Bring Out The Best In Others [LP National Album]

I've published my LP National Photo Album, and here are some thoughts.

I attended the Libertarian Party’s National convention in Reno in May of this year, as a delegate and as a photographer.

I’m going to talk about my experience in this party, and disperse some of my pictures in the piece, the photos are no reflection on the paragraph content immediately before or after, I’m just posting photos in between my writing, and a link to the whole album is at the bottom of this post if you want to skip my thoughts entirely just scroll all the way down till you see the picture of Ken.

For my readers who aren’t interested in this album, I’m writing a bit about my philosophy as an activist and how it guides my conduct, so perhaps you’ll find this interesting anyway.

By The Numbers

• 9,643 is the number of photos I took over a 4 day period from May 26-29th.

• 1,694 is the number of photos I initially pared down to before making the final cut.

• 918 is the final number of photos published in the album.

• 46 is the approximate number of hours I spent out on the floor or at afterparties taking photos over the 4 days of the convention. I was usually on the floor by 8am and leaving the bar at 1am, and I always had my camera with me to grab shots.

• 50 is the approximate number of hours the post-production took me. Assuming I spent 3 seconds considering each photo (6 hours), 1 minute on the photos I was considering including but ultimately didn’t (12 hours) and 2 minutes per each published photo on editing and sorting (30 hours), plus it took me like 4 hours to actually get these uploaded because Facebook hates large albums.

• 1,338 is the number of delegates or alternates I sent postcards to that I had addresses for from the convention (this is accessible to any delegate upon request leading up to a convention, they use the address from your registration).

• $695 is how much I spent on VistaPrint to send those postcards.

• 4.2 GB is the size of the entire completed album.

Contributions

I do this as a labor of love and as a contribution to the party and movement.

At the moment, my regular cash donations are to:

• Antiwar.com

• Abortion Funds

• You Are The Power (for which I’m helping fundraise)

• Feminists for Liberty (which I’m a board member of)

• Old Pros

In case you wondered what organizations I consider worth my financial support. Several of those are tax-deductible, and you can contribute before the New Year for deductions this year.

Several of you have offered contributions to me as thanks for your photos, and I’ll gladly accept them - thank you to those who’ve already donated. I accept a variety of forms of payment.

• Avens on Venmo

• $avensobrien on Cashapp

• avens.obrien@gmail.com on Paypal

• 3Q6uKqRFUhS5avvYR7pgLWyqbMShPGb6eH for Bitcoin only

• Subscribing for free (or paid) to this Substack.

• Amazon Gift Cards or stuff from my Amazon Wish List.

To be transparent, most cash will be going towards updating camera equipment and a new Macbook in January.

A few people have expressed uncertainty about what an appropriate donation is. Some people donate $5, most people donate $10-$25, some more… if people are using their photos professionally (like political candidates or updating their work headshot) they sometimes donate more as well. At the end of the day, you can donate what you feel comfortable with, if you want to. Or nothing at all.

Making Liberty Look Good

My photography has secured me incredible opportunities all over the country and world. Being able to take pictures of liberty activists is an honor, and it’s a joyfully low-drama experience, as I’m not spending a ton of time focusing on the minutiae of philosophy - something I’m more than capable of doing. I’ve got piles of Rothbard’s unpublished personal handwritten notes on my desk, given to me by my father. I’m well-versed & well-read in the philosophical details, but my interest is in the inspiration. My interest is in living it.

I’m a Libertarian for lots of reasons, including because I think it’s the correct and consistent philosophy regarding human beings and the way we engage one another - I care about consent and peaceful solutions and freedom of association and responsibility. I care about the means and the ends, and Libertarianism is the philosophy I’ve concluded creates the best possible of both.

I’m also a Libertarian from a deep, visceral level that I suspect I inherited from my parents, growing up in a libertarian home, influenced by libertarian philosophy: I love people, and I want them to be free.

I do genuinely believe that libertarianism is the most consistently compassionate political philosophy in the world, and I wish to share how it’s my hope and faith in human beings that causes me to believe liberty is the greatest thing we can do for one another. I don’t think this is unjustified.

