Arvin Vohra Needs to Go

A short but important one, guys. Arvin Vohra, Libertarian Party Vice Chair, needs to go. After several months of absurdly unnuanced, black-and-white, morally superior postings and 'open letters', the outspoken Vice Chair finds himself pissing off exactly the last people libertarians should seek to piss off: Military service people and vets. (credit for meme: Matthew McGowan at Dankertarian Family - facebook)

Yes. That's right. After a 2016 campaign that showed active service members preferred the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, Arvin's genius plan is to end war, one anti-military personnel post at a time. And while the LP has been quite adept at making the case that you can oppose war and not oppose the soldier, such a distinction seems difficult for Arvin. Probably a good reason not to allow him to be a mouthpiece of the Party.

His supporters, of course, are whining about how 'out of context' his statements are being taken. Or how 'that's not what he meant, dummy!' Let me nip that shit right in the bud. He did mean soldiers are immoral, and I can prove it:

See that? 100% of soldiers are acting immorally. And did you notice that nod to Adolf Eichmann/Nazi imagery? So, please, Arvin-lovers, miss me with 'you just don't get it' nonsense. I'm quite adept at nuance. It's one of the reasons I cannot stand Arvin Vohra as a Vice Chair. He has all the nuance of a freight train. He lives in an An-Cap world of moral superiority, and he brazenly expresses his biased opinions of human action as fact. Constantly.

And, he's got 99 problems. This is just one. He frequently posts 'probing' questions like this one:

In case you don't know, Agustus Invictus is a known white nationalist parading as libertarian down in Florida. The only appropriate response to him by a Party leader is that he is illegitimate and his positions do not reflect the Libertarian Party. The end.

Or this nuanced as a sledgehammer position:

Or this incredibly tin-foil hat post: 

Or this science-phobic gem:

Then, of course, there is his manic obsession with education and how not even one dime of public money should go to educating children. So militant is his hatred for the very idea of a tax (even a consumption tax) going to help allow kids a chance at upward mobility, he posts about it at least once a week. 

When pressed about how a 5-year-old teaches himself to read and write on the computer, unassisted, he hadn't much of an answer other than 'oh, well it should be privately paid for'. Okay. Well, in purely ideological terms, sure. In reality, if you leave poor parents with no educational options for their children you are only contributing to a deeper economic divide. The free market can only work if people have a reasonable access to the skills needed to participate in the market, dude. Also, did you happen to notice the appropriation of the hashtag #EndTheRapeCulture? Classy.

His anti-school obsession is so insane that he wages war on charters and vouchers, even though they are a free-market alternative to failing public schools that are mostly very popular outside of Teacher's Union circles.

Here's the kicker. Arvin Vohra runs an online school. So, not only is he passing off terribly unpopular policy on a weekly basis, it is to promote a business model that he directly profits from. Think about that for a minute. Either he is incredibly stupid, or he is saying things like 'lectures, labs, and school work are useless' for selfish, personal economic gain. You be the judge.

We have a Party Chair who is absurdly good at articulating nuance. Nicholas Sarwark is such an effective communicator, he can get people who are not libertarians to, at the least, understand that he is making a reasonable point. Arvin Vohra is like walking into a Libertarian FB page and taking the top An-Cap comment. He's unnuanced, unreasonable, and should not have any role in articulating the Party platform to people. Principle over pragmatism is fine for typical facebook commenters. It is terrible for someone who is supposed to be making the party relevant to people who, you know, serve in the military or have children in school - the exact people we need to vote for us if we ever hope to win any elections.

it's time for Arvin to go. Sorry if that chafes, but it is what it is.