Great essay on Libertarian priorities by Starchild. Not presuming to
write as well or as knowledgeably, I would like to offer my own, much
more proletarian, suggestions, preceded by some personal assumptions.
Personal Assumptions:
1. The organizational structure the United States of America
currently has, as established by our Founding Parents, is fine with
me. I would rather put my efforts into bringing the status quo more
in line with that organizational structure than establishing a new
structure, such as one-world orders (of any stripe) or anarchic
versions of structure (the latter, a contradiction in terms!).
2. Any attempt to modify this current structure, except via
persuasion and votes at the ballot box, would entail aggression, which
is not fine with me.
3. For the libertarian movement to grow, we need to focus on
political, on the ground action within the current available venues.
Starchild indicated this approach in his e-mail regarding political
action by the DCC.
4. We will find ourselves in a perpetual catch 22 if we wait to have
more members to act politically; since it is unlikely we will obtain
more members if we do not act politically.
My personal suggestions on libertarian priorities:
1. Local groups such as LPSF, get out there and do tablings, attend
local meetings, participate in local "town halls" (such as Starchild
already does).
2. Local groups, such as LPSF, support libertarian candidates (even
the ones we do not agree 100% with their platforms) by distributing
their literature, writing letters to editors about them, mentioning
them whenever the opportunity arises.
3. Local groups, such as LPSF, have one or two work meetings to
promote activists' awareness of specific, small government, strategies
for dealing with the issues that our audience perceives as important.
I emphasize "our audience", the voters. These issues are, as the
original e-mail to which Starchild was responding indicates:
1) Government Spending
2) War in Iraq
3) War in Afghanistan
4) American Troops Around the World
5) Foreign Aid
6) Unconstitutional Federal Government Functions
7) Taxes
8) Welfare, Medicare, Food Stamps elimination
9) Government Debt
10) Social Security
Of course, "specific" strategies are difficult, since, for example,
some in our LPSF group may not agree with my suggestion to "solve" the
war on Iraq by simply getting the heck out of there now, period. Or
that the "Muslim treat" was created by the U.S.'s strange approach to
9/11, not by "poverty" (the 9/11 murderers were by no means poor).
So, we need to work on the issues on which we find most common agreement.
So there,
Marcy