Libertarian Party Platform Revisited

George Squyres, the chair of the LP's platform committee, provides a detailed and nuanced discussion of what happened with the LP's platform at its Portland national convention earlier this month, and why. An excerpt:

The factions in the party refuse not simply to listen to each other, but to even consider that each is legitimate. The reformers consider the purists as sociopaths who want the LP to be nothing other than a protest organization, and who don't want to win office as that success would leave them without something to protest. The purists consider the reformers as spineless Republicrat wannabes who will do anything to gain power, ready to sell out principle and whore themselves to gain a few votes. In the midst of this is another faction that doesn't accept either of the other factions but continues to, as Ken Lindell put it in his recent article in Liberty, "jockey for position in an utterly powerless political organization."

Add to this that the platform has long been considered the battleground where somehow political success is going to be won or lost. Getting the platform right is the silver bullet that will propel our candidates to success! Once the other faction has been banished from the platform, America will rush forward in a return to freedom. Yes, I know this sounds silly, but too many believe that this is where the rubber really meets the road…..

My own account of the convention and its goings-on here and here.