A More Honest Pledge

You make Libertarianism look like some sort of religion. You’re making it look ridiculous and absurd.

I agree, the pledge should be dropped. It makes us look too much like pacifists. I dont even think I agree with it anyhow; Im not exactly sure what it means.

I dont agree with the idea that government is suppose to protect rights either though, so Im kinda of a strange libertarian. I think the purpose of govt is to keep order, provide for the general welfare,…. And its the Constitution that protects our rights, from the government.

Well there is the Hippocratic Oath and I don’t think that qualifies medical doctoring as a religion. When people testify in court they take an oath (or affirmation – same thing) and court isn’t a religion in my book either.

But let’s discuss the actual issue which is that (presuming that the four parties mentioned don’t have a membership pledge) that the Libertarian Party has a barrier to entry and the others don’t. I take this to mean that being part of the Libertarian Party means something and that people who consider joining us should *think* before they join the party.

Of course, I could be wrong and the Libertarian Party doesn’t really have a committment to principles and should scrap the pledge. In my opinion that would *really* mean we have turned the Party into a debate club with no clear connection to the real world that we all live in.

The above words are my take on the pledge.

You can find Ernest Hancock’s thoughts on the pledge at:

http://ernesthancock.org/

Thane,

That’s the most convoluted, illogical reasoning I’ve read yet about keeping the pledge. In a nutshell, you argue that dumping the pledge would turn the LP *into* a debating club. It’s a debating club *now* for heaven’s sake! We’re trying to turn it *into* a *politcal party*.

Politics is a get down, good old boy, baby-kissing, mudslinging brawl. If it is beneath the LP to participate, then I won’t be long for the LP. Support reform of the LP – http://www.reformthlp.org.

Don

I’ll feed the troll…

The pledge shows that we are an *ideological* party. We are the Party Of Principle, and that is what sets us apart. big-L libertarians are *supposed* to be little-L libertarians.

Libertarianism is a political *philosophy* first. The Libertarian Party is trying to implement that philosophy by getting (big-and-little-L) libertarians elected to public office.

Great! Whatever structural problems the LP has, I still support that goal.

However, if the Party gets reformed to the degree that getting big-L libertarians elected is more important than getting little-L libertarians elected to office, then I will have little use for the Party.

Winning is great and important, but if we sell our soul by electing Libertarians-in-name-only just so we can chalk up a victory for our side, then the victory will have been hollow.

I don’t just want to win — I want to debate and win. Otherwise, we are just a political machine for hire, like the Reform Party was to Buchanan.

Don,

I never said that the Libertarian Party shouldn’t participate in the political market. I do think that having a pledge sets the LP apart from the parties who have no pledge.

Also, just so your ideas have a chance for a fair review your URL was missing an “e”. Here is the currect URL:

http://www.reformthelp.org/

I still think that Ernest Hancock’s position on the pledge is more persuasive than any I’ve heard so far in favor of eliminating it. That URL is:

http://ernesthancock.org/

Just want to go on record that I support the pledge.

The pledge draws the correct balance between the flaw of being too general and too specific.

It also is so short that all libertarians can commit it to memory.

Compare:

“I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals.” [20 words]

to another famous pledge:

“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” [35 words]

The problem here is that the pledge is invariably set aside for expediency. Did Weld sign the pledge and mean it? Did Stern? Did Darby? Actually, republicans and democrats DO have pledges to get into their primaries. They go along the lines of “I am not running for office on another party’s ticket”. Perhaps the pledge ought to be reworked: “I will not use libertarian party resources to further revocation of liberties, or be subject to withdrawal of same” or something similar. The LP pledge right now doesn’t have any meat in it by the fact that there’s no downside if you falsely swear to it.

(cont’d)

Perhaps this is more unique to my environs here in Arizona. I couldn’t *absolutely* say.

However, it seems that anytime someone attempts to point out flaws in arguments that simply because you live in society doesn’t mean it has the right to expect certain contributions in return for your drawing resources from it… then you’re a “collectivist” or a “fascist” and should be kicked out of the movement as an uneducated fool.

For the record: I *AM* a libertarian *PURIST.* I want a libertarian world. Not an anarchist wet-dream.

No offense to Ian Bernard & the folks at FTL — all good people in my book! — but they are emblamatic and symbolic/symptomatic of this “religion of liberty.”

