[All but five sentences/clauses of
this draft Platform consist of language copied
directly from the 1972, 2004, and 2006 platforms. The
remaining five are paraphrases or elucidations. See if
you can spot them without referring to the color-coded
version and platform archive at http://marketliberal.org/LP/Platforms
.]
Preamble
As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in
which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and
no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the
benefit of others. We believe that respect for individual
rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous
world, that force and fraud must be banished from human
relationships, and that only through freedom can peace and
prosperity be realized. Consequently, we defend each person's
right to engage in any activity that is peaceful and honest,
and welcome the diversity that freedom brings. The world we
seek to build is one where individuals are free to follow
their own dreams in their own ways, without interference from
government or any authoritarian power. In the following pages
we have set forth our basic principles and enumerated various
policy stands derived from those principles. These specific
policies are not our goal, however. Our goal is nothing more
nor less than a world set free in our lifetime, and it is to
this end that we take these stands.
Statement of Principles
We, the members of the Libertarian Party, hold that all
individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their
own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they
choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal
right of others to live in whatever manner they choose. We hold
that where governments exist, they must not violate the rights
of any individual: namely, (1) the right to life -- accordingly
we support the prohibition of the initiation of physical force
against others; (2) the right to liberty of speech and action --
accordingly we oppose all attempts by government to abridge the
freedom of speech and press, as well as government censorship in
any form; and (3) the right to property -- accordingly we oppose
all government interference with private property, such as
confiscation, nationalization, and eminent domain, and support
the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud, and
misrepresentation.
1. Personal Liberty
Individuals should be free to make choices for themselves and
to accept responsibility for the consequences of the choices
they make. Our support of an individual's right to make
choices in life does not mean that we necessarily approve or
disapprove of those choices.
1.1. Expression and Communication
We support full freedom of expression, and oppose government
censorship, regulation or control of communications media and
technology. We favor the freedom to engage in or abstain
from any religious activities that do not violate the rights of
others.
1.2. Personal and Bodily Privacy
We support the protections provided by the Fourth Amendment
to be secure in our persons, homes, and property. We favor
the freedom and responsibility of adults to decide what
sensations and substances they knowingly and voluntarily
consume. We favor the freedom of association among private
parties to negotiate how they use information voluntarily
disclosed to each other.
1.3. Sexuality and Reproduction
We favor the freedom of all adults to engage in any
consensual amorous or reproductive behavior or relationship that
does not violate the rights of others.We support the repeal of
all laws restricting voluntary birth control or voluntary
termination of pregnancies during their first hundred days.
Parents, or other guardians, have the right to raise their
children according to their own standards and beliefs, without
interference by government -- unless they are abusing the
children. We oppose all coercive measures for population
control.
1.4. Crime and Justice
Government exists to protect the rights of every individual
including life, liberty and property. Criminal laws should be
limited to violation of the rights of others through force or
fraud, or deliberate actions that place others involuntarily at
significant risk of harm. Individuals retain the right to
voluntarily assume risk of harm to themselves. We oppose
reduction of constitutional safeguards of the rights of the
criminally accused. We favor all-volunteer juries and urge the
assertion of the common-law right of juries to judge not only
the facts but also the justice of the law.
1.5. Self-Defense
The only legitimate use of force is in defense of individual
rights -- life, liberty, and justly acquired property -- against
aggression, whether by force or fraud. This right inheres in the
individual, who may agree to be aided by any other individual or
group. We affirm the right to keep and bear arms.
2. Economic Liberty
A free and competitive market allocates resources in the most
efficient manner. Each person has the right to offer goods
and services to others on the free market. The only proper role
of existing governments in the economic realm is to protect
property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal
framework in which voluntary trade is protected. We oppose all
government interference with voluntary and contractual relations
among individuals. People should be allowed to deal with one
another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the
only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, is
the free market.
2.1. Property and Contract
The owners of property have the full right to control, use,
dispose of -- or in any manner enjoy -- their property without
interference, until and unless the exercise of their control
infringes the valid rights of others. Property rights are
entitled to the same protection as all other human rights. We
oppose all controls on wages, prices, rents, profits,
production, and interest rates. We oppose all violations of the
right to private property, liberty of contract, and freedom of
trade. The right to trade includes the right not to trade -- for
any reasons whatsoever. Where property, including land, has been
taken from its rightful owners by the government or private
action in violation of individual rights, we favor restitution
to the rightful owners.
