Intro statement: Each of you gets a 200 word introduction statement with no rebuttals. The LP draws 0.3% to 3% of the vote, but polls show ~20% of voters want both more personal liberty and more economic liberty. The Reform Caucus wants to unite all those voters behind the electoral choices that will most move public policy in a libertarian direction. Our primary goal is to fix the LP platform so that these voters can agree that the LP's solutions are the best, and start electing our candidates to begin rolling back the nanny state now. Platform repair is necessary for building a bigger party and tipping elections, but it's hardly sufficient. We want to build an LP whose official texts represent all libertarians -- Cato- and Chicago-style minarchists, Ron-Paul-style constitutionalists, Objectivists, anarcholibertarians, paleolibertarians, neolibertarians, geolibertarians, ecolibertarians, less-archists -- without declaring in those texts that any one school is better than the rest. We are the no-longer-silent libertarian majority of the LP, uniting under a Big Tent all libertarian inclusivists and incrementalists, whether moderate or radical, as long as they are ecumenical toward their fellow libertarians. Our Platform will let LP candidates (like Ron Paul?) follow their conscience for the rare issues on which the major schools and scholars of our movement cannot agree. Our site is <http://reformthelp.org/> http://reformthelp.org. Question One. There have been a lot of differing perceptions published about what happened to the LP platform at the 2006 Libertarian National Convention in Portland, OR. What is your view of what transpired? (each of you gets a 300 word answer and then a 100 word rebuttal of your opponent's answer)
The LRC's agenda in Portland was to reform the LP Pledge. We failed. There was no coordinated attempt by we four LRC members on the 2006 PlatCom to rewrite or purge the Platform. Voting on our site before Portland called for outright deletion of only 15 planks -- not the 46 that disappeared. The Portland delegates were not voting that the LP should forever be silent on all the topics of the planks we voted against. Rather, we were protesting the extremism and bloatedness of the Platform, and trying to use plank retention to open the door to a cleaner Platform more inclusive of the major schools of principled libertarianism. We opened that door, but our task is not yet done. We call on the no-longer-silent libertarian majority of the LP to come with us to Denver and help us finish the job. Delegate frustration with the Platform's extremism and verbal diarrhea left us with a crater instead of the construction site the LRC hoped for. Those who say the LRC planned, or are happy with, the 15-plank Portland Platform are either lying or ignorant. We want more than anyone to repair the Portland Crater -- using the shining principles that unite all libertarians. Question Two: What are the key bylaws changes you would like to see implemented in 2008? Why? We support the SoP change from "challenge the cult of the omnipotent state" to simply "challenge all aggression". Any opponent of aggression or silliness should agree, but many will oppose this simply because we support it. Sigh. The SoP was hastily composed out of Randian rhetoric in a hotel room during the original 1972 NatCon. The 7/8 rule makes it effectively un-repairable, and the one tweak ever made to it used a one-time provision from page 4 of the 1972 Bylaws allowing the SoP to be changed by a 2/3 vote at the 1974 Dallas convention. Most LRC members probably agree with shortening the LP Purpose to: "expand individual liberty by increasing the number of Libertarians holding elected public office in the United States." The LP's specialty should be electoral politics in all its forms and uses, and other libertarian institutions are better at producing white papers and generating scholarship and refining libertarian theory. Most LRC members probably support restricting the Pledge to just NatCon delegates and PlatCom members, as it removes an ambiguous tripping hazard to new memberships while solemnizing the Pledge by making it apply to a select few. The Pledge should not be interpreted as a loyalty oath to one particular species of libertarianism, and we believe LP founder David Nolan when he says the Pledge was for protecting the Party from possible accusations that it seeks the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. Pre-submitting NatCon floor resolutions to the PlatCom for ranking is smart. The LNC demurs from making policy pronouncements, and recent NatCons haven't picked up the slack. Hasty resolutions on Iraq and impeachment failed in Portland because they were too difficult to fix on the fly; well-crafted resolutions probably could have passed easily. (I -- not the LRC -- have drafts on both topics at http://knowinghumans.net <http://knowinghumans.net/> .) Question Three: What are the key platform changes you