I’ll give an example: “The free market will regulate murderers because people don’t want murderers going free.” — Ian Bernard.

Now, I ask you — how is that *ANY* different than mob rule or the current set-up, or *BETTER* for that matter?

unfortunately, I’m a watcher, not a player in this business.

I reserve the right to petition this government for redress of grievances, as guranteed by the first amendment, and will never give up that right by taking a ridiculous pledge.

That’s right, I said it. I think that by taking that pledge, you relinquish parts of your first amendment rights. So all of those LPers who are filing lawsuits to force the governement to do one thing or another are in direct violation of their own pledge. It’s a catch22, and I’ll have no part of it.

One of the problems with the pledge is that violating it has no consequences and it happens everyday in the LP.
In any other organization if you violate the rules then something usually not so good occurs. Do something Mom told you not to do, something happens, come to work late, something usually happens, run a red lights, might get a ticket, violate the pledge….
M.H.W.

re: “The simple fact of the matter is that the pledge in and of itself means absolutely nothing more than that we don’t plan to blow up government buildings.”

It’s interesting that David Nolan, who explained the original meaning of the pledge, just announced that he is running for office in Arizona. I’m hoping that his campaign positions will be decidedly not anarchist, and the anarchist guardians of LP purity will learn something from that. I may be hoping too much.

Posts 24 and 29 hit it spot on. The pledge needs to go. “Cult of the omnipotent state” needs to go. The crapola in the platform that (PEOPLE DO READ!), needs to go. End of story.

Do you send you kids to government schools? Did you get a government marriage license? Are you collecting social security, medicare, or medicaid? Are you paying your income taxes which is going to support the war in Iraq? These are all forms of initiation of force against tax payers and/or people around the world.

Let the who have never initiated force line up on one side of the convention and argue to keep the pledge. The rest of us need to support getting rid of it, so we are not seen as hypocrites in the eyes of the general public and fellow libertarians.

Democratic-government and republican-government are forms of government of ever increasing size and without principles. Unlike the D’s and R’s, Libertarians by the definition of the word libertarian have our principles. Libertarian = advocate of liberty.

Mike Laursen — IIRC, you are somewhere in AZ as well, yes?

The problem I have with “libertarian culture” in AZ is that it is *decidedly* Anarchist.

I’m crossing my fingers on the whole David Nolan non-anarchist thing… but not holding my breath.

And to those of you whom believe that the “NAP” or “NIP” et al. has the “inevitable logical end result” of anarchy — sorry for the vehemence here: Get a clue.

1) Logic proves whatever you want it to.
2) Initiation of force also entails refusing to redeem debts.
3) Each and every person not wholly & totally self-subsisting without anything more than non-technological, audible verbal contact with other human beings is in fact indebted to the sum total mass of individuals that make up society. Hence, a certain — vastly lower than currently exerted — level of taxation is actually appropriate under libertarian viewpoints. It’s called payment for services & goods rendered.

The pledge was a response to laws that allowed the government to crack down on so-called subversive organizations that were dedicated to overthrowing the government by force, something the government was doing with particular vigor at the time the LP was formed, during the reign of Nixon. If memory serves, many of those same laws — or very similar ones — are still on the books today. Some may remember the “militia” witch-hunts of the 1990s. There was a concerted effort by authorities, facilitated by the media, to conflate libertarianism and the allegedly dangerous militia movement: to make the word “libertarian” synonymous with “public menace.” At the time, the “pledge” helped the LP dodge that particular bullet. Has the government become more authoritarian, and more worried about subversive organizations, since the 1990s? If so, why would we think the “fig leaf” shield that worked for the LP in the 1970s and 1990s would be LESS useful today?

re: “Mike Laursen ”” IIRC, you are somewhere in AZ as well, yes?”

No, I’m in California. I don’t know much about the LP in Arizona.

I don’t have a problem with the pledge per se. The “pimpstick” remark above sums up very well my problem with the way some Libertarians use the pledge to whack other Libertarians over the head whenever they disagree about strategy or some difference in philosophy.

Wes, joining the Libertarian Reform Caucus is appropriate for anyone who agrees with the Statement of Purpose on the front page.

J.A. Merritt: why should the LP have to have a pledge? Why not the other parties? We are now recognized as a political party. The pledge is unnecessary and it has many downsides.

