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Activities of the Libertarian Party of Southern Indiana

By Debbie Harbeson

Treasurer, Libertarian Party of Clark County Indiana

 Clark and Floyd counties in Southern Indiana organized through the state party about one year ago. Since that time, we have been having regular monthly meetings. The first public event Floyd County did was a booth at the 4-H fair, and Clark County’s first event was a booth at Jeffersonville Steamboat Days Festival. These events provided some publicity for the new county parties, and we collected the names of people interested in libertarian ideas.

 The Jeffersonville Evening News interviewed and published an article about John Harbeson being the chairman of the new county party. Then they also interviewed and published an article when we announced our very first candidates for local offices. We have three candidates, John Harbeson, County Council, District 3; Greg Hertzsch, County Council, District 2; and Teresa Fisher, Jeffersonville Township Board. All three were quoted in the article.

 But by far, the biggest splash we made so far was with our Tax Day Protest. We gained lots of publicity with a big color photo on the front page of the Evening News, showing the Floyd County Chair, Grace Martin, holding a sign saying "It's your Money," with a Libertarian Party header clearly visible. The article continued inside with yet another photo of Grace holding a sign saying "Less Taxes, More Freedom."  Plus, a local member and candidate, Teresa Fisher, was quoted in an article published in The Louisville Courier-Journal and this article had nice information about the protest as well.

 The weather was sunny and hot. We handed out million dollar bills as the public came out of the post office, and we received varied reactions. Most people accepted the million dollar bills. We generally asked, "Do you want a million dollars to help pay your taxes?" and we received facial reactions varying from smiles to "you're crazy" and comments such as "sure," "wish it was real," to downright refusals, which was quite funny when they said no to the question.

 Most of us became involved in some interesting but short conversations about the Libertarians and what we stand for. We received comments about taxes that went from a cheery "Yeah, screw the government," to an irritated "Jesus paid his taxes and I'm glad to do it too." We heard about a discussion going on inside the post office where someone said that the Libertarians "were those people who want to legalize drugs" or something like that. We ran into people who knew a bit about the Libertarian party and people who didn't know anything at all, so this was their first exposure. We talked with avowed socialists and with people who didn't think we should let all the stupid people have freedom, and of course with people who were teed off at how much money they were paying to the government in taxes. The protest also resulted in a hug from a taxpayer, who was evidently overwhelmed with the million-dollar offer.

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