Howard Pearce wrote: BH> In particular, does an LP Platform "debase libertarian belief" if it does not call for any of the following? * legalized child prostitution ["repeal of all laws that restrict anyone, including children, from engaging in voluntary exchanges of goods, services, or information regarding human sexuality"]; <BH
HP> I need to see more context here ... This statement certainly does need scrutiny as children are not adults. Have you considered the possability of bad wording ? <HP If it's merely bad wording, it managed not to get fixed in any Platform from 2004 all the way back to at least 1990. Nothing in the context of these platforms rescues this wording; see for yourself here <http://marketliberal.org/LP/Platforms/> . Do you have any problem with the Greatest Hits language on this topic? It says: "We favor the freedom and responsibility of adults to decide what sensations and substances they knowingly and voluntarily consume. We favor the freedom of all adults to engage in any consensual amorous or reproductive behavior or relationship that does not violate the rights of others." BH> * immediate repeal of all drug laws, without regard to kind of drug; <BH HP> I agree ... We can quibble with the use of the word "immediate". But what kind of drug would u like to prohibit ? pink, or blue ? Not politically popular ones ? <HP I don't have a list of drugs I want to prohibit. I just don't want anarchopurists to use the Platform as a cudgel against Libertarian candidates who advocate first decriminalizing (say) marijuana and steroids before (say) heroin and crack. Do you have any problem with the GH "sensations and substances" language above as being the entirety of the Platform's drug language? On weapons, do you have any problem with the Platform just saying: "We affirm the right to keep and bear arms."? BH> * immediate non-enforcement of all tax laws; * "repeal of all taxation" <BH HP> Immediate seems extreme again .... not the final concept <HP So we agree that "immediate" is extreme. Cool. Now, does the GH draft "debase libertarian beliefs" if it doesn't explicitly advocate eventual repeal of all taxation? It instead says: GH> The only proper role of existing governments in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected. We oppose all government interference with voluntary and contractual relations among individuals. People should be allowed to deal with one another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, is the free market. We seek to divest government of all functions that can be provided by non-governmental organizations or private individuals. <GH Doesn't that say it all? Does the Platform really need to say that minarchist libertarians are wrong for not wanting to repeal all taxation? BH> * replacement of all environmental protections with "trespass and nuisance" torts; <BH HP> If the laws can be classified as tresspass and tort violations, then the protection would be OK. Maybe the point here is that all environmental protections...like protections against murder...should be viewed as some sort of right violation ... and not just state mandate. <HP Right. The GH draft says " Pollution of other people's property is a violation of individual rights. We support the development of an objective system defining resource rights, including riparian rights, as individual property rights to prevent the inevitable over-exploitation of resources held communally and to manage negative externalities like pollution." Any problems there? BH> * "elimination of all government fiat money"; <BH HP> eventaul elimination of fiat money would be a good thing <HP The GH draft says "We favor free-market banking, with unrestricted competition among banks and depository institutions of all types. Individuals engaged in voluntary exchange should be free to use as money any mutually agreeable commodity or item. Regulation of financial and capital markets should be limited to prohibition of force and fraud." Do we need to say anything more than this about money? BH> * privatization of public roads. <BH HP> as would privatization of many state services like the mail and roads be good too. <HP The GH draft says "We seek to divest government of all functions that can be provided by non-governmental organizations or private individuals." Roads are a special case, as most minarchist libertarians accept the textbook economic argument that high fixed costs and vanishing marginal costs make roads -- especially uncongested local roads -- a canonical example of a natural monopoly <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly> . However, the GH language leaves the door open for anarchopurists to prove to the rest of us that all roads could be privatized. HP> in all above cases, I can see where the ideas are coming from ... none would I automatically eliminate outright. <HP The above exercise shows how easy it is for less-archists of all stripes to agree when we operate at the right level of abstraction. It's futile to exchange endless shouts of "principled!" "pragmatic!" "principled!" "pragmatic!". It's similarly unwise for the Platform to adopt the issue/principle/solution/transition format, in which each side gets to include in its "sandbox" all the language that infuriates the other side. If instead the Platform simply states the timeless principles that most less-archists agree on, our tactical differences will melt away, and we'll stand united against the nanny state that we all oppose. HP> Any position that primarily holds we supress or rid ourselves of ideas/planks because they are "extreme" , not popular debase libertarianism .... as there is no principle involved is such stands at all <HP The idea isn't to compose the LP Platform based on what 51% of the voters think. The idea is to make the LP Platform compatible with the various principled flavors of libertarianism, instead of it being a cudgel with which one faction (minarchist or anarchist) can pummel another. Again, principled and self-consisted non-anarchist libertarian worldviews that can be assembled from combinations of elements like * radical <http://www.foldvary.net/works/auspc.pdf> federalism; * geolibertarian <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarian> resource communalism; * left-libertarian <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-Libertarianism> critiques of alleged coercion inherent in original property acquisitions and unequal economic associations; * the theory of public <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_goods> goods and free rider <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem> problems; * the theory of natural <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly> monopolies; * the theory of negative <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_externality> externalities; and even * libertarian <http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/conf/conf48/papers/thaler.pdf> paternalism based on game-theoretic analysis of bounded <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases> rationality. There is no such thing as The One True Libertarianism, and anarcholibertarians do not have a monopoly on principle. Personally, I would argue that economics-based minarchism is more liberty-maximizing -- i.e. more libertarian and more principled -- than a bumper-sticker-based philosophy of anarcholibertarianism. But if we think we have to settle that argument in the Platform before we can unite to start rolling back the nanny state, then our cause is already lost, and the LP should be broken up into separate debating teams for each faction.
