Part V of an extended set of proposals from Publius Valerius.
I had previously proposed two immutable platform planks, namely unrestricted abortion rights and unrestricted firearms ownership. There were suggestions that nuanced positions on these two topics were desirable. That is the opposite of the position here.
A decade and a half ago, the Libertarian National Committee tried to develop a strategic plan. At the front end, serious fact-finding studies including focus groups were performed. Two issues were identified as sorting between libertarians and non-libertarians. The Venn diagrams of liberal Democrats, conservative Republicans, and libertarians showed almost perfect non-overlap on one or the other of these issues. Conservative Republicans approximately never accept unrestricted abortion access. Liberal Democrats approximately never accept unrestricted firearms ownership. The immutable platform planks unrestricted abortion rights and unrestricted firearms ownership bar takeovers by right- or left-wing groups.
Fourth, governments can have effects on the future of the economy. These can be good as well as bad. The primary tools are monetary policy as run by the Federal Reserve Board, aggregate fiscal policy (budget deficits and surpluses), and targeted spending. Putting the entire weight of financial issues on the Federal Reserve Board does not work well. The federal government must spend its money in a balanced way, so that when the economy is doing well it runs a surplus. The new party should categorically reject the notion that the Federal Reserve bank should be eliminated, or that a gold-backed currency is a good idea.
I would say a survey from 15 years ago should not be seen as a reliable measure of current political views. People’s views and priorities are always in flux, and a lot has happened in the last 15 years.
Personally, I’m MUCH less of a supporter of gun rights than I was even a few years ago – all the shootings in the last few years forced me to reconsider my position – and I’m sure I’m far from the only one who has changed their opinion on this issue. If the goal is to attract the average American rather than ideological extremists, I don’t think “unrestricted firearms ownership” is going to be a winning position.
There is plenty of polling available about the issues that are important to Americans these days; I would recommend looking at that data rather than using an LNC conclusion from 15 years ago.
Focus groups? There is decades of survey data on this. Here is one from earlier this year:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/01/us/elections/times-siena-poll-registered-voters-crosstabs.html
39% of Republicans/Republican Leaners say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, with 13% saying it should be legal in all cases. That’s a pretty sizeable minority. Even 13% is a long way from “approximately never” in a party as large as the Republicans when set against a new party.
And that support is highly variable by region. Republicans in the south are twice as likely to oppose all abortion than Republicans in the west or northeast. The Republican party in the south is dominated by Social Conservatives. The party in the northeast and west is much more likely to be NeoConservative or Fiscal Conservative/libertarian-ish leaning.
They’re mostly 90’s-00s Rudy Giuliani type NeoConservative Republicans. Giuliani used to personally donate to Planned Parenthood.
The same is true for more rural Democrats on guns. It’s the urban Democrats that want to ban guns. Rural Democrats are much more gun friendly and many socialists also follow Marx’s lead and oppose gun control.
There is nothing in those two planks that ideologically blocks NeoConservatives (who generally don’t care about social issues) from joining the party and changing the rest of the platform to call for a surveillance state and a bloated, frequently used military. Nor is there anything preventing a coalition of rural Democrats and socialists from joining and changing the rest of the platform to call for universal healthcare or universal basic income. Nor is there anything preventing ethno-nationalists from joining and calling for the expulsion of minorities or the division of the US into separate countries largely along racial lines.
Why the reluctance for a third or fourth immutable platform plank? I’m surprised there isn’t one for property rights.
As I recall, that study was presented at one of the first LNC board meetings following the Portland convention. I seem to recall it being in Denver.
I remember parts of the presentation reasonably well, and always wondered why nothing was done to follow up. I was our [rookie] regional alternate and so I was sitting in the cheap seats listening and not sitting at the table. If I had been, I would’ve had a heck of a lot of questions. But back in those days alternates usually just sat and listened and were rarely recognized to speak.
So where is this discussion going? At the speed these submissions are being made, P.V. may have a completed presentation here by the spring of 2028.
To me, these are issues to be brought up when debating the platform, after a new party is created and is holding its first convention – or by a committee appointed to write a draft platform prior to the first convention.