Steve Dow asked about Nolan, Bergland, Dasbach, and Lark. Nolan has been somewhat under-informed about the specifics of the Platform Committee's recommendations, but despite his involvement with Restore04 he has in fact praised the Committee's work as far as it goes:
DN) I actually rather like your proposal. Clearly, you spent a lot of time researching past platforms, and did a good job of synthesizing key elements. And from a quick scan, it appears that about 75% of it appears in the ‘04 platform, so in a sense it is a step toward what the Restoration Caucus proposes. […] What you have proposed is basically an expanded, more detailed version of the Statement of Principles. (DN
Also, Nolan yesterday showed even more signs of ecumenicism by describing some criteria that would make a Fair Tax acceptable to the LP:
DN) To pass muster with LP members, any national sales tax would have to meet at least three criteria: It would not take effect until after the 16th Amendment was repealed; there would be no new entitlement program (i.e. a "prebate") involved; the tax rate could be no higher than 15% - the current lowest-bracket income tax rate. (DN
I've never encountered any opinions from Bergland or Lark during the last two Platform cycles, except that Bergland is an early signer of Restore04. (I'd bet my house that Bergland -- and most of the Restore04 signers -- have not read any version of the Committee's draft.)
Dasbach is an enthusiastic supporter of the Committee's directional/pure principles approach. In Vegas his default inclination was to remove from our proposals any language that he thought would be considered objectionable by a significant minority of delegates, and I actually think some of those removals went too far. For example, I still would like our Education plank to say "We support an end to government operation, regulation and subsidy of schools and colleges."
SD) PlatComm has done a lot of work. Surely we can do better now, in these last weeks before the Convention, than to just wait until then and have a "showdown." (SD
PlatCom still has more work to do. We are trying to hammer out some novel language for the stub planks on education, environment, and energy. Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, I still think what would help the Committee most is for people to answer these two questions:
- What in your opinion is the most important libertarian principle that a 2/3 majority of NatCon delegates would agree is missing from the Platform Committee's current draft?
- 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 the Platform Committee's current draft but should?
I keep asking these questions, and not getting answers.
