Greatest Hits LP Platform
Medium platform format which uses language from earlier versions of the LP Platform.
The goals are to declare our common ground instead of our battle lines, to
use timeless statements of principle that are consistent with both incremental
reform and radical ultimate goals, and to avoid new phrasing in favor of language
from current and prior platforms, including the original 1972 Denver Platform.
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Posted April 10, 2007
Goals
The goals of this draft LP Platform are to
- Declare our common ground instead of our battle lines;
- Use timeless statements of principle that are consistent with
both
incremental reform and radical ultimate goals;
- Avoid new phrasing in favor of language from current and prior
Platforms, including the original 1972 Denver
Platform;
- Cover a breadth of issues equal to that of the 2004 Platform but
in less than one third of its 61 planks;
- Trim from the Statement of Principles the sentences that state no
principles or are repetitious;
- Scour away decades of accreted issue descriptions, theoretical
justifications, laundry
lists, vouching for efficacy, etc.; and
- Reorganize the planks into one section for each of the two Nolan
Chart dimensions, and a third for orthogonal issues.
Details
Common
Ground. The way to unify the LP around a Platform is not
to just paste together contradictory wish lists from each LP faction.
Instead, we just need to write down what most liberty-lovers should be
able to agree on, while not taking sides on the issues over which large
numbers of liberty-lovers disagree. If we can't declare the Platform a
demilitarized zone, and instead insist on using the Platform as a
battleground for disputes over tactics and issues and ultimate visions,
then we as a party deserve the continuing failure that this will
guarantee.
Direction, Not Destination.
The Platform should eloquently and elegantly describe what the Bylaws
mean by "a libertarian direction" in public policy, by stating for each
issue a timeless principle that is consistent with both
incremental reform and radical ultimate goals. The Platform
should neither rule out nor explicitly mandate anarchotopia as the
final stop for the Freedom Train, but instead should simply state the
libertarian principles that define a path northward in Nolan Space
toward ever-increasing liberty.
Avoid
new phrasing. There is very little chance of an LP
convention adopting a Platform consisting primarily of brand-new
language. To minimize potential controversy, this
draft platfrom re-uses language from prior platforms wherever practical.
Breadth of issues. For
almost all of the 61 planks in the 2004 platform, one can point to
language
in this platform that covers the topic in some way.
Statement of Principles.
This draft ireduces the SoP to its two detailed core sentences.
It drops the "omnipotent cult" introductory sentence, two sentences of
historical claims, and two short sentences that restate the core
sentences. Its final statement about free markets is moved to the
Economic Liberty section introduction. Because of the Bylaw
requiring 7/8 approval for changing the SoP, this rewrite of the
Platform might need to be de-coupled from
this change to the SoP.
Leaner Planks. The
Atlanta format (issue/principle/solution/transition) attempts to avoid
factional conflict by pasting together two platforms, a radical one and
a moderate one. This approach has so far been unsuccessful, as
moderates continue to chafe at the explicitly radical language outside
the transition sections, while radicals protest that the transition
sections dilute their radical message. This problem is compounded by
how the planks have over the past decades been encrusted with
- laundry lists of examples and implementation details, e.g.
"Yellow Pages", "digital audio tape", "conservatorships", "Antarctica
and extraterrestrial bodies", "Saturday night specials", "motor vehicle
records", "landfills";
- theoretical arguments that attempt drive-by justfications of a
random subset of our positions;
- breathless demands for immediate repeals of an alphabet soup of
legislation and agencies and Supreme Court decisions;
- vouching assertions in a random subset of planks about the
benefits that will flow from our policies; and
- redundant planks organized around contemporary complaints or
specific government agencies instead of around timeless principles.
Rationalized Outline. The
original 1972 "Domestic Ills" section inanely listed "Education" as an
"ill", and by 2004 we had added other "ills" like Transportation,
Health Care, Energy, and Agriculture. Instead of organizing our
platform around the problems we don't want government to try to solve,
we should organize it around the liberties we stand for. With a
section each for Personal and Economic liberty, the remaining planks
(concerning foreign policy, franchise, and democratic procedure) are
collected into a section called Securing Liberty.
Color Coding Key
Text
like this is from (and nearly identical in) the 1972, 2004,
and 2006
platforms.
