Erik Geib, we know that the Libertarian Party polls about 2%-4% in downticket races (where the Wasted Vote Fallacy is weakest), and we know that a libertarian direction in public policy polls at about 10%-20%. For details of the polling data, see http://libertarianmajority.net/libertarian-polling.
I’ve said for years that the Wasted Vote Fallacy is our biggest obstacle. Our number one message should be to distinguish the Libertarian brand from Left and Right, and our number two message should be to tackle the WVF head-on. E.g.
I’ve said for years that fixing the Platform is not a silver bullet — rather, it’s the biggest obstacle that we impose on ourselves. I’ve also said for years that the positive effects of Platform reform would take time to be realized. For about three decades, any opinion leader who invested ten minutes in evaluating the LP quickly discovered that we were crypto-anarchists. That’s not been the case for only 22 months.
The Democrat and Republican platforms don’t serve the same function for their parties as the LP platform does for ours. For the full explanation, see http://libertarianmajority.net/platform-purpose.
Morey Straus, I complained about radicals who “demand that abolition of all functions of government be the the platform that other LP candidates have to go out and campaign on”. Do you or do you not demand that the Platform again advocate all of the following?
- personal secession
- immediate non-enforcement of all tax laws
- privatization of all streets, pipes, and wires
- policing pollution only through private torts
- elimination of all restrictions on immigration
It wasn’t a “voice in my head” that told me you were signatory #12 on the Restore04 petition, and the 2004 platform included all of these things.
I should think that by now my position on platform reform is reasonably transparent. I invite you to read e.g. this and this and quote the parts with which you disagree.
Or, just keep chanting “watered-down platform” and pretending that constitutes an argument.
