The Libertarian reform movement

Not much to do with the Fora, but it's my other "baby" online: LP reform.

The Libertarian Party has been highly radical since 1983, when the moderates were kicked out of the party. We were pretty much exploding from our founding in '72 until '83, but after that we reached a plateau and have pretty much stayed there. Why? We have a highly radical segment of the LP that wants everything or nothing. We haven't campaigned on reducing taxes, for instance; we've campaigned on abolishing them entirely. Nobody outside of LP members would vote for such things, so we've consistently gotten .3-2% of any given race. That's just one example of the stupidity that's reigned in the Party in times past.

It's all begun to change, however. There are people within the LP that have agitated for the party to start playing politics for real, and not be simply a feckless debating society. They've started the ball rolling, with things like the Iraq Exit Strategy (a pragmatist document that leads public policy in a libertarian direction, but not an all-or-nothing document that has us out YESTERDAY) and the new LP blog to allow for daily punditry/activism.

It's attracted so much attention that groups outside the LP have started to take notice. Third Party Watch is covering the LP reform movement all week, with interviews and punditry galore. If you've ever thought "the LP has some good ideas but I don't like X/Y/Z issue about them and so I shouldn't join", know that the times are changing and we'd love to have you join in with the reform effort.