News from this year’s political activities 🙂
Yet Another Police Shooting
Samuel Forgy’s death was tragic and unnecessary. Standard police training for years has been to view drugged people as “bad guys”, escalate all conflicts, and shoot to kill. While there are unlikely to be any legal repercussions for the officers involved, there may be significant personal ones.
When I walked for Boulder County Sheriff last year, it was my intent to alter this training and guidelines which appear harmful to everyone, to apply the principles of non-aggression and pursue patient, positive methods of correcting human behavior. When I run for Boulder County Sheriff in 2018, it will be with the same intent. (sheriffoflove.org)
This year I am running for Boulder City Council, who have some small influence on city law-enforcement. My thoughts are with the many wounded by this death, and I wish them all well.
Challenging Marijuana Decriminalization
Several lawsuits have recently been filed challenging the legalization of marijuana in Colorado. Here’s my response to this article:
The long-serving and only libertarian sheriff in the US Bill Masters is a hard act to follow, and as usual he is inspiring and concise in that interview. I also sympathize with the sheriffs who are frustrated with the conflicted legal environment they operate in. The standard policeman’s “Blue Book” listing a subset of the criminal laws they are expected to enforce is hundreds of pages long. There are so many laws now that nearly any activity can be prosecuted. That is why I go by “Sheriff of Love”, because there are too many conflicting laws to enforce. Simpler guiding principles are needed. Mine is love: I want you to be well, I want the environment to be well, and I want it for myself too. This is why I oppose prosecuting victimless crimes: no one is injured so no one should be injured (punished by the state). Like these sheriffs I would also challenge the laws I find immoral or illogical, but I would do it by refusing to enforce them, and make their authors sue me. There are too many bad laws to challenge on an individual basis.
Sheriff of Love
Shoveling for Ferguson
The City of Boulder has a law requiring everyone to shovel the snow on the sidewalk in front of their house, enforced by the city police with an escalating series of fines. It recently came up in the news, here is my response:
I do not believe this is an appropriate use of police or state violence. Such laws and enforcement activities underlie the problems revealed in the Ferguson protests. This can easily be assertained by a brief visit to the Boulder County jail, which is just as overcrowded with minorities and mentally ill as any jail in the nation. At the very least snow enforcement officers should be armed with snow shovels, not guns.
There are many alternatives to punishment which will be more effective at clearing sidewalks:
- talk to your neighbors. Perhaps they are unaware of their social obligation, out of town, physically disabled, or like my college neighbors simply lack a shovel. I am happy to lend them mine, and shovel for the neighbors who can’t.
- The city of Boulder could remove laws requiring a license to shovel snow for pay. There are plenty of young people able and willing to do such work, but current regulations make it too expensive and difficult to be worthwhile.
- Shovel it yourself. Then it’s done and it probably didn’t take any longer than a call to the police. They’ve got better things to do.
Love, not Punishment http://sheriffoflove.com/
What’s Next for the Sheriff of Love?
There was a followup article to the November 4th election in the July 8, 2014 edition of Boulder’s Daily Camera, which was pitched and sort of is “What’s Next for the Sheriff of Love”. With only 0.15% of the vote, will I run again? What kind of campaign will it be? What’s the point? Let me tell ya.
I see things that need to be done, and I am capable and willing to do them: end the drug war, scale back police militarization, restore the balance of justice between the big and the small, heal both victims and perpetrators. But it doesn’t have to be me to do this, and I certainly can’t do these things on my own. So I will continue to build awareness for the possibility and necessity of these ideas. As before I will insert myself into local issues and present love-based solutions to the topic on hand.
Quantity vs Quality
With the November 4th, 2014 election approaching, my low-key campaign for Boulder County Sheriff continues. As a write-in candidate registered as Toby Fernsler, my name does not appear on the ballot and has been omitted from local news candidate lists. The Boulder Weekly went so far as to say incumbant Joe Pelle is the only candidate running, but did run my letter the next week pointing out that to be a write-in candidate requires registering a year in advance, filing regular timely paperwork, and submitting fingerprints for an FBI background check.
