Excellent, Rob! I find myself commenting a lot on the SFGate site on
various Chronicle articles -- perhaps those comments could be added
to LPSF blog? http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/contribute/sn/persona?
plckPersonaPage=PersonaComments&plckUserId=starchild&User=starchild
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
Hi Rob,
That is one cool website!
One thought that I would appreciate feedback: Sadly, whenever I
mention the Libertarian Party to a member of the general public, I am
confronted with questions such as "What is that? A club?"; so I am
wondering if it would be helpful if the LPSF website carried a very
basic description of what the Libertarian Party is and what it stands
for. The link to the National LP is good, but the National LP does
not really give a basic description of what the Party is.
When I inherited the job of sending out information packets on
inquiries, I wrote a basic description of the LP, which I include in
the packets, along with other brochures. I am suggesting that we put
up such a description on our website, cut an pasted below (messy
format in the cut and paste, but looks good in HTML or PDF).
Marcy
THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY
What it is. What it Stands For.
History:
The Libertarian Party is a United States political party created in
1971. It is one
of the largest consistent third parties in the United States, with
over 200,000 registered voters and over 600 people in office,
including mayors, county executives, county council members, and
school board members.
The Party was founded on December 11, 1971, principally by David
Nolan, John Hospers, Edward Crane, Manual Klausner, Murray Rothbard,
R.A. Childs, Theodora Nathan, and Jim Dean. The group felt that the
dominant Republican and Democratic parties had diverged from the
principles of the American founding fathers, and the American people
would benefit from a alternative party that more closely abided by
those principles.
By the 1972 presidential election, the party had grown to 80 members
and had attained ballot access in two states. The first Libertarian
presidential ticket of John Hospers and Theodora Nathan earned fewer
than 3,000 votes. Eight years later, in the 1980 presidential race,
the Libertarian Party had gained ballot access in every state, the
first time a third party accomplished this since the Socialist Party
in 1916. The 1980 presidential ticket of Ed Clark and David H. Koch
earned 921,299 popular votes. The Party has been represented in the
presidential race consistently since then, with ballot access in most
states, receiving from 0.21% to 0.50% of the popular votes (excepting
the 1980 ticket, when it received 1.1%).
Today, the Party has a national presence in the National Libertarian
Party, and strong grass roots movements in State Affiliates and County
Affiliates. It is the third largest political party in the United
States; although this claim is often disputed by the Greens, since
there is no single objective agreed-upon standard with which to
compare the size of third parties.
the libertarian party platform:
The tenets of the Libertarian Party platform include the following:
● Minimal government at all levels, limited to protection of
citizens' life, liberty, and property.
● A self-regulated free market economy. Elimination of taxation.
Privately provided services and infrastructures chosen and
paid for by local citizens. Environmental protection
through individual responsibility, community groups, and civil
liability for pollution. Elimination of corporate welfare. Maximum
opportunity for individuals to achieve their potential
through their own efforts.
● Strong civil liberties. Personal freedoms. Elimination of
government prohibitions on voluntary non-aggressive
behavior. The right to keep and
bear arms.
● A foreign policy of non-interventionism. Opposition to the
initiation of force. Opposition to military draft. Free trade.
The U.S. Two Party System:
The Democratic and Republican Parties typically capture more than 95%
of the vote in partisan elections. All third parties consistently
share the remaining 5%. Is this situation the result of most of the
voting public agreeing with the tenets of only these two major
parties? Not entirely, given the following barriers to third party
success:
Ballot Access: The two major parties have been influential in
instituting nearly
impossible hurdles that third parties must vault in order that their
candidates
even appear on the ballot in partisan races.
Winner Take All: Unlike European and other countries, the U.S. does
not have
proportional representation. The party that wins an election, even
if it wins by
1% of the votes, gets into power; and the runners up, including third
parties,
have no representation or influence in the subsequent administration.
Campaign Financing: The costs of running political campaigns are
astronomical.
The entrenched major parties have built a substantial infrastructure
of financial
support, with which third parties cannot compete.
The "Wasted Vote": The voting public often votes for the lesser of
two evils in an effort to prevent the greater evil from winning a
race. A vote for a candidate they truly agree with is often perceived
as a "wasted vote."
However, in spite of these challenges, the Libertarian Party is still
very much in the running, thanks to hard work in building coalitions
with local groups of like mind, ballot initiatives, and a fierce
constant legal fight for ballot access.