2.0 Economic Liberty
A free and competitive market allocates resources in the most efficient manner. Each person has the right to offer goods and services to others on the free market. The only proper role of government in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected. All efforts by government to redistribute wealth, or to control or manage trade, are improper in a free society.
1.6 Self-Defense
The only legitimate use of force is in defense of individual rights — life, liberty, and justly acquired property — against aggression. This right inheres in the individual, who may agree to be aided by any other individual or group. We affirm the right to keep and bear arms, and oppose the prosecution of individuals for exercising their rights of self-defense. We oppose all laws at any level of government requiring registration of, or restricting, the ownership, manufacture, or transfer or sale of firearms or ammunition.
1.5 Crime and Justice
Government exists to protect the rights of every individual including life, liberty and property. Criminal laws should be limited to violation of the rights of others through force or fraud, or deliberate actions that place others involuntarily at significant risk of harm. Individuals retain the right to voluntarily assume risk of harm to themselves. We support restitution of the victim to the fullest degree possible at the expense of the criminal or the negligent wrongdoer. We oppose reduction of constitutional safeguards of the rights of the criminally accused. The rights of due process, a speedy trial, legal counsel, trial by jury, and the legal presumption of innocence until proven guilty, must not be denied. We assert the common-law right of juries to judge not only the facts but also the justice of the law.
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow citizens."
1.2 Personal Privacy
We support the protections provided by the Fourth Amendment to be secure in our persons, homes, and property. Only actions that infringe on the rights of others can properly be termed crimes. We favor the repeal of all laws creating "crimes" without victims, such as the use of drugs for medicinal or recreational purposes.
1.4 Abortion
Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.
CNN reports that Obama's attempt to buy off gay activists with federal benefits, after the White House compared them to pedophiles in a legal brief opposing gay marriage, is "too little, too late."
CNN reports in part:
President Obama's decision to grant some benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees is seen by some as his attempt to extend an olive branch to the gay and lesbian community, but critics say it's "too little, too late."
"It seems to me at least to be a nice gesture, but a disappointment," said Richard Kim, a senior editor at The Nation magazine.
The memorandum Obama is signing Thursday is not expected to grant health and retirement benefits to same-sex partners, as that is prohibited under the Defense of Marriage Act...
...The rancor threatens to disrupt a big Democratic National Committee gay fundraiser in Washington next week.
Vice President Biden is the guest at next Thursday's DNC's LBGT Leadership Council 10th Annual Dinner in Washington. Critics are calling for Frank and other gay congressional leaders to boycott the dinner, for which tickets go for $1,000 to $30,000 a plate.
Activist David Mixner and blogger Andy Towle, two well-known gay rights advocates, announced that they were pulling out, citing disappointment with the DOMA brief...
...Given the support Obama received from the gay community during the campaign season, Kim said so far, the Obama administration has let gay and lesbian rights activists down.
Obama got 70 percent of the vote from those who identified themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual, according to CNN exit polls.
"I think there is an overwhelming feeling that he has not lived up to expectations on these matters," he said.
Unlike the Obama administration, the Libertarian Party opposes DOMA and is working to repeal it. DOMA's original author, Congressman Bob Barr, is now working to overturn the legislation and was the Libertarian Party's 2008 presidential nominee.
1.3 Personal Relationships
Sexual orientation, preference, gender, or gender identity should have no impact on the rights of individuals by government, such as in current marriage, child custody, adoption, immigration or military service laws. Consenting adults should be free to choose their own sexual practices and personal relationships. Government does not have the authority to define, license or restrict personal relationships.
Outraged over a legal brief filed by the Obama administration comparing gay and lesbian Americans to pedophiles and people committing incest, gay and lesbian donors to the Democrat Party are pulling their support of a June 25 Democrat National Committee fundraiser with Vice-President Joe Biden aimed at the LBGT community.
ABC News reports former Clinton advisor David Mixner has withdrawn from the event, blasting the Obama brief as a "sickening document" that "could have been written by the Rev. Pat Robertson."
"Using the worst of stereotypes, it intimates that we don't have constitutional guarantees, invokes scenarios of incest, of children and advocates that we don't have the same rights as others who have struggled for civil rights," said Mixner. It "undercuts every conceivable argument that the LGBT community would use to fight for the repeal of DOMA. Right-wing nut cases can now just simply quote horrible stuff from this hateful brief and proclaim loudly it was filed by the Obama Justice Department.”
