The Libertarian Party will have its National Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana from June 30th- July3rd this year. One of the most important matters that delegates will be voting on at this convention is the party platform. The platform is amended and adjusted at each convention to reflect the will of the delegates. So over the next few days I'd like to highlight the Libertarian Party platform to show you where the LP succeeds in its role as the political wing of the larger liberty movement, and also to give my opinion on where it might improve.
Let's start today with the Preamble and the Statement of Principles:
"PREAMBLE
As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others.
We believe that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force and fraud must be banished from human relationships, and that only through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized.
Consequently, we defend each person’s right to engage in any activity that is peaceful and honest, and welcome the diversity that freedom brings. The world we seek to build is one where individuals are free to follow their own dreams in their own ways, without interference from government or any authoritarian power.
In the following pages we have set forth our basic principles and enumerated various policy stands derived from those principles.
These specific policies are not our goal, however. Our goal is nothing more nor less than a world set free in our lifetime, and it is to this end that we take these stands.
STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES
We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.
We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.
Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle, that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.
We, on the contrary, deny the right of any government to do these things, and hold that where governments exist, they must not violate the rights of any individual: namely, (1) the right to life—accordingly we support the prohibition of the initiation of physical force against others; (2) the right to liberty of speech and action—accordingly we oppose all attempts by government to abridge the freedom of speech and press, as well as government censorship in any form; and (3) the right to property—accordingly we oppose all government interference with private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminent domain, and support the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud, and misrepresentation.
Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals. People should not be forced to sacrifice their lives and property for the benefit of others. They should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, is the free market.
Note: The Statement of Principles was approved at the Convention in Dallas in 1974."
Wow! Now that is an organization I can work within. The Statement of Principles has been left unchanged since it's adoption in 1974. In fact, in order to change the Statement of Principles - even to adjust one word - the convention body would have to amass a 7/8ths majority of agreeable delegates. That is nearly impossible. It is this Statement of Principles that has guided LP thought and activity throughout the existence of the party.
Each year some group or another works to remove the SoP. But it's never worked out for them. If we would like to keep the LP libertarian, then protecting the SoP is critical. (There is no reason to believe that any attempt to remove the SoP at the 2018 Convention will succeed.)
These two sections are the heart and soul of the LP. But what about the nuts and bolts of policy? We'll cover those in the days to come.