Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Why a radical platform will never work

Opponents of LP platform reform have pointed out that if candidates for school board are stupid enought to discuss their ideas for ending the War on Drugs or their opposition to income taxes, they deserve to not get elected. They should know better and they should focus only on the relevant issues.

Okay, that's fine.

But the problem with this argument is that with the LP’s radical platform, the candidates don’t get to determine which issues become important.

See, there's a new piece of technology called the "internet." Well, with this “internet,” people can now go “online” and find out how almost anyone who cares about politics feels about almost any issue, either directly or by association.

So, a candidate can limit their output to the relevant issues, but voters can get their input from sources other than the candidate’s output. Now, everything is fair game, and candidates don’t get to set the agenda. Anybody that calls themself a Libertarian is automatically associated with the dogmatic platform and pledge of the LP, whether they want the voters to know it or not.

That's why a radical platform will never work.

UPDATE: For comments, see the original blog post here.

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