Along with Mixner, other major Democrat figures like gay blogger Andy Towle and Alan van Capelle of the Empire State Pride Agenda are also boycotting the event.
The origial author of DOMA, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, is former Congressman Bob Barr. Now a top opponent of the legislation, Barr was the 2008 Libertarian presidental nominee.
In the Obama brief, called "gratuitously homophobic" by gay Democrat activist John Arvosis, the Obama administration repeatedly compares gay and lesbian citizens who want to marry to pedophiles, stating in part:
Both the First and Second Restatements of Conflict of Laws recognize that State courts may refuse to give effect to a marriage, or to certain incidents of a marriage, that contravene the forum State's policy. See Restatement (First) of Conflict of Laws § 134; Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 284.5 And the courts have widely held that certain marriages performed elsewhere need not be given effect, because they conflicted with the public policy of the forum. See, e.g., Catalano v. Catalano, 170 A.2d 726, 728-29 (Conn. 1961) (marriage of uncle to niece, "though valid in Italy under its laws, was not valid in Connecticut because it contravened the public policy of th[at] state"); Wilkins v. Zelichowski, 140 A.2d 65, 67-68 (N.J. 1958) (marriage of 16-year-old female held invalid in New Jersey, regardless of validity in Indiana where performed, in light of N.J. policy reflected in statute permitting adult female to secure annulment of her underage marriage); In re Mortenson's Estate, 316 P.2d 1106 (Ariz. 1957) (marriage of first cousins held invalid in Arizona, though lawfully performed in New Mexico, given Arizona policy reflected in statute declaring such marriages "prohibited and void").
Unlike the Republican, and now Democrat, parties, the Libertarian Party is committed to marriage equality and overturning DOMA.
The independent, non-partisan Institute for Justice announced Tuesday it successfully negotiated a settlement with the Village of Port Chester, New York in the wake of a 2008 federal court victory by local businessman William Brody. Brody, represented by IJ, has been engaged in a nine-year eminent domain battle with the village, which took Brody’s property for a private development project. (The village bulldozed his small businesses to make way for a parking garage for a Stop & Shop.)
Last year, a federal judge ruled on the long-running dispute, holding that the village violated Brody’s due process rights when it took his property on South Main Street to make way for a shopping mall. In a formal apology issued last night as part of the settlement, the village announces that it “sincerely apologizes for violating the constitutional rights of local businessman Bill Brody . . . and regrets the hardship it has caused Mr. Brody for the years he has had to fight to vindicate his rights.”
In addition to apologizing to Brody, the village will also erect a sign at the corner of William Street and South Main Street, across from where Brody’s building once stood, renaming that corner “William Brody Plaza,” memorializing Brody’s successful battle. The village will also issue Brody a check for the nominal damages awarded by a federal judge last year to recognize the violation of his rights, as well as paying an additional sum for the loss of his due process rights and a portion of the attorneys’ fees in the case.
“I’ve been saying for years that what the village was doing to me was unconstitutional,” said Brody. “I’m glad everyone finally recognizes that I’ve been right all along.”
Brody’s case caused the New York legislature to rewrite portions of its eminent domain procedure laws to require the government to notify property owners of their opportunity to challenge the government’s use of eminent domain. The 2004 change in the law was a direct result of Brody’s litigation and his personal efforts to persuade the legislature to protect other property owners.
The case is especially timely given the nomination of Second Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. In a separate case, Didden v. Village of Port Chester, Bart Didden and Dominick Bologna, who owned a property in a Port Chester redevelopment district, approached the village with a proposal to build a CVS pharmacy on property they own.
The developer appointed by Port Chester to run the district demanded Didden and Bologna either pay him $800,000 or grant him a 50% partnership interest in their business. When Didden and Bologna refused, Port Chester quickly took their property from them.
They sued. Sotomayor sided with Port Chester, ruling the village did nothing wrong in taking private property from owners who refuse to give cash or part ownerships to private developers acting on behalf of government. Sotomayor's ruling in Didden, and her long-standing hostility to individual rights, are expected to be key issues in her confirmation hearings.
"Switzerland is a land where crime is virtually unknown, yet most Swiss males are required by law to keep in their homes what amounts to a portable, personal machine gun."
"No matter how disastrously some policy has turned out, anyone who criticizes it can expect to hear: "But what would you replace it with?" When you put out a fire, what do you replace it with?"
