Susan, maybe you should debate Restore04 leader David Nolan instead of me, because he wrote the Pledge you just quoted, and he says it doesn't commit LP members to your absolutist view that it's more important to abstain from force-initiation than it is to minimize it. For details, see http://libertarianmajority.net/does-the-pledge-mandate-zero-aggression-absol utism. And if instead you think it's the SoP that specifies your pinched definition of what it means to be a Libertarian, see http://libertarianmajority.net/does-the-sop-mandate-zero-agression-absolutis m. It's nice that -- on a forum you can't censor -- you say you "do understand that different ways of understanding aggression can lead to different ways of thinking about libertarianism". Does that mean you no longer think it's an "abomination" for e.g. geoanarchist theorist (and LP member) Prof. Fred Foldvary to advocate taxes on pollution and congestion and land value as a replacement for all taxes on income (wages, interest, dividends, profits, gifts, and inheritance), production (including value added), transactions (e.g. the sale, import, or export of goods and services), and wealth (e.g. real estate improvements, capital, or other assets)? At http://knowinghumans.net/2008/01/tax-bads-and-untax-goods-with-green-tax.htm l he explains how his position derives from the geolibertarian interpretation of aggression. Do you or do you not think that the LP Platform should rule out that interpretation? (You can add this to your debate with David Nolan, since he agrees with Foldvary and Milton Friedman and me that a land value tax is the least bad kind of tax.) Sean, I agree with Susan that the idea of caucuses isn't necessarily divisive. The key question is whether a caucus is working toward ecumenicalism across the major schools of libertarianism, versus trying to have one minority school endorsed as the most "pure" or "principled". I think it's healthy for Susan and I to each argue that our favorite school of libertarianism is more pure and principled than the rest. What's unhealthy is for one of us to argue that the party's fundamental documents -- and membership oath! -- should declare that one school is best. And again, I agree with Susan that the "mission statement" is too narrow, and that the LNC should be less timid about passing policy resolutions, as long as they clearly are within the bounds of whatever Platform, Program, and resolutions the delegates approved at the most recent NatCon. Chuck, I remain full of awe and admiration of how you can so skillfully navigate the stormy (but ultimately narrow) waters separating the radicals and reformers. Despite your criticism that the Pure Principles draft is as flawed by extremism as the 2004 Platform, you give me hope for the future of the LP. I had you in mind when I said in the debate: "some of us are anarchists who believe that growing the LP only creates future anarchists, and that shrinking the government only creates stronger evidence for anarchism." If only all LP radicals had your intellectual confidence in the power of radical ideology to set fire to all minds who flutter closer to its flame, then we'd have damn little to debate about here.