Text like this is from the
1972 platform.
Text like this is from
(and identical in) the 1972 and 2004 platforms.
Text like this is from the
2004 platform.
Text like this is
from (and identical in) the 2004 and 2006 platforms.
Text like this is from
the 2006 platform.
Text
like this is a new summary or elucidation of existing platform concepts.
Preamble
As Libertarians, we seek a
world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over
their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for
the benefit of others. We believe that respect for individual rights is
the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force
and fraud must be banished from human relationships, and that only
through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized. Consequently, we
defend each person's right to engage in any activity that is peaceful
and honest, and welcome the diversity that freedom brings. The world we
seek to build is one where individuals are free to follow their own
dreams in their own ways, without interference from government or any
authoritarian power. In the following pages we have set forth our basic
principles and enumerated various policy stands derived from those
principles. These specific policies are not our goal, however. Our goal
is nothing more nor less than a world set free in our lifetime, and it
is to this end that we take these stands.
Statement of Principles
We,
the members of the Libertarian Party, hold that all
individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own
lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so
long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others
to live in whatever manner they choose. We hold
that where governments exist, they must not violate the rights of any
individual: namely, (1) the right to life -- accordingly we support the
prohibition of the initiation of physical force against others; (2) the
right to liberty of speech and action -- accordingly we oppose all
attempts by government to abridge the freedom of speech and press, as
well as government censorship in any form; and (3) the right to
property -- accordingly we oppose all government interference with
private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminent
domain, and support the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud, and
misrepresentation.
1. Personal Liberty
Individuals
should be free to make choices for themselves and to accept
responsibility for the consequences of the choices they make. Our
support of an individual's right to make choices in
life does not mean that we necessarily approve or disapprove of those
choices.
1.1. Expression and Communication
We support full freedom of
expression, and
oppose government censorship, regulation or control of
communications media and technology.
We favor the freedom to engage in or
abstain from
any religious activities that do not violate the rights of others.
1.2. Personal and Bodily Privacy
We support the protections provided by the Fourth
Amendment to be
secure in our persons, homes, and
property. We
favor the freedom and responsibility of adults to decide what
sensations and substances they knowingly and voluntarily consume.
We favor the freedom of association among private parties to negotiate
how they use information voluntarily disclosed to each other.
1.3. Sexuality and Reproduction
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. Parents, or other
guardians, have the right to raise their children according to their
own standards and beliefs, without interference by government -- unless
they are abusing the children. We oppose all coercive measures for
population control.
1.4. Crime and Justice
Government exists
to protect the rights of every individual including life, liberty and
property. Criminal laws should be limited to
violation of the
rights of others through force or fraud, or deliberate actions that
place others involuntarily at significant risk of harm.
Individuals retain the right to voluntarily assume risk of harm to
themselves. We oppose
reduction of constitutional safeguards of the rights of the criminally
accused. We favor all-volunteer juries and recognize the
common-law right of juries to judge not only the facts but also the
justice of the law.
1.5. Self-Defense
The only
legitimate use of force is in defense of individual rights -- life,
liberty, and justly acquired property -- against aggression, whether by
force or fraud. Individuals may agree to
be aided in their use of defensive
force by any other individual or group. We affirm the
right to keep and bear arms.
2. Economic Liberty
A free and competitive market
allocates resources in the most efficient
manner. Each person has
the right to offer goods and services to
others on the free market. 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.
2.1. Property and Contract
The owners of property have the
full right to control, use, dispose of -- or in any manner enjoy --
their property without interference, until and unless the exercise of
their control infringes the valid rights of others. Property
rights are entitled to the same protection as
all other human rights. We
oppose all controls on wages,
prices, rents, profits, production, and interest rates. We oppose all violations of the right
to private property, liberty of contract, and freedom of trade. The
right to trade
includes the right not to trade -- for any reasons whatsoever.
Where property, including land, has been taken from its rightful owners
by the government or private action in violation of individual rights,
we favor restitution to the rightful owners.
2.2. Environment and Resources
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. Individuals have the right to
homestead unowned resources, both within the jurisdictions of national
governments and within unclaimed territory.
2.3. Government Finance
We
favor continuously reducing taxes as the functions of government are
privatized or made voluntary.
