While I think the arguments made at www.restore04.com stand on their own, and
I urge everyone to read the petition at that site, I want to respond to one common objection offered to the idea of a comprehensive platform: that it scares
people away from the party. My take:
(1) The primary purpose of a platform is to define to the members of the LP who we are and what we believe. It is also an absolutely essential tool for candidates and activists so that we learn about all the issues that might come up in our attempts to convert others, and also gain an awareness of the various ways government impedes on liberty. Once I became active in the party in 1979, I went through every bloody word of the comprehensive platform to clarify my understanding, learn about government intrusions I never even knew existed, and prepare myself to be a better activist. Mary Ruwart served on the platform committee, and her encyclopedic knowledge of libertarianism is in no small part due to her having studied the entire platform to formulate the responses that have made her books and columns so helpful and persuasive.
Just to take a single example: the 2004 platform refers to the Neutrality Act of 1794, a critical law that barred private individuals from negotiating with other governments or helping to fight them either actively or financially. Candidates constantly are asked whether "we" should have sat on our hands during Hitler's rise to power in the 1930's, and one answer is to point out that all American citizens were FORCED to sit on their hands by the US government as a result of this law until 1941, and that Americans today are FORCED to do nothing about Osama bin Laden. A candidate who is asked about this law and has no idea what it is embarrasses the party and makes us look "unserious." The 2006 platform provides no guidance at all to candidates on the entire area of war, foreign policy, and defense except for a 2 paragraph platitude about Foreign Affairs in general.
(2) A campaign should have other outreach tools, designed by the candidate and specific to the issues in their district. Even the emasculated platform of 2006 is too long and dull to be used as a campaign brochure or other tool. My favorite candidate for the nomination is not going to be handing out the platform: she is going to be building her campaign around 3 themes (Foreign Policy, The Economy, and Health Care) and designing issue- and year-specific materials. As presently designed, our platform is useless for outreach as well as for inreach.
(3) As for the public asking for copies of our platform, we should be so lucky. Few will do so, and those who do are indicating their readiness to study libertarianism in detail. Reporters are going to dig to get answers to their questions one way or another, but some will self-educate and become more sympathetic, or even become libertarians.
(4) In any event, YOU CAN'T PUT THE GENIE BACK INTO THE BOTTLE. Recently, Tim Russert put up a plank from the LP platform of 1988 in an interview with Ron Paul, and he was forced to either defend or repudiate it. Those who are looking for our dirty laundry (assuming correct but unpopular stands should shame us) will find it. Right now, LP candidates are in the worst of both worlds: our old platforms are easily available, but the candidates and activists are not being encouraged to learn what is in them and be prepared to defend them, nor will they have updated information to clarify when laws have been added or repealed that might affect their response. When 2006 says nothing about a topic, that doesn't prevent a reporter from asking an unprepared candidate about it, or about the LP's most recent position on the topic (indeed, 2004 has been kept alive by libertarians eager for guidance not available in the 2006 version). In a sense, the ONLY way to move past the 2004 platform is to restore it so it can be updated and improved.
(5) Some people have agreed with the need for a comprehensive inreach tool, but don't think it should be our platform. Fine, let's Restore '04, and then rename it a banana. This is a silly semantic objection. Let me go on record: our candidates and activists must have a comprehensive banana to know how to represent our party, and newer members benefit from having a comprehensive banana to guide their learning and make them more consistent libertarians. Is that better?
Restore '04 is a critical first step. I agree that the platform development process can be improved. With the availability of the Internet, I think we should take the comprehensive platform that comes out of Denver, put it up in pieces on a web site (perhaps as a wiki), and allow comments and discussion with a platform committee moderator for each broad category. We could even have periodic online polls, open only to dues paying members of the national party (how's that for an incentive to join?), to modify planks, with a large super-majority needed to make changes in this manner, or perhaps to have different proposals merely ranked by such votes to be considered by the platform committee and then the delegates at our bi-annual conventions, speeding up that process and preventing the picky and rushed debates at the conventions that annoy everyone, including the strongest supporters of a comprehensive platform like me.
Restore '04 simply means hitting the "undo" key (that's CTRL-Z for those of you haven't noticed the menu shortcut on your word processor) to reverse the damage from our having carelessly selected and deleted 80% of a document we'd been working on for 30 years. It doesn't mean we think it was perfect before the mistake.
Please go to www.restore04.com and read the petition. Regardless of which candidate you support, add your name to those who simply want to hit CTRL-Z once in Denver and get back to work building our party and movement. The greater the support expressed before the convention, the faster and simpler will be the process of repair.
