Mik Robertson wrote: MR> Is it to be primarily a document of principle or is it to promote liberty? <MR
John Shuey wrote: JS> the Libertarian Reform Caucus has taken the position that the platform should be a "marketing" or campaign document, aimed at what Libertarians, if elected, would strive to accomplish over the next two to four years, rather than a lengthy tome describing the ideal Libertarian world. <JS These are examples of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma. The LRC is absolutely right when it says the Platform should not (as the 2004 Platform did) explicitly endorse the most extreme positions of the LP's most extreme members. Unfortunately, the LRC also suffers from Contract With America envy: LRC> it has become clear to many that the Platform needs an entirely new approach. [...] The LRC s operative premise is that the LP should stand for libertarian change that can plausibly be enacted in "the next term in office." [...] the LRC believes it would be far more appropriate for Libertarians to advocate nearer-term, practical solutions. <LRC That in fact is the purpose of a legislative program -- something the LP used to maintain from as far back as 1992 to as recently as 2005. The last such program is here <http://web.archive.org/web/20040618162903/www.lp.org/issues/program/> . Thus for most of the last 15 years the LP tried what the LRC calls a "new approach", and it wasn't a magic bullet. If the LRC believes (as I do) that a realistic near-term legislative program is important, there is a much easier way to get one. With the Portland Bylaws changes, the LNC can now approve a Program with a majority vote instead of a 2/3 vote. So rather than trying to persuade the Denver delegates to transmogrify the LP Plaform into a legislative Program, it should simply draft a Program and submit it to the LNC. You ask for "marketing" documents, but the Platform should not try to be the first piece of outreach literature we ask voters to read. Instead, the Platform should be a comprehensive but terse reference document for looking up where the party stands on any issue that might be of concern to a sizable number of Americans. Too many of us fantasize (as I sometimes do) about the Platform being a sales tool, whose cover-to-cover reading will make the scales fall from voters' eyes. The LP already has collateral trying to be such a tool: our "signature brochure" A New Vision For <http://marketliberal.org/LP/NewVision.pdf> America, and the intro section <http://www.lp.org/issues/introduction.shtml> of of the LP web site. (There are also 13 voter-friendly essays on hot issues at http://www.lp.org/issues/issues.shtml.) Instead, the Platform needs to be a reference tool for -- and to remove obstacles confronting -- our sales force (the candidates) and the opinion leaders who evaluate them. You ask for a "campaign" document, but the LP has had those too. In 1996 <http://web.archive.org/web/19981201075404/www.lp.org/campplat/> and 2000 <http://web.archive.org/web/20030207233840/www.lp.org/issues/campplat/> the LP officially adopted a "National Campaign Platform" written by the Browne campaign and distinct from the Platfrom. The LP web site promoted the 2000 NCP all the way up to the 2004 convention, where Badnarik simply adopted the 2004 Platform as the 2004 NCP. Browne's NCP was still quite radical, but unlike the Platform it explicitly said it would keep the federal government to perform its "constitutional functions" like national defense and the judiciary. By contrast, the 2004 Platform nowhere said that government should necessarily even exist. (In 2006 somebody snuck in language saying "Government exists to protect the rights of every individual including life, liberty and property.") The Platform Committee should not try to be a sales or marketing team. Those are important jobs and some people here may be very good at them, but they aren't the role of a Platform Committee. Far fewer than 1% of voters ever read a party platform. The audience of party platforms is not the average voter, but rather: * opinion leaders, especially journalists and academics; * leaders of interest groups; * policy makers, like government staffers; and * opponents. The Platform isn't our voter pitch, it's our policy stand. The purpose of a third-party platform is to tell opinion leaders what positions the party defends or doesn't defend. The platforms of the major parties are custom-written by the presidential nominee's campaign staff to emphasize the achievements and failures of the major parties in the last four years, and the specific changes the nominee would push in the next four years. There is no prospect of a third party writing laws in the next four years, and a third party has no legislative record to stand on, so its platform needs to be more constant and comprehensive. The elephant in the room here is the inevitable backlash effort that will attempt in Denver to suspend the rules and completely replace the amputee 2006 Platform with the comprehensive 2004 Platform. To turn back that effort, we should publish well before Denver a complete repaired platform that can pull votes away from platform revanchism. If a repaired platform has anywhere near as much text in it as the 2004 or 2006 platforms, it will draw too much opposition, since more details tend to inspire dispute rather than consensus. Indeed, if a rewritten platform can't be easily read in one sitting, many delegates will be too suspicious of it to give it fair consideration. So the best hope for a complete repaired platform is a compact but comprehensive set of ~20 planks, each composed only of the broadest and consensus-worthy principles already stated in the current and past platforms. I've drafted such a streamlined greatest-hits platform using text from the 1972, 2004, and 2006 platforms, and I'll post it in a follow-up message. Before I post a link to the annotated version, read it through and see if you notice 1) which parts came from which prior platforms and 2) which five clauses/sentences are paraphrases instead of verbatim quotes of prior platform art. [Please excuse the cross-posting.] Brian Holtz 2006 California LP Platform Committee Rep <http://marketliberal.org/FixLP.html> http://marketliberal.org/FixLP.html 2004/6 Libertarian candidate for Congress, CA14 (Silicon Valley) http://marketliberal.org <http://marketliberal.org/> blog: http://knowinghumans.net <http://knowinghumans.net/>
