Activity Breakdown

LP Activities that Increase Liberty

The definition of activities that increase liberty are those unequivocably reduce tyranny and/or preserve existing liberties. They do not include those activities which are intermediate stages that may produce more liberty if the Libertarian Party grows to mainstream party size. Another way of putting it is: these are activities that are worth doing today even if the Libertarian Party were to be disbanded tomorrow; they are worth doing in an of themselves.

• Putting libertarians into office. Obviously, one of the most sure-fire means of having good laws is to put good legislators into office. It is this activity that justifies the existence of the LP over most other libertarian organizations. The only problem is that the LP is not very good at this, and won't be until it grows bigger. Thus, the LP requires members to take a huge leap of faith, or justify its early growth stages by other beneficial activities.
• Press releases and related activities. Yes, those LP press releases do occasionally produce attention -- not only to the LP but to lesser-known atrocities being promulgated in Washington. Sometimes these activities cause bureaucrats and legislators to back off. In order to have these releases taken seriously, the LP needs to look professional and so forth. Thus, we can count the efforts to support a high-profile DC address and the like under the green category.
• Issue-oriented campaigning. To the extent that an LP campaign brings issues to the fore, we can count the activity as worthwhile to all (even non-LP) libertarians. The fact the LP candidates call for drug legalization gives demopublicans cover to do likewise -- perhaps more so than the propaganda activities of single-issue groups like NORML.

LP Activities that Don't Affect Liberty

These are activities that don't hurt the cause of liberty, but do relatively little help the cause except to the extent that they help the LP (and that a growing LP is good for liberty). That is, if the LP were to disappear tomorrow, the effort performing these activities would have been better spent elsewhere: such as within one of the other parties or with a special interest group.

• Ballot access petitioning. Ah yes, the dreaded overhead associated with party activity. Those who think of the party purely as a means to promote ideas much contend with the fact that non-party mechanisms do not have this burdensome overhead.
• Unwinnable races just to stay on the ballot. More overhead.
• Paper candidates. Giving people an opportunity to futilely vote for a Libertarian candidate does little to further the cause of liberty. I am referring to inactive candidates here. Small unwinnable but active campaigns can further the cause of liberty to the extent that they promote ideals.
• Signing in new members. Extremely important for the LP, but not for the cause of liberty if the LP disappears or fails to gain critical mass. There is some positive effect in that joining the party can activate and radicalize people. But there are also the negative effects distracting from potentially more productive activities and of becoming disillusioned from working for a lost cause.
• Operation Political Homeless booths, although this maybe should fall under the green. Breaking up the left-right dichotomy does let people know they don't have to have televangelist hair to be in favor of free markets. On the downside, the free market forces get some free votes from the moralists due to the current alignment. Unless there is a party to express a new alignment, there is little point to creating it. But it shouldn't hurt, since the new alignment also steals social liberal allies from the socialist left.

LP Activities that Decrease Liberty

These are activities that are detrimental to the cause of liberty. Indeed, the detriment can grow worse as the LP grows!

• Distracting activists. This is a necessary evil in creating any pro-liberty organization. Time/treasure spent in LP activity is time/treasure not spent using another strategy. This is not one-for-one, since the LP does activate the otherwise dormant. But it is an argument against the LP unless it proves it can eventually grow.
• MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THREE-WAY RACES! This is the big one! By taking votes from the lesser of the two evils in three-way races, Libertarian candidates put in the greater of two evils. This gets worse long before it gets better. Should the LP continue to grow without being sensitive to this issue, we will get a European-style social democracy or even dictatorship long before the LP can win big elections.

  Copyright 2000, Carl S. Milsted, Jr. All rights reserved.