Alex, how big-tent of you to grant me permission to advocate against planks I disagree with! :-)
The question of whether the LP Platform should have only the issue coverage of the amputated 2006 platform is an obvious strawman. Nobody is saying it should, and no such proposal is on the table. If you're unwilling to address the choices that the delegates will actually face in Denver, do you really think the TPW audience won't notice?
It's simply false to say that "with the Dallas Accord both sides get what they want". What "both sides want" is to have veto power over any Platform language with which they have principled disagreement. The Dallas Accord gives that veto power only to anarchists, and denies it to minarchists. The Dallas Accord lets people like you say that people like me are in "deviation" from optimal "pure" libertarianism. That's no "Accord". I in fact say that *you* are in deviation from *my* pure libertarianism, but unlike you, I don't demand that the the platform say that I'm right and you're wrong. A true accord -- a Denver Accord -- would be a Platform that doesn't allow your or me to call each other impure or deviant. What's so wrong with that?
"Rent control" is a red herring that I already diagnosed on TPW on April 9: "Your hypothetical about rent control is quite wide of the mark, as the 2008 draft plainly says 'We oppose all controls on wages, prices, rents, profits, production, and interest rates.'" Are you going to be punching that strawman all the way to Denver? I ask you again:
1. Have you even read our draft? http://libertarianmajority.net/pure-principles-platform
2. What in your opinion is the most important libertarian principle that a 2/3 majority of NatCon delegates would agree is missing from it?
3. What in your opinion are the most important specific policy questions that a 2/3 majority of NatCon delegates would agree do not have any answer in it but should?
In a backhanded sort of way, it is indeed somewhat big-tent of you to grant permission for our candidates to "deviate" from the Platform, but the permission is not yours to grant. Our bylaws require our Presidential ticket to support our Platform, period.
Less tells us that Ruwart has the most comprehensive and plumbline oeuvre of any LP candidate, but you're probably right that she's never answered the tough question of whether the LP platform should not choose between pro-choice and pro-life. I'll bet you $100 she doesn't think it shouldn't be silent. Her views about "moral obligations" are irrelevant; she's not running for Pope. What counts is 1) what she wants the laws/rules to be, and 2) what she wants our Platform to say the laws/rules should be. We *all* wish that force-initiation didn't exist and that the strong never preyed on the weak and that rational self-interested agents didn't tend to consume/congest/pollute the commons and that every child had a pony. *Nobody* can be accused of "deviation" on that question.
I notice that you completely dodged the tough question of whether there would be any law or rule to prevent parents from letting their children starve in Ruwarchotopia. If you don't like the name "Ruwarchotopia", complain to Less. He's the one that bought the domain name ruwarchy.com. Ruwarchotopia is a straightforward analogy to the standard term anarchotopia.