When the final vote is tallied one thing that may not be reflected is the quality of the votes. I have been gladdened by those people who not only went out of their way to discover my name, but then took the time to call me and let me know they wrote it in. As a mathematician practicing non-violence, I am offering a sharp contrast to traditional law-enforcement. It is somewhat experimental, one that we would all participate in. As sheriff I expect I would quickly discover the limits of treating all with dignity and compassion, and yet I will still choose to try. This is true for county residents as well, which is why I say voting for me is voting for yourself too, claiming the confidence to renounce government violence and extend trust to your neighbors. Extending trust and respect has served me well on a personal level, but not always. I do not know what would occur if it were applied as government and social policy. My many thanks to those who, like me, wish to find out.
My name is Toby Fernsler, and my message is Love.
County Candidate’s Forum
I participated on Saturday October 11, 2014 in the Boulder County Candidate’s forum, organized by the League of Women Voters. As Clerk and Recorder candidate Ralph Shnelvar commented, “I’m glad to see more people in the audience than on the stage”, refering to our previous outdoor appearance when the audience wilted under the sun and a relentless parade of cautious political statements. This forum was more lively, with brief opening and closing statements and the majority of the time devoted to questions from the audience. John Fryar was the only reporter present, and his brief report is available here. Our local radio station KGNU posted the full audio.
Boulder Public Access Channel 22 streamed the show:
The rules of the forum do not allow me to post excerpts, but I have re-recorded my opening and closing statements here:
Meet the Candidates
I will be appearing along with various other local candidates this Saturday, September 27 in Lafayette at a “Meet the Candidates” event between 3:00 and 5:00 at Affinity Apartment 860 W. Baseline Road, Lafayette. We will be on the south lawn.
I will also participate in the League of Women Voters county candidate debate on October 11 at 6500 E. Arapahoe Boulder, which will be streamed online by channel 22 and posted by KGNU.
I have a solution: Free Beer.
I have a solution: Free Beer.
Just kidding, sort of. Hear me out.
The Methodology of Universal Love states that the best solution is the one that is a solution from all points of view. Downtown business owners would like their customers to be able to visit their stores without tripping over a sleeping person at the entrance. So the owners want the homeless to sleep elsewhere. Homeless people need a place to sleep. Urgently. Perhaps even tonight. Perhaps earlier. Anywhere they can.
How can we meet the needs of both?
Software developers speak frequently of two kinds of Free: Free as in speech, or free as in beer. Free-Speech sleeping is being able to sleep past dawn, which doesn’t happen in a homeless shelter (read the article). Free-Beer sleeping is not having to pay for it.
What if the homeless didn’t have to choose between those options?
Here’s my proposal: pick a plot of land on the edge of town, and declare it ok to camp there. Sleep in a tent, past dawn. Provide basic necessities for free: toilet, shower, laundry. Put in a kitchen and serve regular wholesome meals. Create community gardens, raise chickens. Put up a free thrift store, food drop-off, bicycle repair, yoga studio (this is Boulder). Run it like an Occupy encampment; serving and run by the community. Create micro-neighborhoods like Burning Man camps; family, rowdy, newcomers, etc. Those communities will decide what they’ll allow in camp.
Call it Free Town: Free living for the Free People.
Being the Change
As this Thursday’s deadline approaches and it becomes clearer that I will not collect enough signatures to place my name on November’s ballot, I struggle with the pressures of urgency and despair. Collecting signatures in the classic manner is no fun; quick and efficient effort means disrupting many people’s routine and pressuring them into doing something they don’t fully understand.
I gave that a try and didn’t enjoy it. So now I stand quietly by my sign, nodding politely or reading, and allow people to choose whether they wish to approach me. There are many fewer interactions, with perhaps only four signatures in an hour. But they are genuine and un-forced.
I am still registered with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office as a candidate for sheriff of Boulder County in this November 2014 election, and I will continue my campaign in my own low-key manner. Many people ask me what my chances of winning are, but that was always beside the point. I am trying to re-envision what law-enforcement and public service can be, and when enough people are ready for it, it will exist.
Sheriff of Love
Sheriff of Love 