Some members of the 2021-2022 Libertarian Party of California Platform Committee, on which I serve as an alternate (Richard Fast is our representative for San Francisco county), have repeatedly asserted that the language in our current state platform is not specific to California, and that it is encompassed in the national platform.
While the truth of these allegations as they apply to some of the specific planks that a majority of the committee have voted to recommend be deleted (and at least so far in the committee’s report, replaced with nothing), is debatable, as a general matter I agree that our state platform should be more California specific, and not simply echo the national platform which mostly just expresses broad, general principles without addressing the details of government aggressions and failures in this state, and Libertarian solutions for them.
Therefore, taking the non-specificity and non-uniqueness complaints in good faith, and wanting to see a more constructive alternative to the slash-and-burn approach of just deleting everything wholesale, I’m putting forward a number of proposals to make our current LPC platform language more specific to California (along with a couple that would simply make the current language shorter, and in my view improved). Certainly the Libertarian Party having something to say about these topics at the state level is more specific to California, and adds more value, than the party having nothing to say to Californians about state and local issues in our state.
I encourage others, both Platform Committee members and other Libertarians, to likewise take a look at the current planks in our state platform (Platform - Libertarian Party of California) and propose recommendations for how they too can be made more California-specific, address issues not covered in the national Libertarian Party platform (Platform | Libertarian Party) or otherwise improved.
Everyone is encouraged to log in or call in to our Platform Committee meetings and make their views known, as well as to subscribe to the Platform Committee email list (Platform@ca.lp.org), where you can get the information on upcoming PlatCom meetings (including tomorrow evening’s, Tuesday December 21!) when it is posted.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
LPC Platform Committee alternate (2021-2022)
(415) 573-7997
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(1) Proposal to add the following sentence to section IV "Individual Rights and Civil Order", Section 30 "Legislature", at the beginning of the plank:
We demand real, multi-party democracy in California to replace the un-representative system in which all legislative seats are currently held by Republicans or Democrats despite the fact that nearly one in three state voters are affiliated with neither of the two establishment parties, and call for elections to the state legislature to be based on a system of proportional representation in which parties receive a number of seats proportionate to their share of the vote.
(2) Proposal to replace section IV "Individual Rights and Civil Order", Section 31 "Secession", with the following language:
Libertarians champion the right to self-determination including political secession down to the level of the individual, and as members of the Libertarian Party of California we specifically call for the division of this state into multiple jurisdictions, to include the new state of Jefferson in northern California and southern Oregon. California is currently the third largest and most populous state, with around 40 million people, and many residents, particularly in far-flung rural areas, feel unrepresented by the government in Sacramento and deserve the opportunity to choose their own political futures.
(3) Proposal to delete the first sentence in section V "Individual Rights and the Economy", Section 1 "Taxation", and replace it as follows:
Taxation is government's confiscation of property of its citizens.
Taxation is theft and a form of slavery.
(4) Proposal to delete the word "non-voluntary" in the second sentence of section V "Individual Rights and the Economy", Section 1 "Taxation", and replace it with "involuntary", to read as follows:
Because of its non-voluntary involuntary nature, it cannot be justified, regardless of the purpose for which the proceeds are to be used.
(5) Proposal to replace the language in bullet point A of section V "Individual Rights and the Economy", Section 1 "Taxation" as follows:
A. The repeal of all income taxes.
A. The repeal of the California state income tax.
(6) Proposal to add a new bullet point (H) to the list in section V "Individual Rights and the Economy", Section 1 "Taxation":
H. An end to the practice of administratively imposing punitive fees or fines that are clearly disproportionate to any harm caused by the individual or group being fined, as a means of increasing government revenue without such de facto tax increases being voted on by the people – especially when such fees or fines are regressive and fall most heavily on the poor.
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