(1) The primary purpose of a platform is to define to the members of the LP who we are and what we believe. It is also an absolutely essential tool for candidates and activists so that we learn about all the issues that might come up in our attempts to convert others, and also gain an awareness of the various ways government impedes on liberty. Once I became active in the party in 1979, I went through every bloody word of the comprehensive platform to clarify my understanding, learn about government intrusions I never even knew existed, and prepare myself to be a better activist. Mary Ruwart served on the platform committee, and her encyclopedic knowledge of libertarianism is in no small part due to her having studied the entire platform to formulate the responses that have made her books and columns so helpful and persuasive.
Just to take a single example: the 2004 platform refers to the Neutrality Act of 1794, a critical law that barred private individuals from negotiating with other governments or helping to fight them either actively or financially. Candidates constantly are asked whether "we" should have sat on our hands during Hitler's rise to power in the 1930's, and one answer is to point out that all American citizens were FORCED to sit on their hands by the US government as a result of this law until 1941, and that Americans today are FORCED to do nothing about Osama bin Laden. A candidate who is asked about this law and has no idea what it is embarrasses the party and makes us look "unserious." The 2006 platform provides no guidance at all to candidates on the entire area of war, foreign policy, and defense except for a 2 paragraph platitude about Foreign Affairs in general.
(2) A campaign should have other outreach tools, designed by the candidate and specific to the issues in their district. Even the emasculated platform of 2006 is too long and dull to be used as a campaign brochure or other tool. My favorite candidate for the nomination is not going to be handing out the platform: she is going to be building her campaign around 3 themes (Foreign Policy, The Economy, and Health Care) and designing issue- and year-specific materials. As presently designed, our platform is useless for outreach as well as for inreach.
(3) As for the public asking for copies of our platform, we should be so lucky. Few will do so, and those who do are indicating their readiness to study libertarianism in detail. Reporters are going to dig to get answers to their questions one way or another, but some will self-educate and become more sympathetic, or even become libertarians.
(4) In any event, YOU CAN'T PUT THE GENIE BACK INTO THE BOTTLE. Recently, Tim Russert put up a plank from the LP platform of 1988 in an interview with Ron Paul, and he was forced to either defend or repudiate it. Those who are looking for our dirty laundry (assuming correct but unpopular stands should shame us) will find it. Right now, LP candidates are in the worst of both worlds: our old platforms are easily available, but the candidates and activists are not being encouraged to learn what is in them and be prepared to defend them, nor will they have updated information to clarify when laws have been added or repealed that might affect their response. When 2006 says nothing about a topic, that doesn't prevent a reporter from asking an unprepared candidate about it, or about the LP's most recent position on the topic (indeed, 2004 has been kept alive by libertarians eager for guidance not available in the 2006 version). In a sense, the ONLY way to move past the 2004 platform is to restore it so it can be updated and improved.
(5) Some people have agreed with the need for a comprehensive inreach tool, but don't think it should be our platform. Fine, let's Restore '04, and then rename it a banana. This is a silly semantic objection. Let me go on record: our candidates and activists must have a comprehensive banana to know how to represent our party, and newer members benefit from having a comprehensive banana to guide their learning and make them more consistent libertarians. Is that better?
Restore '04 is a critical first step. I agree that the platform development process can be improved. With the availability of the Internet, I think we should take the comprehensive platform that comes out of Denver, put it up in pieces on a web site (perhaps as a wiki), and allow comments and discussion with a platform committee moderator for each broad category. We could even have periodic online polls, open only to dues paying members of the national party (how's that for an incentive to join?), to modify planks, with a large super-majority needed to make changes in this manner, or perhaps to have different proposals merely ranked by such votes to be considered by the platform committee and then the delegates at our bi-annual conventions, speeding up that process and preventing the picky and rushed debates at the conventions that annoy everyone, including the strongest supporters of a comprehensive platform like me.
Restore '04 simply means hitting the "undo" key (that's CTRL-Z for those of you haven't noticed the menu shortcut on your word processor) to reverse the damage from our having carelessly selected and deleted 80% of a document we'd been working on for 30 years. It doesn't mean we think it was perfect before the mistake.
Please go to www.restore04.com and read the petition. Regardless of which candidate you support, add your name to those who simply want to hit CTRL-Z once in Denver and get back to work building our party and movement. The greater the support expressed before the convention, the faster and simpler will be the process of repair.
