Talk:Lost Liberty Hotel/Archive 1

These talk items have been archived from Talk:Lost Liberty Hotel.

Old Commentary
This page seems entirely factual. Whether one agrees with the hotel idea or not, the page discusses the details, and offers no particular endorsement or condemnation.

How can a page have a status of disputed neutrality with no statement justifying the dispute?


 * How can anyone respond to a comment made by a person without a name? Sign your posts!. I listed this on WP:VFD because Wikipedia is not a soapbox, and this material belongs on the Logan Clements article anyway. Yah, you made the encyclopedia. Your silly proposal, however did not. -SV|t 3 July 2005 05:07 (UTC)


 * 32,000 google hits in 48 hours suggests otherwise. Gentgeen 3 July 2005 05:39 (UTC)
 * Im not going to make it 32,001. Are you going by a ticker, or do you have some inside info? Cant you see that naming an article after a fictional hotel, adding it to Category:U.S. Hotels, and writing it in an advocacy POV is... POV! Its a no-brainer, and its a shame to see a good editor such as yourself, appear to make this a personal matter. Promoting the "Hotel" rather than the material event of Clemens' promotional campaign, appears to be promotion in its own right. -SV|t 5 July 2005 09:01 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia has pages on far less consequential things like charmander, and on the features of things that don't yet exist like Windows Longhorn. Your anger seems far out of proportion to the issue here.  If you'd like, I can add the quote from the state representative on the subject (something along the lines of "it's poetic justice, but I'm going to oppose it because it's crazy, dumb, and spiteful") and any arguments you find against it.  I've asked repeatedly on the Kelo talk page if anyone has found criticism, and looked for it myself.  It's tough to find.  Kelo was very unpopular.  What I expect will happen is in a few days, Souter will make a statement and we can include it to make the article more balanced.  But until someone starts publishing criticism of the hotel, there isn't much we can do that isn't original research. Update: I found some criticism and added it.  Dave (talk) July 5, 2005 13:24 (UTC)


 * "Cant [sic] you see that naming an article after a fictional hotel..." -Gentgeen
 * The Lost Liberty Hotel is not a fictional hotel, it merely has not yet been built. The hotel is at this point in the planning stage, and it is reasonable to believe that it will be constructed if the effort to acquire the land is successful. Nothing in the article suggests anything to the contrary. To thus argue that the hotel is fictional because it has not been built, one would, in order to remain consistant, have to argue that the Freedom Tower is also fictional. My vote: Speedy Keep.
 * Nonetheless there has to be some better way than saying "X is a proposed Y"--logically it exists but factually, the term "is" or "to be" is ambiguous. ~ Dpr 05:23, 20 July 2005 (UTC)


 * This "hotel" has not yet been built? That's like saying that my contract to become Oprah Winfrey's co-host has not yet been signed.  No one would say that my TV gig was anything but fictional.  It is highly POV for this article to accept, at face value, the self-promoting assertion by Clements that he's serious about getting into the hotel busines. JamesMLane 06:55, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Rewrite in support of proposed merge
I've rewritten Logan Clements so it can serve as a replacement for this article. I didn't include the "Criticism" section, because I'm not sure whether we want to keep it. The "Professor David Hoffman" quote is from a blog, which doesn't strike me as the sort of resource we want to quote. (The blog article was signed "Dave Hoffman" - not sure where "Professor David Hoffman" came from.) The Volokh quote, while more reliable, is only one quote. I think we shouldn't have a Criticism section until we have a good selection of criticisms from which to choose - preferably from better sources, such as newspaper or magazine articles. Tualha 7 July 2005 21:51 (UTC)


 * This is Professor Hoffman's bio. The weblog, like The Volokh Conspiracy (the weblog from the "more reliable quote" came from), is written by law professors.  The criticism part may be necessary because just going based on press releases is pretty POV.  Dave (talk) July 8, 2005 00:37 (UTC)


 * Duh. "Profs' blog". I thought it was just some nonsense word. Well, let's leave it in for now, see how it evolves. Thanks for clarifying. Tualha 8 July 2005 01:02 (UTC)


 * Hello. David Hoffman (of Temple Law) here.  I take no position on whether my blog post is the best way to articulate the criticism (although it is hard to imagine how a media article is more authoritative in any way).  My problem is that you've got the criticism wrong, sort of.  The town regulatory board (or court reviewing that board's orders) can't possibly ignore the fact that the very purpose of the hotel is to punish Souter for his vote in Kelo (i.e., the reason they choose Justice Souter's home as opposed to any other).  Development is quite literally a pretext here.  And to be realistic, no *way* this goes anywhere in a competent tribunal, something it is worth mentioning.  You should look to other blogs who explored the legal and ethical issues more thoroughly than I - some concluded that Clements' actions were, in fact, illegal.


 * Thanks for your comments. I'll see what I can do. Dave (talk) 18:48, July 30, 2005 (UTC)


 * Fixed, I think. I added a news article arguing that the hotel was unlikely to be built and changed the description of your argument to say that prosecution was unlikely, as opposed to criminal wrongdoing.  Thanks again for helping us improve the article. Dave (talk) 19:02, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

No merge!
"Lost Liberty Hotel" is up to 97,800 Google hits now, and "Lost Liberty Hotel" + Souter gets 53,400. "Lost Liberty Hotel" + "Logan Clements" gets 175. That is a ratio of over 300 to 1!! Clearly, those who are reporting about the Lost Liberty Hotel are not mentioning Logan Clements anywhere. Thus, a redirect is inappropriate. --Idont Havaname 01:08, 12 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree, no merge necessary. I also don't see any major POV problems. Rhobite 01:52, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Some factual background on the subject that might speak to the credibility of the idea
'Logan Darrow' is actually Doug 'Logan Darrow' Clements. He added the Logan Darrow to his name a few years ago. After graduating from University of Rochester's MBA program in the late 80s, he went to the Pacific Northwest and tried a corporate job for about 6 months before departing. He started a magazine, American Venture Capital Exchange, that had a modest amount of success matching entrepreneurs with investors. He sold the magazine a few years ago and since then he has been trying to get his TV show, The Lexington League, off the ground.

In my opinion, The Lexington League is basically a free-market, pro-liberty version of 60 Minutes. Doug will disagree and point out the subtle ways that it is different. I won't dispute the differences but I do think they are subtle.

He ran for CA governor in the recall election in order to generate publicity for his TV show. He finished 5th from the bottom.

Fast forward to late June of this year. I sent an email to approximately 6 of my buddies, including Doug, suggesting that we use eminent domain to take Souter's house from him in order to tear it down and erect a mansion, which would be assessed and taxed at a higher rate. I later morphed this idea to be a bed and breakfast. In the email, I specifically referenced getting another of my friends involved because he is one of the country's leading experts on property rights and takings.

Doug sent me an email saying that it was a great idea and I would receive "100% of the credit" (not that I want or need the credit). He created the press release and sent it out and after being interviewed on about 10 radio shows and getting 380,000 hits on his website, he sent me another email acknowledging his indebtedness to me for the idea. However, he has avoided any public acknowledgement that the idea was anyone's except his own and he has declined to take advantage of my contacts including the aforementioned attorney as well as a friend of a friend who is a real estate developer. This leads me to believe that he is not serious about the use of eminent domain against Souter and he is really interested in getting people to mail him money and increasing the public's awareness of his TV show.

This is my conclusion. You are welcome to draw your own.