"Exciting" and "exhilarating" were the words going through my head when I attended this past Libertarian National Convention.

The convention, in a normal setting, is worth looking forward to, but the recent events in the world made this one for the history books. The Libertarian Party was the very first party in history to nominate the presidential and vice presidential candidates via an online convention, using Zoom video conferencing.

I had the honor of presiding as the chair of the Oregon delegation, which consists of 14 other Oregon Libertarians. We connected in real time with over 1,000 other Libertarian delegates to the convention from across the country, and with the Oregon delegation by Slack, an online messaging tool. The convention is continuing in person next week in Orlando when we meet to ratify the nominations, elect party officers and edit and adopt our platform and bylaws.

While the mechanics of the convention were interesting enough, it was the result that was so exciting. The Libertarian Party is the third-largest party in the country and expects to be on the ballot in all 50 states again, as it has for the last three presidential elections. Our slogan is that we are the "Party of Principle" because we stand strongly on our principles, the primary one of which has been described as "Dont hurt people and dont take their stuff."

Libertarians strongly oppose any government interference into personal, family and business decisions. Essentially, we believe all Americans should be free to live their lives and pursue their interests as they see fit if they do no harm to another.

This year, we nominated Jo Jorgensen as the partys presidential candidate. She is a senior lecturer in psychology at Clemson University and was the Libertarian Party vice presidential nominee with Harry Browne in 1996. She wants to bring home our military and stop military aid to foreign governments, eliminate trade wars and tariffs, repeal arbitrary quotas on the number of people who can legally enter the U.S. to work, visit or reside, and slash federal spending, making government much smaller, and let you keep what you earn.

Her vice presidential running mate is Jeremy "Spike" Cohen. Cohen started a web design company in 1999 and retired from that three years ago to promote libertarian ideas full time. His aim is to make people more familiar with voluntary solutions and property rights.

Libertarians select their slate differently than the two major parties, in that the presidential nominee does not select her running mate: delegates do. We selected Cohen because he was the most articulate and had brought more new members to the party than the other candidates. He had been running with a satirical candidate so you may have seen him touting those goals online: a Waffle House on every corner and free cheesy bread. His candidacy is serious, though, and his positions include ending qualified immunity, demilitarizing the police, making officers pay for their own abuse settlements, reducing and eliminating sentencing for victimless crimes and ending the failed war on drugs.

If these ideas interest you, consider coming to the next meeting of the Lane County Libertarians. We meet on the first Tuesday of every month at 6:30 p.m. at the Oregon Electric Station.

Carolyn Wade is the chair of the Lane County Libertarians and secretary of the Oregon Libertarian Party.

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