The “Libertarian Reform Caucus” should get credit for starting the first serious debate about the vital issue of strategy within the LP in years. In fact, this may be the first debate on strategy since Murray Rothbard left the LP. Also, there is nothing wrong in principle with periodically revising the platform to ensure it address current concerns.

Also, as a pro-life libertarian, I applaud the reformers efforts to make those of us who believe that abortion is inconsistent with libertarianism more comfortable with the LP.

My friend Kevin Rollins has a reply to my LRC post, which makes some interesting points. Kevin does mistakenly accuse me of believing that a failure to advocate 100% pure libertarianism is moving toward statism and tyranny. No, libertarians who advocate and work for a 80, 50%, 20% or even 10% reduction in state power are still working for freedom, but those who claim to be “libertarians” but advocate increasing state power are enemies of liberty.

Kevin thinks it is a good thing that the Libertarian Reform Caucus will alienate some long-term parity activists. Any sane person who has spent anytime in this movement of ours would have to agree that there are some libertarians whom the party and movement would be better off without. I also agree with Kevin that LP members (and all libertarian activists) need to spend more time working on how to present a radical message without scaring off potential converts.

But Kevin loses me when he talks about how the party would be better off without the “private nuclear arms” advocates or the “no taxes tomorrow” and the “fire our guns off whenever we want in our suburban neighborhood” crowd. This seems to confirm the suspicious that the agenda of the reformers is to purge the parity of any advocacy of ultimate goals and discussion of first principles for fear of losing support in the next election.
Kevin may confirm those fears with this statement:

“A political party cannot be purist if it is to be an effective party. If it attempts to adhere to an exacting list of radical policy positions it will fail to attract a wide enough audience to win elections. The party should be involved in ideological education, but this happens as a matter of course in any group of people — a person is influenced by his social context. Let think tanks and scholars devote themselves to perfecting the philosophy.”

Kevin is right that there will always be tension between staying true to the libertarian ideal and winning elections. The problem the Libertarian Party by definition is supposed to put upholding and advancing the libertarian ideal ahead of winning elections. The reformers are suggesting the LP reverse its priorities and transform itself into more of a popular front organization willing to moderate the libertarian message for the sake of attracting new, non libertarians, into its ranks.

Such a party may serve a useful purpose in advancing liberty and helping some dissatisfied Republican conservatives and Democratic liberals make the journey to libertarianism, but it is not a victory if such a party calls itself “libertarian.” Having candidates running as Republican, Democrats, Reformers, etc. advocating watered down libertarianism instead of statism may be a step foreword. Having libertarians work to push the major parities toward libertarianism or working in a broad-based “third” party to make marginal gains for liberty while converting their party colleagues to libertarianism can also advance the cause. But having candidates running as Libertarians who downplay important issues or advocate increases in state power is a setback to the long-term goal of achieving liberty. For an explanation of why, read Rothbard.