Government should not incur debt, which burdens future generations
without their consent. We support amending the US
Constitution to restrict Congress from
spending any more than it collected in revenue the previous year.
2.4. Money and Markets
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.
2.5. Monopolies, Corporations, and Labor
We seek to divest government of
all functions that can be provided by
non-governmental organizations or private individuals. We
defend the right of individuals to form corporations, cooperatives and
other types of companies based on voluntary association. We oppose government subsidies to
business, labor, or any other special
interest. Nuclear
power, transportation, and other industries should be governed by free
markets and held to strict liability. We seek the elimination of
occupational licensure. We support the right to associate or not
associate in labor unions. An employer should have the right to
recognize or refuse to recognize a union.
2.6. Health Care and Education
We advocate the separation of
education and State. As an interim measure to encourage the growth of
private schools and variety in education, including home schooling, we
support tax credits for tuition and other expenditures related to an
individual's education.
We advocate the separation of
medicine and State. We favor restoring and reviving a free market
health care system. We recognize the
freedom of individuals to determine the level of health insurance they
want, the level of health care they want, the care providers they want,
the medicines and treatments they will use and all other aspects of
their medical care.
2.7. Retirement and Income Security
We
advocate transitioning to a privatized retirement savings industry. The proper source of
help for the poor is the voluntary efforts of private groups and
individuals acting
in their communities, not central governments
besieged by special interests in a distant capital.
3. Securing Liberty
The principles which guide a
legitimate government in its
relationships with individuals and with other governments are the same
as those which
guide relationships among individuals: no individual, group, or
government may initiate
force against any other individual, group, or government.
3.1. National Defense
We
support the maintenance of a sufficient military to defend the United
States against aggression. We
oppose the government's use
of secret classifications to keep from the public information that it
should have, especially that which
shows that the government has violated the law. We oppose any form of
compulsory national service.
3.2. International Affairs
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. We recognize the right to unrestricted
trade and travel. We recognize the right of all people to
resist tyranny and defend themselves and their rights.
3.3. Immigration and Naturalization
Political freedom and escape
from tyranny demands that individuals not be unreasonably constrained
by government in the crossing of political boundaries. Economic freedom
demands the unrestricted movement of human as well as financial capital
across national borders. However,
we support control over the entry into our country of foreign nationals
who pose a threat to security, health or property.
3.4. Franchise and Discrimination
Government should
not deny, abridge or enhance any individual's rights at the expense of
other people's rights based on sex,
wealth, race, color, creed, age, national origin, personal habits,
political preference or sexual orientation.
3.5. Representative Government
We support
electoral systems that are more representative of the electorate at the
federal, state and local levels. In order to grant
voters a full range of choice in federal, state and local elections, we
propose proportional voting systems with multi-member districts for
legislative elections and instant runoff voting (IRV) for single-winner
elections.
Revision History
Persons who contributed or inspired the change are named in brackets.
- 2007-04-05 2.3. "Favor continuously reducing taxes" [Henry
Haller]
- 2007-03-28 2.3. Removed inaccurate "Balanced Budget" name
for proposed amendment [Henry Haller]
- 2007-03-28 2.4. Removed examples (including insider
trading) [M Carling, Robert Capozzi]
- 2007-03-27 3.5. Removed 1972 secession language. [Robert
Capozzi, John Shuey, M Carling]
- 2007-03-20 2.4. Clarify regulation of financial markets and
insider trading. [Robert Capozzi, John Shuey]
- 2007-03-20 1.3. Delete "We
support the repeal of all laws
restricting voluntary birth control
or voluntary termination of pregnancies during their first hundred
days." [Robert Capozzi, John Shuey]
- 2007-03-18 2.3. Delete "We
support the eventual repeal of
all taxation." [Robert Capozzi, John Shuey]
- 2007-03-18 1.5. Replace awkward "inhere" phrasing with "in
their use of defensive force" [Robert Capozzi]
- 2007-03-12 Initial draft
The platform above is an starting point of a platform in this format.
Please indicate your opinion of this format in the voting box below.
On subsequent pages you can rate the individual plank options. In the future we plan
to add the ability to add additional options, but this feature is still under
construction.
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