1.1 Expression and Communication
We support full freedom of expression and oppose government censorship, regulation or control of communications media and technology. We favor the freedom to engage in or abstain from any religious activities that do not violate the rights of others. We oppose government actions which either aid or attack any religion.
1.0 Personal Liberty
Individuals should be free to make choices for themselves and to accept responsibility for the consequences of the choices they make. No individual, group, or government may initiate force against any other individual, group, or government. Our support of an individual's right to make choices in life does not mean that we necessarily approve or disapprove of those choices.
We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.
We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.
Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle, that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.
We, on the contrary, deny the right of any government to do these things, and hold that where governments exist, they must not violate the rights of any individual: namely, (1) the right to life -- accordingly we support the prohibition of the initiation of physical force against others; (2) the right to liberty of speech and action -- accordingly we oppose all attempts by government to abridge the freedom of speech and press, as well as government censorship in any form; and (3) the right to property -- accordingly we oppose all government interference with private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminent domain, and support the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud, and misrepresentation.
Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals. People should not be forced to sacrifice their lives and property for the benefit of others. They should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, is the free market.
"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves."
Adopted in Convention, May 2008, Denver, Colorado
As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others.
We believe that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force and fraud must be banished from human relationships, and that only through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized.
Consequently, we defend each person's right to engage in any activity that is peaceful and honest, and welcome the diversity that freedom brings. The world we seek to build is one where individuals are free to follow their own dreams in their own ways, without interference from government or any authoritarian power.
In the following pages we have set forth our basic principles and enumerated various policy stands derived from those principles.
These specific policies are not our goal, however. Our goal is nothing more nor less than a world set free in our lifetime, and it is to this end that we take these stands.
"Given the low level of competence among politicians, every American should become a Libertarian."
-- Charley Reese, Alameda Times-Star (California), June 17, 2003
The politicians in Washington and our state capitals have led us away from the principles of individual liberty and personal responsibility which are the only sound foundation for a just, humane, and abundant society.
Government at all levels is too large, too expensive, woefully inefficient, arrogant, intrusive, and downright dangerous. Democratic and Republican politicians have created the status quo and do not intend to change it.
Libertarian Party Website
"What's *just* has been debated for centuries but let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn *belongs* to you – and why? "
WASHINGTON -- Libertarian National Committee Chairman William Redpath issued the following statement Tuesday in response to President Obama's address to the American Medical Association:
"There is no question our health care system is broken and in need of serious reform. Americans deserve health care that is affordable, effective and universally available. However, President Obama’s $1 trillion government takeover of hospitals and doctor’s offices is not the answer.
The Obama plan makes health care more expensive, less effective and less accessible through rationing and bureaucratic inefficiency. The fact is government-run health care systems are more expensive and less effective than systems run by doctors and health care professionals.
When President Obama told the story of Laura Klitzka, a Wisconsin mother suffering from breast cancer, he conveniently neglected to tell the audience that in nations with a government-run health care system much like the one he proposes, breast cancer is deadlier than in the United States.
According to health care policy expert Dr. John Goodman, among women diagnosed with breast cancer, like Laura, only one in five die in the United States. That death rate escalates to one in three in France and Germany and nearly half in the Britain and New Zealand. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in 2004 the deaths from cancer in the United States were 157.8 per 100,000 people. In Canada the rate was 169.0 and in the United Kingdom it was 175.6. Allowing more women to die from breast cancer is hardly the kind of reform we need in the United States.
The main causes of those increased deaths are the long waiting lists for treatment, the decreased amount of time a doctor can spend with the patient and the shortages of advanced medical equipment that are a hallmark of rationing – the method by which government-run systems attempt to cut skyrocketing costs.
The White House brushed on that topic in an April 19 appearance on “Meet The Press” in which economic advisor Lawrence Summers promised a government-run health care would cut costs by simply denying treatments and procedures to patients until the government decided it was acceptable.
President Obama once again touched on the promise of rationed health care in yesterday’s speech, blaming the rising costs of medical care not on government interference, but on the claim that Americans get too many medical tests and procedures.
For too many breast cancer patients in nations like Britain and France, the Obama model of government control and rationing has already a deadly failure. Doctors, not politicians and government accountants, should decide what tests a patient needs.