Chris: I like the “cult of the omnipotent state” phrase too. I actually used it at a Kiwanis presentation earlier this year. I dislike the Pledge because it does mean to many people that you have to be an anarchist. To advocate any taxation is to advocate initiating force, technically. 25 years ago, I signed the pledge with that understanding.

Today, I still wish to minimize the initiation of force. In the near term, this means doing palatable politics. In the long term this could well entail endorsing some government. There are serious economies of scale for doing national defense — which is a public good under no government. (continued)

And the historical record for successful anarchy in a civilized society is rather slim.

Anarchists can correctly state that limited government is unstable. They often ignore the empirical data that show anarchy to be more unstable.

Currently, I don’t know what the optimal/minimal amount of government is ultimately. I do know that the minimum amount of government in the near term is what the voters are willing to accept. This requires advocating some government!

The Libertarian Party bills itself as the Party of Principle. Asking people to sign a vague pledge with multiple meanings is incredibly unprincipled. And do we want to exclude small government libertarians because they are too principled to sign a pledge that they cannot adhere to?

If the LP is to purely an educational organization dressed up as a political party, then keep the pledge. If the LP is to do real politics and shrink government, then the pledge must go.

Is it Groundhog Day or am I just stuck in a time warp. I’ve heard all this tired old crap for 25 years in the LP.

Why do people take the LP pledge, join the LP, and then proceed to insist that the pledge be dropped? Next, they
complain that the LP is a “debate club” after they instigate debates about the pledge they just took. Then, they want to change the LP platform and abandon long standing libertarian principles because “the people” aren’t ready for such radical ideas – even though they themselves must be ready because they joined the LP and took the LP pledge.

The evolution of new libertarians continue to the point where they believe everyone in the LP who believes in the very things that attracted them to the LP in the first place is involved in a conspiracy to make sure the LP never wins elections.

Ah, if only the evil purists would abandon the pledge, millions of people would suddenly join the LP and libertarians would control the world.

Quoth Tom Blanton:

“Anarchists don’t have laws and constitutions, they don’t run for political office, and they don’t vote.”

Actually, what anarchists don’t “have” is an affection for the existence of the state.

You (correctly) point out that eliminating coercive taxation is not the same as anarchy.

I’ll point out some things myself:

- Having laws or constitutions is not the same thing as having the state. The Covenant of Unanimous Consent is a constitution; authors including David Friedman and Robert P. Murphy have written extensively on non-state provision of law.

- The first man known to refer to himself as an anarchist (Proudhon) was elected to France’s constituent assembly.

- A number of LP anarchists have stood for election to public office and are voters (I’ve run for elected office four times and am an appointed federal officeholder).

As an anarchist, I’m fine with taking the pledge, but prefer that the party not impose it on non-anarchists.

Regards,
Thomas L. Knapp

Tom,

you are the exception to the rule I think. I think it’s a fair statement to make that most self desribed anarchists in the LP dont care much about the current or former govermental system in the US. If I had a nickel for every LP’er that sid he never signed the Constitution, therefore hes above the law I’have enough money to pay off my medical bills.

I do not bash anarchists per se. I bash those anarchists who claim that all minarchists are “socialists” or “criminals” or “evil.” I want anarchists to be slighly more humble. If anarchy can work, fantastic! Make it so. I might just help.

There are many more libertarians of good will who are skeptical of the workability of anarchy. They believe that minimizing the initiation of force requires some government — even though that does entail some force initiation. These people may be wrong, but it ain’t obvious.

Both limited-government republics and zones of zero government have proven to be unstable. However, the latter historically has been more catastrophically unstable. The former tends towards social democracy, which is something quite unpleasant. However, it is less unpleasant than feudalism, civil war, tribalism etc.

So, I am a fan of David Friedman. I bash Murray Rothbard.

One more note to Tom. Regarding:

“I’m ready to get rid of the pledge just to shut down the reformers’ perpetual debate club over this issue – then maybe you guys would have the time and energy to “do real politics”. My only fear is that some new insignificant issue would arise. ”

I have expended many hundreds, if not thousands, of hours doing “real politics.” I have worked many tables, knocked on hundreds of doors, put on symposiums, written letters to the editor, spent thousands on LP campaigns etc.

My efforts to reform the platform and get rid of the pledge have resulted in more LP member recruitments than my efforts at doing “real politics.”

