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Articles Written In Reference To The Reformat Project.
Platform reformatting explained | G.Squyres |
| 03 October 2003 | |
 Editor's note: In August, a website with "reformatted" versions of more than half of the LP's 61 Platform planks was unveiled. The site, the work of the LP Platform Special Committee, offers LP member a chance to comment on the work done so far on the Platform.
At the website -- www.aznorthernalliance.org/LNCplatform -- the language of Platform planks have been reformatted info four categories: Issue, Principle, Solutions, and Transitions.
Here, committee member George Squyres explains the thought process behind the reformatting system.
Questions have emerged about the format's four categories and the function each serves, not only individually, but as a progression.
In response, each category addresses a number of problems that have plagued not only the Platform, but our candidates and us as a political party whose mission statement is to elect candidates. Each seeks to solve particular issues, as well as achieve an overall leap forward as a political document.
* The Issue: We argue among ourselves over certain issues, demonstrating what a Republican friend said is the Achilles' heel of Libertarians: we don't know how to close ranks and present a unified front. Much internal debate comes from different understandings of an issue, and much of it goes away when we articulate our common ground.
Additionally, our candidates get hammered by a radical presentation of our position when a simpler version would have sufficed. Americans won't relate to the right to "self-medicate," but they understand it when we say, "Prohibition never stopped anyone from drinking alcohol, it only created Al Capone." Or, "Drug prohibition is causing more harm than the drugs themselves."
We come out, not as advocates of drug usage, but as the only ones recognizing the realistic limits of political action. We control the debate and give our candidates a position of strength rather than vulnerability.
In framing the issue as our first task, we not only control the debate, we answer the question as to whether or not there really is an issue, and how we see an issue as Libertarians. We may debate pro and con on abortion, but as Libertarians we agree it is not the purview of government.
By starting with our common ground, we learn to stand together, rather than present the image of combatants too busy arguing to ever govern if given the chance.
* The Principle: If we are truly the "party of principle," we must do more than grandly state, "Each person has the right to live entirely according to his own choices."
Instead, we must say clearly how that principle applies to a particular issue, in a way that speaks to the average voting American. They want to know how principle relates to an issue in their ordinary lives, rather than how we as "radicals" embrace it.
When talking about families, for example, principle dictates that individuals control the governance of their family unit, parents determine the raising of their children and the values instilled in them. Government does not have the right to dictate what values our children learn, or how families are run.
Many of our planks do not go the distance in stating how principle applies to a particular issue; many do not make a statement of principle at all. This is where we deliver the goods (or not), and show that principle directs us -- rather than contributors' bribes.
This format point demands of us a clearer understanding of our principle in application, diminishing disagreement, and enabling our candidates to clearly state where they stand on an issue as a Libertarian.
* The Solution: Socialists have made progress by consistently showing their vision of the world and demanding its realization.
Here is where we show people our vision of a Libertarian world, the destination that we seek, undiluted and uncompromised, with the ultimate solution to the issue we have presented. Many of our best activists know what that world looks like, it is what drives them; here is where they can share that picture.
Many Libertarians oppose "incrementalism" and demand the end state as the uncompromised goal; this is where they can hold that standard high. They must be able to do so in a realistic manner that anyone in the country can relate to: it cannot be a pie-in-the-sky utopia. We know there are no utopias.
It must be a believable, everyday picture that people who vote can see themselves living in, a world they know, and not just a fantasy. For if we cannot show the realistic achievement of our vision, then no one is going to buy it. Too often our picture has not been something the voters will believe in. The discipline enforced by this format point is to deliver a Libertarian world that even our strongest opponents cannot say is unachievable.
* Transitions: If we can see a Libertarian world, then we must show the direction we take: the concrete, step-by-step process that ultimately arrives at our solution.
Here we show the successes that Libertarians have created, the advances that we have already achieved, and the further steps we propose in arriving at the solution to an issue. These must tie together with the solution above as a coherent picture, and must show the alternatives to government programs and demonstrate their superiority to government as the solution.
Those who recognize the inevitability of incremental steps in politics can show those steps -- while not allowing them to lose the perspective of their ultimate goal, without compromising our values, and do so in a way that the average American voter will believe in.
Murray Rothbard opposed advocating a tax break because it means you approve of taxes; yet he recognized the wisdom of accepting one, if only as a step along the way. The task demanded of us here is to provide the real steps towards what we see, steps that those who are not yet Libertarians will see as outstripping the competition.
Summary: When put together in a sequence, the format's progression is not only logical, it makes common sense.
Our Platform must serve our mission statement, which is to elect our candidates to office. We must recognize an issue for the voting public and show how our principles guide us in solving it; then show the world as we see it with the problem solved (and the road that gets us there).
Our Platform must perform this complex job for each issue, giving us a tool that will show the voting public our vision of the world and make them want to support our candidates in achieving it. The format we are imposing on the Platform helps it achieve those functions in a better way than ever before.
Arizona Libertarian George Squyres is a member of the LP Platform Special Committee, and the Region 2 Representative on the Libertarian National Committee, Inc.
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