May 21st, 2002

Your minutes will now be coming from me. The good news is that they will probably more consistent and timely. The bad news is that they will be far less funny, so you won't really care that they are more consistent and timely. As you probably guessed, we had "elections" today. In the traditional democratic style of the Libertarian Society, these elections consisted of trying to find people who were willing to take positions, and informally agreeing to give them those positions. So, the new board is: President, Will Baude; Vice President, Nick Tarasen; Treasurer, Matt Tievsky; Secretary, yes that would be me, Melissa Currivan. There was a ceremonial switching of the chairs, and Will's first act as president was to give Peter the honorary title of President Emeritus, not High Dork or Lord Protector. We realized that we really ought to show a video sometime this quarter since we told SG that it was a quarterly event and that we would spend our budget by the end of the year. However, SG screwed us over because somebody there doesn't like us, so we are going to show the South Park video that they wouldn't give us money to show due to copyright infringement. This was chosen over another Stossel video, The Fountainhead, and Starship Troopers. This will be shown next Thursday, and there will theoretically be pizza. There will be no meeting on Tuesday, in fact there will be no meetings the rest of the quarter. So if you want to do anything with LS, you've got to come to this video showing. Apparently the multimedia people who were really nice to us by not charging us money think that we didn't give them the key back. This might have something to do with the fact that it got locked in the closet that it was supposed to unlock. This could be bad for us. We want CR to ask Andrew Sullivan to come speak because they have lots of money and we don't. We did get more money than the Democrats though. We should ask David Friedman to come speak because he has U of C connections and is friends with Maggie's dad. Or something. We should also get ourselves listed in the "Progressive Handbook" either as their enemies, or as a progressive group in our own right, which, you know, we ARE... We also considered having a panel on sex next year that would include Epstein, MacKinnon, and Nussbaum. Also Posner if we could get him. Finally, in a failed effort to cause Peter to miss the bus, we had a brief theoretical discussion about pollution. Can there be rights and duties associated with the commons? Should be people be able to sue for damages? Would pollution credits work? Is it legitimate for companies to be able to harm people as long as they're willing to pay for it? You decide. And the very telling and memorable quote of the meeting, which came from our dear VP: "I'm surrounded by iiiiiiidiots!"

May 7th, 2002

We had yet another underattended meeting.
Issues:

We're having a debate on May 15, at 4 pm, in Harper 130. You probably know this by now. go to http://home.uchicago.edu/~pnorthup/debate1 and print out posters. put them up. or make your own. but put them up. good.

a dutch conservative was assassinated. apparently this is sad.

we need to make meetings more exciting. what do people want to do at them? we're easy.

apparently annual allocations thinks our weekly meetings are an "unnecessary event". does anybody know if the objectivists got money for theirs?

they also refused to fund next year's south park study break because it violates SGFC copyright policy.

all humor has been edited out of these minutes in the interests of conciseness, and more importanly, laziness. please contact the
secretary's secretary at felix_hortensio@yahoo.com with any substantive complaints.

April 9th, 2002:

Wow. there are minutes.

Opening remarks: There was an Exodus speaker yesterday. Basically, an ex-gay stood up in front of a bunch of people, and applied through careful use of ellipses (or as he would say, "dot. dot. dot."), that the prevalence of STDs in society were a god-given punishment for homosexuality.

Right.

The humble secretary is petitioning to get on the SG ballot. He has obtained a small extension to acquire the full 300 signatures, so any interested libertarians willing to take a petition around and get
signature, date, and student id number (the humble secretary has copies of the petition) are strongly urged to contact him. He is running with Maggie Samuels-Kalow (a closet libertarian) and Andrew MacNally (who is just plain cool). His slate is known as Apathy. "Because we know you don't care either."

On april 22nd, the Libertarian candidate for senator is speaking at UIC, circa 5:00 p.m. Should we go see him?

Some people are organizing behind the libertarian candidate for governor. expecially republicans.

Epstein has yet to reply to our beknighted president's emails, but Mary Ann Case is raring to go.

There was a great ad featuring Michael Bloomburg, by NORMAL. The implication was that he smoked, inhaled, and enjoyed.

We really really need people willing to man the libertarian table on Thursday the 18th and 25th so as to draw prospies into our web of vice, revolution, and iniquity.

Join IHS. A certain member of the libertarians will be there again attempting, desperately, to marry himself off to some young heiress.

Is it wrong for libertarians to campaign only for the legalization of marijuana?
Is it wrong to steal cable?
Doesn't RICO suck?

Send melissa things to put on the website. anything.

"English girls have ankles as thick as my neck."
"Something in our constitution about people drinking pitchers of beer."
"That's the last time I date a leftie activist"
"'connections'. Make 'connections' with people."

Yeah, okay, so the minutes aren't very good. But they exist.

Now brief thoughts on stealing cable:
Making an unauthorized hookup to the cable line in your apartment building violates the cable company's right to the sanctity and control of their line (Which presumably your landlord signed off on when he let them run the line into his building). When you hook up to the line, even though the marginal cost to the cable company of providing you with the service is 0, it does not follow that you should be able to force them to selll their good to you at a price of zero. It won't cost the CTA anything if I sneak on for free during a non-rush hour, but few people think that turnstile-jumping is a moral right. The proper price of the cable is whatever I'm willing to pay and they're willing to provide; they clearly aren't willing to provide at a price of zero; there's a chance they'll be able to credibly extract some rent from me if they hold out, and holding out is their right.
But, you argue, you are so cheap you wouldn't buy cable if it cost ANYTHING so there's no way the cable company could get any money from you. Okay. Maybe so. In a world of degree one price discrimination, there would be no problem. But we don't live in such a world. Some people who might be willing to pay, say, 2 cents or 2 dollars or 20 dollars a month for cable will also claim to be cheap and unwilling to pay anything, and cable companies can't differentiate; thus, they retain the right to refuse to give away their services for free. Indeed, it's a highly unlibertarian principle to think that just because it will "Cost them so little" to provide you what you want, that you have a moral right
to take it.
It is, of course, a highly libertarian trait to be selfish and take things anyway, especially where costs are small, so the humble secretary does not expect to persuade.

and copyrights are another matter entirely.

March 26, 2002:

We had our first meeting of the quarter, having been expelled back to the basement, due to the inexplicable disappearance of our lovely south lounge. Ahem.

Three pieces of news:

One: The constitution has been unearthed. Next meeting, there will be a mass amendment (i.e., rewriting) of it. "Members of good standing" only. And if you don't know what that is, read the constitution (the old one;).

Two: We want to have a debate. Our president intends to look into that this weekend. Also, a libertarian candidate for senate is speaking at UIC in April. Maybe he wants to speak here?

Three: Guns. We are trying to arrange this. Information forthcoming.

Segregation in schools was discussed--
(if separate is inherently unequal, how do we justify all-girls schools? Should homosexual males use the women's restroom? Is it okay for the department of defense to require smallpox vaccinations? what about just subsidizing them? what about subsidizing AP tests in math? Does that mean hospitals can choose not to treat poor patients?). Okay. So we get off topic easily. So it goes.

The meeting was abruptly ended on account of the imminent arrival of the D bus, so there are only two quotes:
"would you like to see a diagram of a vaginal exam?"
"so all health care for women is communist?"

Thank you all. The humble secretary is too lazy to write a full closing, as he wants to go to sleep. Have fun.