We need health care reform and we need it now. But the Obama plan – a federal government takeover – isn’t reform. It’s simply a plan to take the worst aspects of our current problems, namely the high costs and increasingly limited access, and magnify them. The Obama plan for a federal takeover of the health care system cuts costs, not through innovation or improved care, but by rationing access, putting the sick and suffering on waiting lists and denying Americans the medical care they need.
Libertarians have a better idea. Cut the costs of prescription drugs, insurance and technology by removing barriers put up by health care lobbyists in the form of protectionist laws and unneeded FDA regulations intended to price out the competition and block competing drugs and technologies from the market.
It is no coincidence that America’s health care system, once the best in the world, has become more unaffordable and ineffective as government has seeped further and further into it. The only way to make health care affordable, effective and universally available as the many other services we enjoy in the United States is to defeat the Obama plan for a government takeover and restore a competitive and efficient health care system."
Bill Redpath is the Chairman of the Libertarian National Committee
The Congressional Budget Office released a report Monday outlining the projected costs of just part of the Democrat plan for a government takeover of the nation's health care system, and it isn't pretty.
Initial estimates have taxpayers forking over $1.07 trillion dollars between 2010 and 2019 for just part of the Democrat plan. Costs will escalate if Congress expands government-run insurance plans, as Obama promises.
"The 10-year cost of reform could approach $2 trillion if the projections are made from the date that proposals are fully implemented. While the projected cost for a new system may reach $1.5 trillion for 2010-2019, it could run significantly higher for 2013-2022, as healthcare costs rise steadily each year," The Hill, a non-partisan newspaper serving Congress, reports Tuesday.
Democrat leaders in Congress are expected to deal with the unaffordable cost projections by simply ignoring the numbers and intead using projections compiled by the White House that are intended to sell the program and not find true costs.
In a move that would have made Ken Lay proud, Democrat congressional leaders are expected to deal with the huge price tag of Barack Obama's government takeover of health care in a unique way -- ditching the estimates prepared by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and replacing them with the nunbers prepared by the politically-appointed White House Office of Management and Budget.
That would be the same White House that prepared numbers showing Obama's hugely unpopular "stimulus" package would keep unemployment below eight percent. It has since grown to a 26-year-high of 9.4 percent.
"The unusual option would give Democratic leaders hundreds of billions of additional dollars to work with as they draft their plans," The Hill reports today. Keep in mind the hundreds of billions of dollars do not actually exist and were invented out of thin air to help sell Obama's increasingly unpopular government takeover of doctor's offices.
"We are going to look at OMB and CBO and make our own decision as to who is right," said California Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer. In other words, the decision as to who has the "right" numbers -- the non-partisan watchdog or the political office trying to sell the program they're studying -- will be made by the same people who thought the bailouts were a great idea.
Democrat promises to throw out non-partisan fiscal studies and replace them by political reports from the White House reminds many of the accounting procedures employed at Enron, the energy giant brought down in a 2001 scandal after is was revealed accountants used shell companies and falsified reports to make the company appear more profitable than it actually was.
"The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say, "See if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk". "
"The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom. "
"The Ten Commandments contain 297 words. The Bill of Rights is stated in 463 words. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address contains 266 words. A recent federal directive to regulate the price of cabbage contains 26,911 words. "
"Government does not grow by seizing our freedoms, but by assuming our responsibilities. "
New polling shows 45% agree with Libertarians that stimulus spending should be canceled
WASHINGTON -- America’s third largest party Wednesday called on Congress to terminate the remainder of stimulus spending citing new polling data showing a plurality of Americans now believe what Libertarians have said since January – Obama’s stimulus package is too big, too expensive and doesn’t help the economy.
“Despite a Jan. 10 White House report that the Obama spending explosion would keep unemployment under eight percent, it instead grew to 9.4 percent,” said William Redpath, Libertarian National Committee Chairman, citing both a January White House report selling the "stimulus" package, and new Labor Department statistics released last week placing unemployment at a 26-year-high, with 14.5 million workers now jobless.
“It’s no surprise that 45 percent of Americans now agree with the Libertarian Party. They know Big Government cannot create wealth and they want the stimulus spending canceled,” said Redpath.
The independent, non-partisan polling firm of Rasmussen Reports released data Wednesday morning showing 45 percent of Americans say the rest of the new government spending authorized in the $787-billion economic stimulus plan should now be canceled.
Thirty-six percent (36%) disagreed and 20 percent were not sure. Fifty-five percent (55%) want the tax cuts preserved, a position they share with the Libertarian Party. Thirty-nine percent (39%) say the increased spending will be good for the economy, but 44% say it will be bad.