would like to see implemented in 2008? Why? The old Platform vainly tried to paper over factional fault lines by pasting together two different platforms, a radical one and an incrementalist one. It failed. Our PlatCom members propose to replace the Portland Crater with a Platform that declares our common ground instead of our battle lines. Our draft restores the Platform's full breadth of issue coverage, while leaving out the laundry lists, stale issue descriptions, arcane philosophical justifications, vouching for efficacy, and obscure minutiae that had encrusted our shining principles over the decades. We're using all the best language of 12 past Platforms to describe for each issue what the Bylaws mean by "a libertarian direction in public policy", thereby stating a timeless principle that is consistent with both incremental reform and radical ultimate goals. Examples: "We seek to divest government of all functions that can be provided by non-governmental organizations or private individuals." "All persons are entitled to keep the fruits of their labor. We call for the repeal of the income tax, the abolishment of the IRS and all federal programs and services not required under the US Constitution." Most of the text in our draft was in the 2004 Platform, but we preserve the 2006 principles on e.g. gay rights and immigration, and bring back some classic language from as far back as the original 1972 Platform. The old Platform was organized around "Ills" like Education and Agriculture. Instead of organizing our draft around the problems we don't want government to try to solve, we organize it around the liberties that the LP proclaims. It follows the classic distinction between Personal Liberty and Economic Liberty embodied in David Nolan's famous Chart, and adds a third section (concerning foreign policy, franchise, and democratic procedure) called Securing Liberty. Read our latest draft at <http://marketliberal.org/PlatComWiki/Greatest_Hits_Draft_Platform> http://marketliberal.org/PlatComWiki/Greatest_Hits_Draft_Platform. Question Four (for Susan [....]) Question Five (for Brian-300 words, Susan gets to rebut - 100 words): A number of Libertarians accuse the Reform Caucus of being unprincipled, (or placing pragmatism over principle), of opposing anarchism, of wishing to strip the platform of historical and traditionally libertarian planks like opposition to the War on Drugs, and of favoring the War in Iraq? How do you respond to these charges? Our opposition to the War on Drugs and military adventurism is clearly proclaimed in our draft Platform: "We favor the repeal of all laws creating 'crimes' without victims, such as the use of drugs for medicinal or recreational purposes." "The United States should abandon its attempts to act as policeman for the world. The important principle in foreign policy should be the elimination of intervention by the United States government in the affairs of other nations. American foreign policy should seek an America at peace with the world and the defense -- against attack from abroad -- of the lives, liberty, and property of the American people on American soil." Our commitment to principle is evident in the 20 strong planks we've assembled from principles proclaimed by past LP Platforms. Many of us disagree with anarchism, but 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. Since our draft Platform is 100% recycled, it says nothing against anarchism that hasn't already been part of the LP Platform. We don't place pragmatism over principle; we merely decline to proclaim that one school of libertarianism is more principled than all the others. Some of us indeed reject an absolutist interpretation of the principle against force initiation. Others of us treat it (like Harry Browne did) as an ideal, always to be strived for but probably never to be achieved. Still others of us say that "zero-aggression" absolutists are themselves insufficiently principled in how they deal with varieties of aggression such as pollution, resource consumption, location monopolies, and free-riding. But each of us wants all freedom-lovers to join the LP's campaign to win a free country. Question Six (100 words each, no rebuttal): Do you have anything positive, or nice, to say about your opposition? We consider each "opponent" a fellow freedom-fighter in the LP's big tent. We're impressed by how many radicals embrace Ron Paul, even though he advocates many positions over which some LP radicals bitterly criticize LP reformers. Ron Paul 1) proclaims there are "proper constitutional functions of the federal government"; 2) advocates force-initiating "tariffs, excise taxes, and property taxes"; 3) rejects the LP's pre-2006 demand for unrestricted immigration; 4) demurs from near-term abolition of the nanny state; 5) denies that private markets alone can provide national defense; and 6) supported the use of the tax-financed military against Afghanistan for harboring the planners of 9/11.