See:

http://reformthelp.org/home/about/mstat.php

Hardy,

I have my hard copy of the LRC packet now (I had already downloaded the documents in PDF form, and to be honest, you’re fairly accurate.

The mailing includes only one gross inaccuracy about anarchists (a misrepresentation of Rothbard’s opinion of incrementalism under the heading “I am an impatient anarchist!”). Although I took the matter of that up with Dr. Milsted too late for it to be changed (and he did not seem inclined to change it anyway), the mailing isn’t really as bad as it seemed to me before I held it in my hands in “hard copy” form.

Of course, the mailing is not the only matter involved. The mailing went to the entire delegate list for the national convention, but chances are that MOST of the delegates have either followed LRC’s activities already, or will receive material from LRC’s opponents, which is less flattering to LRC as having an ostensibly inclusive agenda.

They mave read, or may read, for example, Kristan Overstreet’s “Proposed 2006 Manifesto” (cont’d)

(contd) Dr. Milsted’s own direct attacks on anarchism which, while technically not published under the LRC’s auspices (they’ve appeared on sites such as Free Market News Network and The Free Liberal), are either a poor tactical move or an intentional “second front” on which to attack anarchists and “purists” with organizational deniability.

I joined LRC based on the claim that it was open to “Radical libertarians who realize that to shrink government a lot, we must first shrink it a little” and “Anarcho-capitalists who realize that to eliminate government, we must first shrink it.”

Once I’d joined, it quickly became clear that LRC is oriented toward disbelief in the existence of either category, and either inclined or resigned to a fight on ideological, rather than practical political, grounds.

I’d like to find room in the party for ideology AND practicality. But if it’s one or the other, I’ll go with ideology. The latter is of no value to me without the former.

Regards,
Tom Knapp

Paulie,

?

I offered to help with the impeachment resolution, but I don’t remember hearing anything back about it.

Regards,
Tom

sent it just to you this time in case it was getting caught in your spam filter because of the ccs, let me know if you get it

OK, on the Free Liberal web site I was a bit harsher. http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/001823.html
I wrote:

“Proposition 1: Taxation is theft.

“Observation 1: Anarchy has failed worldwide. Every society that was anarchistic has either been conquered or created a government of its own. That is, unless you count Somalia, which is hardly a libertarian paradise.”

This observation is true. DUH! In other words, the burden of proof is on the anarchist. Anarchists have no business questioning the morals of limited government libertarians until the anarchists succeed in generating some fresh data in favor of no government.

To do otherwise is the logical equivalent of criticizing starving Africans who choose to eat GMO corn instead of holding out for the all natural product.

Mr Knapp writes: I’d like to find room in the party for ideology AND practicality. But if it’s one or the other, I’ll go with ideology. The latter is of no value to me without the former.

Amen – I agree completely. I am not a hardcore anarchist, minarchist, or constitutionalist – I’d happily settle for any of these arrangements. All of which are better than what now exists. And that is the point. The endless debates, bickering, blaming, and finger pointing in the LP is counter productive and no way to maintain an effective organization.

It seems to me that the LP would be much more effective without the arcane catorgorizing, defining, and labeling of the various types of people in the LP. Either you agree with enough of the LP platform to join, or you don’t.

Things like the pledge and the Nolan Chart are the least of the LP’s problems.

Tom,

“It seems to me that the LP would be much more effective without the arcane catorgorizing, defining, and labeling of the various types of people in the LP. Either you agree with enough of the LP platform to join, or you don’t.”

True. One thing I find attractive about the LRC agenda is that it seeks platform reform to short-term deliverables (which most libertarians can support a la carte) instead of long-term goals (which we most manifestly disagree on, as indicated by the categorizing, defining and labeling. Some of us want anarchy, some minarchy, with splits within those two factions. Etc., etc., ad nauseum.

To me, a Statement of Principles which implies anarchy and/or extreme minarchy (without argument over which) is sufficient to meet Rothbard’s “incrementalism is okay as long as principle and ultimate goal is held high” dictum. The rest of the platform could then be “this is what an LP majority could do for America on issue X, NEXT YEAR.”

Regards,
Tom Knapp

Tom,

You’re mixing some not-necessarily-mixed issues here. Yes, there’s overlap between various groups, but belonging to one of the groups you name above does not necessarily (or even facially) imply support for the zero-dues membership model, or the claim that said model will or would increase members or contributors.

