he backstabbed the Bob Barr campaign when it was at its fundraising and earned-media peak. I have the e-mails if anyone is interested.

Given that he has never held public office or served in government, the public would be right in having zero confidence in his ability to represent Arizona. Perhaps he's capable of understanding the issues, but I don't know the man to take advice from anyone. That having been said, he's almost as "qualified" as Rodney Glassman. Nobody is ever ready for the Senate.

Back in 2006, Nolan called global warming a "hoax", as though hundreds of scientific papers--of which I have read dozens--were simply made-up by their authors. That was a reckless and idiotic position, of the sort that totally undermined my confidence in the man's ability to have an honest opinion of anything, and a slander of many good people. There isn't a chance in hell he'll receive either my vote or my personal endorsement, unless he vocally comes clean on environmental issues and shows some respect for science. That is to say, unless I see a different Nolan, I'm not voting for Nolan. Jeff Flake, a good modern classical liberal around whom there was a Senatorial "buzz" before it became clear that McCain wouldn't retire, supports a revenue-neutral carbon tax, but in the Libertarian Party, it's exceedingly rare that the grown folks are in charge. I'd love for Nolan to show the seriousness and command of the issues of Flake, but I've learned not to expect to be impressed by 3rd Party candidates.

Why "third parties" are third.

Cheering for the underdog is an American pastime, but what if one finds out that the underdog isn't hapless, but instead is fumbling deliberately, and being a bit of a jerk, too. That's not a 100% unfair description of the Arizona Libertarian Party.

Now I happen to be what could be called a libertarian and someone who'd like to see a libertarian party succeed. And there are quite a few people--including my co-'blogger--doing a lot of work to get that libertarian party to succeed. But that libertarian party is so culturally out of whack, one sometimes wonders if it would be best to simply let the elderly ideologues have their way and turn it into the Cult of Noninitiation of Force. Let us proclaim the Mystery of Faith: we can have property without force and liberty without law, forever and ever, Amen.

So what's really on my mind? Greater than two thirds of one percent of registered voters must be registered Libertarian, that is to say, must be members of the Arizona Libertarian Party, for the Libertarian Party to have ballot access. So far, the LP hasn't used that ballot access for much in Arizona, but one can't help but think that credible, intelligent, realistic candidates like Nick Coons, Rick Fowlkes (before and after he switched to the Republicans), and Joe Cobb at least change the tone of the public discourse for the better, and their campaigns help to build an organization which can start taking more votes from Democrats and Republicans at the margin.

The Arizona Libertarian Party has been spending thousands of dollars of contributors' money and directing activists' time to maintaining registrations. Yet the chairman of the Pima County Libertarian Party, David F. Nolan, goes on record once again showing most members of the party the door. To quote:

No, the most important principle, for libertarians, is the principle of self-ownership, as set forth in the Preamble to our Platform, and our Statement of Principles. These are the standards by which every policy statement and every campaign must be judged. Anyone who is uncomfortable with this yardstick probably ought to be in another party -- one where "the most important principle is winning."

To be comfortable with the Libertarian Party Statement of Principles, one would have to believe in individual sovereignty ("sole dominion" over one's life), a total end to all taxation, and that there exists in American political life a "cult of the omnipotent State". At best that Libertarian Party's Statement of Principles is a relic of the time before the "free minds and free markets" position was back on solid intellectual ground, protected by an unfortunate 7/8 supermajority requirement.

But back to Arizona matters: in recommending that what amounts to all non-anarchists leave the Libertarian Party, Nolan is working against his Party's efforts to maintain ballot status. And perhaps because the Libertarian Party was founded in his living room back in the Nixon era (when the Statement of Principles might even have been respectable), nobody in the Party organization has the cojones to tell him that he is, once again, undermining his cause.

Full disclosure: This 'blog is nonpartisan, but I remain a Libertarian Party precinct committeeman.