The LP's call to get the US out of the UN and the UN out of the US no longer
exists. The platform no longer opposes
three planks of the Communist Manifesto, the Income Tax, the Federal Reserve
System and government schools.
There are a few condescending phrases in the article which I do not endorse. I
hope that Rockwell's prediction is wrong.
We need to restore the Platform so that we don't find out.
For life and liberty,
David Macko
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The LP's Turkish Delight
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
DIGG THIS
I've tended to ignore all the goings on with the LP platform for
the same reason that most people have. It appears to have all the significance
of a subdivision homeowners' meeting on the placement and type of shrubberies
in common areas. This might be important to those who live there, but its
importance is localized, with no spillover effects to neighboring communities.
For those who haven't heard, the large, pedagogically useful,
principled, and detailed Libertarian Platform - the best thing about the party
- has been relegated to the wayback machine, and is now replaced with a new
one, which is tiny, vague, rhetorically slippery, accommodating, friendlier to
the state, and non-threatening to mainstream opinion.
Why? The small band that orchestrated this coup confesses: they
want the LP to gain power. They've admired the way the Republicans and
Democrats have done it, and now they want to do it too. Gone is the posture of
opposition, the radicalism, the edge, the braininess.
The debate has been framed as one between dogmatists and
pragmatists. What's remarkable here is how the pragmatists are willing to
concede just about every criticism made by the principled LPers of old. They
admit that they have watered down the entire program. They admit to being pure
pragmatists. They admit that they like certain aspects of the state, and were
unhappy with the consistency and comprehensive radicalism of the old platform.
Carl Milsted - who seems to have played the major role in this -
puts it this way: the LP has waffled between two separate functions. It tries
to be "a radical protest organization (a PETA for liberty)" and also a
"political party to get freedom lovers elected to office," so he thinks the
former role ought to be abandoned in order to achieve the latter.
But you know what? The LP was not founded to get people elected to
office. It was founded to oppose the regime and educate the public, and use
elections as the vehicle to do so. The American system of government and
elections is set up and managed to accommodate two parties. The idea of
becoming a third party was only to underscore the evil and trickery of the
system.
Milsted is right that the idea of a principled political party is
incongruous. So what conclusion does he come to? Let's get rid of principle and
stick to politics. It's like saying there is a fly in my soup, so let's get rid
of the soup and eat the fly!
Murray Rothbard was also very unhappy about the mix, and he warned
against the creation of the LP for that very reason. He believed that there
weren't enough libertarians to make it work, that its failure to work could be
seen as a failure of libertarianism generally, that the very idea of a
political party would invite every manner of political maneuvering toward
expediency, and that it would be a huge drain of intellectual energy.
But once it was created, Rothbard threw himself into the goal of
minimizing the damage. He worked to make the party platform a statement of
principle and a means of education, a public document that would shock and
alarm people into rethinking their core political assumptions. He believed in
the power of ideas, but not the power of power itself. This is why he sought
make the LP into a cultural force for telling the truth. Since it could never
win elections, and the attempt to do so could only result in watering down and
selling out, he sought to make the LP into the best it could be.
So it has been for many years. But over time, the LP became a
source of frustration for serious people. With the platform now gutted, the
inevitable has happened. The organizationally empty shell that was the LP has
come to be occupied by people who have no clue.
This is all the result of a brain drain from the LP that has been
going on for decades. The smart set is a tiny and demoralized minority. The
archetypical LP activist today has a very thin knowledge base from which to
draw. He is a child and the LP is his sandbox. Details of issues like monetary
reform, safety regulations, secession, the theory and policy of monopoly, and
international trade are completely beyond him.
Not that the platform editors cared. Nor should we be surprised. If
you put a garage band in charge of editing a Wagner opera, you are going to end
up with something very different indeed. This is essentially what happened to
the LP platform.
So the overarching feature of the new platform is that it has been
seriously dumbed down. Thus, for example, the old platform said: "We favor the
repeal of the Logan Act, which prohibits private American citizens from
engaging in diplomatic negotiations with foreign governments." The new crew
struck it down.
In fact, all smart-set planks are gone, with something like 80% of
the platform tossed out. This old passage on international travel and foreign
investment was fabulous, for example: "We recognize that foreign governments
might violate the rights of Americans traveling, living or owning property
abroad, just as those governments violate the rights of their own citizens. Any
effort, however, to extend the protection of the United States government to
U.S. citizens when they or their property fall within the jurisdiction of a
foreign government involves potential military intervention. In particular, the
protection of the foreign investments of U.S. citizens or businesses is an
unjust tax-supported subsidy."