The zero-dues issue is tangential to other “reform” agendas such as platform change, pledge elimination, etc. Some people support some of those agendas but not others.

In particular, I supported zero-dues (but don’t regard it as a “silver bullet” for party growth), but am certainly not a Boortz follower, a neolibertarian, or a small government conservative.

Regards,
Tom Knapp

The second piece did go into attack mode in response to the vicious and downright idiotic reponses by writers on lewrockwell.com and elsewhere. These guys are truly Marxists of the Right.

As a side note, let me clarify one thing that I may not have been clear on. Although I consider some of the LRC material, including some of Dr. Milsted’s holdings about Rothbard, misrepresentative, I don’t consider Dr. Milsted insincere in his desire to convince anarchists to adopt incrementalism even if they won’t adopt minarchism.

The convincing evidence for me is that despite his holdings elsewhere in favor of a necessity of minarchy, I haven’t noticed him proposing any changes which would void the Dallas Accord (under which anarchists and minarchists agreed to leave the ultimate disposition of government/the state open rather than stated one way or the other).

As a matter of fact, he advocates (and I support) platform planks which concentrate on near-term deliverables, as opposed to end-states at all (let alone particular end-states). I disagree on some of his (and the LRC’s) proposed deliverables (the “Fair Tax,” for example), but that’s a different argument.

(continued) Thus, I was attempting to set up a philosophical framework for both camps to work together.

This may have been a strategic mistake. Much of the reaction I got was similar to the way the Medieval Catholic reacted to alternative interpretations of Scripture.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume a state environment and an anarchistic environment in which aggregate instances of initiation of force are quantitatively and qualitatively equal (i.e. same number and seriousness of thefts, assaults, homicides, etc.).

I would choose the stateless environment in such a case, because there are other parts of the equation.

1. While initiation of force might be qualitatively and quantitatively similar, self-defense and retaliation are more likely to be effective versus independently operating force-initiators than versus a state which can concentrate large forces to crush opponents.

2. Morally, I simply find the state’s case for initiation of force repugnant. When a thief robs me, at least he’s honest. He wants my money and he’s taking it. The state pretends its for my own good. When al Qaeda does a 9/11 they make no bones about their hatred for me. (contd)

Thomas: I don’t attribute the decrease in contributing members to zero dues in any big measure. I was fairly agnostic about it – I didn’t want a dues increase and preferred either zero dues or no change. I wasn’t even thinking about zero dues (or zero dues being a reform) as I wrote the post above.

I did not mean to infer that any of the groups I mentioned have anything to do with one another – the common theme among them is only that when criticized, they all claim they are recruiting lots of new members.

My point is that the numbers do not indicate this to be true and if it is true, some other dynamic is at play – possibly that their tactics, strategies and/or political beliefs are driving existing LP members away.

I don’t know that I consider zero dues a “reform” as much as a new strategy for recruiting new members and building a larger base. This has nothing to do with ideology – pledge elimination and platform changes have much more to do with ideology.

Tom (B),

Actually, the LRC has been very specific regarding what kinds of reforms it wants — so specific that it has to point people to its site for the voluminous details. Here are the linked details and vote totals on each proposal (and there were many) that the LRC entertained. On the count of specificity, I doubt you’ll find a group which has more scrupulously documented its deliberations.

IMO, the real problem is that there’s an antagonistic attitude implicit in many of the group’s appeals, and separately the writings of Dr. Milsted which aren’t directly tied to the LRC agenda, which is more likely to unite “purists” and “anarchists” in opposition to the LRC than to bring them into coalition with it.

Regards,
Tom Knapp

I agree that the LRC is very specific. I have visited the site before and found little participation and more than a few proposals that I believe are more poorly written than the current LP platform – which is by no means perfect.

My comments are not directed at the LRC, the zero dues supporters, or anyone who seeks to try different strategies or tweak the platform. My comments are focused on the writings of Dr. Milstead that contain hyperbole, strawman arguments, name calling, dubious mathematical calculations and graphs, and calls for unspecified reform.

I feel these writings sow discord in the LP, present an unflattering image of the LP to the public, and serve no useful purpose.

One can draft proposed platform changes and present them to the platform committee along with an explanation of why the proposals are better than what currently exists. Members of the committee and convention delegates can be lobbied. Changes can be discussed and voted on. The tirades aren’t needed