I was reading my April, 2006 edition of Reason magazine when I stumbled upon an advertisement for somehting called the Libertarian Reform Caucus. Its' stated goal is to put together a new platform for the Libertarian Party to make the party more inclusive so that it may grow faster, which would allow the party to have more clout now rather than later. The caucus asserts that the current platform is too radical for some folks who might join if the party simply made a few changes.
After having visited the caucus's website, it seems that one of their main goals is to work on changing the party's pledge. They have ten proposals, each one a rewritten version of the pledge that members may vote for or against.
The site looks nice and seems to have a sizeable amount of information, but I just kept wondering to myself while I was sifting through the pages if these people are wasting their time.
My gut feeling tells me that most democrats, republicans, and independents who do not join the LP, choose not to join based mostly on other reasons that have nothing to do with the pledge or most of the platform. I believe that most democrats and republicans could not even tell you what their own respective party's platforms state.
The people who do not join the LP do so for the same reasons that consumers continue to shop at the same grocery store week after week, or purchase auto insurance from the same agent year after year. They do not believe that their lives have been affected enough by any external factors that would motivate them to exert the effort to make such a change, much less advocate for others to change. I believe the only solution to this problem is to wake these people up with a little history about the gradual decline of personal and economic liberty in this country. The movement is still in desperate need of people who will spread the ideas of liberty to others.
One point the group makes that I believe to be a good thing is the bottom up theory. This theory is based on the idea that unknown candidates who get involved in local politics have an easier chance of being elected, and therefore an area that can have a more immediate impact on our local lives.
I am not quite sure if this effort is going anywhere, but if is succeeds in bringing large numbers of people into the party, then best of luck to it. I just hope that they do not end up de-radicalizing the party so much that it no longer adheres to the founding principles.
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3 comments:
Changing the platform makes a huge difference. Most people don't read platforms, but they do listen to political mavens -- who do. (See "The Tipping Point.") Also, our current pledge and platform commits us to a very strident, don't give a damn about the consequenses attitude that most people can pick up.
I have tested approaches and ideas in the field. It is possible to sell the ACLU/hippie left on reduced government in the economic sphere. However, if the Party is committed to an all-or-nothing approach, then we cannot use these approaches and ideas.
When I switched from the hardcore Rothbardian "freedom is the only important political value" approach, to "freedom is one of many values," the number of people I could get to adopt a more pro-freedom attitude went up by over an order of magnitude. See www.holisticpolitics.org for examples of how to do this.
If the platform and the pledge get fixed, I hope to move on to effective outreach materials and communications lessons. But there is no point in doing this if such things are at odds with the foundation documents of the party.
It sounds like you have done your homework on this, so I do not doubt that your intentions may have promise. But just how much do you have to change in order to sell the "ACLU/hippie left" on joining the LP. I thought most of those people only cared about freedom in the bedroom, not economic freedom.
And if you are successfull in changing the platform enough to make it easier to bring those people in, what percentage of current members do you suppose will exit the party?
Perhaps you have already considered this and have decided that the trade off will result in a net gain in membership.
I have an open mind so I will continue to think about your theory. Best of luck to you.
The ACLU liberal types care about the environment and corporate domination. This is not equivalent to being against markets. The Nolan Chart does a poor job of describing liberals. (It does a much better job of describing the difference between libertarians and conservatives.)
The classical liberal movement was (relative to its time) egalitarian. The same could be true of the modern libertarian movement. It is mostly a matter of choosing order of dismantling government and making taxes truly fee-for-service. (Wealth taxes vs. sales taxes.)
As for the environment, we have some good stuff and some bad stuff in our bag of tricks. We should wake up and realize that the federal government is the appropriate body to decide on how to penalize widespread polluters like coal fired power plants, and trucks (mobile noise sources). The LP's idea of private property enforcement, is much better suited for local forms of pollution like groundwater, trash, and stationary noise sources.
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