Arizona Libertarian Party Lawsuit

The lawsuit - CV99-3904

Oddly when you look at the lawsuit it looks like it was filed by Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell, not Peter Schmerl's ALP Inc. But that is another question which somebody else will have to answer.

ALP Inc, which stands for the Arizona Libertarian Party Incorporated. Peter Schmerl created the ALP Inc in 1998.

ALP which is just the plain old Arizona Libertarian Party. I believe it was the first and original Arizona Libertarian Party.

From what I was told Peter Schmerl created the ALP Inc because he wanted to take over the ALP.

After the ALP lost the lawsuit in the appeals court we disbanded the ALP at a meeting at the China Village Restaurant.

So as of now the only Libertarian Party in Arizona is the ALP Inc. The ALP no longer exists.

The ALP Inc is the Arizona Libertarian Party Incorporated and it is a legal Arizona Corporate which was created in 1998.

On this web page I have provided links to the Arizona Corporation Commision which point the the information they have on the ALP Inc. or Arizona Libertarian Party Inc..

I have also provided some background information about the ALP Inc, the ALP and a little about the feud between the ALP Inc. and ALP.

NIFF stands for Non-Initiation of Force or Fraud.

Under the NIFF doctrine you can do anything you want as long as they don't initiate force or fraud against another person.

NIFF is something the most mother's teach their babies as they are growing up. NIFF is not rocket science or anything revolutionary. NIFF is pretty much the same as the Golden Rule.

NIFF is so simple that when I was taught it I was angry because I had not figured it out on my own.

Duh! What part of "It is wrong to initiate force or fraud against another person" don't you understand?

Most governments think the NIFF principle is great with one exception. That is everybody except the government is bound by the NIFF principle. Governments can initiate force or fraud against anybody they feel like.

Taxes are one example of how governments initiate force against people. The government needs some money to run it's operations. So the government forces people to pay taxes, at gun point.

Forcing people to obey silly laws against victimless crimes, such as drug war crimes, prostitution or gambling are other ways the government initiates force against the people they rule over.

If you take drugs, have sex with a prostitute or gamble many governments will initiate force against you and lock you up in a prison cell. Sadly about two thirds of Americans are in prisons for victimless drug war crimes because the government initiated force against them for breaking victimless drug war laws.

Most of the people in the ALP seemed to agree with the NIFF principle.

On the other hand it seemed like a good number of people in the ALP Inc were clueless about the NIFF principle and didn't really understand that it is wrong to initiate force or fraud against another person.

In Arizona the ALP placed their candidate L Neil Smith on the ballot while in the other 49 states Harry Browne was on the Libertarian ballot.

The National Libertarian Party and the ALP Inc both sued the ALP in an attempt to force ALP to put Harry Browne on the Arizona ballot as the Libertarian Presidential candidate.

Click here for more info on that part of the ALP vs ALP Inc feud.

John Buttrick and Tom Rawles were the attorneys for ALP, Ernest Hancock and Fran Van Cleave.

Its has been 10 years since this stuff happened so I could have forgot the information, mixed up the information or misunderstood what Ernie was saying.

Ernie Hancock was a part of the lawsuit so everything he said is HIS version of what happened.

I have never heard Peter Schmerl or Kat Gallant's version of what happened. And of course I suspect there IS major differences between what Enrie Hancock said at those Libertarian Party meetings and what Kat Gallant says happened.

Based on what Ernie Hancock has said I have a very low opinion of Peter Schmerl.

I know Ernie Hancock and Kat Gallant have been feuding, but despite that I have a high opinion of Kat Gallant. Not from anything Ernie Hancock has said. I have never heard one good word about Kat Gallant from Ernie. I have heard a lot of good things in the media about Kat Gallant, like her horseback ride across America where the cops in South Carolina arrested Kat and stole her horses.

I certainly would love to here her side of this feud between ALP and ALP Inc.

Here are some URLs which have articles about Kat Gallant.

• My Space
• New Times
• Lingerie Queen of Politics
• American Cowboy
• CNN
• Molly Ivins

Some people consider Ernie Hancock a publicity hound. I suspect they are right. Ernie Hancock is probably the Libertarian equivalent of Republican Sheriff Joe Arpaio or Democrat Kyrsten Sinema.

Some people think Ernie Hancock has caused the Libertarian Party a lot of damage with all of his publicity stunts.

I think some of Ernie's publicity stunts were pretty good.

On the other hand two of Ernie Hancock public stunts may have damaged the Libertarian party and made us look like nut jobs.

When Ernie did his publicity stunt at the Department of Revenue with his guns that may have made Libertarians look bad. Same for the publicity stunt where Ernie threatened to put the Arizona voter registration information on the web.

Currently I have heard that Ernie Hancock, his wife Donna Hancock and Marc Victor have been involved in loan modifications.

If some poor smuck gets a loan and can't pay it off for whatever reason and he goes to the lender and begs for a lower monthly payment or some other changes in the loan I don't have a problem with that. The poor smuck has not initiated force so their is nothing wrong with that.

On the other hand when a lawyer runs ads looking for people who can't make their loan payments and tells them that he can use his position as a lawyer to threaten the lender with a lawsuit and get them to change the terms of the loan that sure sounds like it is initiating force and from a Libertarian point of view that is wrong.

I don't know what those guys are doing, but from what I have heard it doesn't sound very Libertarian.