Alex Peak, I gave a list of the 13 most extremist positions in the 2004 platform to Rob Power, principle author of the minority report endorsed by Restore04 founder David Nolan. Rob included ten of those positions in his draft, and he even managed to make the most extreme position (personal secession) even more extreme by initially omitting the context of also defending the right of secession of political entities. Your friend Less Antman admits that personal secession is effective anarchism, but I guess even mentioning "political entities" wasn't anarchist enough for some in the Restore04 camp.
I find it simply bizarre for you to claim that moderates should not object to restoring the 2004 platform simply because doing so does not impair their ability under the rules to modify it. I could say exactly the same thing to you about the PlatCom's draft. Did you really not see such a response from me coming?
If you don't want to defend the restoration of the most extreme Rothbardian positions of the 2004 platform, fine. But spare us this ludicrous "strawman" charge when I see these positions plainly stated in the thoroughly-edited 2004-based text endorsed by the Restore04 founder and its leading proponents.
I used to expect better of _you_, but you've repeated this you-can-always-amend-it mantra too many times. Again, let's just pass the PlatCom's proposal, and then *you* can always amend *it*.
The 67%/50% ratchet mechanism is in the rules for a reason. This notion of restore-it-then-amend-it is simply an invitation that moderates surrender the power of what they can do with a 34% vote, and asking them to exchange it for the need to muster 67% (or to use the nuclear option with 51%). In Portland we already saw what that leads to. It's time to try a better way: a Platform that includes all and only the principles that unite the major schools of libertarianism.
What's so wrong with that? Why indeed do you guys insist on restoring the last 1%?
(posted via EVDO from the cab from the Denver airport)