So I don’t want to fight.

Libertarianism isn’t pacifism, but a philosophy respecting Human Action, free markets, free association, pluralism, and the dignity of each human being to live the way they choose is a philosophy that should be looking for the win-win. To me, this should be about positivity, inspiration, light, hope, and respect & tolerance for others.

The best way I can think to serve that, is to not fight. To simply honor those things. To bring positivity, inspiration, light, hope, respect, tolerance to the spaces I inhabit. I also honor that by giving people far more credit and benefit of the doubt than is necessarily due, but I’d rather be full of grace than lacking it.

I take photos because it’s unifying, and highlights the best of my subjects. I take photos because it strips away the philosophy and the inside baseball and the internal struggles, and it shows human beings as simply humans doing.

I want to show people the ways in which they literally look good, and hope they’ll find pride and joy in that image and reflect that in their actions.

I can’t control anyone else, nor would I want to. I can’t change them. I can’t make them be a way I want them to be, I can’t make them remove ill-advised tweets or stop being a dick on the internet. I can only control me. I can only hope that by interacting in a way that feels consistent with my values, with grace and credit and faith and always hoping for better, I can bring out better, while others cause doubling-down or rebellion. I think my way works better, and in a free market of minds all I can do is try to prove it.

Even When It Looks Bad

Hey, real talk. I posted these photos tonight, and some jerk went around commenting on a certain controversial figure’s photos calling them a Fed. It was really obnoxious. We have all these good vibes with these photos, and suddenly there’s a stupid argument around baseless accusations.

Here’s the deal: I photograph a lot of controversial people at conventions, and that includes polarizing figures on both sides of ideological divides.

There are people in these photos that some have accused of being Federal Agents, CIA agents, fascists, communists, socialists, Nazis, pedophiles, groomers, rapists, and deadbeat fathers.

Most of these accusations are without merit or evidence. Most that could potentially have evidence, the supporters of those people would never accept as such. Some could be true. Most of these are massive attacks on people’s character.

I’m not really interested, I don’t photograph people as an endorsement of them. I don’t care about anyone’s personal drama with anyone else - especially those who can’t help but constantly be caught up in it.

If you see a photo of someone you don’t like - just keep scrolling on by. I wish more people would take this to heart on a larger scale - if you don’t like something and nobody’s immediate safety is at stake: keep scrolling on by. You don’t have to rain on anyone else’s day.

In case anyone was wondering, all of those above words have definitions, and I’m so absolutely tired of accusations being wielded around haphazardly in ways that diminish their severity because they’re overused to the point of meaninglessness. It’s the same thing in the larger political and culture war - and I’m not a fan of it happening in my own political movement. We’re supposed to be better than that.

Most of the people getting caught up in this do a disservice to their own arguments by the ways they conduct themselves, and I’m not here for it. I don’t even like talking about this here because I fucking hate drawing attention to things that I don’t support.

Attention is Value

I have a public profile online and I have several thousands of followers between my various platforms. I influence people with even larger public profiles. People sometimes ask me to call out things. To denounce social media posts by state affiliates. To call out people. However, I have this rule about attention.

My attention goes to things I value. Especially in an online world dominated by trolls, attention is what they feed on, and I’m perfectly happy to let them starve.

A lot of my readers and followers on various platforms are not Libertarians. Some agree with me on several issues, but they haven’t joined the movement or the party, they’re politely interested in what I have to say about subjects they’re not convinced on. I don’t really feel like showing those people the worst people within libertarianism, which is what bringing those things to their attention by giving them my attention does. I don’t think that helps bring in new people who share my values when I tell them “this is what my party is about”.

Now, I risk looking like I condone things I don’t call out, but that’s lazy thinking to assume that’s the case, and in order to be consistent, I’d have to call out some of my dear friends and allies when they do awful shit too, and we could be here all day.

I have a limited amount of time on this planet, and I don’t want to give it to trolls or bad actors or people doing shitty things. I want to give my attention, my value, to that which is valuable to me. That which is useful, interesting, appealing, and/or inspiring.