Now, this is a hugely important plank that zeros in on one of the
major excuses for foreign wars: the bad guys abroad are stealing from and
hurting Americans. But the new group in charge of editing just cut it out.
It takes a smart set to see through the haze of the
political-cultural moment, and divine the true motives of the state. Just one
example: the use of the phrase national security. The old platform saw it as a
ruse. "We call for repeal of legislation that violates individual rights under
the color of national security," it said. "We oppose all violations of the
right to private property, liberty of contract, and freedom of trade,
especially those done in the name of national security."
The new one, however, is uncomprehending about the uses of that
phrase: "Ensure immigration requirements include only appropriate
documentation, screening for criminal background and threats to public health
and national security."
Oh, I see: the LP endorses the current system!
The people who put together the new document believe that it has
more of a mainstream viability than the old one. In claiming this, they are
employing the theory of the "median voter," though they don't call it that. The
idea is that politicians should adapt themselves to appeal to the largest
section of voters and cut off the extremes that it can already count on.
The problem is that the median voter theory applies only to parties
that already have mainstream viability. If the very existence of your party
wholly depends on its extremes, adopting this approach will lead to
institutional death.
But might the new platform draw in more mainstream voters? I doubt
it. It makes sweeping statements without specifics, leaving even more room for
people to believe that libertarians are know-nothings. In foreign affairs, for
example, it retains only the preamble of the old platform. Explanation,
illustration, and compelling detail are completely gone.
Now consider which is more persuasive. Imagine yourself at a
cocktail party. You say to your guest: "The United States government should
return to the historic libertarian tradition of avoiding entangling alliances,
abstaining totally from foreign quarrels and imperialist adventures." You are
essentially asking for ascent without specifics or further explanation.
However, let's say you take a different tactic and explain that you
want "to end the President's power to initiate military action, and [to
abrogate] all Presidential declarations of 'states of emergency.' There must be
no further secret commitments and unilateral acts of military intervention by
the Executive Branch."
The second statement is clearly going to compel interest and might
even get people thinking.
And yet the new drafters say that they are not really interested in
educating people. They are only interested in getting votes. But they have
misdiagnosed the problem. The people who vote for the LP are committed
activists who don't think that it really matters whether the Republicans or
Democrats win.
Thus has emerged in recent years a very important role for the LP,
and the only viable political roll: it has become a spoiler for Republican
candidates. By controlling only 2-4 percent of the voters, it can swing whole
elections in favor of one candidate or another.
If you want to see how this works, please listen to this speech by
John Sophocleus, who ran for governor in Alabama. You will be inspired by his
experience in educating people about liberty, and how this played a role in
causing the Republicans to completely freak out. He never had any illusions
about winning. In fact, he didn't want to win. Essentially he wanted to cause
trouble for the bad guys and enlighten the masses. He did both!
But then Professor Sophocleus is smart.
Why should we care about the LP platform? The problem, of course,
is that this is the libertarian party, and the word itself is rather important.
We would all like to call ourselves liberal in the tradition of Cobden, Bright,
Jefferson, and Bastiat, but our usage does not accord with current
understanding. In addition, the term old liberal and libertarianism are not
synonymous: the libertarian has a theory of the state that is more coherent and
consistent than that of the classical liberals.
To call ourselves conservatives is out of the question in times
when the main symbols of conservatism are the tank, the bomb, and the
nightstick.
So, we are libertarians tried and true, regardless of what the
platform says.
What's remarkable about this boondoggle is that those who brought
it about haven't heeded any lessons from the longest running political success
of an American libertarian politician in our history, namely that of Ron Paul.
He is super radical in all specifics, super radical on all general principles,
super "median voter" in his presentation, and, above all else, incredibly
honest and trustworthy. People love him. He will likely serve in the US House
of Representatives as a Republican as long as he is willing to serve.
Does he have "power"? No he does not. He is a voice of opposition.
He is a teacher. He is an inspiration. That is his role. Libertarians who win
public office all find the same thing. The only way to have the power that the
LP reformers want is to abandon principle. But then you also abandon
libertarianism in every way except in name.
Here is a prediction, and, yes, I'll be happy to admit that I'm
wrong if it turns out not to be the case. The new LP platform will not increase
the percentage of votes the LP will receive in the national election. By
demoralizing the serious activists and talking down to intellectuals, it will
result in a diminished percentage of the overall votes.
Thus will they have given up principle for power and not even
gained that. The LP won't cease to exist. It will just take its place among the
many other third parties that you have never heard of, such as the Prohibition
Party.
September 5, 2006
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. [send him mail] is president of the
Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, editor of LewRockwell.com, and
author of Speaking of Liberty.
Copyright © 2006 LewRockwell.com
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