“The best way to create the jobs Americans need is to cut taxes for families and employers, cut or eliminate taxes on savings and investments and begin to repeal the twisted jungle of federal regulations that employers had to spend $1.17 trillion to comply with in 2008,” said Redpath.
For more information on this issue, or to arrange an interview with the Libertarian Party, please call Director of Communications Donny Ferguson at 703-200-3669 or 202-333-0008, x. 225, or email Donny.Ferguson@lp.org."There's another major hurdle to a new year of prosperity: our tax code. No human being understands it. The current code, which runs over 8,000 pages and countless thousands more pages of IRS rulings and interpretations, is beyond redemption. ..Incalculable amounts of the nation's intellectual brainpower are devoted to the dead-end task of coping with the current tax code. Over one-half million people in the U.S. make their living off it, whether in lobbying, lawyering, tax preparing, or accounting. … Americans spend five and one-half billion hours a year filling out tax forms … and spend between $100 billion and $300 billion to comply with the current code."
Jobless rate explodes to over 9%, highest in 26 years as 14.5 million Americans jobless
Tax and regulatory relief would create “the jobs Americans need”
WASHINGTON -- With unemployment exploding to 9.4 percent in May instead of decreasing as Obama promised with passage of his “stimulus” package, America’s third-largest party urges Congress to instead consider tax and regulatory relief to give the nation “the jobs Americans need.”
“There is no doubt our economy will recover. Americans have always overcome adversity with our tenacity, creativity and optimism,” said Donny Ferguson, Libertarian National Committee Communications Director. “But as unemployment continues to rise when it should be falling by now, it begs the question of how long will recovery be delayed by Obama’s Big Government agenda?”
“The Libertarian Party seems to be the only party promoting a smart program of tax and regulatory relief aimed at freeing up capital,” said Ferguson. “History shows it’s the most effective way to give those 14.5 million unemployed the jobs Americans need.”
“Sadly, Obama instead chose to exploit this tragic situation to advance his personal agenda of bigger, more expensive government – which has unemployment now skyrocketing to its highest levels in a quarter-century,” said Ferguson. “Because of Obama, our economic recovery has been seriously stunted and delayed.”
Figures released Friday by the Labor Department show unemployment rose to 9.4 percent in May from 8.9 percent in April as the number of unemployed persons increased by 787,000 to 14.5 million. Unemployment is highest among blacks (14.9 percent) and Hispanics (12.7 percent.) The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) increased by 268,000 over the month to 3.9 million according to the Labor Department.
“Unfortunately, it looks like the Libertarian Party was proven right when we said back in January that Obama’s explosive growth of government and out-of-control spending would delay our economic recovery. We should be further along in our recovery, but Republican and Democrat spending and bailouts are delaying that,” said Ferguson.
“History has proven time and time again that decreasing the size of government, cutting taxes and freeing up people to create jobs and business are the best way to stimulate growth,” said Ferguson. “Libertarian urge Congress and the White House to take these real, proven measures, instead of exploiting people’s misfortune to inflate the size of government.”
For more information on this issue, or to arrange an interview with the Libertarian Party, please call Director of Communications Donny Ferguson at 703-200-3669 or email DonnyFerguson@gmail.com.
The Libertarian Party is America's third-largest political party, founded in 1971 as an alternative to the two main political parties. You can find more information on the Libertarian Party by visiting http://www.LP.org. The Libertarian Party proudly stands for smaller government, lower taxes and more freedom.
"When the mass media in some foreign countries serve as megaphones for the rhetoric of their government, the result is ludicrous propaganda. When the mass media in our country serve as megaphones for the rhetoric of the U.S. government, the result is responsible journalism. "
"The Social Security system did not begin as an attempt to sabotage people's ability to plan for retirement, but it has worked out that way. The politicians who originally planned the system probably had no idea how it would turn out. But today's politicians know the system is rotted, and yet they refuse to make the changes necessary to free the American people from it. Instead, they make it worse. "
"I fear for our nation. Nearly half of our people receive some kind of government subsidy. We have grown weak from too much affluence and too little adversity. I fear that soon we will not be able to defend our country from our sure and certain enemies. We have debased our currency to the point that even the most loyal citizen no longer trusts it. "
"[During the 20th century] … 170 million men, women, and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed, or killed in any other of the myriad ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners. "