So that’s where it’s going. If you want to support good things, do good things, amplify others doing good things, create and facilitate good things, and drown out the bad. Solve problems, create solutions, give people something worth wanting to be part of.

My Major Disappointment, But Hope

As a lifelong and lifetime member of the LP, I have some opinions about the way it’s run, the people involved, and aspects of the party.

I don’t fit into a particular faction or caucus - and can’t stand broad-faction ones (single issues are fine, but too much cross-conflation on cultural issues in either MC or CLC for me, sorry for the inside baseball).

I am rarely invested in the internal politics of the party itself, as that would be a waste of my time, energy, resources, and productive capabilities. I’m not fond of zero-sum games or politics, and participate in both generally as a matter of self-defense.

My only significant investment in our internal politics at our May Convention was protecting our Abortion plank, and the loss of it is my biggest regret of the convention. I’ve spent thousands of dollars over the years on efforts to protect it, successfully until this year. I think it’s important for my party to stand up against the tyranny of government involved in the most intimate decisions of people’s lives.

I recognize there are good-faith stances on personally opposing abortion, but those who wish to insert government into doctor’s offices (which is what abortion prohibition will do, just look at countries where it’s illegal and there are women in prison for miscarriages) should remember that governments that can prevent you from having abortions are also governments that can force you to have them.

I don’t expect to win back our plank for at least a few cycles (I’ll be there in 2024 talking about reproductive liberty either way), but I have faith in the principles of my party that we will eventually (and I’ll be here - I’m not going anywhere), and in the meantime my money and activism has shifted to better returns on investment.

I help people access abortion directly, donate large sums of money to funding abortion procedures (always privately, never through government), and I teach people how to access abortion assistance online, including DIY and abortion pills, which I appreciate that the party defended through improvements to our plank on Health Care.

There’s my element of hope - our Health Care plank. This was a phenomenal improvement to our Health Care plank, and without mentioning abortion, is the new standard for defending our access to abortion pills (which can be used up to 9 weeks), abortion procedures and more. I’m grateful for it.

2.13 Health Care

We favor a free market health care system. Medical facilities, medical providers, and medical products (including drugs) must be freely available in the marketplace without government restrictions or licenses. We recognize the freedom of individuals to determine the level of health insurance they want (if any), the level of health care they want, the care providers they want, the medicines and treatments they will use and all other aspects of their medical care, including end-of-life decisions. People should be free to purchase health insurance across state lines. We oppose governments either mandating, or restricting voluntary access to, medical treatments or procedures including vaccines.

During election season my two requirements for donating to candidates was that they were Libertarians whose stances reflect our platform, and that they were vocally opposed to abortion prohibition. This will be the standard for my financial contributions moving forward, since the platform no longer defends the issue explicitly.

We each do what we can about the things that we care about. Let’s find the ways to ignore each other when it doesn’t hurt anyone to do so, and to support, invest in, and amplify that which we want, we love, and we value.

In Conclusion

I took quite a few photos at the convention this year. Photos of people I like, photos of people I love, photos of people I agree with on some things. Photos of people I dislike, photos of people I find obnoxious as hell, photos of people I disagree with on some things.

I took the best pictures I could. I offered posing advice, I found people’s best angles, best expressions, and after I took the photo I edited it to make it the best it can be.

This aligns with my philosophy. On life. On liberty. On culture. On human beings as humans doing. There’s a reason I do this, and do it this way.

I’ll keep amplifying everyone’s best.

I’ll keep hoping people choose to rise to it.

A big thank you, by the way, to Ken Moellman, who stepped up and ended up being just what we needed at the convention this year - he looked out for all of the delegates, and really brought us together, much like Alex Merced in 2020.

The Album

The 2022 Libertarian Party National Convention Album is on Facebook posted here.

Future Events

If you’d like me to speak at or photograph your event or convention, note that my first priority this year is trade shows for my business. I will have limited time this year. However, here’s a list of some of my speeches I’ve given in the past and you can email me to discuss availability and cost.

Thank you so much for reading all of this, if you did.

I hope you’ll stick around for more.