Steven Alexander wrote to Scott Lieberman: SA> if our candidate has a chance of winning, his opponents will attack him. They're not going to be stopped by a mild-mannered platform. They'll just get a copy of the previous, fire-breathing platform. Or an old issue of LP News. Or [...] <SA
In the 22 reports I've documented so far at http://www.lpedia.org/index.php/Uses_Of_Platform_To_Attack_LP, only 6 of the attacks came from opposing candidates. The rest came from journalists, who would be less likely to risk their reputation for fairness and balance by citing LP positions that are no longer in the current platform. If an opponent did try to paint our candidate with views that neither he nor the LP endorse, that would be a golden opportunity not only to hammer the opponent for a blatant smear, but also to stress that the LP has turned a corner. Reporters love a story with a hook. An opponent citing official LP positions against our candidate is a one-sided story, with little need for rebuttal. An opponent smearing our candidate with positions that neither he nor the LP endorses has a built-in hook: major-party candidate is so scared of third party upstart that he has to sling mud. SA> there's no way to get our opponents to not hold us accountable for what we more or less believe. <SA But many of our candidates DON'T believe the Rothbardian zero-state absolutism of the antique LP Platform. Of the the nine LP presidential tickets, at least seven were headed by men who conceded (then or later) that coercive taxation will be necessary indefinitely -- rejecting the antique platform's call for abolition of all taxation and immediate non-enforcement of tax laws. Andre Marrou may merely have opposed "excessive <http://www.rkba.org/libertarian/isil/general/marrouj4.txt> taxation", which would make it 8 out of 9. And while David Bergland was a Rothbardian radical when nominated in 1984, by 2000 he was managing the campaign of Harry Browne, who wrote <http://www.harrybrowne.org/GLO/FreeTrade.htm> at the time that "until we find a way to finance government without taxes or a way to assure our safety without any government, some form of taxation will be necessary". Or consider the antique platform's old and untenable position on the exclusive use of torts to regulate pollution. As I documented in my July 2004 article <http://ca.lp.org/cf/CF-200407.pdf> in California Freedom, the 2004 election cycle saw this dogma questioned by two leading LP candidates: California Senate nominee Jim Gray, and presidential hopeful Aaron Russo. Also, I don't think there are very many LP candidates who would fully endorse the old platform's advocacy of * immediate repeal of all drug laws, without regard to kind of drug; * opposition to "all attempts to ban weapons", without regard to kind of weapon; * privatization of public roads. SA> Keep in mind that a platform can energize our base. That's how the major parties use it. <SA No, the opposite is the case. The major parties use the primary season to energize their base as candidates run away from centrism in pursuit of the nomination, but at the convention the nominee adopts a centrist platform and runs to the center in the general election -- just as would be predicted by the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_voter_theorem. For example, the 2004 GOP platform did not mention opposing minimum wage increases, and the only abortion ban it advocated was for "partial birth" abortions. SA> The Pragmatarians seem to take our base for granted <SA The Rothbardian absolutist part of our base is at most about five thousand people, and is not going to move the needle on our vote totals. Our base is important for reasons other than vote totals, but some extremist elements of our base hurt our cause more than help it. SA> It may be necessary to start a new movement, and call it something else. Maybe the "Improvement Party;" unfortunately "Reform Party" is already taken. I'm serious about that. Is the LP infrastructure so valuable that it outweighs the PR baggage? <SA The platform baggage can be fixed with a couple hours' work in Denver, but the LP's name and brand and ballot access are just three things that would be monumentally difficult to replace. We have a hard enough time fighting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duvergers_Law as it is, so it would be foolish for liberty-lovers to dilute their electoral power by forming multiple parties in the northern quadrant of Nolan space. The best way to move America in a given direction in Nolan space is to aggregate into the same political party as many voters as possible who prefer that direction. SA> it mostly follows the Rothbard formula for correct gradualism <SA Rothbard bitterly opposed compromising his zero-coercion zero-state absolutist gospel for the sake of attracting votes. He wasn't interested in votes that weren't votes for "pure" libertarianism. He wrote that the purpose of campaigns was to educate the public about absolutist libertarianism and to build "cadre", as opposed to influencing public policy in a libertarian direction. He opposed any gradualism that made any suggestion whatsoever that some steps of "destatization" might be wise to take earlier than others. Just read http://www.mises.org/story/1709 to see the strawman argumentation and rabid anarchism required for him to justify that opposition. Another example is http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard83.html, where the Lew Rockwell site is so twisted by spite that they've expunged from the article every mention of the name of 1980 LP presidential nominee Ed Clark. SA> The teachers' unions aren't going like "encouraging school choice and competition" any more than they like "smash the socialist schools," and we can expect them to tell the voters what we're "really plotting." <SA We seek the votes of parents, not union hacks. If we're really plotting to privatize not only the school but every street needed to get to the school, then our inevitable failure to move public policy in a libertarian direction will be deserved.
