The Freeman Chronicles

It looks official: Boston Tea Party founder and KN@PPSTER blogger Thomas L. Knapp has just dropped a huge ball on the BTP members and supporters by posting a message to the BTPNC Yahoo Group list, announcing that he was resigning from the Boston Tea National Committee and the Party as well.

This is what he said:

To whom it may concern,

I have resigned from the party, which in effect means that I’ve resigned my national committee seat (and any admin role on the site, since my resignation consisted of deleting my account).

I apologize for putting the committee through yet another vacancy-filling election. I also apologize for what looks like, but was not, a suddenly undertaken decision to resign. It’s been coming for some time, and the latest episode of “whatever Tom Knapp says has implications for the party” was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s never been JUST my party, but that card’s been played so many times that the only way to get it out of the tricksters’ deck is for it not to be even partly my party.

I will leave this Yahoo! group as soon as I post this message. Naturally, I continue to welcome personal correspondence with any or all of you.

Best regards,
Tom Knapp

Of course, I have forwarded the post to the BTPNC-Talk list, which is also on Yahoo Groups’ server.

Interestingly enough, an hour and 14 minutes later, At-Large Member Steve Trinward (a former Libertarian Party member and Tennessee LP member who once served on the LP’s Libertarian National Committee some years ago) decided to follow suit by posting his resignation on the same list.

Here’s Trinward’s resignation as well:

Dammit, Tommy – Now I look a copycat.

I too am formally resigning from this whatever it is … when I get a chance I will likely drop off the membership as well.

This has also been coming for a while, but other parts of my life have taken precedence. They continue to do so …

This latest “resolution” is just the final straw. The effort to “amend” faulty language, while dealing with neither of Tom’s concerns as he raised them, says it all. This is just another right-wing cover group, no more worth my energies than any other out there.

it’s been … interesting – Steve Trinward.

Trinward’s gripe with a “resolution” is in reference to a resolution I authored and amended (see an incoming separate post, which will discuss the motion [original and amended] in great detail). Basically, this resolution condemns and repudiates President Barack Obama’s backpedaling on the war in Iraq, which I believe was well-worded and no other objections were raised (except that Tom issued his concerns about my proposed motion). Former BTP Chairman and current Kansas BTP Chairman Jim Davidson responded to Tom’s concerns, which is something that Trinward didn’t even to notice.

I’m not sorry to see Trinward go. He has been highly unproductive and hasn’t been voting on a number of motions, although he did manually vote on the first two resolutions after I became Secretary of the BTP. I am, however, disappointed and sad that Tom decided not to make a formal announcement of his departure from the Committee and the Party to the party base. After all, the BTP is and always will be his baby, and he is and always will be credited for that.

Although Knapp doesn’t want me to publish my private correspondence with him, I will not do it. This is out of respect for the man, so people can draw their own conclusions as to why he left the Party.

[Cross-posted at Let Liberty Ring.]