2.2. Environment and Resources
Pollution of other people's property is a violation of
individual rights. We support the development of an
objective system defining resource rights, including riparian
rights, as individual property rights to prevent the inevitable
over-exploitation of resources held communally and to manage
negative externalities like pollution. Individuals have
the right to homestead unowned resources, both within the
jurisdictions of national governments and within unclaimed
territory.
2.3. Government Finance
Government should not incur debt, which burdens future
generations without their consent. We support the passage
of a “Balanced Budget Amendment” to the US Constitution that
restricts Congress from spending any more than it collected in
revenue the previous year. We support the eventual repeal of all
taxation.
2.4. Money and Markets
We favor free-market banking, with unrestricted competition
among banks and depository institutions of all types.
Individuals engaged in voluntary exchange should be free to use
as money any mutually agreeable commodity or item. We call
for the abolition of all regulation of financial and capital
markets. What should be punished is the theft of information or
breach of contract to hold information in confidence, not
trading on the basis of valuable knowledge.
2.5. Monopolies, Corporations, and Labor
We seek to divest government of all functions that can be
provided by non-governmental organizations or private
individuals. We condemn all coercive monopolies. We defend the
right of individuals to form corporations, cooperatives and
other types of companies based on voluntary association. We
oppose government subsidies to business, labor, or any other
special interest. Nuclear power, transportation, and other
industries should be governed by free markets and held to strict
liability. We seek the elimination of occupational
licensure. We support the right to associate or not
associate in labor unions. An employer should have the right to
recognize or refuse to recognize a union.
2.7. Health Care and Education
We advocate the separation of education and State. As an
interim measure to encourage the growth of private schools and
variety in education, including home schooling, we support tax
credits for tuition and other expenditures related to an
individual's education.
We advocate the separation of medicine and State. We favor
restoring and reviving a free market health care system. We
recognize the freedom of individuals to determine the level of
health insurance they want, the level of health care they want,
the care providers they want, the medicines and treatments they
will use and all other aspects of their medical care.
2.8. Retirement and Income Security
Retirement planning is the responsibility of the individual,
not the government. The proper source of help for the poor is
the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals acting
in their communities, not central governments besieged by
special interests in a distant capital.
3. Securing Liberty
The principles which guide a legitimate government in its
relationships with individuals and with other governments are
the same as those which guide relationships among individuals:
no individual, group, or government may initiate force against
any other individual, group, or government.
3.1. National Defense
We support the maintenance of a sufficient military to defend
the United States against aggression. We oppose the
government's use of secret classifications to keep from the
public information that it should have, especially that which
shows that the government has violated the law. We oppose any
form of compulsory national service.
3.2. International Affairs
American foreign policy should seek an America at peace with
the world and the defense -- against attack from abroad -- of
the lives, liberty, and property of the American people on
American soil. We recognize the right to unrestricted
trade and travel. We recognize the right of all people to resist
tyranny and defend themselves and their rights. We support both
political and revolutionary actions by individuals and groups
against governments that violate rights.
3.3. Immigration and Naturalization
Political freedom and escape from tyranny demands that
individuals not be unreasonably constrained by government in the
crossing of political boundaries. Economic freedom demands the
unrestricted movement of human as well as financial capital
across national borders. However, we support control over the
entry into our country of foreign nationals who pose a threat to
security, health or property.
3.4. Franchise and Discrimination
Government should not deny, abridge or enhance any
individual's rights at the expense of other people's rights
based on sex, wealth, race, color, creed, age, national origin,
personal habits, political preference or sexual orientation.
3.5. Democracy
We support electoral systems that are more representative of
the electorate at the federal, state and local levels. In
order to grant voters a full range of choice in federal, state
and local elections, we propose proportional voting systems with
multi-member districts for legislative elections and instant
runoff voting (IRV) for single-winner elections. We support the
right to secede where: (1) secession is supported by a majority
within the political unit, (2) the majority does not attempt
suppression of the dissenting minority, and (3) the government
of the new entity is at least as compatible with human freedom
as that from which it seceded.